Murdaugh’s defense eyes Midlands as venue for double-murder retrial

Alex Murdaugh’s defense team has shifted its focus on the Midlands as a venue for the disgraced attorney’s murder retrial given the judge’s apprehension over its Charleston County recommendation. 

After Judge Debra McCaslin said the high costs in Charleston County could be too much for taxpayers to bear, defense attorney Dick Harpootlian presented Richland County as an alternative. 

He said the size of the jury pool in Richland County is comparable to that of Charleston County, increasing the odds of finding a fair and impartial jury in the high-profile case.

Richland County’s estimated population as of 2025 was 435,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, whereas Charleston County’s was 436,000.

McCaslin earlier ruled that the April 2027 retrial shall be removed from Colleton County, where Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and his son Paul, were shot to death at the family’s estate in June 2021. 

The judge’s reasons included the local community’s prejudice against the Murdaughs and the jury interference of former Clerk of Court Becky Hill. Her actions led the S.C. Supreme Court to overturn Murdaugh’s double-murder conviction from 2023. 

Murdaugh, 58, maintains his innocence on the homicide charges. But he has pleaded guilty to state and federal financial crimes, admitting to stealing millions of dollars from the legal settlements of his vulnerable clients.

Harpootlian argued for a Richland County retrial in an Aug. 17 letter to the court. Holding the new trial in Richland, he said, would help control the defense team’s costs since it has offices in Columbia. He asked McCaslin to similarly consider the upcoming trial’s financial impact on Murdaugh, since the do-over is due to the former clerk of court’s misconduct.

“It is appropriate that the Court act to protect the people of Colleton County from costs created by their own elected official’s unexpected criminal conduct,” Harpootlian wrote, “but it would be inappropriate to do so by imposing excessive and avoidable costs on the victim of her conduct.”  

Hill, who resigned as clerk of court in 2024, pleaded guilty last year to showing a reporter sealed court exhibits in the Murdaugh murders and then lying about it. She was sentenced to probation.

Harpootlian also noted that the capital area’s racial demographics are similar to Colleton County’s. 

Census Bureau data shows that Richland County’s racial makeup is 45% white and 47% Black. In Colleton County, according to the bureau, the population is 60% white and 34% Black.

McCaslin will decide on the new trial venue since the parties could not reach an agreement.

Since the state Supreme Court ordered in May that Murdaugh should be retried, his two pretrial hearings so far have been held at the Lexington County courthouse, where the judge is based.

Murdaugh’s team has not talked about the possibility of keeping his trial in Lexington County. His attorneys have not responded to multiple requests for comment.

The S.C. attorney general’s office, which is prosecuting the case, presented  the counties of Spartanburg, Newberry, Lancaster, York and Florence as options. These counties provide easy access to modern courthouses and nearby amenities, and they’re not very expensive areas, lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said in a court filing where he opposed the defense team’s recommendation of Charleston County.

Midlands counties such as Richland, Lexington and Aiken, the prosecution said, would likely present logistical difficulties because the trial is scheduled to start April 5, the same day the weeklong Masters golf tournament begins. 

Though the sporting contest takes place in Augusta, Georgia, many spectators use Columbia and Lexington as a base, creating one of the busiest tourist seasons in the Midlands.

As of Sept. 1, the attorney general’s office has not responded to the Murdaugh team’s Richland County proposal. 

The office’s spokesman, Robert Kittle, told the Chronicle that prosecutors’ only concern with Richland and Lexington counties was the Masters tournament. 

Tiffany Tan has been a journalist in the U.S. and abroad for more than 20 years. Contact her on Facebook at Reporter Tiffany Tan or 839-223-4652 on Signal.