Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - More Trouble for Alex Murdaugh, Teen Stephen Smith Body Exhume

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

The other mysterious deaths connected to the Alex Murdaugh family are now back in the news. As convicted killer Murdaugh, await his prison designation, we learn that Stephen Smith's mother has raised enough money to pay for her son's body to be exhumed.  In 2015  Stephen Smith was found dead in the middle of the road in Hampton County. The openly gay 19-year-old had blunt force trauma to the head and his death was officially ruled as a hit-and-run. Smith’s family has never believed the teen's death was accidental. They say the actions credited to Smith were outside his normal behavior and the Murdaugh name popping up in the investigation set rumors flying.  Smith’s mother Sandy Smith launched a GoFundMe to raise money for an exhumation and independent autopsy. She has raised more than her goal.  An investigation is also still underway into the mysterious death of the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. Joining Nancy Grace today: Eric Bland - Attorney for Gloria Satterfield’s sons and Founder/Partner: Bland Richer, LLP Attorneys at Law; Twitter: @TheEricBland Dr. Bethany Marshall - Psychoanalyst (Beverly Hills, CA); New Netflix show: 'Bling Empire' (Beverly Hills); Twitter: @DrBethanyLive  Robert Crispin - Private Investigator, Former Federal Task Force Officer for United States Department of Justice, DEA and Miami Field Division; Former Homicide and Crimes Against Children Investigator; "Crispin Special Investigations;" Facebook: Crispin Special Investigations, Inc.  Dr. Kendall Crowns - Chief Medical Examiner for Tarrant County (Ft. Worth), Lecturer for University of Texas Austin and Texas Christian University Medical School  Alexis Tereszcuk - CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker for Lead Stories; Twitter: @swimmie2009  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Alex Murdoch. Yes, it's not over. His lawyers are vowing to appeal, giving press conferences. But he may have more trouble ahead of him because now we learn that the body of Stephen Smith, the young teen found dead in the middle of the road, it was kind of like assumed it was a hit and run. Not so fast, Murdoch. He is set to be exhumed. And we also finally learned the answer. Whose hair was in Maggie Murdoch's hand at the time of the murder? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. But just for old time's sake, let's start with this. Police just passed us immediately. My wife and child got badly. Okay, you said 4147 Moselle Road in Arlington?

Sir? You said 4147 Moselle Road in Arlington? Yes, sir. 4147 Moselle Road. Stay on the line with me, okay? Yes, sir. Stay on the line with me, okay? Call an accounting communication. Collison, I have an Alex Murdoch on the line. Call us from 4147 Mosel Road. He's advising that his wife and child was shot. Okay, and sir, give me

the address again. 4147 Mosel Road. I've been up to it now. It's bad. Okay. Okay, and are they breathing? No, ma'am. Okay. And you said it's your wife and your son? My wife and my son. Are they in a vehicle? No, ma'am. They're on the ground out at my kennel. I will never be able to listen to that 911 call the same way again after seeing Murdoch on the stand day after day after day.

His direct examination went great. Then, like the Wicked Witch of the West, it all started to melt when he got on cross-examination, sitting right behind me in the courtroom. Sometimes I actually feel you breathing, Eric Bland. when he got on cross-examination, sitting right behind me in the courtroom. So I'm just going to actually feel you breathing, Eric Bland. Eric Bland with me, high-profile lawyer throughout the Southeast and beyond, and coincidentally representing the family of Gloria Satterfield, another dead body related to the Murdochs. You know, Eric, I kind of had a hard time picking which 9-1-1 call to play first, because when it comes to the Murdochs, there are so many to pick from. You've

got the 9-1-1 calls and the body cam the night that Maggie and Paul, God rest their souls, were found dead at his third home, the hunting lodge, as it is called. You've got him getting himself shot in the head as an attempt to make it look like he wasn't the killer, that the killer's still out there wandering around. Then you've got the Gloria Satterfield 911 call. You've got the Stephen Smith 911 call. It just goes, oh, yeah, and the Mallory Beach 911 call. I don't know if there are any more, but there may be. Yes, there was. But when I listened to him, Eric, you were right there.

