He said he hopes the judge will see there is “good cause” to believe that “a fresh set of eyes, new autopsy could heed a different conclusion” as to what happened to the 19-year-old victim. Mr Bland said that investigators will be hired to “start over” on the case – coming to it “from scratch” and “without preconceived notions”.įirstly, he explained that the legal team – of him and attorney Ronnie Richter – will file a petition to a judge in the next week to 10 days asking for permission to exhume Smith’s body. He added that he believes it is the latter – something the family hopes a fresh investigation could resolve.Īfter raising around $65,000 through a GoFundme campaign, Smith’s family is now paying for an independent investigation – including the exhumation of his body and an independent autopsy. This means that the panel either returned an indictment and the attorney general is sitting on it or there is not enough information for an indictment, he said. In January 2023, SLED only said it had “made progress” in the case.ĭuring Monday’s press conference, Mr Bland said that a grand jury investigating Smith’s death was “no longer in panel”. It is not clear what information prompted the launch of the investigation into Smith’s death and no further details have been released over the course of the last 21 months. Just days after the murders, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) led announced that it was reopening an investigation into Smith’s death based on information that had come to light during the investigation into Maggie and Paul’s murders. Then, on 7 June 2021, Murdaugh gunned down Maggie and Paul on the affluent family’s sprawling 1,700-acre estate in Islandton and the Smith case came under the spotlight once more. Smith had been a classmate of Buster Murdaugh – Alex Murdaugh’s eldest and now only surviving son – and there were rumours that the two had been in a relationship around the time of his death.įor years, Smith’s mother fought for answers and tried to keep his death in the local spotlight – but the case was closed and there were no developments for six years. The Murdaugh name repeatedly cropped up 40 times in documents in the initial case and there had long been murmurings in the community that a “Murdaugh boy” may have been involved, reported Live5News. Police reports also revealed that some of Smith’s injuries were inconsistent with being struck by a car.įor the past almost eight years, Smith’s family has believed the 19-year-old was murdered and not the victim of a hit-and-run. Smith’s car was also left abandoned three miles down the road with the gas cap removed. There were no skid marks around his body, no vehicular debris, and Smith’s loosely tied shoes were still on his feet – all evidence which cast doubts on him being struck and killed by a vehicle. Smith had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his car was found around three miles from his body.Īt the time, his death was ruled a hit and run – a ruling that his mother, investigators on the original case and members of the local community have long disputed. Smith, a 19-year-old openly gay teenager and nursing student, was found dead in a road in Hampton County, South Carolina, in the early hours of 8 July 2015 – just 15 miles from the Murdaugh’s Moselle estate where Maggie and Paul were murdered six years later. Throughout the trial, Buster and his other family members put on a united front in the courtroom – attending each day of the trial in a show of support for Murdaugh.īuster also testified in his father’s defence that he had been “destroyed” and “heartbroken” in the aftermath of the deaths of his mother and brother.Īs his father was led out of the courthouse after his sentencing, a bystander shouted “Buster is next” for “justice” – an apparent reference to the Smith case. In the weeks since his father’s high-profile murder trial, Buster, 26, and his girlfriend Brooklyn White have filed multiple police reports complaining about being followed by members of the media. I am requesting that the media immediately stop publishing these defamatory comments and rumors about me.”īuster, 26, is the eldest and now only living son of Maggie and Alex Murdaugh. “I unequivocally deny any involvement in his death, and my heart goes out to the Smith family. These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his death are false. “Before, during and since my father’s trial, I have been targeted and harassed by the media and followers of this story.
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