DENVER (AP) — The banged-up Minnesota Wild were without defenseman Zach Bogosian for Game 5 against Colorado on Wednesday night because of a lower-body injury.
It's a blow to a Wild team facing elimination and already missing center Joel Eriksson Ek and defenseman Jonas Brodin. Eriksson Ek and Brodin have yet to play in the Avalanche series due to lower body injuries. Wild coach John Hynes said before the game that Eriksson Ek skated Wednesday back in Minnesota.
Defenseman Jeff Petry stepped into the lineup for Bogosian.
Colorado remained without forward Artturi Lehkonen and defenseman Sam Malinski. Both missed Game 4 with upper-body injuries.
Avalanche coach Jared Bednar stayed with Mackenzie Blackwood in net after his 19-save performance in a 5-2 victory Monday night. He took over for Scott Wedgewood in Game 3.
“Go with the hot goalie for a while,” Bednar explained after morning skate. “If they struggle at all, we go to the next guy. The next guy’s done an amazing job of keeping himself ready, getting the work that he needs on and off the ice, mentally putting themselves in a good spot to be ready to come help us win a hockey game.”
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Colorado Avalanche center Nazem Kadri, right, shoots while defended by Minnesota Wild defenseman Zach Bogosian (24) during the second period of Game 3 of an NHL Stanley Cup hockey second-round playoff series Saturday, May 9, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Alex Murdaugh’s murder convictions and life sentence for the deaths of his wife and son were overturned Wednesday by the South Carolina Supreme Court because the court clerk at his trial suggested he was guilty.
But the disgraced lawyer won’t be leaving prison anytime soon.
Prosecutors say they plan to retry Murdaugh, which likely means there will be another lengthy trial for the case that because of the combination of money, power, Southern accents and treachery has become a true crime sensation with several streaming miniseries, best selling books and dozens of true crime podcasts.
Murdaugh, 57, will remain in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing around $12 million from his clients and currently is serving a 40-year federal sentence at the same time as a 27-year state sentence for his financial crimes.
Prosecutors haven't closed the door on appealing the ruling, but said Wednesday they are concentrating on aggressively seek to try Murdaugh again on the murder charges preferably sometime in 2026. State Attorney General Alan Wilson saying he respected the court's decision but no one is above the law.
Murdaugh's lawyers pointed out that trial will look a lot different, as the justices also ruled days of evidence at the murder trial about how Murdaugh stole from clients, many of them in dire straits, shouldn't be allowed next time.
Still, the ruling is a win for Murdaugh, who admits to being a thief, liar, insurance cheat and bad lawyer, but has adamantly denied killing his wife Maggie and younger son Paul since he found their bodies outside their home in 2021.
“Alex has said from day one that he did not kill his wife and son. We look forward to a new trial,” Murdaugh’s lawyers Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin said in a joint statement.
The defense has detailed the lack of physical evidence — no DNA or blood was found splattered on Murdaugh or any of his clothes, even though the killings were at close range with powerful weapons that were never found.
Prosecutors argued that the clerk’s comments were fleeting and the evidence against Murdaugh was overwhelming.
Murdaugh told investigators for months he hadn’t seen his wife and son for about an hour before they were killed. But investigators eventually cracked the passcode on Paul Murdaugh’s phone and found a video with a barking dog and Alex Murdaugh’s voice admonishing it five minutes before the young man stopped using his phone.
Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex schemes to steal money from clients and his family’s law firm were starting to unravel so he killed his wife and son to divert attention and buy time to find a way out of his problems.
In their unanimous ruling Wednesday, the South Carolina Supreme Court said the conduct by Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” by suggesting to jurors his testimony could not be trusted.
A few jurors said Hill, assigned to oversee the evidence and the jury during the trial, told them to watch Murdaugh's body language when he testified in his own defense and to not be fooled, confused or thrown off by what he might say.
“By urging the jurors not to be fooled or convinced by Murdaugh’s defense, Hill essentially implored the jurors to find him guilty, the ultimate issue in the case,” the justices wrote, adding that the comments insinuated there was something unusual and suspicious about his decision to testify.
Hill “placed her fingers on the scales of justice, thereby denying Murdaugh his right to a fair trial by an impartial jury,” the justices wrote. “Our justice system provides — indeed demands — that every person is entitled to a fair trial."
The court said Hill's motivation was the “siren call of celebrity” and her goal was to increase sales of her book on the trial called “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders.” It was pulled from publication after plagiarism allegations were made.
“As her book’s title suggests, it turns out Hill was quite busy behind the doors of justice, thwarting the integrity of the justice system she was sworn to protect and uphold,” the justices wrote in an unsigned 27-page ruling.
Hill’s attorney in her criminal case didn’t return a phone call or email seeking comment.
Hill has pleaded guilty to lying about what she said and did during the Murdaugh trial, including showing graphic crime scene photos to several media members. The journalists were not named and the photos were not described at her December hearing.
“The court rightly described her conduct as "‘breathtaking,’ ‘disgraceful,’ and ‘unprecedented in South Carolina,' ” Murdaugh's lawyers said.
Prosecutors argued that the clerk’s comments were fleeting and the evidence against Murdaugh was overwhelming.
The justices also had a warning for the next judge to try the murder case — be cautious on how much evidence of Murdaugh's thefts from his law firm and clients to allow those jurors to hear.
Some brief evidence of how Murdaugh stole is fine and how it might connect to him killing his wife and son. But the court said details like how some of the people Murdaugh stole from were disabled or vulnerable could unfairly turn against him jurors who should be focused just on whether he killed his family.
The chief prosecutor in the case said he doesn't regret piling on all the financial crime evidence he could in the initial trial because if the jury finds Murdaugh not guilty, they can't try him again,
“You don’t hit a home run if you’re afraid to strike out,” prosecutor Creighton Waters said at a Wednesday news conference.
Wilson is a Republican running for South Carolina's open governor's seat this year. He said politics won't play into any of his decisions on this case and it is the employees of the office, not its elected leader who will the backbone of the prosecution.
“The decision on whether to nor to purse this case is not going to be built on who the next occupant of my office” is, Wilson said. "It’s going to be built on should we seek justice or not.”
FILE - Alex Murdaugh, convicted of killing his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul, in June 2021, listens during a hearing on the motion for a retrial, Jan. 16, 2024, at the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, S.C. (Gavin McIntyre/The Post and Courier via AP, Pool, File)
FILE - Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca "Becky" Hill listens during her guilty plea, Dec. 8, 2025, in St. Matthews, S.C. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins, File)
FILE - Disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh arrives in court in Beaufort, S.C., Sept. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/James Pollard, File)
