Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions thrown out. A new search for Kristin Smart. Plus, AI and murder.

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1:26She thinks we're going to get the interview. Our producers are swapping tips and story ideas. If they find a body, that would be huge. She bought a plane ticket, but she never actually boarded the plane. They would have indicted her earlier if they had more. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's May 14th, and here's what's on our docket. Josh Mankiewicz is here to discuss the latest in the Kristen Smart case and why almost 30 years after her murder, police are still digging up backyards in Southern California. They found some signs that a body had been buried there. In Dateline Roundup, an update on the trial of the dentist's son accused of murdering a restaurant hostess.

2:08And emotional testimony at the sentencing of Dale Warner, the Michigan man convicted of murdering his wife Dee and concealing her body in a fertilizer tank. My mom's name, Dee Hardy, will live in our hearts and our community for an eternity. But Dale Warner's name will be gone forever. Plus, could an AI chatbot ever be held accountable for helping plan a murder? NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett tells us about a groundbreaking lawsuit in Florida.

2:35Laura Jarrett:If somebody is asking ChatGPT, how do you dispose of a body? Is that for research or is that for murder? But before all that, breaking news out of South Carolina. Alec Murdoch is no longer a convicted murderer.

2:54Alec Murdoch's six-week double murder trial was labeled the trial of the century, with true crime tourists lining up outside the Colleton County Courthouse to get a seat inside. We were there, too, as secrets about this once-prominent lawyer's life spilled into view. His drug addiction, financial crimes, troubled marriage. Prosecutors said all of that drove Murdoch to murder his wife and son. In March 2023, a jury found Murdoch guilty, and he was sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison. But if you thought that would be the last you'd hear from Alec Murdoch, you'd be wrong. He quickly filed an appeal arguing that he did not get a fair trial, and he pointed the finger at someone who was in the courtroom every day, court clerk Becky Hill.

3:39His appeal made it all the way to the South Carolina Supreme Court. In February, at a high-stakes hearing, his attorneys made their case for a new trial to the five Supreme Court justices. No matter how heinous, no matter how overwhelming the evidence, you're still entitled to a fair trial. On Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court announced a game-changing decision. They overturned his conviction. Alec Murdoch will be getting a new trial. Craig Melvin, co-anchor of NBC's Today Show, and Dateline producer Carol Gable are here now to fill us in. Craig and Carol, welcome to the show. And Craig especially, this is a nice treat.

4:17Oh, Andrew, you're very kind. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And we always love having Carol, of course. So let's dive right in, guys. If you follow true crime or live in South Carolina, you know this case well. But for anyone who doesn't, just give us a recap. I'm Alec Murdoch, lawyer of South Carolina, very prominent. For folks who may not know this, I'm from South Carolina. Lived there until I was 28 years old. I knew who Alec Murdoch was, but he was a low country lawyer who had made a lot of money and wielded a great deal of influence in the Palmetto State. And then in June of 2021, he calls 911 to report that his wife and his younger son, Paul, had both been shot and killed outside their sprawling home.

5:08And he told investigators that he found the bodies when he'd come back from visiting his mother, who at the time had Alzheimer's. But investigators didn't buy it. Prosecutors didn't buy it. Ultimately, jurors didn't buy it either. They use cell phone video vehicle data. They use witness testimony to ultimately place Alec Murdoch at the scene. And so he ended up being convicted of killing his wife and son in March of 2023. So Murdoch filed an appeal right away and his lawyers started raising questions about what happened behind the scenes of the trial itself. Notably, the conduct of former court clerk Becky Hill.

5:51She really kind of dropped a grenade in the middle of all of this. Right, guys? Well, she did. She was later accused by the former Chief Justice of South Carolina of yielding to the siren call of celebrity because she was the it girl at the trial in the sense that so many people wanted to see that trial. She gave people seats, made sure they could get in. She had media from around the world who were pestering her for favors and attention. And, you know, I think it was a very heady experience. And Craig, Becky wrote a book that also really put her in the spotlight. Behind the Doors of Justice. That was the title of the book.

6:41Behind the Doors of Justice, the Murdoch Murders. It was a tell-all about the court proceedings. And if the Murdoch trial was a circus, Andrea, you could make the argument that Becky Hill may have been the ringmaster. I mean, anybody who spent any time there in the courtroom or outside the courthouse, I mean, yeah, she would hold court. I mean, it was very much her, it was her courtroom. How did Becky's actions violate Murdoch's right to a fair trial? Well, you know, a lot of it centers on stray comments that Becky made that some jurors heard. Little stray things that later those jurors said, you know, made them feel like that she wanted a certain outcome.

7:34Craig, she made a comment to the jurors as they began deliberations? Andrew, she did. And it was this particular comment, quote, this shouldn't take us long, implying that it was obvious that, you know, Alec Murdoch was guilty. So the defense argued that those remarks carried weight and they interfered with the jury's ability to deliberate independently. And based on the judge's decision, it would appear as if the high court of the Palmetto State agreed. And the justices said, you know, the prosecutors, even Murdoch's defense team, skillfully presented their cases to the jury. But their efforts were in vain, you know, because court clerk Becky Hill placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdoch his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury.

