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(Trends Wide) — The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) is investigating the death of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old nursing student whose body was found in the middle of a South Carolina highway in 2015, as a homicide, an official said. agency spokesperson told Trends Wide.
A SLED spokesperson also confirmed that there was no indication in the investigation that Smith’s death was a hit-and-run case, which is what an initial incident report said about the cause of death.
Smith’s body was discovered in Hampton County on July 8, 2015.
SLED announced in June 2021 that it was opening an investigation into Smith’s death based on information obtained while investigating the murders of Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh and her son Paul Murdaugh earlier that month. He has not given any details about what was found.
Authorities have not announced a connection between Smith’s death and the Murdaugh family, whose patriarch, Alex Murdaugh, was convicted earlier this month and sentenced to life in prison for killing Maggie and Paul on the night of June 7, 2021. Murdaugh has appealed his convictions.
During interviews in the South Carolina Highway Patrol’s initial investigation case file, given by the patrol to Trends Wide, Murdaugh’s name is mentioned dozens of times by both witnesses and investigators, including the name of the son Alex Murdaugh’s survivor, Buster.
During an audio witness interview, then-police officer Todd Proctor says: “Buster was on our radar. … The Murdaughs know it.” But it’s not clear why he was on his radar. Neither he nor anyone else has been charged in the case.
Buster Murdaugh, a former classmate of Smith’s, issued a statement Monday, the first on the subject, denying any involvement in Smith’s death and “requesting that the media immediately stop publishing these defamatory comments and rumors about me.” .
“This has gone on too long,” his statement reads. “These unsubstantiated rumors about my relationship with Stephen and his death are false.”
What the initial reports of the Stephen Smith case said
A state highway patrol incident report indicated that Smith had suffered blunt force trauma to the head.
While a pathologist cited in a SLED report said Smith appeared to have been struck by a vehicle, the responding officer in a report by the highway patrol’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team noted that “there were no vehicle wreckage, no of skidding or consistent injuries” of someone being struck by a vehicle”.
Smith’s shoes were also on and not tied, the report added, and investigators saw no evidence to suggest he was struck by a vehicle.
Investigators’ notes in the case file say that “according to the family, Stephen would never have been walking in the middle of the road” and that he was “very skittish.”
According to notes taken by a SLED investigator at the scene, Smith had injuries to his left arm, hand, and head.
His vehicle was found about three miles away, according to the report, with the gas tank door open and the gas cap hanging off the side of the car. The vehicle’s battery was working but the car would not start, the report added.
The mother seeks answers
In a press release Tuesday, lawyers for Smith’s family praised the decision to classify Smith’s death as a homicide.
“We have an opportunity to right eight years of wrong, and we intend to do just that,” attorney Eric Bland said in the statement.
Smith’s family has raised more than $84,000 through a GoFundMe page for a private exhumation and autopsy that Smith’s mother says will seek “a fresh, unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of cause.” of his death based on facts.”
Smith’s mother and her lawyers said they will ask a court to proceed with exhuming Smith’s body, which requires a judge’s permission.
“Our job is not to find out who did it,” Bland told reporters at a virtual news conference Monday. “That is not what we do, we are not law enforcement, we are not investigating a criminal case… What we are really trying to do is give a mother answers.”
The investigation will also involve looking into Smith’s life, Bland added, and what kind of communication the teen had and who he associated with in the days leading up to his death. Anything that is known, Bland said, will be shared with law enforcement.
— Trends Wide’s Dianne Gallagher contributed to this report.
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