48 Hours - The Mysterious Death of Stephen Smith

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

New evidence discovered after Murdaugh murders reignites a cold case. "48 Hours" obtains findings of independent forensic experts. Nikki Battiste reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. This has been a Hampton County story. This has been a Hampton County scandal. A jury found the disgraced South Carolina attorney guilty of murdering his wife and his youngest son. This has been the downfall of a family dynasty.

Today is not the end. It's the next step in a long road to justice for every person who has been victimized by Alex Murdoch. Justice for Stephen Smith, Alex. Stephen Smith was another body in this orbit of the Murdoch family. Stephen was a gay young man in the low country of South Carolina. That is courageous in and of itself.

I can't imagine the terror he was in that night. In the early morning hours of July 8, 2015, 19-year-old Stephen Smith was found dead in the middle of a rural road. There was an autopsy that basically said, they say hit and run. There was no vehicle debris, no broken headlight, paint scrapes or anything.

You never believed it? No, not at all. They never would have been walking in that road, not voluntarily. Do you believe Stephen was murdered? I do. An investigation of some sort took place that led nowhere. And then it went cold. I wanted a second opinion.

Sandy Smith is unique in this whole story. She doesn't know who killed her son. She doesn't know why. People in town really believed that it was connected to the Murdochs in some way. The name Buster Murdoch kept coming up. I never had anything to do with his murder, and I never had anything to do with him on a physical level of any regard.

The rumors also suggest a cover-up. We are aware of no evidence today that would suggest that any Murdoch played any role in Stephen Smith's death or played any role in trying to cover up the investigation into his death. All I want is peace and no one. What happened to my son? He's my world, and I'm going to fight to the end. This is a woman that has fought this battle alone since 2015, screaming as loud as she could with not a lot of people listening.

2015 screaming as loud as she could with not a lot of people listening. CBS News confirming that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is now investigating Stephen Smith's death as a homicide. The Murdock case brought Stephen's cold case to life. Somehow, someway in the Murdock murder investigation a new thread was opened up into Stephen Smith. Our primary function right now is to have that body exhumed, have a true independent set of eyes look at it and tell us once and for all what really happened to Stephen Smith. The gash was from part of this eyebrow across here.

The injuries can tell us so much about what happened. And in this case, they did. They did. Set the scene for me on July 8, 2015, here. Stephen was somewhat right here in the road. How confident are you that you know what happened to Stephen Smith that night? I'm as close to a degree of scientific certainty

as I've ever felt. Nikki Batiste reports, Stephen Smith, a death in Murdoch country. Like his mother Sandy, Stephen Smith was born a fighter. He was a preemie. He weighed 2 pounds 12 ounces. A twin? Yeah, a twin. Born at 27 weeks with his sister Stephanie, Sandy says Stephen couldn't breathe on his own. After several months, she was told he might not make it,

and she was finally allowed to hold her baby for the first time. How was that moment? Oh my gosh, it was amazing. It was supposed to be my goodbye, but he started breathing on his own. Because he felt you? Yeah, that's why he was my heart. Sandy never dreamed she'd one day be fighting for answers in her son's death. How would you describe the journey that you've been on for justice? It's been a hard journey, just living day by day and fighting day by day. On July 8, 2015, Stephen was found dead on a country road in Hampton County, the same county where three generations of Murdahl men

had held the top prosecutor job for nearly a century. The Murdahls still loomed large over small-town life. Alec Murdahl coached Stephen's baseball team at one point. When they were little. I think Stephen was like seven or eight. Stephen and Stephanie were also classmates of Murdahl's older son, Buster, before Stephen went to nursing school with dreams of one day becoming a doctor.

He wanted to be a doctor, but it was more expensive, so he just started with nursing school. He loved dealing with medicine, and he just loved it. You must have been so proud. Oh, I was. But instead, Sandy says those dreams were buried with her son. You decided to bury him in his scrubs? Scrubs. Dr. Stephen Smith. He had everything he needed in his pocket.

He had a stethoscope and everything he needed. Stephen had just completed a semester of school and was taking summer classes, shuttling back and forth between his parents, who lived apart. He had visited Sandy a week before he was killed. A storm started brewing. I told him that he needed to hurry up and get back to his dad's house. So when he made it, he texts me and says, I made it safe, Mom. Mama, I love you. Sandy says those were Stephen's last words to her. Days later, she would hear the news that would alter the course of her life.