8:27Have we heard anything from Becky? I called Becky and she didn't call me back. At a hearing on this issue in 2024, she denied trying to influence the jury. So the big question is, what happens next? Murdoch isn't getting out of prison anytime soon. He's serving a 40-year sentence after pleading guilty in federal court to stealing millions from clients, along with a more than 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to financial crimes in state court. We should note that another reason his defense argued Murdoch didn't get a fair trial is that the prosecution was allowed to refer to those financial crimes at his murder trial.

9:08In their decision today, the Supreme Court did not include the financial crimes issue as a reason for a new trial because they said essentially Becky Hill's behavior was enough. And the interesting fact as we move forward toward a possible retrial is that the financial crimes were key for the prosecution's case as the motive for the murders. It was a crucial piece. And I mean, everybody wants to know why. And the financial crime seemed to explain that and lay out the why. Craig, you talked to the Attorney General, Alan Wilson, and he said publicly that he disagreed with the court's decision and vowed to aggressively seek to retry Murdoch as soon as possible.

9:51No one is above the law. And he said, as always, we will continue to fight for justice. Right. And when they say we're going to do this quickly, now we're talking about court and legalese and how long, how fast is quickly. But, you know, Alan Wilson is running for governor and there is also an election going on for a new attorney general. How do you think that's going to figure into this? I think if you look back at that news conference that happened right after the trial and the Attorney General of South Carolina was very much front and center and patting his prosecutors on the back and he showed up at the trial and sat at the table and that's fairly uncommon for the Attorney General.

10:39You know, this was a victory that helped define his term as AG. So it's a source of pride, you know, like it's, and now all of a sudden you have the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision, by the way. Unanimous, yeah, five to zero. Yeah, you've got the high court saying, well, wait a minute, not so fast. So, yes, I think that they want to retry it. I think they want to retry it for probably a variety of reasons. Speaking of Alec, any word from him or his team about this? This was not a surprise for Murdoch's team. Dick and Jim have been fairly confident over the last few months since their hearing at the Supreme Court that this would be the decision.

11:35By the way, they still maintain their client's innocence. It's not just that the cards were stacked against them and Becky Hill had her thumb on the scales of justice. They still maintain he did not do it. And that was, if you recall, in their closing arguments, they basically said, our client's not a good guy. He's a bad guy. He stole$12 million from the least among us. He'd been doing it for years. He developed this addiction. He's a bad dude. But he's not that bad. He's not a killer. Yeah. I do wonder if there is a retrial, if he actually takes the stand. Yeah. Maybe not. And I got the sense during my interviews over the course of the trial and before with his attorneys, I got the sense that they had their druthers.

12:29He probably would not have testified in the first trial. And so you got to wonder if they learn from that. Craig, you have covered this case extensively for Dateline and got some exclusive interviews in the past. Now you've got some new interviews for Dateline and the Today Show. Yes, we are going to talk exclusively to Alec Murdoch's legal team. And we're also going to talk to the attorney general as well to sort of help understand the state's thinking. So that's on the Today Show this morning and Dateline Friday night. It's the best combination, right? Yep. And Dateline will be Friday, 9, 8 central on NBC or on Peacock the next day.

13:14Craig and Carol, thank you so much for bringing us your perspective on all this, because you two have been covering this for such a long time. We're grateful that you came on today. Thank you. I'm grateful that Carol lets me work for her. We all are, Craig. I am so going to remember that.

13:37Coming up, investigators in Southern California dug up a backyard last week, hoping to find the body of Kristen Smart, the college student murdered almost 30 years ago. Josh Mankiewicz has the latest.

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15:26Kristen Smart was just 19 years old in 1996, a freshman at California Polytechnic State University, or Cal Poly, in San Luis Obispo, California. The last time anyone saw Kristen was on Memorial Day weekend as she was leaving an off-campus party with a fellow student named Paul Flores. While campus police suggested Kristen may have run off for a weekend trip, Her friends and family knew something was wrong.

15:52Laura Jarrett:We knew she wouldn't just take off. We knew she wouldn't do that. Kristen was very vocal about what she was doing or where she was going. But years passed, then decades without answers. Kristen's parents kept their daughter's disappearance in the spotlight, while investigators continued pursuing the case, increasingly focused on Paul Flores as their prime suspect. Eventually, in 2021, prosecutors charged Paul with Kristen's murder. He was convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. But the case hasn't been closed because Kristen's body has never been found. Then last week, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson made an announcement.

16:32A search was underway at the home belonging to Paul's mother, Susan. We arrived just before 7 to serve the search warrant. And we're prepared to go as long as it takes until we either find Kristen, find evidence, and are satisfied that everything has been searched. My colleague and friend, Josh Mankiewicz, who has been covering this case for years and spent time talking to Kristen's parents and investigators for his Dateline episode, Justice for Kristen Smart, is here to tell us more. Hey, Josh. Hello. Thank you for joining us. I know you know a lot about this case. And this latest search made front page news across the country.

