Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Stephen Smith Body Exhumed, Investigation Starts Again

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

The body of Stephen Smith has been exhumed.  Smith's death was initially investigated as a hit-and-run but investigators say the evidence did not support that as a cause of death. Smith's body was discovered on a rural road in Hampton county back in 2015. Now that a new autopsy has been done, the investigation is just beginning.  Nancy Grace speaks with Criminal Defense Attorney and former FBI agent Dale Carson about what will happen next and how  police will uncover what happened over eight years ago on a desolate stretch of road. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last hours, we learned that very, very unobtrusively, the body of a young teen, Stephen Smith in South Carolina, has been exhumed. What does that mean? He's been dug up from the cemetery, gay, in a rural area in South Carolina. Body found by a stranger, a passerby, about three o' suggest he was hit and then dragged along the asphalt. There is no sign of plastic, glass, metal, anything from a car. This is a major, major development. And joining me right now, high-profile lawyer out of Jacksonville, Dale Carson, author of Arrest Proof Yourself, former FBI agent with the feds. Dale, thank you for being with us. This is another thing I've learned I want you to analyze we learn that according to sources two POIs have

been named and they are not Buster Murdoch now is there going to be a Murdoch connection maybe but tangentially and I'll get to that these two individuals were teens themselves at the time, lived near Moselle, the hunting lodge. It was not far from Moselle, about 8 to 11 minutes on the road where Stephen Smith's body was found, which triggered all sorts of speculation. They also lived near there. Now, this is what we're learning, Dale Carson. According to sources, these two POIs, teens themselves at the time, were out late at night and hit Stephen Smith, then tried to cover it up. What do you make of what we're learning right now and how difficult is it to get an order of exhumation and then actually autopsy an already embalmed body?

Well, of course, what we're looking for here is injuries consistent with a hit and run vehicular homicide. That's what we're looking for, because that's where everything was initially focused. And you're looking for things that would be patently evident in the exhumed autopsy. You're looking for spiral fractures below the knee. You're looking for places. Most individuals who are walking in the roadway and are struck by a vehicle. I've handled a number of these cases as a cop in Miami. You get fractures below the legs. In addition to that, below the knee rather,

and in addition to that, you're going to have what I call a dirt dump. Now, this is rural South Carolina, and a dirt dump is where your car strikes something, and when it does, all the material that is up in the wheel wells and on the frame drops onto the ground. So typically at the strike point, you're going to find dirt if you don't find anything else. What do you mean dirt on a paved road? Sure. Sure, you're going to find clumps of mud that have become dislodged from the wheel wells.

Remember, this is the rural south. But it's still on a paved road. That's all right. You're going to find clumps at the strike point. Now, if you don't find clumps of dirt and debris at the strike point where the bumper of the truck or car has hit the individual fractured below the knee, and the result is that strike impacts the car or truck, when it impacts it, you have massive amounts of dirt that come out of the car. If you hit the brakes real hard on your car, you're going to cause a... When you drive down the road and you hit a bump in the road and you see all the oil that's right there,

that's from the car hitting that bump, gravity pulling the oil that's around the engine or other parts onto the ground. So you see those spots. That's what I'm talking about. Wait. I'm letting all this sink in. Look, I'm a JD. I'm not an auto mechanic. parts onto the ground so you see those spots that's what i'm talking about wait and you i'm letting all this sink in look i'm a jd i'm not an auto mechanic uh but i hear what you're saying and it makes perfect sense to me keep going i want to hear every word so so you find these spiral fractures particularly where the individual is walking and the direction of travel. And so if he's facing a car, which typically... Slow down for Pete's

sake, man. What? If you're facing a car and you're walking down the road, you run out of gas, which by the way, brings up another interesting point. You run out of gas, why would you take the gas cap off your tank and look into it? Oh, yes. That's kind of odd. Yes. Hey, I want to tell you something else I learned. I can't wait for you to hear this.

