Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Who Killed Stephen Smith? Part Six (S01E61)

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

In this episode, we caught up with Stephen’s mother, the wonderful and resilient Sandy Smith, and Mike Hemlepp, Jr., the Columbia attorney who stepped up to help after Sandy’s previous attorney let her down. We asked Sandy and Mike where things with the case stood and how they felt about everything. While the case gained some momentum last year after SLED took it over from the South Carolina Highway Patrol, it’s now 15 months later and we were hoping by now to know more.  Mandy and Liz take a new look at Stephen’s case. And now, we’re angry and demanding answers.  IF YOU KNOW who killed Stephen Smith, or who covered up this crime, please call: Crime Stoppers of the Lowcountry: [phone] Mike Hemlepp’s Office: [phone] Or Email [e-mail] SUNscribe to our free email list to get alerts on bonus episodes, calls to action, new shows and updates. AND by sharing your email, we'll send details on exclusive content only available from our upcoming SUNScription platform - CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3KBMJcP And a special thank you to our sponsors: Microdose.com, VOURI, Cerebral, Aura Frames and others. Use promo code "MANDY" for a special offer! Find us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ https://www.instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ Twitter.com/mandymatney YouTube 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

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Get on board at Miro.com. The first three boards are free forever. That's Miro.com. I don't know who killed Steven Smith. But I do know that gross incompetence in the fear of coming forward have derailed this case for far too long. And as more time has passed, that incompetence and fear has turned into cruelty toward the Smith family.

Now is the time to get angry. And it is well past time to get this case solved. My name is Mandy Matney. I have been investigating the Murdoch family for more than three and a half years now. This is the Murdoch Murders Podcast with David Moses and Liz Farrell. Last week we dropped our first ever cup of justice bonus episode. And I don't know about y'all, but I thought it was a huge success. David, Liz, Eric and I loved hearing all of the positive feedback in the last few days.

And hooray, you still like us with the vocal fry, curse words, and unfiltered comments and all. I've said this before, but y'all are really the best fans a girl could ask for. So thank you for listening and be sure to check out another bonus episode this weekend on the Murdoch Murders Podcast feed. And a special thanks to Eric Bland for joining us on this fun project. This week we want to focus our efforts back to a cause that is so near and dear to our hearts.

Getting Steven Smith's case solved. Now we have accomplished a lot on this podcast, but solving Steven Smith's death will always be my number one priority. I'll be honest, I will never feel settled until the Smith family gets answers. And I hope our listeners join us in this fight. For this episode, we caught up with Steven's mother, the wonderful and resilient Sandy Smith and Mike Hemlip, the Columbia attorney who stepped up to help after Sandy's previous attorney let her down.

We asked Sandy and Mike where things in the case stand right now and how they felt about everything. While the case gained some momentum last year and sled took over from the South Carolina Highway Patrol, it's now 15 months later and we were hoping to know more by now. I'll have Sandy tell you where things stand from her perspective. A little disappointed. I know an investigation takes time. I waited six years for something and got nothing.

And now it's been reopened and it's been another year and it's like deja vu, you know, a phone call, you know, or something to let me know that progress is being made. I don't like being in the dark and I will fight until the day I die for Steven, but I need somebody to let me know to build my hope up that we're working, we're close. We're not there yet, but we're close. You know what a mother would think if somebody called and told her that? I would be dancing in the streets if I heard something like that. But I hear nothing.

And when I call Flynn, oh, it's not a cold case, okay? Then what is it? I need to know what it is. I have been thinking back to March 2019 a lot recently when Liz and I met Sandy Smith for the first time. Back then, we were still learning about just how deeply protected the Burnock family was by law enforcement. We thought we understood it pretty well at the time, but looking back, maybe it was just

naive of us to think in 2019 we could take on these good old boys without the spotlight we have today. The first meeting with Sandy was so difficult. Not only because we were talking to a grieving mother who absolutely got steamrolled by law enforcement and utterly betrayed by her own community, but because we weren't sure where to start. There were so many more monsters in this case than we could have possibly anticipated. This was not just about finding out who killed Steven or why they killed him.

