Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Who Killed Stephen Smith? Part Five (S01E24)

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

After years of fighting for justice in her son Stephen Smith’s case, Sandy Smith has a renewed sense of hope that her son’s killer will be found. After she felt blindsided by her former attorney Andy Savage, Sandy Smith has hired Mike Hemlepp, Jr. as her new attorney. Hemlepp believes this case will absolutely be solved.  If you know any information that could help SLED solve Stephen Smith’s case, PLEASE, call Crimestoppers of the Lowcountry at 843-554-1111 or submit tips on their website here. And please consider donating to the Standing For Stephen Go Fund Me. The Murdaugh Murders Podcast is created by Mandy Matney and produced by Luna Shark Productions. Our Executive Editor is Liz Farrell. Advertising is curated by the talented team at AdLarge Media.. Find us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ https://www.instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ In 2022 we plan to commission up to 5 different stories for deep-dive investigations. We're seeking investigators, journalists, arm-chair detectives and others to tell a story they've always wanted to share in order to expose the truth wherever it leads. Cold cases, active investigations, crimes and corruption is our aim and we want to help you blow the lid off of the next big story. We fund your project, you tell the story - we just help you along. Visit MurdaughMurdersPodcast.com/truth for more details. And a special thank you to our sponsors: Cerebral, Aura Frames, Hunt-A-Killer, Ghostwriter, Bannon Law Group, Nature's Highway CBD, and others. For current and accurate updates: Twitter.com/mandymatney Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ugh, another pointless video call where nothing gets done. I think you're on mute, David. Uh, sorry. What did I miss? IT just approved Miro for the whole company. Miro? That's the... Online whiteboard.

For team collaboration. We can make these long video meetings so much shorter with Miro boards. We can share ideas, feedback, and updates on them whenever. Actually see what we're talking about? It's all online. Miro will make our flexible work set up so much easier. With one virtual space for our brainstorms, projects, presentations... Oh, that sounds kind of amazing.

So I don't need to wake up for six AM calls with the London office anymore. Now you're getting it. Don't let time zones get in the way of your team working well together. See why 99% of the Fortune 100 trust Miro to get good work done. From anywhere. Get your first three boards free at Miro.com. That's M-I-R-O.com. I don't know who killed Stephen Smith.

But I know his mother Sandy recently hired a new attorney. And I have a renewed sense of hope that the Smith family will finally get justice after waiting 2,359 days. My name is Manny Matney. I'm a journalist at fitsnews.com and I've been investigating the Murdoch family for almost three years now. This is the Murdoch Murders podcast with David Moses and Liz Farrell. Previously on the Murdoch Murders podcast, we took you through every detail of the 2015

investigation into Stephen Smith's death. If you haven't listened already, we highly suggest you going back and listening to episodes two, four, nine, and seventeen before listening to this episode. It'll make a lot more sense, trust me. To recap, Stephen was found dead in the middle of a rural Hampton County road in July 2015. His death still remains unsolved. Stephen's death was mysteriously ruled a hit and run by pathologist Aaron Presnell at the Medical University of South Carolina.

And this is despite the fact that investigating agencies reported that there was no evidence to support this claim. His injuries, mostly to his head, were not consistent to those from a vehicular homicide. The ruling sent the entire investigation wildly off course. In the South Carolina Highway Patrol, an agency not equipped to investigate murders of this kind was put in charge of the investigation. So from early on, the Murdoch name was brought up over and over and over again. I told her that another friend of mine had picked me asking me if Lester and Stephen

were together. And I told him no. I said not that I knew of and then I asked him why. He said because he had heard that and then I asked him who he heard it from and he said he didn't know. He just heard it. And I went into the store and a bunch of people kept coming up to me, you know, like he's, you know, the Murdoch boys are behind it.

Everybody keeps coming up to me and saying it was Murdoch boys. I did hear names and I heard a name and that name was he goes about Buster Murdoch. And yet South Carolina Highway Patrol troopers never interviewed anyone from the family. Lester was, was on our radar long before you were, you know, the Murdochs know that. They know that he's, that he's on our radar. I don't have anything against them, but if it happened, like you said, I mean, if it happened, but perhaps the most mysterious thing about the Stephen Smith case was how it ended.

