Alex Murdaugh’s retrial is officially on the calendar — April 5, 2027 — and the first hearing made one thing immediately clear: the defense is not running the same playbook. Harpootlian walked into a Lexington County courtroom with first-responder transcr

The first retrial hearing in the Murdaugh case produced a moment that deserves more attention than it received. Dick Harpootlian presented the court with transcripts from interviews conducted with the first people to arrive at the Moselle property after Maggie and Paul were found dead. He told Judge McCaslin the accounts contain conflicting information about who was present at the property that night — and that the defense has received tips from people claiming to have case information that were forwarded to SLED with no confirmation they were ever investigated.That revelation came alongside a barrage of defense moves at the June 29 hearing. The team has eight new expert witnesses who need six months to prepare. They want Othram — the forensic genetic genealogy lab that worked the Kohberger case — to analyze the unknown male DNA recovered from under Maggie’s left-hand fingernails, designated as Item No. 70. Jim Griffin told the judge the DNA was catalogued by SLED and never further analyzed. He cited the David Camm case from Indiana, where untested crime scene DNA ultimately identified the actual killer and led to the defendant’s acquittal at a third trial.Judge McCaslin set the retrial for April 5, 2027. She denied Murdaugh a laptop in prison but arranged a conference room compromise. She deferred the DNA ruling to the next hearing on August 14 after ordering both sides’ experts to confer. The venue motion is unresolved. And the death penalty — never sought in the first trial — is now allegedly on the table. Everything about this retrial is different from the first.End Links:Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebookhttps://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitterhttps://x.com/TrueCrimePodDisclaimer:This publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.Hashtags:#AlexMurdaugh #MaggieMurdaugh #MurdaughRetrial #Moselle #MurdaughHearing #ItemNo70 #OthramDNA #DavidCamm #DickHarpootlian #TrueCrime