Stephen Smith’s headstone.Photo: Courtesy Suzanne Andrews
Stephen Smith’sdeath has been considered mysterious since he was found dead in the middle of a rural South Carolina road in 2015 — and questions have only intensified since the 2021murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, a mother-and-son froma prominent South Carolina family.
“Sandy and I both believe that this was a murder,” Smith family attorney Mike Hemlepp told PEOPLE in 2022. “Whoever did this to Stephen should go to prison.”
But in June 2021, nearly six years after Smith was found dead, South Carolina’s top law enforcement agency announced that they wereopening an investigation into his death. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) revealed in a statement that the investigation was launched “based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.” However, SLED did not specify what information had led them to open the investigation.
“We’ve been waiting on this forever,” Sandy Smith said at the time. “Stephen’s always been put on the backburner. It’s like nobody’s looking for answers. Stephen’s had no justice.”
Since the investigation into Smith’s death was announced,Alex Murdaugh— Maggie’s husband and Paul’s father — wasfound guiltyof the shooting deaths of his wife and son. He wassentenced to two life sentencesfor the murders. Sandy Smith hopes to find similar justice for Stephen.
“I just want to know what really happened to my son,” shetold theHampton County Guardian. “I am going to do whatever it takes to get justice for my son.”
“SLED officials have revealed that they did not need to exhume Stephen Smith’s body to convince them that his death was a homicide. However, they will be present and participate in any exhumation of Stephen’s body to gather more evidence,” the Bland Richter Law Firm said in a statement.
Less than two weeks later,Smith’s body was exhumed and given a second autopsy, according to Sandy Smith’s attorney Eric Bland.
From crime scene details to the latest in the investigation, here is everything to know about Stephen Smith’s mysterious death in 2015.
Smith was found dead on July 8, 2015
Stephen Smith.Facebook
In the early morning hours of July 8, 2015, Smith wasfound deadin the middle of a dark Hampton County road. He had a 7.25-inch gash on the right side of his forehead, as well as a partially dislocated right shoulder and cuts and bruises on his right hand, according toFITSnews. His car was located 3 miles away, with the gas cap unscrewed and his wallet still inside.
“Stephen never would have been walking in the middle of the roadway,” the family told investigators, saying he was “skittish,” perCNN.
Smith’s mother Sandy later reiterated the same point to theHampton County Guardian. “I just don’t believe my son would have been walking in the middle of the road like that,” she said.
Smith’s case file stated that, at the scene of the incident, Hampton County Coroner Ernie Washington referred to Smith’s head wound as a “gunshot wound,” pointed to the bullet’s entry point and referred to the death as a homicide. The deputy coroner present, Kelly Greene, also verbally affirmed that it was a homicide to the SCHP officers present.
However, a search for cartridge cases on the morning of Smith’s death turned up empty, according to the case file. SHCP officers returned to the scene the following day, July 9, to hunt for any evidence within 100 yards of where Smith’s body was found — but there was nothing. Smith’s autopsy also found no bullet or fragments.
Smith’s death was ruled a hit-and-run in 2015
SCHP officers were apparently skeptical of the hit-and-run ruling from the beginning, according to Smith’s case file. Dr. Presnell reportedly told an SCHP officer that no glass fragments or any other evidence from a motor vehicle were found on Smith. A search of the scene at Sandy Run Road also found no debris or tire marks consistent with a motor vehicle crash, the case file read, and Smith was found with his loosely tied shoes still on his feet and his clothes “appeared untouched,“FITSnews reported.
In March 2023, after reexamining the evidence, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) determined thatSmith’s death was a homicide.
The coroner told the state police investigator he disagreed with the autopsy findings
Proctor, who no longer works for the SCHP, later echoed similar doubts about the hit-and-run toFox Newsin June 2021.
“Nothing about this case from the very beginning pointed towards it being a hit and run,” Proctor said.
He continued: “As any investigator, you go off of the evidence — there was no evidence that pointed towards this being a hit and run, or a vehicle even being involved in it. It looked like it was more staged. Like possibly the body had been placed in the roadway.”
In March 2023, Smith’s family announced that they’d raised enough money through a GoFundMe campaign tohave the deceased exhumed and a new autopsy conducted.
