A defense witness and former law partner of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh testified Wednesday that the crime scene where Murdaugh’s wife and son were murdered wasn’t properly cleared.

Mark Ball told jurors that he and more than a dozen other people – Murdaugh’s former law partners and friends – walked around the crime scene shortly after Murdaugh’s wife Maggie and son Paul were murdered. He said he arrived just 45 minutes after Murdaugh called 911, but before police arrived, The New York Post reported.

Ball also testified that he went back to the Murdaugh estate the day after the murders and found evidence left behind by investigators, including shotgun pellets, clumps of tissue, and even a piece of Paul’s skull.

“There was just a piece of Paul’s skull about the size of a baseball laying there,” Ball said. “And there was a large bloodspot tissue out right off of the apron of that area right outside the feed room. That was there and it’s kind of like walking across the grave, just, it’s one of those things you just don’t do.”

Ball added that he had access to the crime scene because it wasn’t properly secured, with him and others who weren’t involved in the investigation able to walk around freely. He said that it had been drizzling the night of the murders and that water was dripping onto Paul’s body while officers investigated the scene.

“It’s a crime scene. You don’t want water dripping all over the place, but more importantly, I thought it was pretty disrespectful. Paul was a good young man and quite frankly it just pissed me off,” Ball told jurors.

It wasn’t the first time the defense has argued that the crime scene wasn’t properly secured. Last week, the Murdaugh’s former housekeeper testified that she found several odd things as she moved around the house the day after the murders, such as the pots from the dinner she had prepared the night before being put away when they were usually left for her the next morning.

She also found Maggie’s pajamas laid out neatly on the floor of the doorway leading to the laundry room, something the housekeeper said wouldn’t normally happen.

It also appeared as though someone had showered in the home since she found a puddle of water on the floor next to the shower, a damp towel, a pair of khaki pants, and a white T-shirt.

All of this, the defense argued, showed how police didn’t secure the property while they were investigating.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences isn’t taking any chances with this year’s Oscars ceremony after the absolute fiasco in 2022.

During an interview, the organization’s CEO Bill Kramer told Time that the group has diligently prepared for all kinds of drama ahead of the Academy Awards, which will be broadcast on Sunday, March 12.

“We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place,” he told the publication. “We’ve run many scenarios. So it is our hope that we will be prepared for anything that we may not anticipate right now but that we’re planning for just in case it does happen.”

It’s all being done as a response to the viral moment during the 2022 ceremony when award nominee Will Smith strode onto the stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock across the face for making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who was also in the audience. 

Rock responded by saying, “Wow, Will Smith just smacked the s*** out of me,” while an irate Smith returned to his seat, saying, “Keep my wife’s name out your f***ing mouth.”

A short time later, Smith was invited onstage to accept the Best Actor award for his work in “King Richard.” The Academy has since been criticized for allowing Smith to stay in the audience.

The Academy issued a statement later in the evening saying it does not “condone violence in any form.” Smith apologized to Rock and the audience the day after the incident and resigned from the Academy the same week. AMPAS eventually banned Smith from attending the Oscars for 10 years.

The organization’s CEO is adamant that nothing like the slap can happen again, thanks partly to the crisis team being in place.

“Because of last year, we’ve opened our minds to the many things that can happen at the Oscars,” Kramer said of this year’s show. 

“But these crisis plans — the crisis communication teams and structures we have in place — allow us to say, ‘This is the group that we have to gather very quickly. This is how we all come together. This is the spokesperson. This will be the statement.’ And obviously, depending on the specifics of the crisis, and let’s hope something doesn’t happen and we never have to use these, but we already have frameworks in place that we can modify.”