I'm not calling you. I'm not saying you're guilty of nothing right now. All right. But if you know something or something comes up in the future, this is by no means a closed investigation. Yes, exactly. You know what I'm saying? I don't see it.

Yeah. So, you know, if something comes up in the near future, you know, and we have leads that go on and we discover new information about the case, even if you didn't do it, I mean, if you were tied in with it and didn't cooperate with us, you know, that you could get in trouble. You know what I'm saying? This is pretty, uh, it has real tears because it gets around his life. And as we said in the previous episode on Stephen Smith, that interview that you just heard was the last interview in the case file.

It appears to us from the files that we see, the highway patrol allowed the case to go cold right after that interview, which is really weird because this is a case of a 19 year old man who had a really bright future, who was suddenly found dead with his face bashed in on a rural road in a very small town. How could they just give up? How could they just accept that this was going unsolved after so few interviews? Do they even try to get to the truth? These are the questions that we need answers to.

In this episode, we're going to take you through all of the significant events that took place in this case between 2016 and now. But before we get into all of that, we want to remind you of the person that all of this is about, Stephen Nicholas Smith. Here is his incredible mother, Sandy Smith. He was amazing. He was intelligent. He was a clown.

When he walked in the room, all eyes are on him, but he loved trying to help people. He loved trying to make his own medication out of herbs because he didn't trust anybody. He's not putting out my body, but yeah, and he was, he loved books. His room was a library. We had to put shelves on all four walls to hold all his books, and he would not put that book down until he was finished. He wanted to be a doctor, but he said that he didn't, because it cost so much money to be a doctor that he would start out in nursing.

After he finished the nursing, he could get a job and then put himself through medical college and become a position for needy children that doesn't have insurance. Sandy Smith knew something was wrong at the time in 2015 when this case was going cold. She sensed it. They just stopped, and I would call the mate team, which was Lee Watkins, and sometimes they would call back, and sometimes they would. I was calling the victim's advocate, and she says, well, let me check and see what's going on, and then nothing, never got another call.

Sandy wasn't getting any answers from anyone in South Carolina. At this point, she even reached out to South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley for help, and the investigation into her son's death appeared to be at a standstill as far as she could see. At that time, I was, like, devastated, and I was getting no contact from any law enforcement. It was just like Steven just was wiped out. I meant his name, his case, everything was just, it all stopped, and I was trying to get it started back, so he wouldn't be forgotten. Sandy Smith refused to accept that the investigation was over.

In September 2016, the grieving mother made one final plea in a heartbreaking letter to the FBI. My family is in desperate need of your help, she wrote. My 19-year-old son, Steven Nicholas Smith, was murdered on July 8th, 2015 in Hampton County, South Carolina. It has been apparent from the first week of the investigation that authorities are covering up critical evidence, and we no longer know who to trust. In the letter, she said that authorities flip-flopped between theories when they told the Smiths

of the news of Steven's death on July 8th, 2015. In her letter, Sandy wrote that first, police told her that Steven was shot after he ran out of gas and then was exiting his vehicle, and then after that, she was told that her son was killed in a hit-and-run accident and that the motorist fled the scene, and then investigators told her that he was beaten to death by unknown assailants. Ann, to add tragedy on top of tragedy, Steven's father died suddenly in October 2015. She explained in the letter. She said that her son Steven was attacked so violently that his entire side of his face

was rebuilt with putty for his funeral. To make matters worse, Sandy said in the letter that she was getting mixed messages from authorities in the immediate aftermath of Steven's death. She said that Hampton investigators actually asked them, at the time, to continue to publicly say that Steven was killed in a hit-and-run, and they claimed to her that they didn't want the killer to know that they were looking for him, which is really, really weird. In the letter, Sandy said that investigators have failed to access Steven's phone, a critical piece of evidence that would likely shed light on a lot of the rumors surrounding the investigation.

