Latest / Crime Alert Hourly Update / MURDAUGH RETRIAL: April Trial Contingent on "Red Herring" DNA | Crime Alert 06.30.26

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MURDAUGH RETRIAL: April Trial Contingent on "Red Herring" DNA | Crime Alert 06.30.26 · Crime Alert Hourly Update

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  Speaker 1: Crime Alart hourly update, Breaking crime News Now.
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  Speaker 2: I'm Sidney Silvannie. Alex Murdaw returned to a South Carolina
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  Speaker 2: courtroom Monday for a status hearing shadowed by the clerk
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  Speaker 2: of court scandal that unraveled his initial convictions. Dressed in
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  Speaker 2: an orange prison jumpsuit and shackles, Murdau listened as South
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  Speaker 2: Carolina Circuit Court Judge Deborah McCaslin proposed an April fifth
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  Speaker 2: trial date. She warned that the timing depends on pending
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  Speaker 2: DNA testing and that she will not grant continuances without
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  Speaker 2: exceptionally strong reasons. This marked Murdau's first court appearance since
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  Speaker 2: his financial crime sentencings. Bypassing the details of the twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty one murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul
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  Speaker 2: to focus entirely on procedural scheduling and discovery, tempers flared
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  Speaker 2: as lead prosecutor Creighton Waters and the defense team sparred.
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  Speaker 2: Waters dismissed requested DNA testing as a red herring, stating
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  Speaker 2: there is no evidence Maggie suffered defensive wounds from an attacker.
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  Speaker 2: DAW's lead defense attorney, Dick Harputlian, countered that his team
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  Speaker 2: has eight experts lined up and a retrial by year's
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  Speaker 2: end would be impossible. South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson
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  Speaker 2: previously told Fox News Digital his aspirational goal is to
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  Speaker 2: try the case before January twenty twenty seven. Debate also
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  Speaker 2: erupted over Murdaw's prison conditions. Waters argued Murdaw should be
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  Speaker 2: denied a cell laptop due to fraud convictions and prior
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  Speaker 2: contraband violations. Harpoutly encountered that denying technology access prejudices the defense.
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  Speaker 2: Judge mccaslan ruled prison security prevents a laptop in his cell,
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  Speaker 2: but allowed the defense to bring a supervised laptop into
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  Speaker 2: a conference room. Additionally, defense attorney Jim Griffin requested advanced
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  Speaker 2: DNA analysis through the Houston based lab Othrom. Griffin noted
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  Speaker 2: that previous testing by sled on DNA from Maggie's left
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  Speaker 2: fingernail revealed an unknown male's profile, not alexis, which warrants
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  Speaker 2: deeper exportation, alongside a shell casing found under her body. Finally,
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  Speaker 2: the defense pushed for a venue change due to the
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  Speaker 2: intensive media coverage. The next pre trial hearing is set
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  Speaker 2: for August fourteenth. More Crime and Justice News after this
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  Speaker 2: next A heartbreaking case of extreme neglect near Flint, Michigan,
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  Speaker 2: has resulted in murder charges against two parents. Seven year
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  Speaker 2: old Casper O'Brien was nonverbal, bedridden, and weighed two hundred
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  Speaker 2: and fifty five pounds when first responders found him inside
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  Speaker 2: a home filled with filth. Genesee County Prosecutor David Layton
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  Speaker 2: described the horrific scene encountered by emergency personnel, noting the
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  Speaker 2: township police report said officers couldn't even enter due to
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  Speaker 2: the lack of room.
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  Speaker 1: Paramedics went into the house to try to revive the child,
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  Speaker 1: and the township police wrote in their police report they
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  Speaker 1: couldn't even go in the house because there wasn't any
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  Speaker 1: additional room.
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  Speaker 2: Casper's parents, Damien and Jessica O'Brien called nine one one
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  Speaker 2: after the boy stopped breathing. Medical examiners determined he died
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  Speaker 2: from heart muscle disease compounded by morbid obesity. When police arrived,
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  Speaker 2: they also rescued Casper's five year old sister, who Prosecutor
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  Speaker 2: Layton described to Fox to Detroit as running around naked
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  Speaker 2: like a feral child.
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  Speaker 1: When the police arrived, the five year old little girl
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  Speaker 1: was running around naked and for lack of a better term,
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  Speaker 1: she was like a feral child.
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  Speaker 2: The O'Brien's now faced charges of second degree murder, torture,
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  Speaker 2: and child abuse. Investigators revealed that both parents were employed
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  Speaker 2: and had family health insurance, yet neither child received medical care.
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  Speaker 2: Layton highlighted a disturbing detail regarding the parent's priorities, pointing
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  Speaker 2: out they called a veterinarian for a sick dog that
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  Speaker 2: very morning.
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  Speaker 1: They knew enough to call the veterinarian the very morning
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  Speaker 1: that the child went into arrest because the dog was sick,
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  Speaker 1: But yet they don't take the kids to the doctor.
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  Speaker 1: Doesn't make any sense to me.
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  Speaker 2: Driving five year old girl was immediately removed by Children's
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  Speaker 2: Protective Services and remains in temporary foster care. Finally, a
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  Speaker 2: Virginia man who admitted to setting a city council member
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  Speaker 2: on fire over an unproven affair has been sentenced to
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  Speaker 2: forty years in prison. Shotzy Buck Hayes pleaded guilty to
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  Speaker 2: attempted first degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding for his
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  Speaker 2: brutal assault on Danville City council member Lee Vogler on
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  Speaker 2: July thirtieth, twenty twenty five, buck Hayes stormed Vogler's office,
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  Speaker 2: doused him with gasoline, and set him ablaze outside the building.
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  Speaker 2: Commonwealth's attorney Michael Newman reported that buck Hayes offered what
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  Speaker 2: he claimed to be an apology during sentencing, while still
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  Speaker 2: blaming his actions on an alleged affair between Vogler and
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  Speaker 2: his wife, Mary Alice, who had filed for divorce two
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  Speaker 2: weeks prior. Sergeant Garrett Clay testified that buck Hayes fully
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  Speaker 2: intended to kill the married father of two. Vogler's wife, Blair,
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  Speaker 2: delivered emotional testimony describing how the attack lef after her
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  Speaker 2: husband with second and third degree burns across sixty percent
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  Speaker 2: of his body. He was airlifted to the University of
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  Speaker 2: North Carolina Chapel Hill Burn Unit, where doctors had to
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  Speaker 2: harvest an additional thirty five percent of his skin for grafts,
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  Speaker 2: leaving him ninety five percent open. This led to severe infections,
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  Speaker 2: burn shock, septic shock, and pneumonia from lungburns. Circuit Judge
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  Speaker 2: James Reynolds handed down a life sentence, but suspended portions
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  Speaker 2: to net a forty year term buck Hayes, a United
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  Speaker 2: Kingdom citizen, plans to appeal. Wogler was discharged from the
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  Speaker 2: hospital three months early and has remarkably returned to council meetings,
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  Speaker 2: though he faces a long recovery to regain the use
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  Speaker 2: of his left hand due to nerve damage. Vogler, elected
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  Speaker 2: in twenty twelve at age twenty four, remains the youngest
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  Speaker 2: person to hold office in Danville. For more crime and
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  Speaker 2: justice news, be sure to join us for crime stories
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  Speaker 2: with Nancy Grace on fox Ie YouTube, Serious XM and
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  Speaker 2: now streaming on tub with this crime alert. I'm Sydney Silvanni.