By Erik Ortiz and Haylee Barber —
NBC News
The mother of a South Carolina teenager found dead on a rural road in 2015 has announced plans to exhume his body for an independent autopsy, as her case has sparked renewed interest following the arrest and murder conviction of Alex Murdaugh.
In a GoFundMe page that quickly raised more than $43,000 — enough to pay for the exhumation of teen Stephen Smith — his mother thanked supporters for "not allowing Stephen's story to be swept under a rug."
"It's Stephen's year
," Sandy Smith told NBC News on Friday.
The family's search for answers intensified in June 2021, weeks after the murders of 52-year-old Margaret Murdaugh and her 22-year-old son Paul at their Colleton County estate.
Agents with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) announced that their investigation into the murders, unsolved at the time, had turned up reviews about other mysterious deaths in the area and that they had some connection to the powerful family.
[“I did not shoot my wife or my son.” Lawyer Alex Murdaugh testifies tearfully at his double murder trial]
The agency reported that it was opening an investigation into Smith's death "based on information collected during the course of the double murder investigation."
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Investigators said in 2015 that it appeared that 19-year-old Smith was struck by a vehicle while out of his car after it had run out of gas, NBC News affiliate WCBD in Charleston reported.
The incident occurred in Hampton County, about 15 miles from Murdaugh's property known as Moselle.
[A South Carolina lawyer is shot three months after his wife and son were killed]
Smith was initially found with a "defensive wound" to his hand, according to an investigator's report obtained by The Island Packet, and
a homicide investigation was opened.
However, the case became muddled when a medical examiner later wrote in a report that Smith's cause of death was the result of being struck in the head by a car's rear-view mirror, part of an apparent hit-and-run.
But
neither glass nor car wreckage was found
at or near the location where Smith's body was found, The Island Packet reported.
The judge told Alex Murdaugh that he is "sure" that his murdered wife and son visit him at night
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Meanwhile, South Carolina Highway Patrol investigators said they received tips that Paul Murdaugh's older brother,
Buster,
may have been related.
An investigator attempted to contact Buster, but the extent of any conversation that took place is unclear.
State investigators have declined to discuss the case.
[Under the "fall from grace" of lawyer Alex Murdaugh: a drug addiction fueled by the opioid epidemic]
Buster Murdaugh and Smith reportedly
graduated in 2014 from the same
Hampton County High School.
No member of the Murdaugh family has been directly named as being involved in Smith's death.
His case has garnered attention with public fascination with the Murdaugh saga and was featured in recent HBO Max and Netflix docuseries.
Family and friends of Smith shared their concerns that he was an openly gay teenager in a largely conservative region.
This video was key to securing the conviction of Alex Murdaugh for the double murder of his wife and son
March 3, 202302:11
Alex Murdaugh, considered a prominent attorney and scion of a well-connected law family in Lowcountry South Carolina, was convicted this month of the murder of his wife and son.
He was sentenced to life in prison without parole and is still facing a series of financial charges related to the embezzlement of millions of dollars from clients and his family's law firm.
His lawyers plan to appeal his double murder conviction.
Among those Murdaugh was accused of stealing from was the family of his housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died in 2018 in what was initially described as an accidental fall at Murdaugh's estate.
Lawyers for Satterfield's adult children eventually recovered millions of dollars owed to his estate.
The circumstances surrounding Satterfield's death were questioned in 2021 by the Hampton County coroner, who requested that his case be reopened because
an autopsy had not been performed.
"On the death certificate, the manner of death was ruled 'natural,' which is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident," the coroner wrote to state investigators.
The agency also announced in June 2022 that it would exhume Satterfield's body as part of the investigation, something his family has said they support to definitively rule out a crime.
With an impassive face, Alex Murdaugh heard that he was found guilty of murdering his wife and son.
March 3, 202302:08
Sandy Smith has also maintained that there is more to what happened to his son than a hit and run and believes he was struck by the way his body was found on the road.
He said Friday that he last spoke to SLED investigators about three weeks ago and that he will receive help with his son's exhumation from attorney Eric Bland, who also represents Satterfield's children.
Any donations left after the exhumation and autopsy are completed will go toward a scholarship fund to help college students pay for books, Sandy Smith added.
Her son was studying nursing at the time of his death.
In a statement on Friday, SLED said it had "made progress" in its investigation into Smith's death and that it "remains active and ongoing."
Sandy Smith said she wants an independent exhumation and autopsy because she doesn't want it done by the same medical center that initially classified her son's death as a hit-and-run "despite no supporting evidence."
“We need a fresh unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of his cause of death based on facts,” he wrote on his GoFundMe page.