July 8th, I was on my way to work, and I was listening to a local radio station, and I heard that they had found a body. Sandy called her daughter Stephanie right away. She said, Mama, did Stephen stay with you last night? Because he didn't come home last night. Then my stomach dropped, and I knew it was him. Sandy says Stephen's father Joel went to the sheriff's office for confirmation that it was Stephen. That's when she says they received a call. I was on the phone with Joel the whole time while we were waiting for the sheriff to come out and that's when Joel asked me to hold on because Randy Murdahl was calling. Randy Murdahl is Alec Murdahl's older brother and had been representing Joel Smith in a workers' comp case. But now he was calling about Steven. When Joel got back on the phone,

he said Randy had asked if that was our Steven and that he wanted to help pro bono. Did you think it was strange that Randy offered to help pro bono? Well, I did, but Joel thought it was a nice gesture. Later that morning, Sandy says she was surprised again as she drove past the scene where Stephen's body had reportedly been found. There was Alex and Randy standing on the opposite side of the road. Murdoch. Murdoch.

A few minutes later, Sandy says Randy Murdoch called again. And asked if that was me that passed by. He said, I wish you'd have stopped so I could have met you. Randy Murdoch declined our request for an interview, but through his attorney, he provided a written statement to 48 Hours in which he said, quote, I was not aware of Stephen's death until Joel told me. They wanted my involvement,

and I contacted law enforcement on their behalf. Murdahl said he went to the scene with a private investigator after meeting with Joel and Stephanie, adding, quote, claims that I visited the scene of Stephen's death with my brother Alec are false. Joel Smith passed away three months after Stephen. But Stephanie and Sandy told us they never asked the Murdals for help. And there were other things about Stephen's case that didn't sit well with Sandy. From the moment the sheriff confirmed the body was Stephen's. At first, he told them Stephen had been shot. What were you thinking?

Who would shoot him? It made no sense. I lost it then. I left my job and just drove back to Hampton, and we just mourned together. We just couldn't understand why or who. It was just the biggest shock of our life. Within hours,

Stephen's cause of death was suddenly changed to a hit and run. Toward the evening time, we were contacted by the sheriff's office. After his autopsy, there was not any type of bullet or bullet fragment found in his head. Because his body was in the roadway it was being ruled hit-and-run retired South Carolina Highway Patrol lieutenant Thomas Moore was the on-scene supervisor I was told that the medical examiner made that ruling and I reached out to her it became a little bit heated give me an answer medically that would lead you to believe he was hit by a car. There was no medical reason. Did you see any signs of a hit and run? No ma'am, none. Any type of debris, any kind of

glass, car parts, a piece of plastic, anything that looks like it may be related to a vehicle. Also unusual for a hit and run, Stephen's clothing was intact and his shoes, which were loosely tied, were still on. Generally clothes are torn or unraveled and shoes have come off. And Stephen's car keys and cell phone were in his front pocket unharmed. And Moore says Stephen's body appeared staged. His body was laying like it had been placed in a certain position, not what you would typically see. And it looked like somebody had hit him in the head with some kind of object.

Meanwhile, Stephen's wallet was still in his car, which investigators found three miles away, with the doors locked and the gas cap hanging open. In all the years I've worked, a car sitting on the side of the road with a gas cap off is not normal. I thought it was staged like his body was staged in the roadway. Sandy says she wondered if Stephen might have been the victim of a hate crime. Did you think that it was possibly because of his sexuality? I did think that. I know he was teased a lot at school, but he still held his head high. But Sandy says in the days leading up to his death, Stephen was worried about his safety.

He'd called his sister Stephanie for help the day before he was killed. Stephanie said the battery cable was loosened on his car, so she had met him and then she tightened the battery cable. And she asked him to get out of the car and help her, and he said, no, I'm not getting out. Like he was scared. Right. But he never said why.

Despite what Lieutenant Moore felt were suspicious circumstances, he says once Stephen's death was ruled a hit and run, it became the Highway Patrol's job to solve the case instead of the Hampton County Sheriff's Office or SLED, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. I felt like the case, for lack of a better word, was being pawned off on us. No matter what we said, we were going to be the ones investigating that case. As we were getting started, certain names started coming up. Which names? Murdoch. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense.