And, guys, let me tell you, Eric Bland has tried a lot of cases, and he is with BlandRichter.com. Eric, thank you for making time for us in the midst of all of your trials that you've got going on. But after seeing him snotting on a stand and giving evil eyes to people that he didn't agree with, I can't really listen to the 911 call the same way as I did before, after seeing him lie through his teeth. You can't. And you forgot another 911 call, which is the one with paul and morgan uh as depicted in netflix when he drove off the road drinking in 2017 in his truck let me just add that run off road 9-1-1 yeah yeah morgan called 9-1-1 and then maggie and alex showed up and got

mad at her for calling 9-1 calling 911 with a flipped over truck. And they took guns and alcohol away from the truck. So, you know, they should start charging him for these 911 calls because. Could you just slow down a second right there? Hold on, because I want to analyze something you said. I've got so much to go through all this evidence, but I just want to touch on that. Alexis Tereshchuk joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Alexis, you have a young boy that you are raising. I'm proud to say I was there. I was there. Alexis, can you believe it or not, Alexis, he's at the point, as are my twins,

I have to ask him every day, are any of your friends vaping? Who's vaping? Who's doing e-cigs? Is anybody smoking? Is anybody smoking pot? Is anybody drinking? Who? And guess what? They are.

And they have been since the seventh grade. Not the twins. Praise the Lord. But many of their friends from really nice, loving families. Now, my point is, Alexis, you've got this young boy who is adorable. Thank you. And what would you do? Because here you hear Eric Blandon. He's right. The Murdoch show up and instead of going, what in the hay? You're grounded. Give me those car keys. They start clearing out guns and alcohol from the car and are angry at the girlfriend for calling 911. It is the exact MO of this family. Every single time someone in their family does something wrong, they cover it

up, they hide, and then they try to bully the other people into thinking that they are not the ones that are responsible. They did it over and over and over again. And in fact, people, the victims, the other victims, their families were saying it was so strange. Like my child was killed in what I thought was a car accident on the street. And Alec Murdoch immediately says, you know, why don't you talk to me and I'll defend you. I'll be your lawyer. Thinking why on earth would I need a lawyer? But it was him plotting ahead to steal from them.

He has a crime mentality from the first second that his own family, anyone in his family, commit the crime. I mean, Eric Bland, back to Eric Bland, guys, you should have seen this guy at the courthouse. We were all camped out in front. Jackie, I wish you had been there with me because we were all out there. You know, hundreds of journalists and court watchers, legal eagles. Bland would come from somewhere. I don't know. It's kind of like he just descended into the area. He was always dressed perfectly to the nines and he would wade through the crowd like it's the new Johnny Cochran. Everybody wants to talk to him. Everybody wants to find out about the Satterfield case. So Eric Bland, back to that 911 call we just heard.

Now that I've seen him on the stand caught in his lies before there was, you know, there was doubt. Is it real? What really happened? But now that I've seen him and his lies, now that I know 100 percent he's lying to listen to the 911 call, it just makes me even more angry at what he did. And this cover up. Yeah, he played he played law enforcement. He played his family. He played his friends right there on that 911 call.

Nance, you heard him say that he had already touched the bodies. But when he testified at the trial, he said, I didn't touch them until after I made the 911 call because the 19 seconds just didn't work out. It just goes too quickly for him. And so for him, it's constantly changing the story. As to his children, you know, they overindulged these children. They didn't put correct guardrails and barriers. They didn't properly discipline these children when they acted out. They had a free flow of alcohol at the family. All these things lead to exactly what

happened on the night of June 7th. I mean, you don't have to be Fellini to figure out that this is the type of family they are. It's not normal. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What is Mardog's life now? I don't know if you remember Dr. Bethany Marshall joining me, a high-profile psychoanalyst joining us out of LA, actually Beverly Hills at drbethanymarshall.com. But Dr. Bethany, I want you to hear this next report because one night my co-worker, Illy, and I went walking well after all the programs had ended. It was dark and we went walking because we had been sitting in the courtroom all day long and we walked past the jail, the local county jail where he was, you know, awaiting the verdict, awaiting the rest of the trial. And it was the razor wire, just big circles of it all around the top were like glistening in the night.