So I've been doing a little bit of digging, and apparently Stephen Smith, he had a one-night stand before the death, but not in the hours leading up to the death he also had a boyfriend and the boyfriend says that he contacted Stephen Smith as late as 3 37 a.m. and that was less than a half an hour before the body is found. And he also says that Stephen Smith believed someone was following him. Well, look, back in the 70s in Miami when I was a cop down there, rolling individuals, rolling as in injuring drunks and gays was the order of the day. I mean, that's what happened. But this isn't the 70s, man.

I know. My point is that behavior still exists today. It's really hard for me to embrace that because who cares if you're gay or not gay? It's all I can do to keep our car in the middle of the road. In other words, to keep my family, to keep the children in school, to keep up with their assignments, to do the scouts, the this, the work, the blah, the this. I can't worry about what somebody else is doing. I don't have the energy.

It's very hard for me to take in gay hatred. But I will tell you this. I don't know if I've told you this, Dale Carson. One of the first cases I worked trying to hold it on appeal, which we did, by the way, was one of the most vicious gay male... You need to tell people what holding on appeal means. Holding the appeal, that means, thank you, you're right.

You get a conviction at trial. Then, like we see happening in Murdoch right now, the defendant has nothing to do all day but sit in jail and think, wow, how can I get this thing reversed on appeal? They go to jailhouse lawyers. Murdoch is a lawyer. He's going to live in the law library. He's going to scheme and gnash his teeth and switch his tail 24-7, 365, trying to come up with an appealable ground. So, you know you're in for it when you get a homicide conviction, a murder conviction. They will say anything, including turning on their own defense lawyers who probably

did a pretty good job and claiming they're ineffective. That always happens on appeal. And the defense lawyer typically goes along with it, goes, yeah, I'm ineffective. I was awful at trial to try to help the client. Of course, the appellate courts know this. So they're like, yeah, right. You're ineffective. Long story short, again, in that case, once you get the conviction, you got to hold it. You got

to hold it on appeal. That's what that means, and you're right. I did need to explain that. You got to make sure that out of all the myriad of counts the defense puts up as to why the case should be reversed, all the imaginary slights and unconstitutional practices in court, and then this juror fell asleep and the judge did this, and they go on and on. You've got to hold it. And you've got to be ready to get questions by the appellate court. And this was to the Georgia Supreme Court that I argued this case. And I don't know if it's like this in your jurisdiction, but here at the lectern, you've got the whole court in front of you.

They're all looking at you to do your argument. There is a green light, a yellow light, and a red light on the lectern. Green means go. Yellow means you're running out of time red means if you don't sit down right now we'll have the bailiff remove you and you'll be kicked out of the courtroom yes just like a traffic light so it's not that way this case was about a series of young black males that were raped anally, and then shot in the head almost always with.38 caliber

in the back of the head, a little bit to the right side, which means a right-handed killer. Anyway, we got the guy, convicted the guy, and I was trying to hold it on appeal. So, yes, I have dealt with horrible hatred toward gay men. And I had more after that, but that was the first one. And it's really hard for me to imagine this hatred.

But it exists. So you've got to factor that in as well, Dale Carson, about why Stephen Smith was killed. Well, there's more. If you go down a rural highway, you'll see mailboxes. What's with you and rural? It's always rural with you. What do you have a thing against rural? Okay, our country.

You ride down a country road, you're going to see mailboxes on the sides of the roads, and some of them will be destroyed. Do you know how that happens? I think you're about to tell me okay you ride down the road in your truck and you have a baseball bat which these boys were in baseball teams right and you reach out of the window the passenger does typically and strikes the mailbox to great amazement the thing gets destroyed and the boys cheer all right so yeah obviously they don't have enough to do uh well obviously they're destructive and they like to do those kind of things so you'll

see big concrete mailboxes which cannot be destroyed in that fashion. The point is, we're going to see whether that blunt force trauma came from a car where it fractured, caused abrasions to the skin and things in primary and secondary exposure. I got some more info for you while you continue to tell me about assaulting mailboxes. All right all right so so so if those other factors don't exist in the post-mortem and there aren't fractured legs then what about riding down the road seeing the guy you come around back you don't like him and you take one of those bats and you hit him with it and it of course kills him that's a really good point crime stories with nancy grace

can i tell you what else i've learned? Okay, please. According, okay, now I know the two names of the POI's persons of interest, but I'm going to call them number one and number two, okay? Number one and number two. I'm going to let number one be the non-driver and number two be the driver. Number two is the driver. Okay. So this is what we understand. One of the two came over to the tipster, an anonymous tipster who, I think I may know who it is, but anyway, the anonymous tipster says, one of the two POIs, persons of interest, come over to Tipster's house and told Tipster that number two, the driver, was drunk and hit something. Then he went back the next day to see what he had hit, which is a live course. See what he hit the next day and saw a lot of police out there.