17:13It was all over social media. This case just continues to capture a lot of attention. Well, it does. And that's because it isn't really over. Although there was a criminal trial, Paul Flores was absolutely convicted in that. Her body has never been found. And the Smart family, they have continued to press law enforcement for a search that would eventually turn up where their daughter is because they want to bring her home. Yeah. Gosh, understandably, what a horrible time for this family, all these decades. Josh, remind us about the case a little bit. You talked about Paul Flores. What did police know in the early days of this?

17:56She had been at a party off campus. This was right at the end of the school year. It was around Memorial Day weekend. And Paul Flores was there. And at the end of the party, she was either passed out or close to passed out on the lawn outside this house. Now, a bunch of people leave. He offers to walk her to her dorm, which is a very short distance away. And his story is she went to her dorm. I went to mine. That was it. But she is never seen again. Then he turns up after that with a black eye, and he's told a couple of different stories about how he got that black eye. The strong belief by law enforcement is that he either raped Kristen that night or attempted to, got a black eye in the process, and that somehow she died that night, either deliberately or as he was attempting to subdue her.

18:47There is just no way to know. Wow. So, cadaver dogs detected human decomposition in Paul's dorm room back in the early days, but it wasn't enough to charge him with anything. However, if we fast forward to 2021, 25 years after Kristen disappeared, he is arrested. Paul is finally arrested. What changed? Why so much time passing? You know, it's not like there was some DNA hit, you know, some telltale piece of fingerprinting. But it was a sheriff's department that really worked on this hard. It was a podcast by a guy named Christopher Lambert, who was not a journalist, was not a friend of the Smart family when this began, and had never investigated, I think, any criminal case before, but who sort of saw this case, saw the billboard about have you seen Kristen Smart on the highway, and wanted to get involved.

19:42And I'm retracing missing Cal Poly student Kristen Smart's last known steps. And that podcast ended up funneling a lot of tips to the sheriff's department, which also, in a wonderful development, was kind of conducive to receiving information from a nontraditional source like a podcast, because a lot of times law enforcement's not interested in that. Now, when Paul Flores was arrested, his dad was also arrested and accused of helping him conceal the body. They excavated below the dad's deck at his house, not the same house they were at this past weekend. And they found some signs that a body had been buried there.

20:23Paul was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. His dad, Ruben, was acquitted. How did Kristen's family react to the verdicts? On the one hand, I think they were elated that the person who was the only suspect, who had always been the only suspect, was finally tried and convicted. But that did not end this journey for them. They still wanted Kristen's body, and they haven't given up. All right, that brings us back to the search this past week at the home of Paul's mother, Susan Flores. At the time of the murder, she and Paul's dad, Ruben, were no longer together. And we should say, Josh, this isn't the first time her property has come under scrutiny.

21:07Investigators were there back in 1996 and didn't find anything. But in 2023, scientists working out of her neighbor's yard said they found evidence of human decomposition along her back fence. So, Josh, what brought investigators back to Susan's home this time? It does feel as if, and the sheriff sort of alluded to this in his comments the other day, that someone has told them something. I would say that there was information that was derived from what we have to deem as a witness, not in the context of I saw this happen. They contributed to it by information that they provided that helped. That's sort of what got them over the search warrant bar to start digging in her backyard.

21:55And they're not just digging in her backyard. They're taking soil samples and testing the vapor coming off that soil to look for signs of human decomposition. At the press conference last week, the sheriff revealed what his investigators had found in the first few days of their search. We can't call it Kristen, but, you know, we think there's evidence to support human remains there at one time. Once again, there is the scent or the finding of human decomposition, which was in Paul Flores' dorm room, which was under Paul Flores' father's deck, and which is underground at Paul Flores' mom's house.

22:36Coincidence? Homicide investigators will tell you that's not a coincidence. Josh, we should point out that Susan has never been charged in connection with this case, and she also declined to make any comment about the search. Saturday, the sheriff's department announced the search was over and that, unfortunately, they had not found Kristen's body. But you know what? It's just absolute torture for the Smart family. Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more, but they are absolutely committed to seeing this through. It sounds like the sheriff isn't done either. He said his detectives will evaluate the evidence they've uncovered in the search and his team remains committed to finding Kristen and bringing her home.

23:19Josh, thank you for joining us and bringing us your unique insight into this case and the latest developments. Thank you. Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. We've got updates from the case of Lynette Hooker, the woman who went missing in the Bahamas. And Dale Warner, the man convicted of murdering his wife and hiding her body in a fertilizer tank, learns his fate. Plus, the AI chatbots accused of helping killers plan their crimes. But can the chatbots be charged with a crime? NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett breaks it down for us.

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26:04Welcome back. Joining me for this week's roundup is Dateline producer Rachel White. Rachel, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me back. Okay, so Rachel, first, we are headed to Lenawee County Circuit Court in Michigan for the final chapter in a case we've been covering from the very beginning. We're talking about the murder of grandmother and entrepreneur Deanne Warner. at the hands of her husband, 58-year-old Dale Warner. Rachel, give us a quick recap. Yeah, so Dee went missing from the home she shared with her husband Dale in 2021. The couple owned several businesses together and had been married for 15 years.