Earlier this week, the family of a teenager found dead near the hunting estate of Alex Murdaugh announced plans to exhume his body. Now the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) has ruled the death a homicide.
Authorities rule Stephen Smith’s death a homicide
In 2015, 19-year-old Stephen Smith’s body was found alongside a road after having car trouble and was initially ruled an unsolved hit-and-run, despite contradictory evidence. His death has been reclassified as a homicide.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) told NPR on Wednesday that “the Stephen Smith case is being investigated as a homicide.”
“We do believe it was a murder,” South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel told The State newspaper. “We don’t believe it was a hit-and-run.”
Smith’s mother has obtained a new legal representation in the case, Bland Richter LLP, who called SLED’s deeming the case a homicide, “a shocking announcement after eight years of being proclaimed a highway vehicular manslaughter.”
“State police first said that Stephen Smith had car trouble, was walking for help, and got hit by a car,” Bland Richter said, People reported. “Smith’s family believes he was murdered, and wants an unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of his cause of death based on facts.”
Alex Murdaugh conviction draws renewed scrutiny of Stephen Smith case
In the wake of the conviction of disgraced attorney Alex Murdoch for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul Murdaugh, in 2021, renewed interest in Stephen Smith’s case comes as the hit-and-run occurred on a rural road in proximity of the Murdaugh estate, according to NPR.
Smith’s mother, Sandy, announced plans to exhume her son’s body for an “unbiased” independent autopsy and had established a GoFundMe page that had raised more than $80,000 to cover the cost as of Tuesday, according to various reports.
In June 2021, SLED reopened Smith’s case “based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh,” a SLED spokesperson said at the time, Greenville News reported.
Lots of evidence contradictions in the Smith case
Stephen Smith was a 19-year-old nursing student who was openly gay.
On July 8, 2015, he allegedly ran out of gas along rural Sandy Run Road in the early morning hours. After his dead body was found near his vehicle, investigators initially deemed his death to be the result of a hit-and-run accident, theorizing it occurred while he was standing beside his car.
However, reports and statements from the various agencies involved are fraught with contradictions, and his family says the initial investigation was shoddy.
A medical examiner wrote in a report that Smith died from being struck in the head by a car mirror. However, neither glass nor debris from a car was found where Smith’s body was located or in the immediate area, The Island Packet reported.
A report by the state highway patrol’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team noted that there was “no vehicle debris, skid marks, or injuries consistent with someone being struck by a vehicle.”
In another report, it said both of Smith’s shoes were on and loosely tied, with investigators stating they saw no evidence suggesting he was struck by a vehicle, CNN reported.
Among the other inconsistencies found in the reports state that Smith was found with a “defensive wound” on his hand.