She said that at the beginning of the investigation, they were told that they would not have access to Steven's text for at least a year. She said that investigators told her that they'd have to send the phone to Apple to get the security features unlocked, and then months after they told her that, they found out that the phone was never sent to Apple. According to the investigation file, the Highway Patrol didn't attempt to access Steven's phone until Todd Proctor obtained a search warrant for the phone from Verizon Wireless in January 2016.

That was the last mention of anything happening with Steven's phone, and there was never any conclusion in the case file about if they found anything with Steven's phone. In the conclusion of Sandy's letter that she sent in September 2016, she pleaded with the FBI to open an investigation into Steven's death. We desperately need your help, she wrote. This investigation is being deliberately derailed. We need to hold the investigators accountable to access Steven's phone. And Sandy did get a response from the FBI.

We'll be right back. I recently asked Sandy what happened after she mailed this letter to the FBI back in 2016. They sent two agents to my house, and they asked me what I thought the hold up was, and I said it's all about this phone. They keep saying they can't get the phone unlocked, and so they went and got the phone, signed the phone out, took it to Virginia, to Quantico, and got it unlocked and took it back to Mate, and then they offered to process the clothes and all the other evidence.

And then what did they do? That was it, because they weren't invited in, they had to be invited in, and they weren't invited in. So then that stopped also. Sandy is saying here that the South Carolina Highway Patrol, which had been questioning its own involvement in this case from the very start, did not seek the assistance of the FBI. For the FBI to have had jurisdiction over this investigation, for them to have taken

this case without getting invited by state investigators, Steve's death would have had to have occurred on federal property, such as a national park or reservation, or would have had to involve some other federal crime or ongoing federal investigation. Sandy literally had no one in law enforcement to turn to, especially no one she could trust. Had the FBI been involved though, it's not clear this would have led to a suspect. While it's generally assumed that the FBI has agents who are highly and specifically trained for cases like this, there were just so many problems with this investigation. But what we have here, and what Sandy experienced over and again, appears to be a shrug and

the constant reassurance from law enforcement, from the professionals whose literal purpose is to protect and serve the people, that there's nothing amiss here. What's crazy about this, and all the Murdoch related investigations actually, is how often we've been told that the things we are seeing or aren't seeing are not signs of corruption but rather incidents of incompetence. If we believed every law enforcement agency that has told us the anomalies in their Murdoch-related investigations are due to officer error, then we'd have to tell everyone in South Carolina to move, because we have a big problem.

While authorities apparently managed to forget Steven's case, Sandy did everything so she could find answers. For the next few years, she filed several Freedom of Information Act requests to get as many records as she could on Steven's case. She left messages with investigators to remind them that Steven's case still needed attention, and she talked about her son's case to anybody who would listen. She truly never stopped fighting for her son. And that brings us to February 2019.

In the weeks following the horrific bow crash that killed Mallory Beach, I kept seeing a meme online that said Justice for Mallory and Steven. As we started to piece together who Steven Smith was and a skeleton of the story about what happened to him, Liz remembered that she got a tip from law enforcement about Steven's case before the bow crash happened. In the summer of 2018, around the time of the annual Trial Lawyers Association meeting, when all the Murdochs descended on Hilton Head to attend continuing education courses and host lavish dinner parties for judges and politicians, a law enforcement source

of mine, who knows the Murdochs well, told me about a story he'd heard that he wanted me to expose. The only problem was that the story was about a gay teenager who had been beaten to death in Hampton County, which might as well have been in Iceland because it is an hour and a half away and wasn't in our coverage area. And I just didn't see how I was going to be able to convince my editor to allow me to spend time investigating it. The Murdoch family was well known, but had somewhat faded into the background in Buford

County after Randolph retired in 2006. A quick aside about Randolph's retirement party, it was apparently held at the high school in Hampton County and more than a thousand people attended it. And they had it catered by the Hampton County Jail with uniformed inmates serving the food. Nice, right? The law enforcement source who told me about Steven's case also told me the Murdoch boys did it and that their family and other law enforcement agencies were conspiring to cover it up.

