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Alex Murdaugh's Defense Attorneys Say Another Man Failed Lie Detector Test About Murders Of Paul And Maggie Murdaugh
Alex Murdaugh's attorneys have alleged in a new court filing that investigators turned a “blind eye” to evidence that suggested Curtis Smith could have been involved in the shooting deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.
Alex Murdaugh’s attorneys have suggested another possible suspect in the murder of his wife and son in new court documents.
Attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin alleged in a motion to compel filed on Friday that Curtis “Fast Eddie” Smith—a man already accused of running a drug trafficking and money laundering operation with Murdaugh—failed a lie detector test when asked about the murders of Alex’s wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, who were found shot to death on the family’s Colleton County hunting compound on June 7, 2021, according to the court documents obtained by Fox News and WCIV.
According to the court filing, which asks prosecutors to turn over evidence they say was not previously given to their team, Smith was given a polygraph examination in May.
Murdaugh’s attorneys allege that during the exam, Smith’s responses “indicated attempted deception” when Smith was asked whether he killed Maggie or Paul or was present during the shootings.
The defense attorneys have requested that all the data and reports related to the exam be handed over by the prosecution and alleged that investigators had turned a “blind eye” to evidence that suggested Smith had been involved in the murders, choosing instead to focus solely on Murdaugh, who has been charged with the murders. He's pleaded not guilty in the case.
“The state is apparently turning a blind eye to the obvious, that the reason Smith failed the polygraph when asked if he murdered Maggie and Paul is because he in fact did commit these heinous crimes,” Harpootlian wrote.
In an interview with South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) investigators before the polygraph was given, Smith insisted he had not been involved in the murders and stated he had an alibi for the night of the shootings.
“I was nowhere near the place where Maggie and Paul got killed at,” said, according to the court records, also obtained by FITS News.
Smith told investigators that he had been at his home “thirty-five miles away” with his girlfriend Donna Eason and two friends, Steve Hudson and Kevin Salisbury.
“I wasn’t there [at the hunting compound],” Smith said, according to the court records. “There ain’t no way shape or form nobody can put me there I was not there.”
Murdaugh’s attorneys have alleged that investigators never interviewed Eason to confirm Smith’s alibi and said they only got in touch with his two friends two weeks after the interview, providing Smith with time to reach out to them to gain their cooperation.
Harpootlian and Griffin state in the motion that Smith did call Hudson on May 17 and spoke with Salisbury—who allegedly owes Smith an estimated $20,000—on May 20 before investigators had reached out to either man.
They also alleged that Smith had “regularly delivered drugs to (the hunting compound) near the dog kennels were Maggie and Paul were murdered” and suggested that Maggie and Paul could have stumbled upon a drug deal on their property the night they were killed.
When asked by investigators about the murder, Smith provided another possibility. He claimed in a “detailed story” that Maggie had been having an affair with an unnamed groundskeeper.
“Maggie had a thing going on with the groundskeeper which I never met him, don’t know his name … and Paul went down into one of the barns and caught him and he got upset and he went and got his rifle and was hollering and screaming his mama his mama was running and she fell down and she got up, he shot her in the ass and the bullet come out the top of her head and then he turned to the groundskeeper guy,” Smith said, according to the court documents. “But the groundskeeper already went to his truck and got a shotgun.”
Smith said the groundskeeper then killed Paul before fleeing the area.
Harpootlian and Griffin argued in the motion that prosecutors charged Murdaugh with the murders based on a “weak circumstantial case” and failed to thoroughly investigate other possible suspects.
"Smith decidedly failed a polygraph when questioned if he murdered Maggie and Paul," they wrote. "Nevertheless, the Attorney General has represented that the State intends to present Smith as a cooperating witness against Alex in the upcoming murder trial.”
They also referenced rumors about physical evidence in the case, including that blood on Murdaugh’s clothes had tied him to the murder. They described it as “miniscule amount” of Maggie’s blood that had been transferred to his T-shirt when he “frantically attended his wife’s bloody corpse.”
“The crime scene forensic evidence the state collected not only is insufficient to prove Alex shot Maggie, but it also actually proves Alex did not shoot Paul,” Harpootlian and Griffin wrote.
They also claimed that SLED didn’t conduct any forensic analysis on Maggie and Paul’s clothing to try to determine whether one of them might have killed the other.
In response to the bombshell filing, Smith’s lawyer Aimee Zmroczek shot down the allegations made about Smith to WCSC.
“Eddie continues to be a pawn for Alex Murdaugh. If SLED had any indication he was involved in the murders he would have been charged. There’s a reason that polygraphs are not admissible in court, because they’re not accurate,” she said.
Harpootlian and Griffin also alleged that prosecutors had not handed over all the evidence in the case and requested authorities turn over any agreement made between the prosecution and Smith, along with other evidence including items discovered during a search of Smith’s home and cell phone.
Robert Kittle, the communications director for the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, told Oxygen.com that prosecutors plan to file a response to the filing Monday.
“To date, we have provided the defense with more than three-quarters of a terabyte of information. No Brady material will be withheld and, as always, we will address these issues in our pleadings and the courtroom and will not try this case outside the courtroom,” he said.
Smith and Murdaugh were indicted in June for an alleged money laundering and drug trafficking ring. Smith, who is currently behind bars in protective custody, is also accused of helping Murdaugh in a botched assisted suicide attempt last year along the side of the roadway.
Murdaugh is also facing a slew of charges connected to alleged financial crimes authorities say he committed to steal money from his clients and law firm while serving as a lawyer. He’s currently being held on a $7 million bond.