A sister testifying against a brother. A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the troubled case against Crosley Green, wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge?

Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario, the best-selling video game character of all time, only exists because Nintendo couldn't get the rights to Popeye? Or Jack, that the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal first came from a mom in Guatemala?

From Pez dispensers to Levi's 501s to Air Jordans, discover the surprising stories of the most viral products. Plus, we guarantee that after listening, you're going to dominate your next dinner party. So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. Soon after Stephen Smith was killed, Hampton County Guardian Managing Editor Michael DeWitt says he began hearing persistent rumors all over town. What are the rumors? That at least one Murdoch child was in a vehicle with other boys

and allegedly somebody in the vehicle struck the young man with a baseball bat and killed him. Sandy says those same rumors hit her doorstep as soon as Stephen's body was taken for an autopsy. It made no sense to me. At any point did you think that someone in the Murdoch family was involved? Well, the longer it went on, the more I was asking myself questions. But I just couldn't find the connection. Powerful family, and then you got Steven, who was just Steven. Sandy couldn't help but think back

to her last conversation with Steven a week before he was killed. Somebody was messaging him a lot. He told me that he was going deep sea fishing, and he said Key West. And I said, well, who are you going with? He said, well, I can't tell you. Did that make you pause? Yeah. He said,

you'd be surprised. It's kind of like a prominent person. And then all I could say was, well, I hope you have fun. Sandy says Stephen had become more secretive the last couple weeks, but it never crossed her mind he might be talking about a Murdoch. The original rumor was that Stephen was planning to go away with Buster Murdoch and his family, that they were together romantically. Liz Farrell is the writer and co-host of the Murdahl Murders podcast. There's no evidence of that that we know of. And 48 Hours found no evidence to support the rumors. Retired Highway Patrol Lieutenant Thomas Moore says the mere mention of the Murdahls made it difficult to get help from local agencies.

We tried to hand that case file over to the sheriff's office, and they physically would not take it from our hand. The Murdahl name was still very powerful, very well connected in law enforcement, and the rumors suggested, well, the local cops aren't going to dig into it. Instead, the case was handled solely by the Highway Patrol's multidisciplinary accident investigation team called MATE, which specializes in complex vehicle crashes. The MATE team was from out of town, and we wanted outside eyes involved in this. The Murdahl name appears dozens of times in Mates' 2015 case file, which we obtained through a Freedom of Information request. In his audio notes, Corporal Michael Duncan makes it clear he doesn't think Stephen's death is a hit and run.

There is no body trauma other than to the head area. It does not appear to be, in my opinion, struck by a vehicle. Another investigator, Todd Proctor, goes further. Typically, you don't see the highway patrol working a murder, and that's what this is. He hints at a conflict of interest for the local sheriff's department. There's a reason why Hampton County Sheriff's Department is not handling this, and I'll leave it at that. In this interview with Proctor, local teen Taylor Dobson shares a detailed version of that story about several young men in a truck. I heard that these two, maybe three young men were in a vehicle. They

were riding down 601, saw the car on the side of the road. I guess saw the boy walking. They He offers a name reluctantly. Dobson says he grew up with Buster. Proctor reassures him the Murdahls are already aware authorities want to speak with Buster. They know that he's on our radar. Matter of fact, I talked to one of their guys yesterday and told them, you know, I'm gonna talk to Buster here soon, you know, and they said, okay, that's fine. But according to the case file, a call to Buster Murdahl in October 2015 was never returned. And in December, following a front-page story in the Hampton County Guardian, Mate received a tip called in at the direction of Randy Myrdal, Buster's uncle.

A man named Daryl Williams called a Hampton police officer to report the tip, which involved two teens, Sean Connolly and Patrick Wilson. In a recorded phone call, the officer relays to Corporal Duncan what Williams told him. Darrell called me and he said, Patrick, come over here to the house. He said that Sean Connelly was drunk and hit something. He went back the next day to see what it was he had hit, and he seen a lot of police out there. Patrick was crying telling him, and after he got finished telling the story, he walked outside his house and threw up. Did he go into any detail about how it happened?