He was disgusted by this and by the behavior of Alec in general. Alec allowed his kids to drink underage in public at restaurants and other events, even ones attended by law enforcement officers. That is how low his regard was for following the law and how sure they were that they could do what they wanted when they wanted no matter who saw it. At the time, I was working on another project and put it on hold. Sometime in very early 2019, Mandy and I were talking about stories we wanted to do and I told her about this case.

Not long after the boat crash occurred and my law enforcement source reminded me of who Paul Murdoch was. When the memes featuring Mallory and Steven came out, it gave us the green light to pursue Steven's story without worrying about our quote unquote coverage area. And I also just want to say thank God for the bravery of these very first people who posted those memes because without them I don't think the pressure on the Murdochs and law enforcement would have mounted the same way it did. It was Mandy who first reached out to Sandy for a source.

At the time and still to this day, people were very reluctant to speak about the Murdochs over the phone or even at all. They certainly wouldn't go on the record about them. When we first met Sandy in March 2019, it was clear that she had no such fear of them. She was willing to show us everything she had, tell us everything she'd been through. I think it's important to note that when people first meet Sandy, they often comment on how taken they are by her. She's just a really smart, rational and very collected person who has also experienced

a lot of sadness and a lot of hardship. She wasn't on a mission against the Murdochs. She was on a mission to get answers on what happened to her son. At the time of our first meeting, there were rumors going around Hampton County that Sandy had been paid off by the Murdoch family. And that's why nothing ever happened in Steven's case. Obviously this wasn't true, but it certainly gives you insight into how people think things are normally handled in Murdoch County.

So back in March 2019, we left Sandy's house and felt determined to help her, but we didn't know where to start. Over the next few months, on our own time, we chipped away the case files. Months later, both Liz and I left the newspaper we were at due to management issues, and we never published the story about Steven. But Steven's story stuck with both of us. It was a weight we carried knowing that we never fulfilled a promise to Sandy. And during that time, something weird happened in 2020 that we need to talk about.

Two private investigators named Henry Rosado and Max Frattati were allegedly hired by Parkers in the Mallory Beach lawsuit. According to Sandy, two investigators showed up at her door in the summer of 2020 and said they were interested in Steven's case. Sandy said she was desperate for answers at the time, and she gave them Steven's iPad, the one that the Highway Patrol apparently didn't find much evidence on, aside from the fact that it last pained at Orangeburg Technical College on the night before Steven died.

But the weird thing is that Sandy said those two private investigators never gave her the iPad back. And that brings us to June 7th, 2021, when Maggie and Paul Murdoch were murdered in Colleton County, South Carolina. In the days after the double homicide, I noticed the same thing was happening online that happened in the aftermath of the 2019 boat crash. Lots of people from Hampton County were commenting about the Steven Smith case and connecting the dots between the two.

I knew that it was time to tell the world about Steven Smith. So three days after the murders, I finally marked up the courage that I never had before to write about the Murdoch family and the three deaths they were connected to, Mallory Beach, Steven Smith, and Gloria Satterfield. In that article that was honestly two years in the making, I was first to report that the Murdoch name was mentioned more than 40 times in the investigation file of Steven Smith. And in the week after I wrote that story, Sandy hoped and prayed that the new momentum

would prompt a new investigation into her son's death. On Thursday, June 17, 10 days after the double homicide, an agent from the South Carolina law enforcement division called Sandy. She was hoping to hear that they had opened a case into her son's unsolved death. I wish I recorded this conversation. I remember hearing the devastation in Sandy's voice when she told me that Sled called her back and said they were only looking into Steven Smith's case because they had to see if Steven's family was involved in the shooting of Paul and Maggie Murdoch.

What a slap in the face, Sandy Smith told me at the time. Sandy was so heartbroken and publicly called out Sled in an article that I wrote in Fitz News that day. And I didn't know what to tell her at this point. I too was devastated and angry. It was the first time I cried at my desk while working at Fitz News. Four days later, Sandy called and told me she had gotten the news that she had waited almost six years for.