And we walked down and we're looking. And, of course, they all the personnel came to see what was happening because I, of course, took a video of it. And we're, I think, trying to shoo us off. I've been thrown out of so many places in pursuit of justice. But that said, I thought a long time about Alex Murdoch and the life he had. I mean, I can't really explain it. You know, when you go to the beach and the air feels so good and you can breathe it so easily in Colleton County, I guess it's coming in off the ocean from somewhere,

but the air is sweet-smelling, and unless it's raining or really cold, it's very mild. There's thousands and thousands of acres of farmland and woodland. The people there were, I mean, overwhelmingly friendly and nice. Whether they meant it or not, the court personnel just could not have been nicer. And I keep thinking he gave all that up for this. Take a listen to our friends at Crime Online. Alec Murdaugh is spending the first days of the rest of his lifetime sentence in a single cell at Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia,

South Carolina. During his first 45 days of incarceration at Kirkland, Murdaugh will go through an evaluation process. At the end of the 45 days, he will be assigned permanently to a maximum security prison. During his time at Kirkland, he's being kept away from the general population and is only leaving his jail cell when he is taken for another assessment exam. Now, prior to this trial, conviction, and sentencing, Murdaugh had been able to develop a certain lifestyle behind bars at the county level. In his jailhouse phone calls to family, he often remarked about inmates wanting to trade their canteen for his shoes.

Well, what he was able to get used to before does not exist for him now at Kirkland Correctional Institution. What's happening at Kirkland CI? Take a listen to Dave Mack. Alec Murdaugh's single cell unit is made of concrete with a steel bed, toilet, and sink. He is under 24-hour surveillance. He's being kept away from the general population because prison officials are concerned he might be a target for other inmates considering how prominent his legal family has been. Because of this, his time is spent all alone in his cell unless he's being taken for tests or assessment. He's in the most secure area of the maximum security unit that is used for the most dangerous or most at-risk inmates. We asked a prison consultant from Wall Street Prison Consultants, Larry Levine,

who joined our friends at News Nation, Take a listen to what he says. They lock the prison down at different points 24 hours a day. So if they really want to, they can grab him from his cell, take him out of the housing unit, and take him over to Psyche or Medical or something. So I don't think that he's in there all day long. But he'll have maybe an hour a day of free time that he can get out of his cell.

The only difference is the guy's not in GP. He's not in general population. He's in protective custody. So I guess his new best friend is whatever cop happens to be on shift who's watching him. To Dr. Bethany Marshall at drbethanymarshall.com. Dr. Bethany, I don't know in LA and Beverly Hills if they ever watch Andy Mayberry, but we grew up on it. Think about Otis and the Mayberry County Jail. It's not just Mayberry. It's not just Colleton County. It's not just a lot of county where Brian Koberger is being held or the county

jail where cult mom Lori Vallow is being held. All county jails that are in small jurisdictions are very, my experience has been, very, let's just say, warm compared to a CI, Correctional Institute. First, when you're in holding, waiting for trial, you stay at the county jail. Your friends, your family can come visit. You may even know people there. You may even know the wardens. You're all from the same county, especially if it's a small jurisdiction. Where Koberger is, who's charged with murdering four Idaho university students, they wake them up with soft music in the morning. I'm not kidding. They have pizza night on Friday

night. He can meet to have mass whenever he wants. He has his own cable TV in his cell. Yes. Now, when you go to a CI, Correctional Institute, you're not in Kansas anymore. It's much more bleak. But what I want to ask you, Dr. Bethany, and then I'm going to go back to Eric and Crispin and Dr. Kendall. Well, Dr. Kendall Crowns, not you yet, but Crispin, jump in whenever you want. The dichotomy of that beautiful life he had there in Colleton County. I mean, Moselle, the hunting lodge is sitting on nearly 2000 square acres. It's beautiful. That's right. Then he's got the beach house in Islington.