Supposedly, he had fixed his mirror, wanted to mirror us up on the truck. The side mirror story matched Stephen's original death certificate. For reasons that are unclear, there is no record of Duncan or Proctor ever speaking to Connelly or Wilson. Wilson had no comment to 48 Hours. Messages to the Hampton County Sheriff's Office, Williams and Connelly have not been answered. Sandy Smith says she asked Sean Connelly point blank if he killed Stephen. And he said? He said, no, ma'am, I did not. I give you my word, I promise you, I never killed your son.

Do you believe him? Yeah. If he lied to you, if that turns out to be the case? It won't be the first time I'm lied to. But, you know, if you did it, you need to pay. In September 2016, fed up with what she calls the lack of an investigation, Sandy began a letter-writing campaign that included the FBI. What did your letter say?

I was just letting them know that my son was murdered, and there's no progress being done, and I think it had something to do with the Murdoch family. And please help. Just please help me. Sandy also told the FBI she believed someone was deliberately trying to derail the investigation. Did you ever get a response from the FBI? I did. And I had two agents come to my house. She asked them to unlock Stephen's phone, and they did. Do you know if anyone actually was able to read Stephen's text messages or see where he might have been based on cell phone evidence? What I heard from the FBI agent,

there was a lot of interesting information in the phone that needed to be looked at. But she says that didn't prompt local or state authorities to pursue the case further. There's something in that phone that nobody wants out here. By late 2016, the investigation into Stephen Smith's death went cold. What do you think it took for Stephen's case to finally get the attention it deserves, that you wanted? Somebody else had to die.

What information do you think was found on Stephen's phone? Chat now on Facebook and X. The murders of Paula Maggie Murdahl in June of 2021 caused a seismic shift in small town Hampton and gave Sandy Smith a lifeline she desperately needed. It took this to get Stephen's name back out there so somebody would start paying attention. In a strange twist of fate, while investigating the murders of Paula Maggie Murdahl, SLED announced it had stumbled on a new lead in Stephen's death and would be taking over the case. They did not say what that evidence was.

It seems like all roads lead to the Murdahl family around here. Yes. Is that coincidence or is there a reason for that? Around here, it's natural. It would be another two years while authorities focused on getting a conviction against Alec Murdahl, but Sandy now has a high-octane legal team in her corner. After eight years of waiting for your turn, Sandy Smith finally just had enough. Ronnie and I are like arsonists. We started the fire.

Ronnie Richter and Eric Bland are representing Sandy pro bono. Our sole goal was to rekindle the interest in Stephen's death. And they turned up the heat on SLED. In March of 2023, SLED publicly acknowledged it was treating Stephen's case as a homicide. The same week, Buster Murdahl released a statement through his father's attorney, saying, quote, Those words are now in cement. I take them in his word that

he had nothing at all to do with Stephen's death. Rather than old rumors, Bland and Richter say they're focusing on a new investigation made possible by $130,000 in GoFundMe donations from Sandy's supporters. The resources were made available for us to do some private investigative work that's going to start with hiring a pathology team. They were also able to have Stephen's body exhumed, something Sandy had wanted for years. Our primary function right now is to have a true independent set of eyes look at it and tell us once and for all what really happened to Stephen Smith.

In April of 2023, Dr. Michelle Dupree, a former investigator and forensic pathologist who's performed more than 3,000 autopsies, oversaw the examination of Stephen's body. The injuries can tell us so much about what happened. And in this case, they did. They did. Dupree says the autopsy confirmed Stephen died from a single blow to his forehead, severely fracturing his skull. That's a big gash. That's seven and a half inches almost. There would be another gash in this posterior area from hitting the pavement so hard.

It literally split his skull. It split his skull. They were also able to put to rest some rumors, including the one that Stephen had been beaten with a baseball bat. It wasn't a baseball bat. Those type of injuries would cause something that we call pattern injuries, and we don't see that here. This is a linear fracture, as well as this is here.

Just as important as what they found, Dupree says, is what they didn't find. We didn't find fractures of any part of the body except for the head. There was a little road rash, which you would expect. Any signs of a struggle? No. Any signs of a beating? No. Any injuries below his head other than the road rash? None whatsoever. His head other than the road rash? None whatsoever. She says that eliminates the possibility Stephen was hit by a car head on. Dupree says the findings also refute early theories that Stephen's body might have been staged.

