COLUMBIA, S.C. — Attorneys for Alex Murdaugh are seeking deep digital data from approximately half a dozen cellphones allegedly associated with the 2021 killings of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, according to a defense motion filed in state court this week.

The attorneys are asking state Judge Debra McCaslin to “compel production” of the deep data, according to the motion, filed Monday afternoon.

The data sought, called “forensic extraction files,” is far more detailed than the normal text messages, photos, phone numbers and emails and other easily retrievable surface data on cellphones, the defense attorneys’ 21-page motion said.

The data defense attorneys want contains information such as deleted entries, system logs and “the metadata that shows when each record was created and changed,” the motion said.

The defense’s expert witnesses “cannot verify” the surface information already turned over to the defense without the deeper underlying data, the defense motion says.

Robert Kittle, a spokesman for the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, emailed a response to The State newspaper Monday afternoon saying, “We have no comment but will respond in our court filings.”

Arguments about the motion could be heard Oct. 16, when Judge McCaslin holds a status conference with the attorneys. The hearing will be at the Lexington County courthouse.

The motion also said defense attorneys last week asked prosecutors with the state Attorney General’s office to turn over this data, but the state has not yet done so.

The cellphone evidence the defense seeks is “crucial,” the motion says.

In Murdaugh’s first murder trial — he was found guilty in 2023 of killing his wife Maggie and son Paul — the state built its case on the contents of cellular telephones, the motion says.

In May the South Carolina Supreme Court unanimously overturned the guilty verdicts and ordered a new trial for Murdaugh. Jury tampering at Murdaugh’s 2023 trial had denied Murdaugh a fair trial, the high court ruled.

“The ... video that placed Mr. Murdaugh at the scene (of the killings) came from Paul Murdaugh’s telephone,” the motion says.

“The timeline on which the State fixed the moment of the murders came from Maggie Murdaugh’s telephone,” the motion says.

The defense motion says Murdaugh’s attorneys specifically want the underlying digital data that allowed prosecutors to draw conclusions about what happened around the time of the killings — around 9 p.m. on June 7, 2021 at the Murdaugh family’s 1,700-acre estate in rural Colleton County.

Although prosecutors have turned over reports based on the underlying digital data on Paul and Maggie’s phones to defense attorneys, that is not the same as turning over all the data, the motion says.

“The defense cannot identify what was omitted from the reports., because that is the nature of the omission. A report does not list what it excludes,” the motion says.

The data sought is from cellphones that belonged to Maggie Murdaugh, Paul Murdaugh and Alex Murdaugh, as well as two other people identified as Timothy Gillespie and Christy Murdaugh.

Murdaugh, 58, is serving a 27-year sentence for fraud in state prison. He also is serving concurrently a 40-year sentence for fraud in federal prison. He had pleaded guilty to numerous counts of embezzling money from clients and his law firm.

Before his murder convictions were overturned in May, Murdaugh had been serving two consecutive life sentences for killing Maggie and Paul.

Murdaugh’s attorneys include Dick Harpootlian, Jim Griffin, Maggie Fox, Phil Barber and Andrew Hand.

_____

©2026 The State. Visit thestate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.