And then the other residence, he's got a thriving law practice. I mean, Bland can tell you, a law practice takes generations to build, at least a law practice like that one. He gave it all up for this to sit at Kirkland Diagnostic. That's right. Nancy, I've given so much thought to this. What is his life going to be like in prison as opposed to the life he had? What are the psychological stressors for him going to be? And as you said, his life as an attorney, it was limitless. He had absolutely no boundaries. He conned everyone

around him. He was an addict. And I don't know if you caught in the Netflix special that Paul's friend said that at the watermelon parade, he would pull all the high school kids into his office and offer them alcohol. He had handles, they said, I'd never heard that term before, handles of alcohol, like hard liquor, in his office, and he would supply that to all the kids. You said Paul. Are you saying Paul or Alex? Paul. Okay, Alex would get Paul's friends to come into his office, and then he would mix drinks for them.

He had handles of liquor in his office. And that is just but one example of the limitless life Alex Murdoch lived where he thought he could do whatever he wanted to do without consequences, even addicting minors in his community. So think about the sensory overload he's going to face. He's had a housekeeper taking care of his every need. He has a wife who didn't work, who arranged everything socially for him. He conned everyone he met. There were no limits and boundaries. And now he's not going to be able to con a prison guard.

He's not going to have that beautiful gourmet food. He's not going to have luxury linens on his bed. So I think there's going to be a certain trauma involved in this as his whole being, his whole psyche reorients itself to a different kind of life. You know, Nancy, how we live our lives becomes so normalized. It gets baked into our DNA. In fact, there's a term called hedonic adaptation. And that means that as our lives get better and better, we have increased hedonism, which means a desire for pleasure. We adapt to the pleasure in our lives and the pleasure becomes normal. Well,

what happens when every pleasure in life is ripped away and it's replaced with a skill caught and people who don't believe you anymore? He's going to have to really adapt to a whole different environment. This is going to take years. He's going to be in an adaptation process for the rest of his life. Guys, hold on. Eric Bland, I'm coming right back to you. But Sydney, thank you, Sydney. You know how I love jail menus. Is Sydney in here? There she is.

Thank you. Okay, listen to this, guys. Breakfast, apple drink, hard-boiled eggs, pancake with syrup, grits with margarine, biscuits, coffee, and milk. That doesn't sound too bad to me. Lunch, chili with beans, steamed rice, salad bar, cornbread, iced tea, and milk. That doesn't sound too bad to me. Lunch. Chili with beans, steamed rice, salad bar, cornbread, iced tea, apple drink.

Again, I would love somebody to give me that. Dinner. Braised turkey with noodles, lima beans, biscuits, cake. Murdoch is having cake and pancakes and salad bar? Iced tea and milk. Okay, that doesn't sound that bad to me eric bland no but um just so you know the jail that he was in for the last year and a half um the allen as glenn um county prison is a very dangerous prison uh dangerous jail nancy there's been a lot of are you talking about the colleton county jail

no i'm talking about the one he was in so he's used to some very harsh conditions a lot of people have died in the last year and a half it's understaffed there's gangs in there now it may come under federal supervision so he hold on just a moment whoa whoa wait wait what's the name of the facility alvin s glenn that's what he was in up until the trial. Now he was in Colleton County, which is a better jail during the trial, but now he's in Kirkland and getting assessed. And this assessment is so important for him, but also the state. Remember, the state does not want to have him injured in prison within the first 90 days. No, that's going to look really bad for them. Correct. And when you say diagnostic, guys, this is what that means.