Were you able to determine whether Stephen was struck and fell or he might have been struck and then placed there? We don't believe that he was placed there. We believe that whatever happened, it happened right there. Dr. Kenny Kinsey agrees. You think he was killed right here? Right there. A crime scene expert and star prosecution witness in the Murdahl murder trial, Kinsey worked with Dupree to analyze Stephen's case.

He says the evidence at the scene is clear. That's a massive amount of blood, and if he had that kind of injury somewhere else, it wouldn't be that uniform. Due to their sensitive nature, we created versions of the crime scene photos in which the blood and body are shown as graphics. The quantity of blood,

the direction of the flow in the road, and then the direction of all the blood on his person led me to the only conclusion. Kinsey's convinced an object attached to a vehicle traveling at high speed caused the single fatal blow to Stephen's head. But whatever hit him was fast and it was large. So a hit and run, but an atypical hit and run. Yeah, very atypical. A hit and run with no vehicle debris at the scene.

It's a conclusion no one was expecting. How confident are you that you know what happened to Stephen Smith that night? I'm as close to a degree of scientific certainty as I've ever felt. What no one can say with certainty is whether Stephen's death was accidental or not. But still, Richter points out, he was left there to die. Someone left him in that condition in the roadway, and that is a very serious felony. Stephen's body was found about three miles from his car. Kinsey tried to retrace his steps.

I wanted to walk every possible path that Mr. Smith may have taken. Stephen's family has always insisted if Stephen had car trouble, he would have felt safer walking through the woods. So where was Stephen's car? Stephen's car was located, if you look at this gate here, it was not grown up then. You could access that gate, but in this area, really close to the woods. But to cut through the woods, Stephen would have had to scale a fence that was eight feet tall. And from what I understand from interviewing neighbors, it's been there for well over a decade. Kinsey theorizes Stephen was walking along the road, trying to flag someone down for help. He is walking this direction in the lane facing traffic.

Whatever was attached to the vehicle or hanging off of the vehicle, whenever it struck Stephen, he went down in this area. Somewhat on this line here. The vehicle that struck Stephen was coming toward him, just like that vehicle in the photograph. Like this? Yes, going that direction. Kinsey says the evidence suggests the driver saw something in the road and changed lanes. And sometime before it struck Stephen, I believe it changed into the oncoming lane.

That's when he says an object from the passenger side struck Stephen. What kind of object could it be? It could be anything. It could be a ladder hanging off the back of a work truck. It could be a extended side mirror, the metal type that you see on some farm vehicles or some larger vehicles. That scenario matches up with the tip from 2015 involving Patrick Wilson and Sean Connolly, which Kinsey calls plausible. That certainly would be possible. That would be one of the places I would start. SLED has kept its investigation close to the vest, but Bland and Richter say a grand jury was impaneled and is issuing subpoenas. They're honing in on specific individuals,

and I think there's about five or less that SLED believes has information regarding Stephen's death. We don't know who those individuals are. In an interview on Fox Nation in August of 2023, Buster Murdoch again denied the rumors of his involvement. I never had anything to do with his murder and I never had anything to do with him on a physical level of any regard. He also provided an alibi. The night Stephen was killed, I was at our Edisto Beach house. With your family? With my mom and my brother.

Sandy's team says it's turned over all of its findings to SLED. But Kinsey says it's still going to take someone coming forward. Somebody knows. Oh, they know. Yes, ma'am. Do you think Stephen's death was an accident or intentional? See a timeline of the case at 48hours.com. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island.

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When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals.

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Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. As a grand jury zeroes in on potential suspects in Stephen Smith's death, the legal wrangling hasn't slowed down for Alec Murdahl. You've got local charges, you've got state charges. The legal civil cases are going to go on for years. On November 17, 2023, I am guilty, and yes, sir.

Murdahl agreed to a plea deal encompassing all of the state financial charges he faced for defrauding and stealing millions from clients and law partners. He had previously pleaded guilty to 22 federal conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering charges. Alex preyed on the vulnerable, whom he also thought would never figure out his schemes. Correct. It's people that are at the worst times of their lives where you need a lawyer to be the best for you, not the worst for you. Perhaps none more so than Elena and Hannah Plyler, who are now represented by Blandon Richter.

