Katie McCallister — Direct/Cross
194 linesJUDGE NEWMAN: Thank you. You may call your next witness.
MS. GOUDE: The State calls Katie McCallister.
The witness, KATIE MCCALLISTER, was first duly sworn and testified as follows:
COURT CLERK: Take a seat in the witness stand. State your name again for the record and spell your last name.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: It's Katie McCallister. M-c-c-a-l-l-i-s-t-e-r.
DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MS. GOUDE:
MS. GOUDE: Good afternoon, Agent McCallister.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Hello.
MS. GOUDE: Could you please tell the jury where you work?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I work for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, more commonly known as SLED.
MS. GOUDE: And how long have you worked for SLED?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Ten years.
MS. GOUDE: And what is your position there?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I'm a senior special agent in the Lowcountry Region Investigative Services.
MS. GOUDE: And were you a senior special agent back in -- on June 7th of 2021?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I was just a regular special agent then.
MS. GOUDE: Okay. Did you have a chance to respond to Moselle Road in that capacity as a SLED agent?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did.
MS. GOUDE: Can you tell us when you responded out there?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I was told to -- late on the night of June 7th to be at the office on June 8th. I was given some assignments, and then I responded to the actual property around lunchtime on June the 8, 2021.
MS. GOUDE: So, June the 8th, the day after the murders.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes.
MS. GOUDE: And what did you do when you got out there?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Myself and Special Agent Croft were almost to the house. There were several people in the roadway; it appeared to be blocked, so we stopped and got out.
MS. GOUDE: Did you -- what were those people up to?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: There had been a phone located on the side of the road.
MS. GOUDE: Okay, and whose phone was that?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: It was Maggie Murdaugh's cell phone.
MS. GOUDE: And can you tell us about your involvement in the collection of Maggie Murdaugh's cell phone?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes. So, once we got out of the car, I had gloves. Captain Neill retrieved the phone from where it was laying. I was standing right beside him when he got a phone call. He handed me the phone with my gloved hands. I held the phone for Investigator Hightower to take a picture of it. The phone call was Captain Neill receiving the pass code. He asked me to confirm it. I typed it in. We confirmed that it was the right pass code. I locked the phone. At that point, Investigator Hightower asked me to put it in airplane mode, which I did.
MS. GOUDE: And so what was the point of you putting the pass code into the phone?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: To confirm that the pass code we were given matched the actual phone that we had.
MS. GOUDE: To confirm that was Maggie Murdaugh's phone?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes.
MS. GOUDE: Okay, and when you unlocked that phone, did you delete any calls?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did not.
MS. GOUDE: Did you delete any text messages?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did not.
MS. GOUDE: Did you alter any data in that phone?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did not.
MS. GOUDE: You locked that phone back immediately?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yeah. As soon as it opened, you know, the screen clears to show that that is the right pass code, I immediately locked it back.
MS. GOUDE: And then what happened to the phone as far as you know?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Captain Neill, who was standing right beside me, took the phone back.
MS. GOUDE: All right, let's move on. What else did you do?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: So once I arrived on scene, I, myself, along with Special Agent Croft, were asked to go up to the main house to do a search of the property, or of the home.
MS. GOUDE: Did you have a search warrant?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: There was a search warrant, yes.
MS. GOUDE: Was that search warrant executed?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: It was not.
MS. GOUDE: Why not?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: At the time of my arrival, multiple family, close friends were at the house. Rather than executing the search warrant and displacing all of those people, we asked for consent and we were given it.
MS. GOUDE: And were a lot of people at that residence at the time?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: There were.
MS. GOUDE: If you could give us kind a rough estimate of the amount of people that were there?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I would say maybe twenty or twenty-five people were in the home.
MS. GOUDE: And you didn't want to have so ask all of those people to leave?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Some of them were very upset, and we thought it was better to simply ask for consent.
MS. GOUDE: Tell us what you found in the search of the house.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: So upon consent, I walked through the residence. I was looking for weapons and ammunition and observant to anything else that may have been of value. I found nothing. And once I came back downstairs to the gun room, Agent Croft had located several items of interest, some weapons and ammunition. He and I collected those. I completed a property receipt.
MS. GOUDE: Let's go back to your search a little bit. When you walked through the house, were you alone?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I was not.
MS. GOUDE: Who was with you?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I believe it was John Marvin Murdaugh and Lee Cope.
MS. GOUDE: And who are those people?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: John Marvin Murdaugh is Alex Murdaugh's brother; Lee Cope is an attorney from their law firm.
MS. GOUDE: And what rooms of the house did you search?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: All of them.
MS. GOUDE: And John Marvin and Lee Cope were with you when you went into every room?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: They were.
MS. GOUDE: Did you search any other places?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: We searched bathrooms, tubs. There were several attic type spaces where different holiday decorations were stored. We looked in there, or I looked in there, and we didn't locate anything of value.
MS. GOUDE: Did you look anywhere that you thought there could be a long gun?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes.
MS. GOUDE: Did you observe any bloody clothing when you were searching the residence?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did not.
MS. GOUDE: And you said you were observant?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I was.
MS. GOUDE: You mentioned that Agent Croft had collected some weapons and some ammunition?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: He did.
MS. GOUDE: Would that be the three shotguns, a Mossberg, the Browning, and a Benelli Super Eagle, along with a 300 Blackout rifle?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes.
MS. GOUDE: And then some various ammunition?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes.
MS. GOUDE: And what did you do with -- with those items?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: So, we gathered them together. I filled out the property receipt. We took them back to the SLED office here in Walterboro where we met with the crime scene agent, Agent Worley, and I receipted those items to her.
MS. GOUDE: So, Agent Worley took custody of those items.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: She did.
MS. GOUDE: Do you recall at some point speaking or being present in an interview with Buster Murdaugh?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I was.
