What Murdaugh’s Lead Investigator Denied Under Oath
David Owen led the SLED investigation that put Alex Murdaugh behind bars. Years earlier he led another murder investigation that a judge later threw out entirely, and on the stand in that case, Owen denied something a grieving mother says she told him directly. Tony Brueski lays out what that denial was and why it’s surfacing again now.
In June 2025, a South Carolina judge quashed the indictment in State v. Colucci after ruling the state sat on favorable evidence for nearly a decade. The victim’s mother testified she told Owen in 2015 that her daughter had spoken about ending her own life, testimony directly relevant to the case and something Owen said under oath never happened. That history now sits at the center of a Brady motion Murdaugh’s defense filed on August 5, 2026, demanding prosecutors search every file, agency, and personnel record tied to the case and confirm in writing that nothing favorable to Murdaugh remains hidden.
Retired FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer weighs whether the motion is a fishing expedition or something this investigation has genuinely earned. She also addresses agent Ryan Kelly, who told Murdaugh’s jury nothing connected alternate suspect Eddie Smith to the murders and was fired from an unrelated Charleston County job in June 2026.
The episode also covers the physical evidence fight over the shirt Murdaugh wore the night Maggie and Paul were killed, tested negative for blood and then rendered permanently untestable, and the recent dismissal of Murdaugh’s lawsuit against Becky Hill, the clerk whose jury tampering overturned his original convictions.
Judge Debra McCaslin hears arguments on the motion August 14, 2026. Murdaugh is presumed innocent ahead of his 2027 retrial.
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