Who were the Plylers? They were two young girls from Columbia. They were just 12 and 8 when they survived a deadly crash due to a faulty tire. They killed their mother and 14-year-old brother in 2005 and became the youngest of the financial victims to whom Myrtle admitted he lied and stole from when questioned at his murder trial. What loss did they suffer? Who died? Their mother. Their mother did. He only mentioned her mom.

Yeah, that bothered me. Because you don't remember that a 14-year-old was killed in that wreck. Alec got a very good paycheck off of my brother's death. Both women are now mothers, and Elena is a detective with the Lexington County Sheriff's Office. Since all of this has come out, there's a lot of pain that's still there. Elena was old enough to remember the details of the last road trip she and her sister would ever take with their mom and brother. My brother and I had gotten into an argument. I wanted to start sitting in the front seat.

We fought about it and fought about it, and finally Mom was like, you know what, Justin's going to ride on the way to Columbia, and on the way back home, Elena gets to ride up front. And I was so happy. Elena and Hannah, who were still sitting in the back seat, survived the crash. So you must think about that all the time. I do. I actually had a lot of guilt for several years. That guilt is something she says she's learned to let go as she recounts

her and her little sister's harrowing survival. We hadn't been on the road too long. Hannah was sleeping and I was listening to Usher and I remember mom saying Mom saying, Elena, you awake? And so I remember pulling my headphones down and said, yeah, Mom. Within seconds, I heard this loud pop. And then I immediately heard my mom scream. I looked out the window, and my Usher CD was spinning on a tree limb. Their mother, Angela, and brother, Justin, died instantly. Elena realized she was trapped and couldn't move and had to send Hannah for help. I said, I need you to get out of the car, and I need you to go to the top of the hill to the interstate.

And you're only 12. I'm 12, right. So many things could have went worse. Eight-year-old Hannah climbed up to the interstate. There was an 18-wheeler, and I was able to flag him down. And I think by that point, an ambulance came in, and they had taken me to the hospital. Elena waited alone until a fire rescue team arrived and cut her out of the wreckage. She watched as they removed her mother and brother. And so I watched them put them in a black body bag.

She was then airlifted to a hospital and would need numerous surgeries. What was the moment like when you were able to see each other again after that? I remember it. I remember hugging her and thanking her for not dying, for not leaving me. And then from there, I was just in the hospital bed with you. You couldn't keep us apart. The sisters say they were passed around to live with family members. We didn't have a bedroom. Just had each other.

Just each other, yeah. We lived at a little plastic bin. each other. Just each other, yeah. We lived at a little plastic bin. When a family friend referred the Plylers to Alec Murdoch, he promised to change all of that. Do you remember the first time you met Alec Murdoch? Yeah. I remember when he walked in, he seemed really arrogant, like a bulldog, just tall, almost intimidating in a sense. He told us, they took your family from you and we're going to make this right. They're going to pay. To two young girls who had lost everything, Myrdal seemed larger than life. I always felt at peace when I got to talk to Alec. People listened to him. You could tell there was a lot of control there. How did he earn your trust? Really, with his words, he was a smooth talker and he made you

feel special. But once the case settled, the special treatment stopped. He pretty much checked out. He had explained that the case had settled. We won big money. Elenia's case settled for $4.7 million. Hannah's for right at $3 million. That money was then entrusted to Russell Lafitte. Lafitte was the CEO of Palmetto State Bank in Hampton and a close friend of Myrdal, who'd handpicked Lafitte to manage the funds as conservator until the girls turned 18. So these two very wealthy, prominent men

basically helped themselves to these kids' piggy bank. Any money they needed had to be approved by Lafitte and a judge. Even if it was a dollar, we had to have a receipt for it. When you and Eric took on their case, what did you discover? Russell was making loans to Alex. Alex would be overdrawn $50,000, $100,000, $300,000 in his personal account, and he needed money to cover those shorts. Richter says that at Murdahl's direction, Lafitte transferred nearly $1.5 million from the Plyler's money to Alec Murdahl and himself.