You're in the county jail typically while you wait for trial. Then after you're convicted, you go to a diagnostic center, which sounds nice, right? One of them I saw is called the reception center, like you're going to have cookies and punch when you get there no it's basically where you go while they figure out what penitentiary you're going to serve the rest of your life in so that's the diagnosis it means where they're going to send you go ahead eric yeah they have to figure out nance um how many people in that prison that he's going to were convicted in the 14th judicial circuit how many people were convicted by his father that are serving out life sentences they also have to worry about his own psychological safety you know is he a suicide risk own psychological safety look look

we already saw him fail at his claimed attempt at suicide. That is not going to happen. Okay. His life right now is three hots and a cot. He loves himself too much to kill himself. That wasn't a suicide attempt. He's not impulsive in that way. Bland, I agree with you and Bethany. Go ahead, Bland.

Yeah, that was an attempt to divert law enforcement away from thinking that he was the suspect for the murders on June 7th and that there was, you know, cartel people or somebody out there. But this 60-day assessment is so vitally important because they have to determine where to put him so that he is safe and also other prisoners are safe because it could create a serious situation if people want to get retribution against them. And the state doesn't want that kind of liability. Obviously, they don't want the notoriety. I got it. I got it. I got it. I've got to get to Stephen Smith.

But Robert Crispin joining me, private investigator, former federal task force officer, USDOJ, DEA in Miami. Never a lack of business. There, you've seen your share of homicide investigations and your share of finding and rousting people out of the jail. You can find them at CrispinInvestigations.com. Crispin, just give me a thumbnail about what life in the penitentiary, not the Colleton County Jail, is going to be like for Murdoch. Oh, Nancy, this is about to get so bad for him that the general public will probably never really understand how bad it's about to get for him. And I have been in so many prisons to

interview people. And going in, even as a federal agent, to go to talk to somebody, it is the most eerie, uncomfortable, and unsettling experience. I hate it. I cannot wait until I get out. I'll tell you, I remember one feeling when I came out of the Fulton County Jail, which in itself is not that bad compared to other jails. I was never so happy to see an ugly pothole parking lot in my life because I was out of that jail. It's just when they clang those doors shut, it's a feeling that I will never forget, Crispin.

Especially for somebody of his magnitude in society. And what you forgot when you were talking about- Oh, blah, blah. His magnitude in society. Well, wait until his menu changes because all your chili and all your applesauces and everything, if you want to know the reality of what really happens in jail, his chili is coming with a side of cockroaches. Trust me.

Somewhere along the line, someone is going to go after him, and that's reality. His grilled cheese sandwich is going to have a bite out of it. Wow. I wonder what Maggie and Paul are having for lunch oh yeah nothing they're dead sorry don't care and this this is going to be the best sentence for him for his life to deteriorate and crumble before his very eyes on the way he's about to be treated. Unfortunately, he didn't get the death penalty. And I agree with Bland. It was never an attempt at suicide.

It was an attempt to make it look right. He's no way. He was trying to act like the real killer of Maggie and Paul. We're still out there and finally coming after him. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, I've got to get to Stephen Smith. But very quickly, Maggie and Paul, Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Much was made about the hair in Maggie's hand.

It was a few strands of hair. Can you explain? We have now learned from first responders what that hair was. And that's why the defense didn't make that big of a deal about it. Go ahead. Well, we all thought, obviously, that it was a clump of Alex's hair because he had a full head of hair back then. We thought it was something she grabbed him and fought off. It ends up that according to the forensics of it,

when Maggie was shot, she was shot in the head, tufts of her hair blew off of her head. She had a full, very long, long hair, looked very thick from all the pictures, and tufts of her hair actually flew and were in her hand. So it was not a defensive thing where she ripped the hair out of her husband's head as he was trying to murder her, but it was just a result of the way that he fired the gun at her head. It blew her head apart and, in fact, blew her hair off into her hand. Dr. Kendall Crowns joining us, Chief Medical Examiner, Tarrant County in Fort Worth, Lectures University, Texas, Austin, and Texas Christian University Medical School.

