While examining the killings of Alex Murdaugh’s better half Maggie and child Paul in June 2021, the South Carolina Policing (SLED) coincidentally found a sign in another puzzling demise — that of Stephen Smith, a 19-year-old who’d been tracked down dead on July 8, 2015. His passing was managed a quick in and out despite the fact that specialists at the scene tracked down no proof of one, and the case had gone cold until SLED’s disclosure after the Murdaugh murders resurrected it. SLED reported it would be reestablishing the examination concerning Smith’s passing, igniting new hypotheses and resuscitating old bits of gossip.
SLED has never expressed out loud whatever it tracked down that drove them back to Stephen Smith, yet through reports and meetings found in the 2015 case document, “48 Hours” sorted out what occurred in the first examination by the South Carolina Expressway Watch.
The narrative of Stephen Smith’s demise starts with his last discussion with his mom, simply seven days before his passing.
July 1, 2015: An uncommon discussion
Sandy Smith says the last time she saw her child Stephen was July 1, 2015, when he visited her home. Stephen was a nursing understudy at that point and was transporting between the homes of his folks, who resided separated. Sandy says Stephen let her something know that day that presently provides her opportunity to stop and think.
“He let me know that he was goin’ on a fishin’ trip, remote ocean fishin’,” Sandy told “48 Hours.” What appeared to be odd, as indicated by Sandy, was that Stephen said he was going on the outing with “a noticeable individual.” Right up to the present day, Sandy doesn’t have any idea who that conspicuous individual might have been, and Stephen won’t ever say.
Regardless of the baffling trade, Sandy says her last day with her child was blissful. As he went out, she cautioned him of an approaching tempest and told him to message her when he showed up at his objective. “Along these lines, when he made it, he texts me and says, ‘I made it safe, Mother. Mother, I love you.'” Sandy says those were Stephen’s final words to her.
July 8, 2015 | 3:59 a.m.: A body in the street
On July 8, 2015, a nearby man was en route to work in the early morning hours when he saw somebody lying in the street — in the area showed by the red square in the picture above. Concerned, the man called 911 at 3:59 a.m. Officials were dispatched to the scene and found Stephen expired in the street, blood pooling around his head.
What precisely had happened to Stephen? Parkway Watch specialists noticed that there was none of the proof you could regularly find at the location of a vehicle mishap. Officials saw no garbage in the street, slide imprints or wounds predictable with somebody being struck head-on by a vehicle. What they saw was a huge injury to Stephen’s head. It was influential for the point that the episode report notes, “In the wake of checking the body, apparently the casualty had been shot.”
Thomas Moore, a resigned lieutenant with the South Carolina Expressway Watch and an on-scene manager for the Smith case, told “48 Hours,” “The agreement when I arrived, speakin’ with the coroner, the primary words out of his mouth was, ‘This is definitely not a quick in and out. This is a homicide.'”
July 8, 2015 | Early morning hours: Stephen Smith’s vehicle found
Not long after Stephen’s body was found officials found his vehicle, also. It was pulled over out and about almost three miles away, with the gas cap hanging off. “In every one of the years I’ve worked, a vehicle sittin’ out and about with the gas cap off is — isn’t typical,” previous Lieutenant Thomas Moore says. “I thought it was arranged.”
All in all, had Stephen run out of juice and chosen to stroll not too far off looking for help? Or on the other hand was this genuinely an arranged crime location? It appears from the case document that there were a greater number of inquiries than responds to that July morning.
July 8, 2015 | Sometime thereafter: “The greatest shock”
While officials were currently at the scene on the morning of July 8, 2015, Sandy checked out a nearby public broadcast en route to work. The host said a body had been tracked down on a rustic street, and Sandy perceived the area. It was near Stephen’s dad’s home.
“Things being what they are, I called [Stephen’s sister] and inquired as to whether all was Well,” she told “48 Hours.” “And she said, “‘Mom, did Stephen remain with you the previous evening? Since he didn’t get back home last evening.'” And afterward my stomach dropped, and I realized it was him.” Sandy ultimately gotten affirmation: the body found in the street was her child. “I lost it then, at that point,” Sandy says. “It was the very greatest shock of our life.”
