Alex Murdaugh hearing to focus on DNA, retrial evidence

Just flipping over to 832 here this morning and Alec Murdoch is back in a South Carolina courtroom today for a hearing ahead of his murder retrial. So a jury convicted him in 2023 of killing his wife Maggie and his son Paul. But earlier this year the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned that conviction after ruling a former clerk tampered with the jury and denied Murdoch a fair trial. Fox's Chelsea Torres is live at the Lexington County Courthouse where The hearing is set to start at the top of the hour. Chelsea, good morning to you. Good morning, Tom. Hannah, you know, this hearing will ultimately decide what evidence that defense attorneys and prosecutors can use in this new murder retrial, and that goes from DNA evidence even down to scans of the crime scene itself. We're about 30 minutes away. We already know that Alec Murdoch did arrive in. We're still waiting to see exactly what it is that he's wearing. We do know he will be wearing plain clothes. Last time he wore a suit, so we'll see exactly what he's wearing today as well as his attorneys when they start to arrive. But Murdoch's attorneys did ask the judge to order state prosecutors to turn over DNA from his wife, Maggie's fingernails, so the defense can independently test it. Murdoch's defense team is also raising questions about the ammunition used to kill Maggie, raw files from cell phones seized during the investigation, and a Faro laser scan of the crime scene, which generates 3D images where the murders happened. Now, we do know that prosecutors had agreed to give the 3D scan of the crime scene. But they did not want Maggie's fingernails DNA to be used independently, mainly because they said there was very little DNA that they had. And they wanted to find out today in this hearing exactly how it will be independently tested. So that will be one of the major points that we'll hear from both sides today. And again, as we know right now, the new trial is set to begin in April of next year. Tom, Hannah. Okay. Chelsea Torres reporting live for us in South Carolina. Thank you. Time is just turning 834. Let's look at some other headlines at this hour. FBI officials in Phoenix are investigating after an envelope containing white powder was opened by staff at the Arizona State Capitol's executive tower. The incident triggered evacuations of the building while teams investigated. Arizona Secretary of State calls this incident a targeted threat. President Trump now reversing course on the Pentagon's plan to live stream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter. Originally, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that they would live stream his execution. But the president canceled plans after pushback from national security experts and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Nadal Hassan is scheduled to be executed by a firing squad on December 3rd.