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So I guess the first question just your reaction when you saw the decision came down. Well, I think both Jim and I uh were very pleased that you mean South Carolina clearly based on this decision our courts believe in the rule of law. That isn't what's going on in some parts of this country, but in South Carolina the rule of law is alive and well. Yeah, we were gratified. I mean, we worked really hard to undo um what we thought was wrongful conviction and you know, and we unearthed through, frankly, just hitting the roads in South Carolina what turned out to be probably the
most egregious case of jury tampering in our state's history. And so, we felt confident going in that was sufficient to get a new trial. But until it happens, you know, you never you can't can't bank on it. But we're grateful that the Supreme Court did follow the rule of law. What was Alec's reaction when he heard it happened? You know, after we argued in the Supreme Court, we came back and said it could not have gone any better. Alec, we feel very strongly that we're going to get a result, a very favor favorable result. And he was he appreciated that. He didn't believe us. Uh because every legal ruling has gone against him for the most part since all of this started.
He got the opinion yesterday in prison uh and he read it and I spoke with him afterwards. He said, "Jim, I'm reading it. I see it. I still don't believe it. It's but I'm so thankful." And he is um you know, he is grateful for our efforts and he's so glad that he's no longer a convicted murderer of his wife and son. I mean, he says, you know, I deserve to be in prison for what I've done, but it's a hard thing to be in prison for what you didn't do and the crimes that I'm convicted of. There's just no way I would have done that. So, that was that's sort of been the sticking point for him is that Yeah. sort of the sticking point. It has been the sticking point for him.
He admits he did these financial crimes. He still denies that he had anything to do. never faltered in the three years or over three years since he was charged with these murders that he didn't do it. And you know, I think Jim and I spent time, we both worked on Paul's boat, the boat case where he was charged with a reckless homicide and we all we saw Maggie and Alec and Paul every week for almost a year and the chemistry between Paul and Alec was more I mean He would never in a million years execute his son. I mean, maybe they got if they got an argument and somebody pulled a gun, that'd be one thing. But whoever killed Paul shot him first as he was turning um in the chest, it went out under his arm. Didn't kill him. And as
he's going down, put a shotgun to the top of his head and pulled the trigger, but literally blew his brains out. It was an execution. Whoever did that meant to kill Paul. wasn't an matter of anger or, you know, overreaction. It was an execution. Never in a million years would I believe that he would have done that? I think that a retrial hopefully will result in the truth coming out. So, you don't think there's any chance that Alec Murdoch is the one who killed his son? No, I don't. because of the way Paul was brutally murdered, because of the lack of forensic evidence that would tie Alec to the murder. I mean, whoever
murdered Paul, I mean, all those crime scene experts agreed would have been covered in blood. And he didn't have time to make all that disappear. And so, he didn't do it. And he had no reason to do it. And you know, those who know him best know that he didn't do it or couldn't have done it. And what's interesting, you know, this case has gotten so much publicity and here we are. Um you know, this been the new trial has been reported on internationally. We've gotten calls about that. Um but I can tell you his family doesn't need another trial to know that he didn't do it. And so th this is um they were traumatized by the first experience. And you know, they're not looking forward to having to go
through that again to convince 12 people that he's not guilty, which they know he's not. I talked to John Marvin and he told me he wants to know the truth about what happened. What's going to be different in this trial? Is there anything new that you guys have that can explain how or who killed he? We don't have to explain anything. The state has to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. They have no forensic evidence. They didn't take fingerprints. They didn't gather DNA. They have no video. They have no confession. They have all they have nothing that connects him to the murder in terms of physical evidence, witnesses, or statements. So, it's they're dead. He lied about having not been down at the kennels. He had an
explanation for that at the first trial. But, you know, Jim made this comment earlier today. We can't judge what's believable and unbelievable based on that jury because they were fixed. When some of them said in an interview afterwards he wasn't credible. They've been hammered for weeks by Becky Hill. He's a liar. You can't believe him. Look at the way Watch him as he testifies. See, you know, is he going to cry crocodile tears? Don't let the defense fool you. So shocking.
You know, the first trial was a facade. It wasn't just Do you think that jury would have come up with a different decision if Becky Hill hadn't been involved? I think they would have come up with We know that they would have come up with a different decision because one of the jurors said um that she would have voted not guilty. She would have voted not guilty. How will this trial be different than the first one other than a different jury, Jim? Well, there will be differences. Um, some of those will be strategic that we won't decide on until the actual trial,
but we believe it will not be in Colin County and it we'll ask for a change of venue and I believe that will be granted. Um the Supreme Court ruled that the financial crime evidence uh that the state was permitted to introduce during the first trial went too far. And so if it comes in the second trial, it'll be limited. Um we think it'll be a trial will be different and frankly even on a retrial and on a criminal case that the um statistics are they favor the defendant and there are a lot of reasons for that that aren't really related to this case. But you have all the states witnesses who've testified. Well, they're going to have to get on the stand again here.
