Prosecution, defense argue over ammunition found near Maggie Murdaugh’s body

COLLETON COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) - On the second day of the Murdaugh murder trial, Judge Clifton Newman said he would allow ballistics testimony. Ballistics is essentially like a fingerprint for a gun.

On the tenth day of the trial, we heard that testimony.

“The results for those comparisons were inconclusive, again that means I was unable to determine if they had been fired by item 33 or they had been firearm or firearms with similar characteristics,” South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Firearms Identification Examiner, Paul Greer said.

As weapon after weapon from the Murdaugh property was brought forward, the SLED firearms expert reviewed his analysis, stating that two of the guns were not used in the murders, and another two brought inconclusive results as he just testified.

He tested specific ammunition as well though, and he was more confident in those results.

“If I understand it correctly, the items collected right by Maggie have been loaded into, extracted to and ejected by the same firearm that identified items were picked up by the side of the house,” state prosecutor David Fernandez asked.

“Yes sir, that is correct,” Greer answered.

The defense, who objected to this testimony being allowed into the trial at all, poked at its significance.

“You cannot and you did not and you are not offering an opinion that item 22 shotgun was used to murder Paul Murdaugh, correct,” defense attorney Jim Griffin asked.

“My result was inconclusive, what that ultimately means is I’m not able to determine that,” Greer said.

The analysis found that the spent rifle ammunition around the body of Maggie Murdaugh, was fired from the same weapon as spent ammunition found elsewhere on the Murdaugh property.

However, it is unclear if that gun was the one in court Friday or if investigators never found it because tests on all the guns they found were inconclusive.

This is how court ended this week. Testimony will begin again on Monday.

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