The South Carolina law enforcement division was finally opening an investigation into Steven Smith's death. Thankfully, I recorded that conversation, which will go down, honestly, as one of the best phone calls I've ever had. I've been shaking all over, I've got chills all over me, I mean, I wasn't a cry, I haven't cried yet. I mean, you've waited until so long. What they said was the Sled that's working the Murdoch case and stuff like that, they

don't even know who they are. They don't know anybody on the main team, this is like fresh. Okay. It's like starting from the beginning. Good. We'll be right back. After I got off the phone with Sandy, I called a spokesperson at the South Carolina law enforcement division who told me that Sled had opened up the investigation based on information gathered

during the course of the double homicide investigation of Maggie and Paul Murdoch. Sandy was filled with so much hope on June 22, 2021, but as much as she had always wanted the eyes of the world on Steven's case, she soon felt the brunt of the media storm that hit Hampton County this summer. It's basically, I mean, everybody was trying to make money off of Steven's story and it just got so hectic that I just started avoiding them, me and Mercedes were running to my friend's house and we wouldn't be home. And we'd drive by my driveway and if there was a car in the yard, we would just be going.

One of them not on my door at 1.30 in the morning, New York Times or something, New 00:23:51,980 --> 00:23:52,980 Somebody from New York. Well, it's got to the point where Mercedes was getting scared, you know, because you had all these strangers in our yard all the time and yeah, it was too much. That's why I had to go get, I got Andy to keep the media away from us. As Sandy was so overwhelmed with media requests and didn't know who to turn to, a friend of a friend recommended that she reach out to Charleston attorney Andy Savage for help.

Andy Savage is a prominent Charleston, South Carolina attorney who has taken on several famous cases. Most recently, Andy Savage is known for representing victims of the Charleston church shooting, along with Alec Murdoch's attorney, Dick Harpelian in a whopping $88 million settlement with the federal government. This summer, Andy agreed to represent Sandy for $1, but he was very clear about one rule that he had for her. She could not take any media interviews without his permission first.

He threatened to drop her as a client if she broke this rule. Keep in mind, this is a time when Stevens case had more media momentum than ever before. Every media outlet in the country wanted to talk to Sandy Smith and this was a six year old cold case. The best chance that they had to solve this was someone coming forward who witnessed Stevens death or knew someone who did. Why wouldn't Andy Savage want his clients speaking to any media who could help them solve Stevens death?

Apparently just before Sandy hired Andy in July 2021, Andy Savage happened to hire an investigator named Steven Peterson who was appointed to work on the Smith case this summer. Over the next few months, Sandy said she communicated a lot more with Peterson than she did with Andy Savage. She said that she almost never heard from her own attorney, Andy Savage. Then on October 27th, 2021, just a few days before Stevens first ever memorial fundraiser, Sandy checked her phone and couldn't believe what she saw. It was a headline in ABC News 4 that said focus on the Murdox and Steven Smith death may

be unfounded, attorney says, with a photo of Andy Savage next to Steven. That attorney who was saying that was her own attorney, Andy Savage. And Sandy had no idea that Andy was going to say this to media. Sandy could not believe it. Her attorney was speaking to media and apparently absolving the Murdox without her consent. I don't know if he was trying to throw the media off or I don't know exactly what he was doing. It just was very heartbreaking to have to read something that your lawyer said in the

media with no warning. Steven Peterson did speak to her before the story was published and said that they believed they had a suspect in the case and they didn't think that the Murdox were connected. But he told her that he didn't want to say anything until he knew for sure. So my thing was, I guess you would have, I thought that they would wait until they knew for certain before they put it all over the news. It's always a different slap in the face on the cheek, I guess. Sandy Smith was crystal clear.

She was not mad about the conclusion that Savage and Peterson apparently reached in the investigation to apparently absolve the Murdox. And also I want to point out that Savage specifically stated that his comments were about Paul Murdoch. But he did not add that much clarity. All I've ever wanted was the truth. I don't care who did it, what their name was, I want to know who killed my son. After I published this story, Savage replied to my media request and told me that all he did was provide a written statement that said that the media seems to be focused, perhaps obsessed, on the Murdoch link to the Smith case.

