Judge Hears Murdaugh Request for New DNA Testing on Fingernail Sample

Alex Murdaugh’s attorneys asked a South Carolina judge Monday to allow independent DNA testing by Othram Inc. on an unknown male profile recovered from beneath his wife Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails. Murdaugh, a former personal-injury lawyer, was convicted in 2023 of murdering his wife, 52, and son Paul, 22, at the family hunting estate in June 2021.

The convictions were later overturned, and a new trial is scheduled for April 2027. Othram, based in The Woodlands, Texas, specializes in forensic genetic genealogy. The company’s technology helped identify Bryan Kohberger in the 2022 University of Idaho murders and solved several cold cases, including the 1974 murder of Carla Walker in Fort Worth and the identification of the “Lady of the Dunes” victim in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Prosecutors opposed the request, stating the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division had already examined the sample and found only a mixture of Maggie Murdaugh’s DNA and a “very partial and incomplete” profile from another contributor. They said the profile lacked enough markers to submit to the national CODIS database.

Murdaugh appeared at the status hearing June 29 at the Marc H. Westbrook Judicial Center in Lexington. Judge Debra McCaslin did not rule on the testing motion and directed defense counsel to confirm whether the sample remained viable. Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian has said investigators focused on Murdaugh from the outset.

“They decided that night he was the guy and everything they did after that excluded any other thought,” he told Fox News Digital. ” The state described the testing request as aimed more at “public consumption” than at producing usable forensic evidence.