Alex Murdaugh seeking DNA dream team behind Bryan Kohberger case to help rewrite murder trial
Alex Murdaugh’s attorneys want a Texas forensic DNA lab known for helping crack some of the nation’s most notorious murder cases to test unknown male DNA found beneath Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails as the disgraced South Carolina attorney heads toward a new double-murder trial.Murdaugh, once a powerful personal injury attorney in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, was convicted in 2023 of killing his wife, Maggie, 52, and their younger son, Paul, 22, at the family’s hunting estate in June 2021.His convictions were later overturned, and a new trial has been tentatively set for April 2027.His attorneys have pointed to DNA found beneath Maggie’s fingernails that they say belonged to an unknown, unrelated male.
They have asked for independent testing by Othram Inc., a Houston-area forensic genetic genealogy company whose technology has been used in high-profile murder investigations and decades-old cold cases.Prosecutors disputed the significance of additional DNA testing, arguing that the evidence has already been tested by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) and produced only a mixture of Maggie’s DNA and what the state described as a “very partial and incomplete” profile from another contributor.The unknown profile, prosecutors said, did not contain enough identifying information to be submitted to CODIS, the national DNA database.Othram, based in The Woodlands, Texas, specializes in advanced DNA testing and forensic genetic genealogy, a method that can help investigators identify suspects or unknown victims when traditional law enforcement databases do not produce a match.Here are some of the high-profile cases Othram has helped crack.Othram’s work came under national scrutiny in the investigation into the 2022 murders of four University of Idaho students: Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin.Investigators recovered DNA from a knife sheath found near one of the victims inside the off-campus Moscow, Idaho, hom...