Dr. Kendall Crowns, thank you for being with us. Dr. Kendall Crowns, I really have you on today to talk about exhumations, but I noticed at trial the defense didn't make a very big deal out of the hair in Maggie's hand, and I was wondering why, and the state never really even responded. What they said about it in closing statements, something like, they never tested the hair. Well, of course, we all know the defense can also test whatever they want to test as well. They didn't test it either because we all knew it was Maggie's hair or they did anyway. But the defense was right in arguing they didn't test it because they were trying to attack the state's investigation. Dr. Kendall Crowns, have you ever seen when someone is shot in the head that their hair blows in different directions at the crime scene?

Yes, I have. So the wife was shot with a rifle, and usually rifles, they carry a lot of energy when the bullet hits the head. You have to think about the head as the skull is kind of this hard, circular trap that cannot deal with much expansion. And when the rifle bullet enters the skull, it puts all this energy into the skull, and then the skull rapidly expands and explodes. And when it explodes, it rips your scalp apart and can send portions of your scalp and your hair all over the place. So usually with high-powered rifles, shotguns, we see a fair amount of scalp disruption and the hair getting in different areas. You know, when Alexis Tereschuk was talking about,

Maggie, I have a picture of their family. It's the one where she has on the mink coat, and they're all dressed in tuxes to go somewhere. And Alexis was talking about her thick head, thick blonde hair, and I was just thinking about how she lost her life. And then I listened to him lying on that 911 call. It actually makes my chest just clench up hearing him lie about them. Okay, guys, he's got more problems headed his way in the name of Stephen Smith and Gloria Satterfield. It ain't over yet. Take a listen to our cut 10T.

Oh my gosh, we've been waiting on this forever. Sandy Smith wakes up every morning thinking about her son Stephen and her years long search for answers. And they said he was shot in the head and then it turned out it was a hit and run and then he was beat up and so the story just kept changing. Stephen Smith's body was found along Sandy Run Road in Hampton County in July of 2015. The official cause of death at the time was that Smith died of a hit and run. I just couldn't believe it, but he,

when they told me hit and run, I said that's impossible because Stephen wouldn't have been walking in the road to start with. He would have cut through the woods. He would not have been in the highway. And listen to more from our friends at WYFF. With no arrests made, that search for answers continues and the case is reopened. In June 2021, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division announced that they were reopening the investigation into Stephen Smith's death. In a statement then, they said the decision

to look into the death was based on information gathered during the murder investigation into the deaths of Paul and Maggie Murdoch. For Sandy Smith, it could be another step closer to justice or more unanswered questions. It's like he's a nobody because we're poor people. That was until the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdoch in June of 2021. That same month, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division reopened Smith's case based on information they had gathered during that initial murder investigation. What that information is, though, still has yet to be revealed. SLED reports they have made progress in the last year and a half, but to this day, no suspects have been formally named in relation to Smith's death.

No interviews with anyone from the Murdoch family are ever noted in Highway Patrol's documents. Alexis Tereschuk has been following the Stephen Smith investigation very closely. She's joining us from CrimeOnline.com. Alexis Tereschuk, please refresh everyone's recollection regarding the death of this young man, Stephen Smith. So Stephen Smith was found in the middle of the road with his clothes on, but one shoe missing. But it was right next to the Murdoch property.

So someone from the Murdoch family found him. Alex called, they called the police. They came, everybody said, oh, it was, you know, it was a hit and run. This is a terrible thing. This boy in the middle of the road killed in a hit and run accident. The mother, she was called to the scene and Alex even says to her, you know what, why don't, why don't you try to hire me as an attorney and I'll try to get you some money for this. Fast forward a couple of years later, people start talking. Everybody says, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. This wasn't a murder. This is not, I mean, this wasn't an accident. This was a murder. People are saying

there are rumors that Paul, that Buster Murdoch and Steven were in a relationship and Steven was openly gay. And his mom said he had told her that he was in a relationship. And Stephen was openly gay and his mom said he had told her that he was in a relationship with somebody, but he couldn't say who it was because it was a prominent family and he didn't want anybody. And that person didn't want anybody to know. She has thought for all of these years that he was murdered. Everybody in the town thought that the Murdoch's had something to do with this murder. And she has finally, after this case is done, after Alex has been convicted of killing his wife and his son, she has finally, after this case is done, after Alex has been convicted of killing his wife and his son, she has raised enough money to have his body exhumed and have an

