Discovery of a dead teen close to the Murdaugh home will be exhumed for an autopsy if there is a link to the convicted lawyer. Stephen N. Smith,19, a South Carolina nursing student, was discovered dead on a road that was situated close to the family's hunting estate.

Dead Teen Found Near Alex Murdaugh's Home Case Reopens

How the teen died in 2015 is the subject of intense scrutiny after the conviction of dual killer Alex Murdaugh early in the month. He was jailed on two counts for shooting his wife and son dead at their home in June 2021, as reported by Law and Crime.

The teen's mother said last Thursday that she would be pursuing the exhumation of her son after a fund-raising app 'GoFundMe' enabled her to raise about $53,000 for that purpose.

She stated the fundraiser was more successful than she thought and got a good start. The mom thanked all those who did not allow what happened to him to be forgotten. Added the exhuming of the body will be done and how it goes along.

Stephen Smith's Body To Be Exhumed for Independent Autopsy

The corpse of Smith, a classmate of Buster, the surviving Murdaugh, was found precisely 65 miles north of Savannah, Georgia. The body was seen in the middle of Sandy Run Road in Hampton County on July 8, 2015.

The conclusions of the South Carolina Highway Patrol investigator indicated that a blunt object struck the victim due to a hit-and-run incident, but this was not convincing due to not enough evidence to verify the cause of death, WCBD-TV mentioned.

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Looking over the place where the teen was run over, that had no vehicle debris, even skid marks, or injuries showing getting struck by a vehicle. This was noticed in the notes from the station and talking to the MAIT, which could not prove it was caused by getting run over. Too suspicious why the Smith case was never closed properly

Stephen Smith had the hallmarks of a cold case that was never resolved, but in June 2021, there was a significant change. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) stated it would revive the case immediately after the fatal killing of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

Tommy Crosby, SLED spokesman, on June 23 this year, stated that SLED reopened the case to investigate the death of Stephen Smith, which was echoed by the Murdaugh double murder probe, per Bluffton Today.

Details weren't released by the cops about what they dug up, and neither said if the teen was one of the ex-lawyer's murder victims. Smith's mother said she would prefer to take matters into her own hands, despite the investigators' decision to reopen the case.

She added that the goal was to pursue an independent exhumation immediately, even if the state could fund the exhumation and the autopsy. She remarked that it would be done at MUSC to prove it was not a hit-and-run with alleged proof to support the initial conclusion.

"We need a new, unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of his cause of death based on facts," she added.

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