He said our investigation has not eliminated other possibilities. He said he believed that the sled investigation continues to explore all possibilities and good for them. So, Steven Peterson. Before I started at Fitznews a few weeks ago, I worked for the Beaver County Sheriff's Office as the Assistant Public Information Officer for just over a year. I was at the office when I got a call from Peterson who told me he was an investigator with Sandy's attorney and was working to get to the bottom of the Steven Smith case. I had a Google Doc with 100 pages of my notes from the Smith case including a very detailed timeline

and I had already shared that with an attorney friend of mine who passed this on to Savage's team. I figured Peterson was calling me about that, but it turned out he wanted something else. In 2019, Mandy was given an unredacted copy of the Highway Patrol investigation. This included hours of interviews with witnesses, investigator notes, and photos. Peterson wanted a copy of what we had. He said sled wouldn't give it to him. I would do anything to help Sandy, so I told him I would. Then I started talking to Peterson and, huh, where to start? I asked him if he was certified with sled. He wasn't.

I asked him what his thoughts were on the case and he shared them. Now, a day before this, again in October 2021, Mandy had learned that law enforcement was starting to float the idea that Steven really had been killed in a hit and run and the Murdochs had nothing to do with it. So it struck me as odd when Peterson began telling me the same details that Mandy had learned. I want to be very clear here. We do not care whether the Murdochs had anything to do with Steven's death and we certainly are not saying that they did. What we are saying, however, is that no one, no one, can claim that the Murdochs, quote, had nothing to do with the case when their names and metaphorical fingerprints are all over the case file.

If they had nothing to do with it, then they are a very unlucky family. On his own and according to him, before sled had interviewed this person, Peterson told me he had visited Sean Connolly, who was named in the original investigation as a potential person of interest in Steven's death. You might remember from the last Steven Smith episode, Sean Connolly is one of two teenagers who suddenly emerged as potential suspects right after Sandy Smith was on the cover of the Hampton Guardian insinuating that people in Hampton County were covering up for the Murdochs in November 2015. Sean's friend, Patrick Wilson, was facing attempted murder charges at the time they were brought to law enforcement's attention

and was being represented by Corey Fleming. You know, Elec's best friend and Paul's godfather. Neither boy appears to have been questioned by Highway Patrol in Steven's case at the time and Mandy and I have always found their appearance in the file strange. Also a little strange, the 14th Judicial Circuit Solicitor's Office, of which Elec Murdoch was a member at the time, dropped the attempted murder charges against Patrick Wilson altogether shortly after this. Peterson told me he was a former DEA agent and that he had used one of his super special DEA agent skills to interrogate Sean who, according to Peterson, started to come undone under his questioning.

Peterson told me he lied to Sean and told Sean that he had photos of the damage done to his truck the night Steven died. He told me Sean got quote-unquote squirrely and told him that he had hit a deer that night and that the damage to his truck was from that. When I asked Peterson what he made of the fact that Daryl Williams, the man who came forward about Sean Connolly and Patrick Wilson in 2015, had told a Highway Patrol investigator that Randy Murdoch had urged him to contact police and tell them about Connolly and Wilson. Peterson told me that he had also interviewed Daryl and guess what? Paul now swears that Randy never told him this and that he didn't know why it was in the investigators' report. During our reporting, Mandy and I had been told the names of three kids who allegedly witnessed Steven's killing, along with Buster and Paul, again, allegedly. When I brought up these names with Peterson, he seemed to dismiss the idea altogether.

Again, we do not care who killed Steven Smith. We care about finding out who killed Steven Smith. In that moment, in talking to Peterson, I got a sick feeling and immediately called Mandy afterward. We ultimately decided we would not share the investigation with Peterson until we got the OK from Sandy. In the meantime, though, we cut off all access to my notes and timeline. And shortly after this is when a TV station reported that Andy Savage was declaring that the Murdochs had nothing to do with the case. And what's even weirder? A source close to the investigation told me she was interviewed by Steven Peterson this fall. She told me, like Liz, that she felt sick while speaking to Peterson. She said that Peterson only seemed focused on information that could clear the Murdoch's name and seemed to ignore all the other details that she was giving him.