It was about identifying all of the people who might have played a role in making sure this case remained unsolved. I've gotten to know and love Sandy Smith over the past three years and nothing made me happier than hearing how hopeful she sounded in June 2021 when Flood announced they were finally going to look into the case that she had been begging them to take for nearly six years at that point. In March 2019, Sandy seemed defeated and for a good reason. She didn't know who to trust because everyone in a position to help her had let her down

up until that point. The local newspaper, her neighbor's local law enforcement, Nikki Haley, who was the governor at the time, Loretta Lynch, who was the US attorney back then, and the FBI. Sandy wrote to the FBI on September 28, 2016 and the first line of her letter continues to break my heart and motivate me. She said, my family is in desperate need of your help. Right now, it angers me that we're here in year seven of Steven's murder being unsolved and yes, I'm saying murder and not hit and run.

I've said it before, it was never a hit and run and anyone who says that is intentionally helping keep Steven's case unsolved. For some reason, I keep seeing people on social media continue to take the position that Steven might not have been murdered unless you've seen the photos from the crime scene, all of them, and unless you've read every single report and listened to the hours of interviews dozens of times, I do not want to hear it. I believe Steven's death was a murder because officials never found a single piece of evidence on scene that showed he was killed by a vehicle.

There were no tire marks, no mirror parts, no glass, no debris, no auto parts, nothing. And I will say this again, his loosely tied shoes were still on his feet, a telltale sign that he was not hit by a car. I believe Steven's death was a murder because of his injuries. His face was bashed in as if someone had taken a baseball bat to half of his forehead. His arms were scraped up, maybe from defensive wounds. His right shoulder was dislocated, which could have happened if his body was moved. I believe Steven's death was a murder because of the position of his body in the road in

the blood patterns from the crime scene photos. It just doesn't look like he was killed at the spot he was found. And it's this simple, all of the evidence points to a homicide. And something more haunting that I have thought about over this last year, I wonder if someone laid his body in the middle of a dark country road on July 8th, 2015, like a piece of trash and was hoping that Steven would get hit by a car, making it much easier to convince a long line of officials that Steven's death was not a murder. But Sandy Smith is no fool.

She always called her son's death a murder. I called a lawyer and they said that, well, we didn't call it a murder. It is a murder. I don't care what you call it. I'm his mother. I know he was murdered. He was murdered. And whether you can come out and say that officially, I don't know.

He was not hit by a car. He was murdered. He was beaten to death. And I've seen his pictures in why, why, what gave you the right to take my son from me. That said, it especially angers me that Sandy still does not have answers. It angers me that she doesn't even have so much as an update from sled or the Attorney General's office. Like I said, it is time to get angry for all of us to get angry and fight for Steven.

So obviously there have been no indictments in this case. According to the Attorney General's office, this means that no prosecutor has been assigned to the case yet, which of course raises questions on our end. One major question would be whether this also means that investigators don't have a steady liaison at the AG's office for this case. That communication between prosecutors and law enforcement is critical in building a successful case. At this point, it's not clear whether Steven's case is actually part of the litany of Murdoch

cases. It's also not clear whether the case will be handled by the state grand jury or the Hampton County grand jury or both. Who knows what kind of charges we'll see come out of this investigation. Like Mandy said, while we were beyond happy last year to hear that sled was taking over the case, a case they should have taken over in 2015, frankly, were now beyond disappointed at the slow going. On Tuesday, sled spokesperson Renee Wunderlich told us that quote, sled continues to make

progress in the death investigation of Steven Smith. The investigation is active and ongoing. We asked Sandy Smith if she believes that sled and the AG's office have been prioritizing Steven's case. Well, honestly, it's being showed to the side again. My honest opinion, because they've really given me no hope. I mean, they have not showed me anything. And I know that they can't tell me a lot, but just telling me it's not a cold case is

not what I want to hear. There's a bunch of cold cases out there, but I need to know that somebody is actually working his case. Give me the results of the evidence that they had, you know, like, give me confidence that you did the rape kit test and you, I mean, you tested all his DNA and said, we're close. That's all you got to tell me is I'm close to getting answers for Steven. That's all I want is answers for my son. He was my world and that's all I want.

