The Murdaugh Juror Who Asked To Take Strange Household Items With Them After Being Dismissed

For many in the United States and around the world, the topic of conversation in the first few months of 2023 was the case of former South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who was on trial for the 2021 shooting deaths of his wife and son, Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. After a short period of deliberation, the jury in the case found Murdaugh guilty and sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences for the crimes, AP News reports. Unlike most of us, though, casual conversation about a true-crime case with as many twists and turns as the Murdaugh situation can get a juror in trouble.

As The Hill notes, one juror in the Murdaugh trial did get caught discussing details of the case outside the courtroom with people she shouldn't have, and as a result, that juror was dismissed. When her dismissal was announced by Judge Clifton Newman, who oversaw the Murdaugh trial, that juror requested that she be allowed to first return to the jury room to retrieve her personal belongings. The nature of some of the things she needed added a moment of levity to what were otherwise grim court proceedings: a dozen eggs (via YouTube).

The first two things the dismissed Murdaugh juror needed to grab before she left the court were to be expected: her purse and a bottle of water. Judge Clifton Newman received a tip that the juror in question had inappropriately discussed details of the Murdaugh case outside the courtroom. Once alerted, Newman interviewed the two people the juror reportedly spoke with to ascertain what the juror may have revealed.

After doing so, Judge Newman said (via The Hill): "Though it does not appear that the conversations were that extensive, it did involve the juror offering her opinion regarding evidence received up to that point in the trial." And because of that fact, the juror would be dismissed to preserve the integrity of the process and in fairness to all the parties involved, Newman said. Five additional jurors had previously been removed from the case for health reasons, ET Online reports. There was no indication the dismissed juror who spoke inappropriately out of court did so intentionally.

It was the eggs the dismissed juror said she needed to return to the courtroom to get that left both Judge Clifton Newman and others in the Murdaugh courtroom smiling, despite the sad details of the Murdaugh case. Apparently, on that day, another juror had brought a dozen eggs from her farm for each juror on the case. The dismissed juror's request to fetch her dozen eggs was so unexpected that laughter erupted in the courtroom — and perhaps shockingly, even from Alex Murdaugh himself, who was at that time an accused double murderer. Once the juror made her request, Judge Newman said: "We get a lot of interesting things, but now a dozen eggs." 

The exact nature and full extent of what the juror may have said about the Murdaugh trial in herconversations is uncertain. According to Murdaugh defense attorney Dick Harpootlian, the juror's dismissal was just another example of how badly the Murdaugh murder investigation was handled.