Skip to content

Murdaugh Latest: Defense "Going Crazy" Over Missing Weapons

October 15, 2026 · 30 min

Show notes

Alex Murdaugh returns to court Friday, October 16, for an urgent pretrial evidence hearing, months before the date the judge says she won't move: an April 5, 2027 retrial in Sumter, South Carolina. The defense and prosecution have been trading a "dizzying" flurry of filings over what the jury will and won't see, and the judge is about to start making calls.

In this episode of Criminally Obsessed, investigative reporter Anne Emerson speaks with Valerie Bauerlein, a Wall Street Journal reporter, author of The Devil at His Elbow, and Edward R. Murrow Award-winning co-creator of the podcast Camp Swamp Road, who has covered the Murdaugh case since 2021.

Bauerlein breaks down the issues Judge Debra McCaslin is expected to address. The defense is asking the judge to privately review state grand jury testimony tied to a tip about the missing murder weapons and is accusing the state of failing to turn over information. They are also asking the judge to order testing of cartridges against other crimes, access to raw data from the crime scene scans, and cellphone extraction data they say the state never fully provided. 

Bauerlein shares why she thinks this will be a very different trial from the first one, what the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision means for the evidence jurors will hear, and what the biggest challenges will be for both sides.

Alex Murdaugh is presumed innocent in the retrial.

Subscribe to Criminally Obsessed for continuing coverage of the Alex Murdaugh retrial, courtroom analysis, and exclusive interviews that go beyond the headlines.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All episodes of Criminally Obsessed

Settings

Display

Language

Decides which stations you see first on the home page.

History

Recently played stations and episodes and your latest searches are only stored in this browser.

Notifications

A short notice when a podcast you follow has a new episode. Turn off single podcasts with the bell on their page.

Account

Save favorites – in the app and on the website.

Keyboard shortcuts

/
Open search
Space
Play or pause
← →
In the player: back 15 s, forward 30 s (episodes) · in a row: next tile
↑ ↓
In a row: target within the tile
Home / End
In a row: first or last tile
Esc
Close window or menu
?
This overview
Now playing

Go to station page

Play next

    Add episodes with “Play next” – they play after the current episode.