I want justice for my son. And like any mother, any parent would want. It's not just me. There's a bunch of several cold cases out there that people act like they don't care because he was a 19 year old poor boy putting himself through college, you know, through grants and, but he worked for it and he should have deserved. He deserved to live that, but they didn't allow him to whoever it may be, did not allow him to live his dreams and that's what breaks my heart.

For too many years, the Smith family has been let down by the state of South Carolina because of that. And because through no fault of their own, they were unceremoniously dropped right in the middle of what has been unbelievable chaos brought on by whatever Alec Murdoch may or may not have done on June 7th, 2021. They deserve better service from law enforcement. Now it is the least those in power can do. I should mention that there are a lot of victims and grieving families in South Carolina who

deserve better service from law enforcement. As journalists in this state, Mandy and I are both accustomed to hearing from people who have been flat out ignored or have had their cases botched by investigators who don't hesitate to take a bow for carrying a badge, but can't be bothered to do a simple check-in with families to say, Hey, we can't go into details about the investigation, but I just want to touch base and let you know we're still working on your son's case. So as Sandy told us on Monday night, it's unfortunately looking like deja vu here. The hope Mandy heard in her voice in June 2021 has faded steadily as each week passes

seemingly no closer to justice. From 2015 to 2021, the fate of Steven's case seemed to be completely controlled by politics. And it seems like that hasn't changed one bit, except the reasons. Those may be different. According to several sources close to the situation, the answers as to who killed Steven and who might have helped keep this case from getting solved for so long and why are right there. The answers are so close and we believe those answers reside with law enforcement right

now. It's as if the answers are on the tips of law enforcement's tongue, meaning we have a good reason to believe that law enforcement knows what happened, but something is holding them up on the road to an indictment. If that something is political or about egos and people being territorial, if that something is because investigators are being met with a lack of cooperation or worse, a lack of bravery and honesty from the long list of law enforcement officers named in Steven's original case file who, in our humble opinion, all should have already been subpoenaed and

we hope that's the case. If that something is because law enforcement is hesitant to go up against those who did not do their jobs in 2015 simply because they carry a badge, well all of that is unacceptable. We have faith that Sled can and will deliver answers in this case. Whether or not the Murdochs were involved, and again we just don't know what, if any role they have in this beyond the more than 40 times a Murdoch was mentioned in the investigation, we still believe that the killing of Steven Smith is solvable and has been all along. But right now it seems like it's going to require a hero from the inside who is willing

to fight even harder for what's right. So it has been a long time since we've done a full episode on Steven Smith. It was actually December when we last took a deep dive into the case. Even though our previous episodes about this case were filled with information straight out of the case files, there is still a lot more that we need to talk about. Every time we look through these files we find new information and many times old information hits differently because of other things we've learned since the time we last looked at our notes.

There are so many strange coincidences and weird circumstances in this case that we think need to be accounted for. I'll give you a quick rundown and we can talk more about what all of this might mean and what is next for Sandy and Mike. The first issue is one of the most talked about pieces of evidence in this case, the rape kit. If authorities initially believed Steven's death was a hit and run, why did they decide to conduct a rape kit?

It is bizarre. Highway patrolmen are in charge of the state's road safety. Their specialty is getting out tickets and getting drunk drivers off the road and investigating car accidents. How often are these guys getting rape kits as a part of hit and run investigations? And what does this mean about how investigators were seeing this case at the time? Who called for a rape kit? In the case files, a chain of custody reports starts with quote, Hampton Corner quote, and

that's literally what it says. The form lists the position, not the name of the person who transferred the rape kit from MUSC to Todd Proctor of the Highway Patrol on July 22, 2015, a full two weeks after Steven Smith's death. As you all probably know, chain of custody reports are really critical and successfully prosecuted in cases. They exist to ensure the integrity of the evidence and they have to be filled out thoroughly and clearly.

And every transfer has to be accounted for, or else the case is put at risk. In the chain of custody, it says the transfer of this mysterious rape kit was made from Todd Proctor to LL Hydric. Now here's where it gets even more weird. The rape kit trail stops with LL Hydric, who is Laura Lynn Hydric. As Sleuth's online first pointed out, she apparently left the Highway Patrol not long after Steven's death and at some point ended up working at Yemisee Police Department. Yemisee Police Department is run by Gregory Alexander.

