Six questions from Alex Murdaugh's murder trial that need answers trends now

Dozens of witnesses have taken the stand, first responders and close family friends - but so many questions remain in Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial with the defense yet to bring their case.

His lawyers are facing evidence of calls deleted from the alleged killer's phone, a video which places him at the crime scene and another that shows he changed his clothes on the night that Maggie and Paul were shot dead at the family's sprawling hunting estate in Moselle in South Carolina's Lowcountry on June 7, 2021.

Prosecutors say he killed the pair because the walls were closing in on his financial crimes - with soaring debts in the millions and a pending lawsuit over a fatal crash in which Paul was driving his father's boat under the influence.

But the defense say the claim is 'ludicrous' and instead theorize Paul and Maggie were killed in revenge for the boat accident which left 19-year-old Mallory Beach dead in February, 2019.

On the day of the killings, Murdaugh changed his clothes. Video shows him wearing a dress shirt and pants an hour before the shootings. When police arrived he was wearing a white t-shirt and shorts and appeared 'clean from head to toe.' 

Searches of the property uncovered no bloody clothes, but the t-shirt and shorts were found to have traces of blood. The defense say this can be explained because Murdaugh checked Maggie and Paul's blood-soaked bodies for a pulse. 

The state says another video taken by Paul proves Murdaugh was at the murder scene, with two witnesses testifying that they can hear the voices of Paul, Maggie and Alex in the footage at the kennels at 8.44pm. Prosecutors say Maggie and Paul were shot dead shortly after 8.49pm.

The defense have not yet countered their claims or offered an explanation. 

Cell phone records show that Murdaugh deleted five calls he made to Maggie after the prosecution say he killed her. The defense are yet to offer an explanation for this, and yet, it seems to contradict the prosecution's suggestion that he was seeking to 'manufacture an alibi' by making a series of calls in the hour after the murders.

Two guns were used, a shotgun on Paul and a rifle on Maggie, but no murder weapon has ever been found. The defense say this goes to their theory that somebody else killed Maggie and Paul. 

Here DailyMail.com presents six questions from the double murder trial: 

WHY DID HE CHANGE AND WHERE ARE HIS CLOTHES?

Murdaugh changed his clothes on the night of the killings.

He was wearing a white t-shirt and khaki shorts when police arrived and appeared 'clean from head to toe.'

But a Snapchat video taken at 7.56pm by Paul shows that Murdaugh was wearing a dress shirt and long pants an hour before the killings.

It is not clear whether those clothes were ever located. A search of the house was carried out by detective Katie McAllister the day after the killings on June 8.

She had a search warrant but opted for a 'consent search' out of consideration for the family - there were some 25 to 30 grieving people at the house and she did not want to turf them out.

McAllister searched every room in the house while being accompanied by Murdaugh's brother, John Marvin and a lawyer from his firm, Lee Cope.

She said she found no bloody clothes and no evidence that blood had been washed away in any of the bathrooms. However, no forensic examination was conducted.

The pristine white t-shirt and shorts Murdaugh was wearing when cops arrived were forensically examined.

SLED investigator Melinda Worley told jurors that after testing his shirt and shorts, they came back with a presumptive positive result.

However, the court also heard that false positives can also be triggered by the presence of bleach or rust.

Murdaugh's lawyers made legal filings before trial that law enforcement had 'destroyed' his t-shirt and relied on the expert opinion of a retired policeman without scientific credentials.

Prosecutors hired Tom Bevel 'to opine that the white cotton T-shirt Mr. Murdaugh wore the night Maggie and Paul were murdered is stained with high-velocity blood spatter, most likely resulting from shooting Paul,' the filing in November stated.

But Bevel's first report 'emphatically said the shirt contained no stains consistent with back spatter resulting from a gunshot', said the filing by defense attorneys Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin.

'Yet for some reason, without any additional evidence he changed his opinion entirely after an in-person visit from lead [South Carolina Law Enforcement Division] SLED investigator David Owen,' they wrote.

Photos of the t-shirt showed it stained blue with sections cut out.

Murdaugh's attorneys said this would 'prevent anyone else from conducting subsequent tests.'

In another January motion, Murdaugh's defense lawyers stated the t-shirt was tested for blood 12 times with negative results.

The defense argued that any blood present is only on the bottom third of the shirt and was only transferred when Murdaugh 'frantically checked them for signs of life,' on his wife and son.

WHY WERE HIS HANDS CLEAN?

Murdaugh told 911 he had checked his wife and son's pulses - but when cops arrived they saw no blood on him.

Blood was everywhere at the scene; there were pools of blood under Maggie and Paul and spatters across the ceiling and walls of the kennel.

Murdaugh's attorney, Dick Harpootlian, told jurors Paul's head 'literally exploded ... like a watermelon.'

The alleged killer said he had even tried rolling Paul's body over but detective Laura Rutland, one of the first on the scene, said he was 'clean from head to toe'.

Rutland testified that she saw no visible footprints or knee prints near the bodies.

SLED investigator Worley testified that swabs of Murdaugh's Chevrolet Suburban came back with likely positive results for blood around the driver and front passenger sides. 

Murdaugh fired up his car at 9.06pm - the prosecution say soon after the killings - and drove to his mother's residence in Almeda, around 15 minutes away.

His mother's caregiver Michelle 'Shelley' Smith had a conversation with Murdaugh while he was there - she is listed as a witness but has not yet given evidence.

WHY DOES HE DELETE FIVE CALLS TO MAGGIE FROM HIS CELL PHONE?

Murdaugh made five calls to Maggie between 9.04pm and 9.06pm - shortly before he left to visit his mother in Almeda - and then twice more at 9.45pm and 10.03pm - apparently on his way back to Moselle.

The calls were deleted from Murdaugh's call log - but they did appear in Maggie's.

At 9.47pm, Murdaugh texted Maggie, saying: 'Call me babe.' 

Prosecutors say that at 8.49pm Maggie and Paul's phones locked forever and they were killed shortly after.

However, Maggie's phone continued to record movement, steps and orientation changes.

Murdaugh's phone showed regular movement throughout the evening - but between 8.09pm and 9.02pm there are no steps recorded.

Maggie's phone was discovered on a roadside a quarter mile from the crime scene the following afternoon, while Paul's was found resting on his back after Murdaugh told cops it fell out of

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