Bland Richter Legislation Agency
Shady particulars concerning the demise of Stephen Smith, the 19-year-old discovered useless on a backcountry street close to Alex Murdaugh’s household property in 2015, continued to emerge Wednesday, with a former South Carolina trooper saying investigators ignored his willpower that Smith was murdered.
Thomas Moore, a lieutenant within the South Carolina Freeway Patrol, was one of many first officers to answer the invention of Smith’s physique. He stated it was clear to him that Smith was murdered, however the probe was rapidly closed after a health worker concluded Smith died in a hit-and-run—simply one in all a sequence of questionable incidents surrounding the demise.
“[I] defined to them why this was not successful and run and tried at hand them the file, and they might bodily not take it with their arms,” Moore informed WJCL this week, referencing the Hampton County Sheriff’s Workplace. “I positively suppose [Smith] was murdered; he was murdered there or murdered elsewhere and dropped there.”
Moore has known as out the eccentricities of Smith’s demise beforehand. Final 12 months, he informed HBO Max in a documentary about now-convicted assassin Alex Murdaugh that he believed the Murdaugh household was concerned in Smith’s demise due to their weird actions within the aftermath and the character of Smith’s accidents, which included a big wound to the correct aspect of his brow.
“Once I get on the scene the Sheriff’s Division is already there, so is the coroner. I checked out his accidents, I walked the scene to search for car components. I imply, that street basically was clear, nothing on it, no components, no glass, no fragments, no something,” he informed HBO. “I used to be assured once I left, this isn't a wreck, this can be a homicide.”
Moore added that different officers at his company, which makes a speciality of investigating crashes, additionally thought it was unattainable Smith died in a wreck. However their experience fell on deaf ears, Moore stated, and investigators closed the case so quick it made him suspicious that “anyone’s attempting to cowl one thing up.”
The South Carolina Legislation Enforcement Division (SLED) reopened its investigation into Smith’s demise in 2021 after making unspecified new discoveries whereas probing the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. This week, SLED officers uncovered “a unprecedented disclosure,” in accordance with the Smith household legal professional Eric Bland.
Quoting SLED Chief Mark Keel, Bland stated that discovery—which was not disclosed publicly—has satisfied detectives that Smith’s demise was truly an “intentional killing.” Smith’s physique is because of be exhumed quickly.
“SLED officers have revealed that they didn't have to exhume Stephen Smith's physique to persuade them that his demise was a murder,” Bland stated in a press release on Tuesday. “Nonetheless, they are going to be current and take part in any exhumation of Stephen’s physique to assemble extra proof.”
In a press release Wednesday, SLED insisted its investigation into Smith’s demise was by no means closed however the company stated in the identical assertion that it “opened” an investigation on June 23, 2021. Earlier than that, SLED stated, they have been solely ever requested to helpprocess the crime. After health worker Dr. Erin Presnell dominated Smith died from being struck by a motorcar, the sheriff’s workplace requested the freeway patrol to analyze, not SLED, the company stated.
The assertion stated case notes backed up Moore’s model of occasions—that state troopers believed Smith was murdered. SLED stated of their assertion that “progress has been made” of their renewed investigation, and extra detectives have been assigned to the case.
Moore, clearly exasperated in a recorded interview, informed WJCL that Smith’s household would by no means have needed to wait eight years for solutions had officers achieved their job correctly in 2015.
“SLED, sheriffs, Hampton County Coroner's workplace, if they'd achieved their job that day and never been lazy, I don’t suppose we'd be right here right this moment,” he stated.
In a press release to The Day by day Beast on Wednesday, attorneys for Smith’s household thanked Moore for talking out and known as on others to do the identical.
“Our goal now's to not rewrite historical past, however to make sure that historical past is recorded correctly going ahead,” the assertion stated. “Our single focus in the meanwhile is to seek out out what occurred to Stephen Smith.”
