Jurors hear about blue rain jacket in Alex Murdaugh murder trial

Jurors at Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial in South Carolina will get to hear evidence about what crime scene technicians discovered when they tested a rain jacket found three months after his wife and son were killed, a judge ruled Tuesday.

The decision was the second win for prosecutors in as many days. Judge Clifton Newman on Monday allowed prosecutors to call witnesses who are expected to testify that Murdaugh was stealing money from his law firm and clients and committing other financial crimes long before the killings.

Murdaugh, 54, is standing trial in the shootings of his 52-year-old wife, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, on June 7, 2021, at their Colleton County home. He faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.

Defense attorneys asked the judge to prevent further testimony about the raincoat after the caretaker for Murdaugh’s ailing mother testified she saw him bring a “blue something, looked like a tarp” into his mother’s home nine days after the killings.

State agents got a search warrant four months after the killings and found a tarp but also a blue rain jacket. Prosecutors said in their opening statement that the inside of the jacket was covered in gunshot residue left behind when a weapon is fired.

Defense attorneys said prosecutors didn’t connect the jacket to Murdaugh through the caretaker’s confusing testimony and that it would be unfair and harmful to his case to let state agents testify about what the testing on the jacket found.

Newman said Tuesday that it should be up to the jury to decide.

The defense did an “effective job in crossexamination in raising questions as to the credibility of the witness. And that is the exact job the jury has to do — weigh the credibility of the witness,” the judge said.

But Newman’s decisions could also help the defense. If Murdaugh is found guilty, the decisions could be brought up on appeal.

The extra witnesses will extend a trial that reached its 12th day on Tuesday with no end to the prosecution’s case in sight. During jury selection, jurors were told that the case could last three weeks.