independent new autopsy done. And this is not something actually that the state is paying for. They're not doing it. They're not saying, well, our investigation is going so well that we need to do this for evidence. So it's very, very, very slowly moving along. But thanks to this case, thanks to the generosity of so many people, in fact, almost a thousand people donated to this GoFundMe that they, she has enough money to have his body brought up

and to determine how he was killed. And it's probably not going to be just from a car bumping into him. And listen to Blair Sabal, WCSC. Somebody out there knows something. It's July 8th, 2015. A driver on his way to work calls 911 to report a body lying in the middle of the street on Sandy Run Road. The victim turns out to be 19-year-old Stephen Smith, a shy teen, but a funny and outgoing one to his inner circle.

Smith was openly gay in the small rural South Carolina town he grew up in. The blunt force trauma to his head appears as a possible gunshot wound to the first responders on the scene, but the coroner's office later rules his death a hit and run. He also has injuries to his left arm and left hand. And there are some more details. Before I go to you, Eric Bland and Robert Crispin regarding the hit and run, take a listen to more from Blair Sabal. Smith's car was found about three miles away

on Bamberg Highway. It won't start, but investigators find his wallet inside. The gas cap also unscrewed. His family reports he would have never left the car, calling him skittish and his twin sister Stephanie also tells authorities that her brother had become very secretive about two weeks prior to the incident. And last take a listen to Blair Sabal. Documents show investigators fielding tips about the Murdoch family in the days and months following his death. The first tip

comes in early August suggesting swirling rumors of a relationship between Smith and Buster Murdoch, Alec Murdoch's eldest and now only surviving son. An investigator also fields a tip about another possible suspect, but that tipster tells them he passed along the information at the request of a well-known family patriarch, former solicitor Randy Murdoch. Andrew says in the records she has, the Murdoch name is mentioned 40 times. Where there's smoke, there's fire. There has to be something to it. Eventually, the leads dried up and the case went cold.

Joining me from the jurisdiction is high-profile lawyer Eric Bland, attorney for the housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, who also died at the Murdoch property. What is happening with Stephen Smith's case? Since when did a mother of little means have to go on GoFundMe to raise money for an exhumation of her son? Well, let me just correct some misperceptions. One, you just can't exhume a body. You have to get a court order to do it. So I'm going to assist with, I think, some other attorneys in making that petition. Two, Alex was not at the scene. It was Randy Murdoch, the brother, and Randy Murdoch called Sandy Smith and offered his services.

And she was a little perplexed as to why she would need his services. Three, he was supposed to go to Key West that weekend to go fishing, and he didn't tell his mother who he was going with. But what he said is it was a very prominent person. So something was discovered by SLED when they began investigating Maggie and Paul. We don't know whether it was phone evidence, either on Paul's phone that may have postdated the death or Alex's phone or someone's phone. There may have been a statement or something. And we certainly learned a lot about phones in this trial, Nancy. And SLED could issue warrants for people's phones because I'm sure there's a lot of post-death chatter. It's clear that he wouldn't have left his wallet in his car

if he was going to get gas. His mother also has talked publicly that he was aware that it was risky where he lived, being a gay young man. And so he would not have walked in the middle of the road. He wouldn't have taken the route that the police think that he took where he was ultimately dropped. And it's obvious to everybody, Nancy, that he wasn't hit by a car, that it happened somewhere else. So I think if we exhume the body and then we start doing some phone searching, I believe there's going to be chatter on people's phones that post date his death. I mean, I feel like I'm in an echo chamber. We're at very close to a Murdoch property on a route that he wouldn't have taken, just like when Alex Murdoch had himself shot in the head,

connected to, reportedly, someone in the Murdoch family, leading up to an event that weekend away, leading up to the Mallory Beach case and the potential divorce, as in the Maggie and Paul murders. I mean, it shot, we believe, possibly shot in the head. And then a Murdoch showing up like in Mallory Beach and in Satterfield offering to take care of the case. I mean, it's... Nancy, can I make a comment about this? It's like an echo chamber. Yes, jump in.

