Excused Murdaugh juror left ‘a dozen eggs’ in jury room

After a juror was excused from the double murder trial of South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, she told the judge that she had left “a dozen eggs” in the jury room.

The juror made the unusual comment after the judge in the case, Clifton Newman, notified her that she was being removed from the jury because of allegations she had talked about the trial outside the courtroom. He then asked if she had any belongings left in the jury room.

The juror responded that she left a dozen eggs — along with a purse and a bottle of water — in the jury room, which sparked laughter from the courtroom.

After the juror said she wanted to take the eggs, Newman, with a bit of a bemused look, then asked the a member of the court staff to go retrieve the juror’s belongings, including the eggs.

“We get a lot of interesting things, but now a dozen eggs,” Newman said.

Newman announced he was excusing the juror from the 12-person jury on Thursday as the trial resumed, saying that a member of the public sent a letter to the court revealing that the juror had “improper conversations” discussing the case outside of the courtroom.

The judge said that two people were interviewed about their interactions with the juror, and they “waffled on the nature and the extent of the contact.”

“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,” Newman said.

Newman said that the juror will be replaced with another juror to “preserve the integrity of the process and in fairness to all the parties involved.”

Murdaugh’s defense team gave their closing arguments for the case on Thursday morning. During state prosecutor Creighton Waters closing arguments on Wednesday, he accused the embattled lawyer of killing his wife and son in 2021 to buy time because of alleged financial crimes that were slated to be revealed.