As Smith’s demise investigation has vaulted into the nationwide highlight, Alex Murdaugh’s son Buster—a highschool classmate of Smith’s and the lone member of the family who stays free—has turn out to be the main target of hypothesis.
Smith’s mom, Sandy, informed the HBO documentary that Smith’s dad, Joel, was known as into the sheriff’s workplace the identical morning their son died however earlier than the sheriff arrived, Alex Murdaugh’s brother Randy known as.
Randy, who was already doing a workman’s comp declare for Joel, provided to analyze Smith’s demise. Nonetheless, he stated he solely wanted Smith’s electronics and account passwords, Sandy recalled.
“He didn’t ask any questions, ‘I simply want these electronics.’ It simply didn’t make no sense,” she stated.
Then, as she drove previous the scene the place Smith’s physique was discovered on her strategy to the funeral dwelling, Sandy Smith stated she noticed Alex and Randy Murdaugh on the scene, not lengthy after her son’s physique had been eliminated.
Moore stated that he continued to comb the “crash” scene for clues after Smith’s physique was eliminated as a result of “no different legislation enforcement [was] prepared to assist.” Then, out of nowhere, he stated an investigator from Murdaugh’s legislation agency confirmed up.
“He exhibits up with a digicam and needs to come back within the crime scene,” Moore informed HBO. “I stated, ‘I’m sorry, you'll be able to’t are available right here.’ ... It wasn’t about taking photos, it was about seeing what we have been doing to attempt to get one step forward… In case you wished photos, you might have gotten these at any time. It makes you marvel.”
Moore isn’t the one official to name out the alleged shadiness surrounding Smith’s demise. Cpl. Michael Duncan, a former officer with the freeway patrol’s Multi-Disciplinary Accident Investigation Crew, informed HBO that there have been “a number of pink flags from the beginning on this investigation.”
“Issues that weren't there ought to have been there,” he stated. “For instance, there’s no glass. With that sort of pressure, there can be glass on the bottom or probably within the physique. There’s no tire marks. There was no paint from the car… The cellphone didn’t even fall out of his pocket… The way in which the physique was laying within the roadway, there’s no ‘tumble’ to the physique.”
Buster Murdaugh launched a press release this week to shoot down “vicious rumors” linking him to Smith’s demise.
“I've tried my greatest to disregard the vicious rumors about my involvement in Stephen Smith’s tragic demise that proceed to be printed within the media as I grieve over the brutal murders of my mom and brother,” he stated. “I haven’t spoken up till now as a result of I need to stay in non-public whereas I address their deaths and my father’s incarceration.”
Since his father’s trial, which he attended each day, Buster and his longtime girlfriend have filed two police experiences in opposition to nationwide media shops they declare have harassed and photographed them at their ritzy coastal dwelling in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
“This has gone on far too lengthy. These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his demise are false. I unequivocally deny any involvement in his demise, and my coronary heart goes out to the Smith household,” Buster added.
Including to the messiness of the ordeal, Moore was as soon as the sufferer—like many others—of alleged monetary crimes by Alex Murdaugh, who's accused of stealing $100,000 from Moore after he was injured on the job. Moore’s title got here up in courtroom final month throughout the waning days of Alex Murdaugh’s homicide trial.
“Thomas Moore? You by no means lied to him? Simply took his cash?” state prosecutor Creighton Waters requested Murdaugh. “You did not deceive his face?”
“He and I by no means had a dialog, however I did take his cash,” Murdaugh responded.
Moore now figures closely within the resurrected official investigation into Smith’s demise—one thing the slain teen’s household has been pleading and fundraising for since his demise.
“As we speak was an awesome day for justice within the Stephen Smith investigation,” the Smith household’s attorneys stated in a press release to The Day by day Beast on Tuesday evening. “After eight lengthy years, it’s Sandy Smith’s flip for justice. After eight lengthy years, Stephen’s mom will sleep tonight figuring out that her son’s homicide is not going to be ignored.”