It's like an offending pattern. Okay, we see offending patterns with sex predators, with thieves, with robbers, but this is an offending pattern that the entire family was engaged in. It's like every human being in that town was a potential mark, a potential person who could die, and then they could file, you know, some kind of a lawsuit, some kind of a claim, and then take money from the trust account. It's like a simple pattern that comes up again and again. Robert Crispin, private investigator, you can find him at crispininvestigations.com. Robert, what should have been done at the Stephen Smith scene?

Well, you know, Nancy, to kind of understand all this, you kind of got to go back to when he was hit on that road those years ago. You know, back then, when nobody suspected anything with the Murdoch family,

you know, his death could kind of be explained, to be honest with you. That head injury could be consistent to a passing truck mirror. I mean, I don't know how tall he was, but clearly, I mean, I've seen things where people have pedestrians on the road and get hit by a rearview mirror and go fly and they got a head injury. And then you compound something like that with the shoes off. Sure, your shoes come off when you get hit by a car, of course, but what's different in this case is the car, the shoe,

the pattern looks like he was dumped there. And I think that's probably now looking back, they probably say he was dumped there. as an investigator back in 2015 they probably thought he was hit by a car and then you have a high profile person showing up and being part of the scene nobody suspects anything yeah why did he suddenly show up Dr. Kendall Crowns joining me chief medical examiner in Tarrant County that's Fort Worth what do you make of the scene where Stephen Smith was found dead? I mean, I find it hard to believe that he'd leave his wallet in his car to go get gas and be walking in the middle of the road near a Murdoch property. I mean, what do you expect an

exhumation can show? Let me narrow the question, Dr. Crowns. but exhumation can still show injuries on the body specifically injuries to the skeletal system so if his head is injured and it's hit by a side view mirror from a passing it would have to be like a pickup truck or suv because i'm sure it wasn't a semi truck you would see fractures of the skull still that would be consistent with being struck in the head by a hard object. The area that he was found doesn't sound like it was a highway, so you're not dealing with highway speed. It's odd that he's in the middle of the road. It's odd that if he's hit by a very fast-mo moving car that there wasn't more tearing of the clothes. It's odd that he's in the middle of the road and not ran over by another automobile.

You're right. His clothes were intact. Dr. Crowns, his shoes were on. He had clear head trauma injury. There was no broken glass from a car, no car parts, nothing. And he has blue paint chips or something on him, which doesn't fit for being hit by a side view mirror. There's a lot of inconsistencies for being hit by a car. But an exhumation can still, the skeletal system will still be intact and they can still look at the fracture patterns on the skull. If he was put in

wasn't the injury at the back of the head which means that there was maybe an element element of surprise if somebody murdered him you know eric bland another good point made by dr bethany marshall and dr kendall crowns of course eric did you say a group of lawyers are going to help in getting a court order for the exhumation now that there's enough money to pay for it? Correct. We're going to make them a motion and we're also going to put public pressure on SLED to actually state where they are in the investigation. I got to ask you something else before we run out of time, Eric Bland. When is Gloria Satterfield going to be exhumed? Don't know. You know, I've had. Why? Well, they've asked they've asked us twice. We've agreed. I don't know. Who has asked who twice what?

Bled has asked the family through me, would we consent for an exhumation? And we said yes, because obviously they would go to court and get that. The difference is he did fall she fell down the stairs now whether she was pushed or she tripped the injuries are going to be basically the same they're going to be these uh closed and open head injuries with broken ribs so i'm not sure what it's going to show the two witnesses paul and maggie are dead alex isn't going to. And the farmhand came up 15 minutes later. So unless there was post-death discussions, I'm not sure what an exhumation of Gloria is going to show. Now, I do think an exhumation of Stephen

is going to be more telling. So we'll have to wait and see what SLED decides to focus on. We wait as justice unfolds. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.