The body of a teenager found dead near the Murdaugh estate will be exhumed
A South Carolina Highway Patrol investigation of the death of a 19-year-old nursing student named Stephen Murdaugh: a defamatory statement
The family of a teenager who was found dead eight years ago on a road near the hunting estate of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh says they’re going to exhume his body for an independent autopsy.
The body of a 19-year-old nursing student named Stephen Smith was found in the middle of a South Carolina road in 2015, and is being investigated as a murder.
Sandy Smith, Stephen’s sister, thanked everyone who helped her raise funds forStephen’s exhumation on a GoFundMe page.
Earlier this month, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of the 2021 shooting deaths of his wife and son, Maggie and Paul, and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in state prison. He admitted to lying to police but insisted that he did not kill the pair.
A spokesperson said at the time that the agency would look into Smith’s death “based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.”
Though he’s been convicted of the two murders, Murdaugh still faces a slew of other criminal charges related to alleged financial crimes, some of which the former lawyer admitted to on the stand during his trial.
The name Alex Murdaugh is often mentioned by witnesses and investigators during interviews from the initial South Carolina Highway Patrol investigation.
During one audio interview of a witness, someone says thatBuster was on their radar. The Murdaughs are aware of that. But why he was on everyone’s radar is not clear. Neither he nor anyone else has been charged in the case.
Buster Murdaugh, a former classmate of Smith’s, released a statement Monday – his first on the matter – denying any involvement in Smith’s death and “requesting that the media immediately stop publishing these defamatory comments and rumors about me.”
The officer who responded to the scene noted there was no vehicle debris, skid marks or injuries consistent with someone being struck by a vehicle.
Stephen would never have been walking in the middle of the road and he was very nervous, according to notes from investigators.
His vehicle was found about three miles away, that report said, with the gas tank door open and the gas cap hanging out on the side of the car. The car wouldn’t start because the battery didn’t work, according to the report.
Bland: Detecting Smith’s death without a criminal case at the Crabbin synagogue. The case is still open
“Our job is not to find out who did it,” Bland told reporters in a virtual news conference Monday. We are not doing a criminal case, but we are trying to give a mother answers.
Bland said that the investigation would look at Smith’s life and who he was with in the days before his death. Anything learned, Bland said, would be shared with law enforcement.
