Stephen Smith family says he was killed ‘somewhere else’ before body was ‘placed’ in road near Murdaugh home

The family of a teenager who died in mysterious circumstances in 2015 has said they believe he was killed “somewhere else” before his body was “placed” in the middle of a road close to the Murdaugh’s family home.

Stephen 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 Alex Murdaugh murdered his wife Maggie and son Paul six years later.

Smith had suffered blunt force trauma to the head and his car was found around three miles from his body.

At 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.

The Murdaugh name repeatedly cropped up during the investigation and a new state probe was opened into his death just days after the June 2021 murders of Maggie and Paul.

Following Murdaugh’s murder conviction earlier this month, Smith’s mother Sandy Smith has raised funds to pay for his body to be exhumed and for an independent autopsy to be carried out.

Speaking in a press conference on Monday morning, attorneys for Smith’s mother Sandy Smith revealed that they believe the 19-year-old died in a different location to where his body was discovered.

“We think he did not die on that road that night,” said attorney Eric Bland, adding that they “don’t expect it to be vehicular manslaughter”.

Mr Bland said that they expect a new autopsy could “heed a different conclusion that maybe he was killed somewhere else”.

Attorney Ronnie Richter said that the events surrounding Smith’s death did not fit with the official account of how he died – nor with Smith’s habits and behaviours.

Smith’s body was found at around 4am on the morning of 8 July 2015 in the middle of Sandy Run Road.

There were no skid marks around his body, no vehicular debris, and Smith’s loosely tied shoes were still on his feet, he said – all evidence which cast doubts on him being struck and killed by a vehicle.

Smith’s car was also three miles down the road with the gas cap removed.

“While it appeared he had broken down and walked for help, he never called for help from his cellphone he had on his body,” said Mr Richter.

Ms Smith said that Smith was cautious person who would not have walked along the road – especially given a route through the fields would have been quicker.

He also wouldn’t have left his wallet in his car, she said, and would have called his twin sister for help.

Because he was openly gay in the lowcountry, Mr Bland said that Smith “had to be cautious” and had to have something of a “secret life”.

“Being gay in the lowcountry is not easy, he had to live a secret, careful life,” he said.

Mr Bland added that Smith’s injuries did not suggest he was struck by a vehicle, saying that he only had shoulder up injuries and therefore did not appear to have been struck by a bumper.

Despite the connection to the Murdaughs, Mr Bland insisted that this is not about convicted killer Alex Murdaugh.

“This is not an Alex Murdaugh 2.0 or any other Murdaugh 2.0. This is a Stephen Smith 2.0,” he said.

“This is about Stephen,” he said, adding that they just want to “give a mother answers” about her son’s death.

After raising around $65,000 through a GoFundme campaign, Smith’s family is now paying for an independent investigation to determine what happened that fateful night.

Mr Bland said that investigators will be hired to “start over” on the case – coming to it “from scratch” and “without preconceived notions”.

Firstly, 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.

The investigation will also “look at [Stephen’s life]” focusing on the 90 days before his death on 8 July 2015 including who he was associating with, who his friends were, his communications and plans he had made prior to his death.

“A lot of pre-death communications can be relevant and the post-death communications of some people could be relevant,” he said.

He did not reveal who he could be referring to.

He pointed to the techniques used in Murdaugh’s murder trial which used cellphone data such as GPS data and call logs to track the victims’ and killer’s movements – saying that they would be looking to employ similar technological techniques as part of the investigation.

Any information gathered through the independent autopsy would then be shared with SLED, he said.

Ms Smith said that – after almost eight years – she is hoping to finally find out the “real reason” for her son’s sudden death.

“I hope to find the real reason for Stephen’s death and the real why,” she said at Monday’s press conference.

For 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.

Investigators who worked on the initial case have also doubted the official version of events.

Police reports revealed that the scene, and some of Smith’s injuries, were inconsistent with being struck by a car.

There have also long been murmurings in the community that a “Murdaugh boy” may have been involved and the Murdaugh name came up 40 times in documents in the initial case, reported Live5News.

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.

For 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.

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.

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.

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.

In January 2023, SLED only said it had “made progress” in the case.

Earlier this month, Murdaugh was convicted of Maggie and Paul’s murders, following a dramatic six-week trial in Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina.

He has been sentenced to life in prison and is now in the custody of the South Carolina prison system.

As the convicted killer and disgraced attorney was led out of the courthouse, a bystander shouted that “Buster is next” for “justice” – an apparent reference to the Smith case.

Following his conviction, Ms Smith launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to pay for her son’s body to be exhumed and an independent autopsy conducted.

“We feel it’s critical to seek a new goal - an independent exhumation and autopsy - and we’re launching Justice for Stephen N. Smith with that immediate goal in mind,” the fundraiser read.

“While the state can elect and fund an exhumation and new autopsy, it is our understanding that it would be carried out at MUSC, where his death was initially classified as hit-and-run despite no evidence to support it.

“We need a new, unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of his cause of death based on facts. There was no debris in the road, and his injuries were not consistent with a hit-and-run.”

The family was seeking $7,000 for the independent autopsy and with help paying for a private medical examiner at a rate of around $750 per hour.

As of Monday morning, more than $65,000 has been raised taking the Smith family well beyond the goal.

In an update, Ms Smith thanked supporters for their contributions and said the family plans to begin the exhumation “immediately”.

“I could not have imagined when we began this fundraiser that it would take off the way that it did,” she wrote.

“Thank you for not allowing Stephen’s story to be swept under a rug. We will pursue the exhumation immediately and provide updates along the way.”