MS. GOUDE: And was any evidence collected during that interview?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes. We asked him for consent to do a buccal swab and also consent to look at his cell phone.
MS. GOUDE: I'm going to show you State's Exhibit 217. If you could, tell me what that exhibit appears to be.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: This appears to be the buccal swab from Richard Alexander Buster Murdaugh, Jr., collected June 10, 2021, at 3:26 p.m.
MS. GOUDE: Now, did you collect this buccal swab?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did not.
MS. GOUDE: Who collected it?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Lieutenant Charles Ghent with SLED.
MS. GOUDE: Were you present when it was collected?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I was.
MS. GOUDE: How did Lieutenant Ghent collect this swab?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: A buccal swab is just two cotton swabs. He opened them from the packaging, swabbed his mouth, sealed them back up, placed them in the envelope you see there, sealed it, initialed it, and dated it.
MS. GOUDE: And he would have sealed that up so it was not tampered with. Is that correct?
MS. GOUDE: Your Honor, at this time I would move State's Exhibit 217 into evidence.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: No objection.
JUDGE NEWMAN: It's admitted without objection.
(BUCCAL SWAB MARKED AS STATE'S EXHIBIT NUMBER 217 WAS RECEIVED INTO EVIDENCE.)
MS. GOUDE: Your Honor, I have no further questions for this witness at this time.
JUDGE NEWMAN: Cross-examination?
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Please the Court, Your Honor?
JUDGE NEWMAN: Yes, sir.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
BY MR. HARPOOTLIAN:
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: You were present when the phone, Maggie's phone, was recovered, correct?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir, I was.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Matter of fact, is that -- if we look at one of these pictures, the rubber glove, that's your hand, correct?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir, it is.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: And are you aware when you got that call with the pass code, that had been gotten by John Marvin? Was John Marvin down there with you when you found the phone?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I don't recall seeing him there, no, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Are you aware that that pass code came from Alex Murdaugh?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: No, sir, I was not aware of that.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: And who gave it to you?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Captain Neill.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Now, you searched the house on the morning of -- was it the morning of the 8th?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: It would have been the afternoon.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Okay, and you went through the entire house?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: How many bedrooms in that house? You know how many -- well, how many bathrooms in that house?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Three or four. I don't recall the exact number.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Yeah, but you went through every one of them.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: And you looked at the tub, you looked at the showers, right?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: What were you looking for?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Ammunition, weapons.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Blood?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: If it was there. I was observant; we were looking for anything at that point.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Right. So, when you look at the drain in a shower, if somebody has recently showered off blood, you would expect to see some trace evidence there, would you not?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I don't know that I'm qualified to answer that.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Do you know whether any -- I mean, there are trace evidence forensics people that actually go in and swab with those, right?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: There are, yes, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Were they there?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: No, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Did anyone ever ask them to come that you know of?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Not that I'm aware of, no, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Do you know whether any of those showers or tubs were in any way swabbed or checked for blood or tissue or any DNA, anything that would indicate somebody had washed off evidence of a crime?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Nothing that I'm aware of.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Okay, but you visually -- apparently you were the only one that did this, correct?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: The only person that actually looked at the showers and the tubs. You eyeballed them, right?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: You're the only person who SLED had examine these showers and tubs, and you're telling this jury that you saw no evidence of blood, tissue, anything that would indicate somebody had showered or washed off or bathed to remove evidence of a crime from that. Is that what you're telling us?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir. There was nothing visible to me.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: And you were the only one asked to do that by SLED.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: As far as I'm aware, yes, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Did you search the bedrooms?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Did you find any clothes anywhere, shirt, pants, shoes, that would indicate --
MS. GOUDE: Objection, Your Honor. Could we ask one question at a time, please?
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: I'm including a class rather than asking it individually, I apologize. I can do it individually. It will take a little longer.
JUDGE NEWMAN: The objection is overruled.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Thank you.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Any clothes, shoes, any evidence of clothing that had blood on it, or indicated it had blood on it, or tissue, anything that you saw in any of the bedrooms? How many bedrooms?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Several.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Several. You looked at all of them.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Yes, sir, I did.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Looked under the beds?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: In the closet?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: I did.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Did you see any evidence of any clothes that had been involved in any sort of altercation that would have left blood or tissue or brains? Did you see anything like that in any one of those rooms?
KATIE MCCALLISTER: No, sir. I didn't find anything like that.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Beg the Court's indulgence.
(Break in proceedings.)
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Thank you. No further questions.
JUDGE NEWMAN: Any redirect?
MS. GOUDE: Not from the State, Your Honor.
JUDGE NEWMAN: Thank you. You can step down.
KATIE MCCALLISTER: Thank you.
(The witness exited the stand.)
JUDGE NEWMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have you leave for the day and return tomorrow at --11:30 will be our start time tomorrow, 11:30. So, you get a few extra hours today and tomorrow. Please remember not to discuss the case, to be exposed to any information concerning the case, and we will see you tomorrow. If you'll go to the jury room.
(The jury left the courtroom.)
JUDGE NEWMAN: If everyone will be seated. Mr. Waters, you can continue with the 404.
MR. WATERS: Yes, sir, Your Honor. I might have miscalculated by about 30 minutes. I apologize. The witness is close by. He'll be here in a moment.
(Break in proceedings.)
MR. WATERS: Do you mind if I make a phone call real quick, Your Honor?
JUDGE NEWMAN: Yes, sir.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Your Honor, may we be at ease while he does that?
JUDGE NEWMAN: Yes. We'll be at ease for a few minutes.
MR. HARPOOTLIAN: Thank you, Your Honor.
(A break was taken.)
JUDGE NEWMAN: You may be seated. You may call your next witness.