Some of the witnesses are retired. Um, so we've got the benefit of transcripts from their prior statements. If they trip up and they're inconsistent, we can point that out. But even more than that, so many of the players from the prosecution team and experts and investigators, they went on TV and they gave interviews and you know, we have the benefit of those. So there's a lot of ammunition that we have to attack the state's case. What we don't have at this point is who done it and we don't have the ability to find out who done it because we don't have the resources of the state. But now that the case is back, we do have subpoena power and we have other mechanisms and so we're going to push that really hard.
I mean, Alec Murdoch doesn't have any money anymore. So, how are you going to pay for that? Jim. Jim and I have been talking about that. Tell her, Jim. Yeah, that's a really good question, Eva. Um uh the fact of the matter is we did get paid for the first trial. Not much. I mean we you know but in this line of work when you represent a criminal defendant I mean you usually do it by flat fee if in these kind of cases and you do it by the job and it's like you got paid to build a house and here you know the house isn't built. So you know right now we don't know how we're going to get paid. Hopefully,
we'll get paid somehow or another, but we're in it till the end and we're not walking away from Alec. I can tell you that much. I heard you say the first trial cost $600,000 for your defense. Well, that was the cost of the actual experts staying, you know, in all the that didn't come to us. That was okay. And let me say this to you. When the trial was over, we and we heard from that first juror. We went down and met with this juror who contacted us and she was cooking collards in a double wide in Colton County on a Sunday afternoon before she went to her job at Walmart and she told us what Becky had said.
We knew that if we pursued that and could corroborate it, he'd get a new trial. Now, we're not quitters. We're not going to quit this case. We do okay financially, and if it takes some of our time and money, um, we're going to finish it out. We quoted a fee. He paid the fee. Jim's right. But we're in it. Not going to run from it. I think people are just surprised to hear that because you don't usually see defense lawyers out of pocket to defend a client. I've done it before. He's done it before. Yeah. I mean and I'll tell you this case we've been contacted by a number of lawyers said can we join the team for free?
Yeah. So I mean this is a case that um you know is worthy of pursuing his defense. I mean he was wrongly convicted and Eva I have spoken on the course of my career to um law school classes and different seminars and about the business of criminal defense work and a lot of questions that you get. One thing I address is, you know, how do you represent someone you know is guilty? And I tell them that's the easy part is the person that you believe in your heart is innocent. That's the client that keeps you awake at night. That's the client that you can't sleep and that's the client that we represent right now. And so we're not quitting.
Is there any chance he takes some sort of plea deal or you try to work on a plea deal? No. Never. So this case you think will go to trial? Well, they can dismiss it. I mean, certainly they can dismiss it, but no, he will never plead guilty ever to anything related to their murders. Any kind of lesser charge he would? No. Is he going to take a stand again in the second trial? That's a uh game day call.
We're never I mean that's and we don't even know when the game day is going to be. So, no, we don't know. We're, you know, stranger things have happened, but we certainly hope through this retrial process that we can find out who did it, right? I'm I'm with John Marvin. You know, all the family wants to know who did it, and they don't believe Alec did it. A and there's and Jim and I both have talked about this, the lack of investigation from Swed from the day of the murder forward. They assumed he did it and didn't look at anybody else. They no fingerprints, no DNA was taken from the feed room where Paul was killed. No fingerprints or DNA. Uh they had tracks leading away from
the murder scene. Tire tracks and they never followed. Um evidence was destroyed. Now they did, you know, search Moselle that night and they took Alex's shirt. They found no blood, no tissue, no any on the golf cart, in the car. And our expert and their expert agree whoever killed Paul would be in have blood and brains embedded in their hair, in their eyes, in their mouth. There'd be no way you could avoid not getting that on something. So, whoever murdered Paul did not drive that golf cart like they saw in that Snapchat video, did not drive his car over to see his mom and didn't take a shower or clean in Moselle cuz they checked the drains. They checked every sink. They night. So, the forensic
evidence says no. Um, but they had a guy standing there with a shotgun when they showed up, which he'd gone up to. He's on 911 saying, "Uh, I'm going to go get a gun cuz I don't know whether the guy's still here or not." Um, and then dead wife, dead son. And they concluded like 99% of the domestic murders, oh, he must have killed him. And they never went further. Um, so, so have you guys found anything that will be new in this next trial? Yes, you have. So, there'll be new evidence, we believe. So, go ahead and ask. We're not going to tell you. Can you give us a clue as to what kind of category that evidence falls into?