Then he learned by media that someone had been killed and that's why police were there. The tipster said person one, not the driver, was visibly distraught, crying,

and when he got through telling his story, he walked outside of the house and threw up. Two, the driver may have tried to cover up evidence. Having his mirror fixed on his vehicle, patched up one of the mirrors on his truck, there were rumors, and there is somewhat of a Murdoch connection,

only allegedly that Randy Murdoch got another witness to call cops and rat out number two, the driver. Now, my question to you is, all this happened back in 2015. You've got a tipster telling an agent POI 1 came over, ratted out POI 2, person of interest 2,

POI 1 was so upset about it, he threw up. Just describing what happened. What in the hay has been going on since 2015, Dale Carson? Well, look, that's fairly straightforward, at least for me. If only a truck mirror, one of those extended mirrors on the side of your truck hit somebody if that happened there might not be leg fractures okay and that's a really good explanation for why it was actually struck with a bat i got something else for you before i forget it because you know up here my head i'll go to the next thing I got to you one more thing throw this into your analysis Dale Carson how do I say this

okay have you ever seen a risk to cats wait no wait or is it 101 Dalmatians okay there are two hound dogs. Sidney, could you please look this up? There are two hound dogs and one is Napoleon. And he's in charge. Much like Barney Fife. And in the distance, he hears

a car. Wait. Yes, he hears a car. And. Yeah, see, here's a car. And it's Egbert the butler. Oh, so that means it's a risticats. And Egbert the butler is riding a motorcycle with a sidecar.

And at a distance, Napoleon, was it the dog's name, Napoleon? Okay, who's the other dog? I just want to know out of curiosity. Please look it up. Anyway, wait a minute. I'm going somewhere with this. Wait, wait. Napoleon holds up his ear straight up. He goes, uh-huh, it's a motorcycle. It's got a sidecar, blah, blah. And he can hear what the vehicle is a mile away and identify it. Do you know, like for instance, my husband is always late to supper. And the three of us are sitting there

and what we do is we lay our heads down on the table and act like we're asleep. And we're all going, but this is how we know when to start fake snoring because we can tell the way he opens the door that it's him. We can hear his car. We can recognize his vehicle and we know how he opens the door unlike anybody else. And then we immediately fake sleep. What I'm saying is there's a witness in this case. It's the then boyfriend who is communicating back and forth with Stephen Smith that night, less than half an hour before Smith is killed.

And he says he hears, quote, big mud tires. Now, if I hear one tire versus another tire, I don't know that I could tell a difference. But it can be done, Dale Carson. It can be done. Absolutely. And the rural south, well. Lafayette. That was the other dog's name.

Okay. Go ahead. So in my area of the city in Florida, you don't hear off-the-road tires very much. But in the country areas, you do. And certainly you could know a muffler sound from a car. You can certainly hear from the tires, and it makes a tremendous racket. So they're elevated cars, trucks rather. So if they're elevated well, the mirror on a car wouldn't just hit somebody

in the back of the head or the front of the head, which is where the strike was on Smith. So the entire matter seems to be contrived. It's contrived. So if you had to make an explanation for somebody who was actually struck with a bat by ne'er-do-wells riding around in a car and finding a gay guy walking alone in the middle of a road and you know this individual and you turn around and you want to scare him but you accidentally intentionally kill him if that in fact would happen then your circumstance with knowing the truck, you would turn and look at it. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

You know, I got a question for you. Why are you so hell-bent on them using a bat? I mean, I've just told you that according to this tipster, and granted, that's not a completely credible source, but it's a tipster who's got facts that suggest Stephen Smith was hit by a truck by the side mirror, which then had to be fixed, i.e. taped up. What is it with you and the bat?

