The double-murder trial of South Carolina legal heir Alex Murdo continues for Day 4

Dick Harpootlian Monday grilled the SLED Special Agent who led the collection of evidence at the crime scene after the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdo.

“Wasn’t his brain in his feet?” asked Harputlian Worley.

“It was by his left leg,” she replied. Paul’s bloody footprints were found near his body, possibly as he stumbled toward the dining room door after the first shotgun blast.

The second shot took his head off. “His brain flew out,” Harputlian said. “There’s hair and blood and bits of skull in the ceiling around him.”

Harpootlian asked Melinda Worley, a tire and shoe print expert, whether a bloody deputy’s foot print found near Paul’s body was “scene-preserving by your standards?”

“Not exactly, no,” she replied. The bloody print, which did not belong to Paul, probably came from a deputy at the scene.

“Do you know what other evidence they may have destroyed?” Harpootlian asked Colleton County deputies who were the first to respond to the scene.

“I have no idea,” she replied.

Harpootlian also presented her with a photo that showed what might be a print on Maggie’s calf.

He asked why there was only one picture of this and no scale showing the size of the print.

“This is not done according to procedure? Harputlian asked.

“I didn’t know about it at the scene,” she replied, before admitting she was present at the crime scene when the photo was taken. At the time, no one appreciated that it was a shoe impression, she said.

Worley added that even if she had multiple photos of the alleged footprint, she would not be able to “attribute it to a shoe type.”

The witness also admitted that Alex’s white T-shirt was not completely clean and had dirt stains on it.