Animal, vegetable, mineral. No, we're not doing that. Or even just like alibi or other people. No. Well, I mean because speaking to you is speaking to them, right? But we have I mean immediately after the murder, we were um contacted by people who said they had information and we followed up on some of that. Um and people, you know, they're private eyes out there who are investigating this on their own accord to try to solve it. And they've given us some good information and they've turned the information over to SLED. And from outside looking in, I mean, it doesn't look like SLED is doing anything with it, but we think it's worthy of pursuit. And so, you know, now that the case is back to square one, you know, hopefully
hopefully we can force them to pursue it. we can pursue it ourselves. Um, but there's more to it. I mean, this case is not solved, and I don't think anyone really believes it has been solved. So, you think there's still a killer out there? Yeah. Or killers? There's two killers. Two guns. Two separate guns. Why bring a semi-automatic weapon that can shoot 20 rounds and a shotgun that shoots two? And, you know, why not just use a semi-automatic weapon with 20 rounds? I mean, it makes no sense. It I mean, there's a number of things and we think we had compelling evidence that it was two people. But after they heard that Alec had stolen money from two brothers, one of whom was mentally disabled, um, and all the other the widows and the other disabled
people, they hated him. And then they've got somebody whispering in their ear, "Don't believe him." Um, I mean, we, this evidence has never been given the kind of scrutiny that it should be given under the premise of a fair trial. You don't think the Snapchat video was So, he was down there and lied about it. He explained why he lied about it. He thought they considered him a suspect. Guess what? They considered him a suspect and he didn't want to be anywhere near that. And he had drugs in his pocket. Um, I mean, he had a number of reasons to lie other than killing those killing them. And by the way, if you look at the timeline,
that doesn't prove he killed him. It proved he lied about where he was. That's it. That ain't enough for conviction. Is he still talking to his family? Yeah, definitely. I mean, he stays close with them. He writes to him. um they're on the visitation list and he is um he stays in communication with me for sure. Yep. Anything else you think we should know? Here's here's something I want to say. The Supreme Court yesterday gave us a new trial because of the misconduct and what's easily characterized as illegal conduct by Becky Hill. She plead
guilty and we've now seen somebody served at FOI, Freedom of Information Act to get the file. And clearly Swed and Allen Wilson were not looking to uncover a criminal act by Becky Hill. I mean, they didn't present it to a grand jury. I'm talking about in terms of fixing the jury. If somebody had caused the millions of dollars of damage to the state of South Carolina, forget what us that her conduct caused, they'd be prosecuted. I mean, if disrupted a computer program that cost them six or seven million, they'd be going to jail yet. She's not even charged. So, did they cut a deal with her? Did I mean what I think it's important I mean as long as we're considering justice that we understand and remember now she
told people that she needed a guilty verdict to sell this book she was writing she I mean so she did it for the money but you know in some ways that's a bit of a technicality for why the trial the verdict got overturned so are you confident you could win in a retrial technicality I Eva, some people will look at it that way. Well, the basic premise of our criminal justice system is you have a jury trial. Jurors are unbiased. But can you get an unbiased jury in South Carolina? Yes. I mean, this case is everywhere. We can get a an unbiased jury and more importantly, we will get an untampered with jury. I mean that juror I mean you can say whether they're biased or not when we started but by the end they were
tampered with and they were biased. So we did not get a fair trial and our Supreme Court stood up for the rule of law this week and they entered an order that justice demands and we will get a fair trial. Why do all this effort because he's going to be in jail probably for How about this? I know this is shocking. Here we are in New York and probably get stoned on the way out. It's the right thing to do. I mean, what is so people, oh, why would you do that? It is the right thing to do. And maybe in these days and atmospheres and national leadership, people don't do things because it's right anymore. It's the right thing to do. If he is denied a
fair trial, you will be when you're charged with something. We got to stand up for the people that need standing up for or next it's you or me. Um, you know, I've talked to a group the other a group of law enforcement people a few weeks ago. I got a book as you know. I was speaking to them and one of them said to me, um, you know, this guy obviously is guilty. Why would you defend? I said, explain to him that the concept that a fair trial and that's really not my decision as a jury's. And they said, well, um, you know, what's so important about him getting a new trial? I said, 'You know,
you look like a guy that wants to be able to say whatever you want to say without getting prosecuted. Carry that. I'm sure you've got a gun on you right now. And in South Carolina, anybody can carry a concealed weapon wherever they want, or they call it open carry, but basically you can carry a gun. Now, if you were charged with the government for somehow doing something illegal with your gun and you were innocent, that sixth amendment, not the first, not the second, that sixth amendment to the constitution which guarantees you a free tri, a fair trial, that would be the most amend important amendment in the world. Only when it's your ox being gored, do you care about a fair trial.
Well, we've been doing this long enough. We understand if you fold, if you run away for something like that because of money or other people, it makes other people uncomfortable, this country's going to go to hell. I will throw this out. I You asked good a good question. You know, why retry it? It's not up to us to retry the case. It's up to the prosecutors to make a decision. Do they want to spend the time and effort to retry the case? To my knowledge, nobody has consulted with the victim's family, Maggie's family, Paul's family of what they want to do this go around. And so, you know, it's not our call, but Alec will never plead guilty to murdering. So, a plea deal is off the table.
Never was well, never on the table. We never even asked for one ever. Won't I mean, this idea that somehow some, you know, working out is on the table. No. Someone speculated that this was all just about getting Alec better prison conditions. He's in great shape right where he is. I don't think he wants to go to another prison. I think he's very comfortable where he is. Yeah. His I mean it's no secret he's in protective custody. There's a unit a PC unit in the South Pal of Corrections. They don't disclose where it is. I don't know. you know, it's so I'm not going to say where it is, but he's there regardless of because he's
there because of his high profile. And when he went to prison, I mean, there were people in the prison putting posting on TikTok or what have you that they were going to knife him or kill him just for the notoriety. So he's where he is um no matter what he's convicted