What I'm suggesting to you is there's a difference. It's for me to walk down the crooked path of Dale Carson land. And it may figure out you've hit now so far, you've hit a couple to walk down the crooked path of Dale Carson land. Well, I'm just telling you. And it may figure out you've hit. Now, so far, you've hit a couple of mailboxes with a bat.

Now, you go back to the 70s where people hit gay people with a bat. Can we deal with the facts as we know them in this case? Well, as you may believe them to be, but if a mirror strikes an individual, one of those mirrors is going to leave glass at the strike point and we didn't find any glass i'm just saying you're right that the entire process is contrived by a family in charge of what really happened and when you contrive something you've got to make a reason for it and that reason has got to be consistent with the apparent facts. So you have one, which is an hit and run. It's an accident. Horrible. It happens with people

who are drinking and driving and it's wrong. But another thing's all together there. If there's a relationship that somebody doesn't want revealed and you have an opportunity to get rid of that problem and you do so as consistent with the behaviors of certain well-known families in that area, you've got to contrive it. So the first thing you're going to do is call the victim's mother and say, look, I'll represent you for free, not for a fee, but for free. Why would they do that? Well, hold on just a moment.

I'm going to go into your conspiracy theory riddled mind for just one moment hold on wait a minute I'm I'm going with you on this just a moment Dale Carson let me get my thought let me marshal my thoughts because according to the father of Poi person of interest number one the stepfather a person of interest number one not the stepfather of person of interest number one, not the driver. Number one tells stepfather what happened. That number two hit Stephen Smith

and killed him. The father, the stepfather of number one says that Randy Murdoch got him, the stepfather, to tell the story to cops. What is Randy Murdoch doing up in the middle of this? If, in fact, this is true.

We don't know it's true. I mean, and number two, the driver apparently has a history of DUI, domestic violence, a potpourri of offenses. He just smells, you know. He's got a whole, as I said, trash bag full of offenses, none of them rising to a felony that I know of, but he's just a cesspool brewing with all his offenses, and then boom, now we've got this. So how does Randy Murdoch get injected into this? Well, you know, individuals who don't want the truth of a matter known often do things

to prevent that truth from being revealed. I mean, that's just human nature. Wait, are you one of those people that think LBJ murdered JFK? Did he? Oh, okay. Thank goodness you're not into that one. But you're definitely

seeing a conspiracy here and you're roping in the Murdochs. They are pointing to number one and number two, but it's really them. Is that what you're saying? Well, it's somebody else. Whether it is an actual Murdoch is another matter altogether. But clearly, the exhumation is going to provide some evidence as to what happened. And I've seen a number of hit-and-run traffic fatalities, and I have never seen somebody

hit by just a mirror. I mean, that's unusual. Well, I want to follow up on that because I think you're right. Apparently, and we're going to find out from the independent autopsy, Stephen Smith had bruising to one side of his body, but the fatal, the cause of the death, COD, was a blow to the head of some sort. Well, it was originally thought it was a gunshot. That's right.

And so you've got to look at the photographs. You've got to look at the actual fracture. You know, there's a difference between a high speed fracture and a low speed fracture. It's called brisons. And that is a term that's used with the military to describe the ability of an explosive to move things. And they're different speed. So if the truck was going 5 miles an hour versus 50 miles an hour, or a bat was traveling at 60 miles an hour, there's a difference. And you can tell whether the back of a mirror hit his forehead or whether it was something else. I mean, I just see him walking down the road.

A truck passes him, and this is information that's available in some of the information I've read in the media. Somebody sees him. They dislike him. They turn the truck around. He thinks it's somebody that knows him, so they're going to rescue him from his car without a gas. They come by quickly and they intentionally injure him. Right now, we've got a lot of facts brewing. Let's see what happens when more of the facts are formally released.

We wait as justice unfolds. Thanks, Dale Carson. Goodbye, friends. This is an iHeart Podcast.