Alex Murdaugh's Key Evidence Can Never Be Tested Again

In 2025, a judge threw out the murder indictment against a man named Michael Colucci after finding that evidence which could have helped him was never properly disclosed. That case is connected to David Owen — the same investigator who ran the Alex Murdaugh murder investigation. Sit with that overlap for a second, because Alex Murdaugh's defense team clearly has. Their new motion demands prosecutors go back through every file SLED touched and certify in writing that nothing favorable to Murdaugh is still sitting in a drawer.

On this True Crime Today conversation, Tony Brueski puts the uncomfortable question to retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer: if it happened in the Colucci case, who's checking whether it happened here, besides SLED itself? Coffindaffer spent her career inside federal investigations. She knows what a real evidence audit looks like and what agencies do when one is forced on them. She also knows the difference between a defense attorney who's fishing and one who already knows something is missing.

The Owen question is one thread in a week that moved this case twice. A federal judge dismissed Murdaugh's $600,000 lawsuit against Becky Hill, the former clerk whose jury interference forced the retrial, ruling she owes him nothing because he'd have paid his lawyers regardless. Hill's guilty plea covered a book photo, self-paid bonuses, and lying about sealed exhibits. No prison. Nothing for the tampering. Coffindaffer also works through the fired agent whose testimony cleared Eddie Smith, and the white shirt that tested negative for human blood before a lab chemical made it untestable forever.

Murdaugh is presumed innocent, and his April retrial will settle what a jury believes. This episode settles something else: whether the file that jury gets handed can be trusted.

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DISCLAIMER

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.

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