She said that he had a list of suspects in front of her during the interview and literally crossed off Buster and Paul's names in front of her, despite what she was saying. So, essentially, Andy Savage apparently did three things for Sandy Smith. He appointed a PI on her case who appeared to have conducted a botched investigation that apparently concluded that the Murdochs were not involved in Steven Smith's death. He silenced Sandy during a time when her son's case needed momentum and the public's attention. And he made a public statement without her consent that attempted to clear the Murdoch's name from the case. So, yes, we should be questioning Andy Savage's intentions in this case. I was devastated that he had made a public announcement without consulting me first. I felt betrayed. I felt very betrayed, you know, because I feel if you're an attorney and you're working my son's case, you're working for my son,

that all information needs to go through me first so I can prepare my children from the devastation, you know. It was just, I just felt betrayed, very betrayed. After that story ran, Sandy Smith and Andy Savage split ways. At that point, Sandy told me that she felt like she was better off doing this on her own. She was worried that she would never be able to trust an attorney again. Just when she was giving up hope on all South Carolina attorneys, she met attorney Mike Hemlip. Mike Hemlip has over 30 years of legal experience on both sides of the law. He was the first police advisor for the Columbia Police Department and a prosecutor for several years who handled dozens of murder cases.

He's also recently worked as a private attorney handling litigation for car accidents, civil rights issues, personal injury, and in other areas. Mike met Sandy at the Standing for Stephen fundraiser in Columbia, South Carolina on October 30th. And just like me, Mike was immediately impressed with Sandy Smith when they first met and he felt compelled to help her and help Stephen's case, however he could. Mike relates to Stephen on a level that most attorneys don't. You know, I think one of the things I bring to the table is that, you know, being part of the LGBT community, Stephen's story is very much the reason why young men and women all over the country don't come out of the closet. They're afraid of violence and we don't know motive of or even the means of how Stephen passed away, but the implication is scary. We need to solve this. And I spent 30 years helping victims get to the bottom of their case and helping them fill in the blanks of mysteries of criminal and civil liability.

I wanted to do that for them. Stephen deserves it. In November, Sandy officially hired Mike as her new attorney and Mike has one goal for his new client. That's getting justice for Stephen Smith. Justice for Stephen. Justice for this family. You know, this family went through a horrific experience. And it was one after the other, right? I mean, it was, you know, the family had to deal with Stephen's death and then right on the heels of that Joel died and they had to deal with that as well.

And nobody heard of it. Nobody knew about it. Very few people in Columbia knew about it and we're an hour away from Hampton. Well, then a bunch of other murders happened and then a bunch of other things happened in Hampton County. A bunch of things that seemingly, you know, they just popped up and now Stephen's a national topic. Why was he a national topic before? Yeah. He wasn't a national topic before because there was no money involved. He deserves justice. Everyone deserves justice.

Mike told me that he couldn't get into specifics, but he feels confident that Sled's investigation is headed in the right direction. For far too long, stories and investigations into Stephen's death have blurred the truth, filled it with speculation and clouded the evidence. But finally, after many frustrating years, the SEDSAC family is building a healthy partnership with law enforcement. Sandy, Stephen's mother, is being treated by law enforcement exactly the way a crime victim's mother should be treated. She sat down and met with agents of South Carolina law enforcement division and the agents of the state law enforcement division and Sandy and the family have been meeting and sharing information with each other. And because of that, we are closer to history than we have been since this began in July of 2015. But it still remains unsolved and there's work to be done. Sandy's new attorney believes that this case can be solved.

I've practiced law for 30 years and the first chunk of it, I had the honor of working for Solicitor John Justice in the 6th Circuit. I've had cases like this. There are people out there who know what happened. There are people out there who know parts of the puzzle and for whatever reason in Hamilton County, those people didn't come forward. And we're now in an environment where Hampton County has a bright light on it and those people who didn't come forward for whatever reason, those reasons don't exist anymore. And I think people are going to start talking and telling us what they know. So let's be clear here. Hampton locals, I am speaking directly to you. I know how scary it was to speak up years ago, but things are different now. You do not have to take these secrets to your grave.