“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,” Sandy Smith wrote on the fundraiser page.
She continued: “We need a new, unbiased look at [Stephen’s] 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.”
“I do know it was a success, they say they did collect evidence, it was very good documentation, and everybody was upbeat about the information that was collected,” Kinsey told NewsNation. “And that’s not always the situation when you exhume someone after so many years.”
The Murdaugh name was mentioned “more than 40 times” in the investigation of Smith’s death — though no Murdaugh family member was questioned
Alex Murdaugh.Chris Carlson/AP/Shutterstock
The Murdaugh family was first mentioned in relation to Smith’s death on July 17, 2015,FITSnews reportedin their detailed timeline of the days following the discovery of his body. A member of the Smith family told the SCHP that Randy Murdaugh, Alex Murdaugh’s brother, had contacted Smith’s father on the day of his death and said he would take on Smith’s case “free of charge.”
In the same interview, the Smith family member told the SCHP that the first time she went to the store following Smith’s death, people approached her and alleged that Buster Murdaugh — Alex’s oldest son and a classmate of Smith’s — was responsible. FITSnews reported that neither the offer from Randy nor the tip about Buster were included in the written case notes.
From that point on, the Murdaugh family name was brought up “more than 40 times throughout the course of the investigation,” FITSnews stated. Additionally,more than half of the people interviewedduring the investigation mentioned hearing about rumors of Buster’s possible involvement in Smith’s death. However, Buster was never brought in for questioning.
In March 2023, Buster publicly denied having anything to do with Smith’s death.
“I have tried my best to ignore the vicious rumors about my involvement in Stephen Smith’s tragic death that continue to be published in the media as I grieve over the brutal murders of my mother and brother,” he said in a statement released through his attorney, Jim Griffin. “This has gone on far too long. These baselessrumors of my involvement with Stephen and his death are false. I unequivocally deny any involvement in his death, and my heart goes out to the Smith family.”
There were several theories about Smith’s death
In one such instance, a friend of a relative of Smith’s told police she received a text asking, “Were Buster [Murdaugh] and Stephen together?” The friend told police she said no, and the person who sent the text told police that he had simply “heard the rumor.”
Another individual told police that “certain young men” were riding down Highway 601 the night Smith died, saw him broken down and turned around. The young men then “stuck something out the window,” the individual stated, that ended up hitting Smith and killing him. The individual also told police in a face-to-face meeting that one of the men in the car was reportedly Buster Murdaugh, but that all of the information he provided was only “hearsay.”
Despite the rumors, police never named anyone as a suspect in the death of Smith. Additionally, the accusations made in those interviews were never proven and authorities have never called Smith’s death a murder.
Sandy Smith asked the FBI for help in her son’s case and accused authorities of a “cover up”
In September 2016, more than a year after Smith was discovered dead, his mother Sandy wrote a letter to the FBI asking for help with the case,according to FITSnews.
“My family is in desperate need of your help,” Sandy reportedly wrote in her letter. “My 19-year-old son, Stephen Nicholas Smith, was murdered on July 8, 2015 in Hampton County, South Carolina. It has been apparent from the first week of this investigation that authorities are covering up critical evidence and we no longer know who to trust.”
“This investigation is being deliberately derailed,” she concluded. “We need someone to hold the investigators accountable and access Stephen’s phone.”
The FBI wasn’t the only group Sandy reached out to in regard to Smith’s case. She toldCarolina News and Reporterthat she also wrote letters to South Carolina’s governor and crime television personality Nancy Grace asking them to look into her son’s death.
The investigation into Smith’s death was reopened in June 2021
On June 22, 2021, SLEDreopened an investigation into Smith’s death"based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.” However, the spokesperson did not specify what information led them to reopen the investigation.
“While the many questions about my son’s death remain, this action gives me hope that we willget justice for my Stephen,” she said.
A lawyer for the Smith family, Mike Hemlepp, told PEOPLE: “I know there are people who know what happened to Stephen. The old way of doing business in Hampton does not exist anymore. There’s a bright light being shined on that county. And anyone who knows anything needs to come forward.”
Hemlepp also stated that SLED investigators had “been engaging in regular communication with Sandy.”
“I know that they’re working hard and that this is not a cold case,” he said.
