Alex Murdaugh found guilty in the murder of his wife and son | CNN

Defense attorney Jim Griffin alleged investigators “started fabricating evidence” against Alex Murdaugh in the killings of his wife and son.

“Some of my best friends are law enforcement; I don’t make that claim lightly,” Griffin said in his closing arguments. 

Murdaugh’s financial and drug issues made him an “easy target” for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, also known as SLED, he said.

Griffin said investigators produced a report that said Murdaugh’s T-shirt had high-velocity blood spatter on it, but a previous HemaTrace test had not detected blood.

“They went from Mr. Bloody Shirt leading up to this trial to Mr. Clean during this trial,” he said, adding that no one asked about Murdaugh’s clothing until months after the killings.

The issue of Alex Murdaugh changing his clothes the night his wife and son were killed was “late to the dance,” Griffin added. 

When the defense team asked about the blood allegations, Griffin told the jury that SLED agent David Owen said he never got email about the test that indicated no blood splatter.

“Did the dog eat his email?” Griffin asked. “How does the lead investigator in the case not get the lab report that says there’s no blood on the shirt?”

On Feb. 15, Owen testified he had told a county grand jury that an expert found multiple particles of blood spatter on the front of the T-shirt, and it was sent to a lab for testing. The test, however, found no blood on the shirt.

“Y’all completely overlooked the fact that when you did a HemaTrace test to confirm whether there’s blood, it came up negative. Wasn’t that overlooked?” asked Griffin.

“I had never seen that report,” responded Owen, who admitted he did not see it until November 2022, just months before the trial began.

Last week, Murdaugh said during his testimony that “there’s no way I had high-velocity blood spatter on me.”

“I have seen reports that said that,” Murdaugh added. “I was nowhere near Paul and Maggie when they got shot.”

CNN’s Dakin Andone, Dianne Gallagher and Emma Tucker contributed reporting to this post.