When it came time for these young ladies to turn 18, the money was supposed to be there. So Alex had to go out and steal new money from different clients and put that money back. Murdaugh was never charged for Hannah and Alina's case, but Lafitte was convicted on federal charges for his role. But still, there's that toll of how do you trust going forward? People were put in a position of trust on their behalf when they were just children. And then to learn as an adult that the entire time they saw you as nothing more than a checkbook. While the Plylers can begin to heal, Sandy Smith still waits for her day of reckoning. Sandy Smith still waits for her day of reckoning.

All this sweeping drama, there's answers and there's closure for everybody else, but not for Sandy Smith. Time to put the spotlight on Stephen Smith. Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free on Wondery Plus and the Wondery app. Months after his blockbuster trial, Alex Murdoch! Verdict guilty. trial. Convicted double murderer Alec Murdahl and the crime of the century are still Hampton's biggest attractions. Almost every day somebody's coming by taking a picture of the law firm or riding out to Moselle taking pictures. They just can't get enough. The Murdahl craze was on full

display at an auction for the family's personal items from their Moselle property. The infamous leather couch set where Alec testified he took a catnap while his wife and son were murdered sold for $30,000. And Maggie's dog Bubba, who helped prosecutors prove Alec was actually at the crime scene, has become a local folk hero. If that rambunctious yellow lab hadn't have been doing what labs like to do, chase birds, we might not have solved this case and we might not have gotten the conviction. Alex's voice calling Bubba was caught in the background of a phone video Paul took minutes before he was killed. Bubba and the other dogs at the kennels, they were witnesses to

a very horrific event. Bubba now lives a quiet life with the Murdahl's housekeeper. Meanwhile, Alec Murdahl is serving two life terms in a maximum security prison. Do you think Alec Murdahl still thinks he can try to play the system? 100%. Now, Murdoch's attorneys are hoping their latest motion will be a get-out-of-jail-free card. We're focused on getting him a new trial. In September 2023, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin announced their motion for a new trial based on allegations of jury tampering by the Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill. What we had filed today, supported by sworn testimony of jurors,

is that the clerk of court had improper private communications with the jurors. The state versus Richard Alexander Murdoch. They argued that Hill violated Murdoch's right to a fair trial when she allegedly told jurors not to be fooled by his testimony and to watch his body language as Alec was about to take the stand. I'm Alec Murdoch. In a signed affidavit, Hill denies all of the defense allegations and voluntary statements from a majority of the jury support Hill's account. Richter and Bland say even a new trial can save Alec Murdoch. If the motor conviction's overturned, then you have the financial crimes.

So, yes, there's a theoretical universe in which Alec Murdoch could see the sun again, but it's theoretical only. It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's futile. If you were to write a made-for-TV Southern legal drama, you couldn't have done a better job than this. DeWitt writes about it in his book, The Fall of the House of Myrtle,

which he ends with Stephen Smith. It's kind of interesting and tragic that the oldest story remains unsolved. Solving his murder, I think this will be the end of this sweeping saga. As SLED continues its investigation of the Smith case behind closed doors, what investigators found after the Murdahl murders remains the subject of intense speculation. Do you have any idea what the new evidence that may be presented to the grand jury is? No. I do know that SLED has Stephen's phone. I know that they have Stephen's tablet. Could Steven's phone reveal the identity of the

prominent person with whom he told Sandy he'd planned to go deep sea fishing? That'll be interesting what SLED has found out and what the grand jury is going to determine whether the person that he was going to go away with deep sea fishing had anything to do with his death or his knowledge of his death. How has this fight for justice been? It has been a long road, but it's worth it. Sandy is keeping the faith and keeping Stephen's memory alive. She recently established a college scholarship in his name. We are starting this scholarship fund so other children won't have it as hard as Stephen did. And she's offering a $30,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. And now it's your turn that if you know something that you

say something. What do you miss most about Stephen? Just, I miss everything about him. What do you think Stephen would think of your fight, where we are today in his case? He said, oh, mama, you would do that for me. Yep. I would, Over and over. If you have information about the Stephen Smith case,

please email tips at sled.sc.gov. Alex Murdaugh's request for a new trial for the murder of his wife and son was denied earlier this year. In July, he asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to review that decision. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now In July, he asked the South Carolina Supreme Court to review that decision.