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Investigators are reportedly examining claims that Murdaugh’s longtime friend Greg Alexander possessed the missing weapons used to kill Maggie and Paul after the murders.
A South Carolina police chief and longtime friend of Alex Murdaugh is reportedly under investigation over explosive allegations that he helped cover up evidence after the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.
According to FITSNews, investigators have interviewed witnesses who claim Yemassee Police Chief Greg Alexander possessed the rifle and shotgun used in the June 2021 killings shortly afterward. The murder weapons have never been recovered. Witnesses have reportedly also alleged that Alexander discussed his role in a crime-scene cover-up and implicated another Lowcountry law-enforcement figure.
The allegations arrive with a money trail already attracting scrutiny. Murdaugh wrote Alexander a $5,000 check little more than a month after the murders, which Alexander previously described as a loan for his parents. Murdaugh relatives and associates later contributed another $5,500 to Alexander’s unsuccessful 2022 campaign for Hampton County sheriff. Alexander has denied involvement in any cover-up, and his attorney calls the claims “absurd.”
Murdaugh’s murder convictions were overturned because of jury tampering by former Colleton County Clerk Rebecca Hill, setting up a retrial. He remains imprisoned for stealing millions of dollars from clients and others. His attorney Dick Harpootlian says any evidence supporting the new allegations would raise questions that must be addressed before Murdaugh returns to court.
Hot Take: The guns that killed Maggie and Paul vanished. Now witnesses reportedly say they saw them with one of Alex Murdaugh’s closest law-enforcement friends. With a retrial approaching, prosecutors need to establish whether this is smoke, fire or another extraordinary chapter in a case already drowning in both.
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The anonymous woman now says she never met Shawn Carter and has formally recanted the explosive accusations contained in her abandoned civil lawsuit.
The woman who accused Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 has formally recanted her allegations, declaring in a new court filing that she never met or spoke to the rapper and that he never behaved inappropriately toward her.
She previously alleged that Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, and Sean “Diddy” Combs drugged and raped her after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards while another celebrity watched. The lawsuit was withdrawn in February 2025. She now says those allegations were false and insists she received neither money nor threats from Carter or anyone acting for him before making her new declaration.
Carter, who consistently denied the allegation and described the lawsuit as an attempted shakedown, is continuing legal action against attorney Tony Buzbee and others involved in bringing the original case. Buzbee says the woman previously gave a consistent account to multiple lawyers and that any admission she lied to them and the court would be new information.
Hot Take: This wasn’t an allegation that quietly disappeared when a lawsuit collapsed. The accuser now says the central claim itself was false. Jay-Z spent more than a year attached to an accusation that could never be completely erased by a withdrawn complaint. Now the legal spotlight swings toward how it got there.
The accused killer says hundreds of thousands of dollars became legally his years before his parents were murdered and should now fund his defense.
Nick Reiner says he has been denied even $5 from his approximately $1.6 million family trust while awaiting trial for allegedly murdering the parents who established it, director Rob Reiner and producer Michele Singer Reiner.
His attorneys argue that at least $558,000 became payable when Reiner turned 30 in September 2023, more than two years before his parents were killed. They say that money was already legally his and therefore cannot be withheld under California’s Slayer Statute, which can prevent someone from financially benefiting from a death they unlawfully caused.
Reiner wants access to the money for basic commissary purchases and, considerably more importantly, to hire private criminal counsel. He faces two first-degree murder counts and a lying-in-wait allegation over the December 2025 killings. Prosecutors have decided against seeking the death penalty, leaving life without parole as the most severe potential sentence.
Hot Take: There is something grimly surreal about fighting for money your murdered parents placed in trust for you while awaiting trial for allegedly murdering them. But the legal question is brutally simple: if the $558,000 already belonged to Nick before they died, whose money is it now?
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Michael Desronvil’s attorney says the lone juror blocking an insanity verdict had a “mountain of evidence” supporting his refusal to acquit Clancy.
The lone holdout juror who prevented Lindsay Clancy from receiving a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity verdict is pushing back against claims that he refused to follow the law during seven days of deliberations.
Attorney Edward Paltzik says Michael Desronvil had “zero doubt” about his conclusion and a “mountain of evidence” supporting it. Eleven jurors favored finding Clancy not criminally responsible for strangling Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months, while Desronvil remained convinced she should be convicted. The resulting 11-1 deadlock ended in a mistrial on September 4.
The jury foreperson had accused the holdout of refusing to apply the court’s reasonable-doubt standard, but Judge William Sullivan individually questioned the jurors before the mistrial and each said they could follow the law. Clancy’s defense has since attacked the holdout’s position while seeking to prevent another trial. She returns to court September 29.
Hot Take: Eleven jurors do not get to erase the twelfth because they dislike his conclusion. Desronvil sat through the same trial, heard the same evidence and was entitled to his vote. Trying to turn a lawful holdout into the villain because he stopped the desired verdict turns the jury system on its head.
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Utah Valley University lacked a formal security assessment, written action plan and adequate rooftop planning before Kirk was fatally shot at its outdoor event.
An independent review has identified significant failures in planning for the Utah Valley University event where Charlie Kirk was assassinated, including the absence of a comprehensive written security assessment or event action plan and insufficiently formalized consideration of elevated vantage points surrounding the outdoor venue.
University officials had raised concerns about holding the event outside and suggested alternative locations, but Turning Point USA requested that it remain in the courtyard. The report also found that UVU police and Kirk’s private security failed to conduct a joint pre-event briefing and walk-through, calling it a critical missed opportunity to identify concerns and coordinate responsibilities.
The review found no evidence that UVU employees acted in bad faith or with willful disregard for safety, while recommending extensive changes to event planning and campus security. Kirk’s family has separately accused the university of negligence and taken preliminary steps toward a wrongful-death lawsuit.
**Hot Take: **The review leaves an uncomfortable chain of missed opportunities: concerns were raised, a safer venue was discussed, the courtyard remained, and the final security walk-through never happened. Those are now concrete failures for investigators, lawyers and future event planners to examine, not hindsight invented after the shooting.