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A new court filing reveals the defense team for Alex Murdaugh, who was previously convicted of murdering his wife and son, may have lied about his polygraph test results.
The Wednesday filing in Colleton County, South Carolina, details state prosecutors’ allegations against Murdaugh’s attorney Dick Harpootlian.
Murdaugh was convicted of the murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in 2023; those convictions were overturned in May of this year after a court clerk named Becky Hill was found to have improperly influenced jurors.
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Alex Murdaugh attends a judicial hearing on Monday, June 29, 2026, at the Marc H. Westbrook Judicial Center in Lexington, South Carolina. Murdaugh will be retried in the June 7, 2021, shooting deaths of his wife and son, after his original conviction was overturned due to jury tampering. (Tracy Glantz/The State via Pool)
During an Aug. 14 hearing, Harpootlian said, “Mr. Murdaugh passed a polygraph. Flying colors. Same polygrapher. It may play a role in this trial.”
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Prosecutors argue that when Murdaugh was initially tried in 2023, he never took a polygraph, or lie-detector, test.
The time that he did in fact take a lie-detector test was after the trial in the fall of 2023. He took the test with the FBI when he was under investigation for serious financial crimes.
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Defense attorney Dick Harpootlian represents his client, Alex Murdaugh, on Monday, June 29, 2026, at a status hearing at the Marc H. Westbrook Judicial Center in Lexington, South Carolina. Murdaugh will be retried in the June 7, 2021, shooting deaths of his wife and son, after his original conviction was overturned due to jury tampering. (Tracy Glantz/The State via Pool)
The new document says:
“Defense council’s claim on the record at the hearing that defendant Alex Murdaugh passed a SLED [South Carolina Law Enforcement Division] polygraph as to the murders, much less than any governmental polygraph on any subject, is categorically false, and clearly said for no other reason that an attempt to prejudice this court and the public.”
Read the filing below.
In response to the state’s filing, Harpootlian emailed a letter to Judge Debra McCaslin on Thursday saying that he incorrectly stated in court that Murdaugh had taken a polygraph and passed “with flying colors,“ saying he had mistakenly conflated several facts.
Harpootlian said, “I want to offer my apology to both the court and state for any confusion I may have caused.”
Here is the letter:
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Murdaugh is scheduled for his new trial in April of next year. That trial will not take place in Colleton County.
State Judge Debra McCaslin oversees a judicial hearing on Monday, June 29, 2026, at the Marc H. Westbrook Judicial Center in Lexington, South Carolina. Alex Murdaugh will be retried in the June 7, 2021, shooting deaths of his wife and son, after his original conviction was overturned due to jury tampering. (Tracy Glantz/The State via Pool)
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On Friday, Judge Debra R. McCaslin ruled the retrial must move out of Colleton County but she did not yet mention a new location.
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It’s possible the retrial could be in Richland County, as Murdaugh’s defense recently pressed to move it – arguing the possibility of a larger jury pool in a new location.