Smith’s death isn’t the only case that investigators have looked into since the Murdaugh murders. In June 2022, investigators announced they would beexhuming the body of Gloria Satterfield, the Murdaugh family housekeeper who died from asupposed slip-and-fallat their family home in 2018. Alex Murdaugh was arrested and charged in October 2021 withstealing $4.3 million in insurance settlement moneycollected after Satterfield’s death. Additionally, at the time of his death, Paul Murdaugh was awaiting trial after being charged with several felonies in relation to analleged drunken boating accident that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beachin 2019.
An organization called #StandingforStephen was founded in Smith’s memory
Susanne Andrews, an accountant from Columbia, South Carolina, founded the group #StandingforStephen in October 2021 with the initial goal of helping Smith’s family raise money for a headstone.
“My son will be 18 in November, and I just couldn’t imagine in six years that no one had come to Stephen’s mom’s aid formemorializing her son,” Andrews told PEOPLE. “That no family, no community, no friends, no one had come to help her try to get a headstone. This is about a child that deserves to be memorialized and commemorated, and a mother to have support that she hadn’t had.”
The group raised more than $40,000 for Smith’s headstone, which was placed on his gravesite at a vigil held in July 2022, and for a scholarship in Smith’s name. Andrews also started aChange.org petitionfor South Carolina to sign a hate crime bill into law. (Smith was gay, although there has been no evidence to indicate that his death was a hate crime.) But beyond the financial impact, Andrews shared that the outpouring of support from around the world was especially meaningful to Smith’s mother Sandy.
“She now has more people than she knows what to do with,” Andrews said. “And it’s amazing to be a part of that and to see it. We have got to keep the light on his story and to keep the fire underneath other people’s behinds to get it solved. No one’s going to feel like they’re being held accountable if we don’t bring attention to it.”
“My hope is that she finds answers that will give her a little bit of peace,” she added.
Smith’s family believes “justice was served” when Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering his wife and son
After Alex Murdaugh wasfound guiltyof murdering his wife Maggie and younger son, Paul, the family of Stephen Smith released a statement through their attorney Mike Hemlepp, perWTOC. According to the statement, the family believed “justice was served” when the guilty verdict — and subsequenttwo life sentences— were handed down.
Smith’s mother Sandy also commented in the written statement about the trial’s outcome. “This verdict provides Maggie’s and Paul’s loved ones the answers and closure which they need to heal from this vicious tragedy,” she stated.
Sandy continued, “We know firsthand the agony and frustration of being in the dark about how a family member was killed and I am thankful the whole story was put before the jury in a public trial. One day, I pray the same happens for my Stephen, but today we should honor and remember the victims of this man who so many people trusted.”
Also in the written statement, Hemlepp urged SLED and the South Carolina Attorney General’s office to “continue to exhibit this level of dedication to their investigation into Stephen’s murder, no matter where that investigation may lead.”
Smith’s death was ruled a homicide in 2023
“We have a chance to right eight years of wrongs, and we intend to do just that,” said attorney Eric Bland in a press release.
On April 2, Bland shared thatSmith’s body was exhumed for a second autopsy. “I now believe that Stephen can really rest at ease because SLED and our team are going to do everything possible to find out just how he died,” Bland wrote in a statement on Twitter.
“I cannot thank SLED enough for making Sandy’s dream of exhuming Stephen and having a second autopsy be done become a reality and her pleas regarding Stephen for the last eight years to finally be heard. The state of South Carolina spent a significant amount of money this past weekend, ensuring a smooth and orderly exhumation.”
Smith family lawyer believes Smith’s death was a hate crime
Eric Bland, the attorney representing the Smith family, told PEOPLE he thinks authorities will discover that Smith’s death was a hate crime.
“It could be that a bunch of thug kids decide, ‘Hey, we’re going to beat up the gay kid,’ or it was somebody who felt that Stephen was going to out them,” he shared. “Stephen had told his mother that he was dating somebody of prominence. He was very secretive about his lifestyle. He wasn’t secretive about the fact that he was gay, but he respected the boundaries of people who he had relationships with.”
A forensic crime scene expert has shared what could have happened to Smith
After working with an anthropologist and pathologists, he’s determined that there are “four of five” ways Smith could have died.
source: people.com
