Defense Witness: Alex Murdaugh Is Too Tall to Have Shot His Wife
A forensic engineer testified that he believed Maggie Murdaugh’s killer was about a foot shorter than her husband.
Reuters
A defense witness in Alex Murdaugh’s double-homicide trial testified Tuesday that based on his analysis of the June 2021 crime scene, he believes Maggie Murdaugh’s killer was about a foot shorter than Alex. Mike Sutton, a forensic engineer who specializes in ballistic incident reconstruction, told Colleton County jurors that he was hired by the defense in October 2022 to analyze the deaths of Murdaugh’s 52-year-old wife and 22-year-old son, Paul. Taking his own measurements of the crime scene, as well as analyzing evidence collected by law enforcement, Sutton said he concluded that the two bullet holes made by the semi-automatic weapon that killed Maggie could not have been shot by Alex Murdaugh because of the angle of the bullets. “In my opinion, it’s very unlikely that he fired that shot,” Sutton said, noting that he believes whoever killed Maggie was between 5’2 and 5’4. Murdaugh, however, is 6’4. “You would have to be bending over and have your shooting hand down at or below your kneecap. It just makes it very unlikely that a tall person made that shot,” he said.
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