Whether or not the Murdochs had anything to do with this, your tip could help alleviate a whole lot of pain in the Smith family. Your tip could mean that this is the last Christmas Sandy Smith has to spend wondering what happened to her son. And you didn't have to witness the crime for your tip to be worth it. We have heard there are people out there who have heard directly from witnesses who drunkenly confessed to them what happened. Please need to hear from you or maybe you're an investigator who could come forward about what happened during this case. The time to speak is right now. This story is not going away and the guilt that's inside of you is not going to go away until Sandy gets justice. Please come forward. Please help Sandy.

If anyone knows anything big or small about Stephen Smith homicide, please, I beg you to please call Crime Stoppers and just tell us what you know. The people who do know something by now, they're probably mothers or fathers. And how would they feel if it was the same thing happens to their child? If people don't talk, then you can't stop the violent. We are begging you. If you know any information that could help Sled solve Stephen Smith's case, call Crime Stoppers at the Low Country at 843-554-1111 or at their website, which is in the description of this podcast. It's important to note that when you call Crime Stoppers at the Low Country, you can stay anonymous. In all my work with law enforcement of different agencies, the County Police Department, the Furman County Sheriff's Department, the Chester County Sheriff's Department,

one of the things that I don't think the public understands is that when you call Crime Stoppers with a tip, they're followed up. They're red. This is not some website where you send them an email or you make a phone call and nobody ever pays attention to it anymore. They're followed up on. And when you get in touch with Crime Stoppers at the Low Country, if you have information about Stevens, you don't have to give your name. It can be anonymous. It's not recorded. The phone call is not recorded. The IP address is not saved by Crime Stoppers. It is a truly, truly safe place where you can give information about a horrific crime and you can stay safe. And by the way, while we're talking about it, Crime Stoppers is looking for you at 843-554-1111. Stevens' case is so different from a lot of the other things that have been happening in Hampton. And it is a mystery. I mean, it is a mystery. But in real life, I mean, this isn't fiction.

It's not a movie. It's not television. It's not streaming. This is real life. In real life, people who don't come forward with the information that they know don't come forward because of some fear that they have. And we need to make sure that in the part of South Carolina, that fear doesn't exist anymore. And we hope that the people who know things, including law enforcement officers who are a part of this case, will reach out to us at the Murdoch Murders Podcast and Fitznews as we work to solve this. Reach out to us at info at murdochmurderspodcast.com. This case is just beginning and we're just getting started. I'll be here no matter how long it takes. I'm still gonna fight. Finally, we want to say Merry Christmas from the Murdoch Murders Podcast crew. Tid's the season to be giving.

And for all of you in the giving mood, we urge you to donate to the standing for Stephen Goh fund me. Check the link in our description. And while it's the holidays, the news never stops. So be sure to follow us on Facebook at Murdoch Murders Podcast and Instagram at Murdoch Murders Pod. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from our family to yours. We'll see you next Wednesday. Stay tuned. There's so much to unpack in this case and Mandy works tirelessly to expose the truth. But the truth is she works hard and she does get tired. If you believe like I do that Mandy is the best in the business and I'm a little biased, visit murdochmurderspodcast.com and click the support the show link to learn how you can help. If you have a five star review to offset the haters, refer an advertiser and get a finder's fee or advertise your company, product or service. We can geotarget across the globe and find the right audience to suit your needs. Help us get Luna some treats so she doesn't interrupt the show as much. And absolutely subscribe to fitsnews.com. Mandy and Will are revolutionizing journalism and your subscriptions are invaluable to that mission. Plus you get awesome content every day. And don't forget to leave a five star review unless you're going to be nasty and talk about my vocal fry.

The Murdoch Murders Podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney and my fiance, David Moses. Produced by Luna Chef Productions.