You might remember him. He is a close friend of Ellick Murdock. Ellick paid him $5,000 a few weeks after the murders. He was running for Hampton County Sheriff and he lost, but you might remember this quote about a cat. And I ain't no cat. I don't try to cover noot, do do up, nothing up. Even weirder than that, in 2016, Laura Lynn Hydric was sued in Dorchester County by Midland

Funding LLC, a credit company. But don't worry, she had a defense attorney helping her, Ellick Murdock. So Hydric, again, Gregory Alexander's employee and Ellick Murdock's client is where this mysterious rape kit's journey ends on August 11, 2015. According to the form, she moved the evidence from Highway Patrol Troop 6A to the Highway Patrol's Central Evidence Facility. I want to pause here and tell you a little more about this form. Under the deposition of items part of it, the from and the to part of the form, there

are 10 fields filled out, 9 of them in the same pen and handwriting. The only one that contains different handwriting using a different pen is the one in which L.L. Hydric acknowledges receiving the rape kit. So think about this for a second. Even using the same pen and handwriting appears to have filled out 9 other fields, including the two fields with the transfer dates, which are about 3 weeks apart. Does that mean that the same person who filled this out on July 22, 2015 came back with the

same pen and did it again on August 11, 2015? Or does it mean that 9 fields were filled out retroactively? Is that why it says Hampton Corner? Is that why the coroner's name isn't signed in the initial custody field? If this was filled out retroactively, why? And most importantly, where is the rape kit now? Why didn't Sled take it with him initially? Sled was in charge of collecting evidence in the case.

Sled is the primary lab that is used to test rape kits in this state. Why would this be taken to the Highway Patrol Storage Facility by a woman who was later Alec Murdoch's client and Gregory Alexander's employee? Previously, Sandy has told us several times that officials have told her that this rape kit was missing and there was virtually no follow-up about it. And the case files say that as well. I should also mention that in the autopsy report, it doesn't specifically state that a rape kit was done.

But it mentions that Deputy Coroner Kelly Green was given rectal, oral, and penis swabs for each at the autopsy. Green was in charge of the evidence in the case. Remember that. And we'll be right back. As I've reported before, this is not the only piece of forensic evidence that appears to be missing. The medical examiner report from Dr. Aaron Prezno notes that fingernail clippings, hair

from Steven Scalp, and dried blood were gathered for law enforcement during the autopsy. But the existence of that evidence is not documented in the case file. At least not in the unredacted file we received in 2019. There are no chain of custody forms for that forensic evidence. And there are no lab reports indicating that this was ever tested. And another issue that I should take note of here. Like I said, it is strange that the Highway Patrol thought it was necessary to get a rape kit in a hit-and-run case.

It's also very strange that soon after Steven was killed, Highway Patrol went to Steven's family and collected Steven's electronics. Again, this was supposedly a hit-and-run. From what we've been told, that's what they were supposed to be investigating. This would not have been a standard part of an investigation like this one because Steven's electronics were not with him at the time of his death other than his phone. Why gather Steven's electronics? If we're looking at this case through the lens of a potential cover-up, this would be

one way to erase anything that might be considered damning in one way or another to certain people. Another strange part of this is that according to the investigation file, Highway Patrol destroyed a piece of evidence in this case on December 29, 2015. That was about one week after a then-Hampton police officer went to investigators to recount his tale about how two kids were responsible for Steven's death and that Steven was killed by a side-view mirror, a detail that appeared out of nowhere in the Hampton County Guardian about a month earlier. I want to stress that we have seen the death scene photos in this case as Mandy mentioned

earlier. Obviously, we're not experts on vehicular injuries, but the idea that this side-view mirror theory emerged as an explanation for Steven's injuries is about as plausible as saying Steven died as a result of a polar bear attack. I want everyone listening to think about the set of circumstances this would require to be true. Sandy Run Road is a long, quiet country road. Cars can drive really fast on it, particularly late at night, and any vehicle driving that

night would have been visible for quite some distance. Think about how close Steven would have had to have been standing to whatever vehicle they wanted us to think he was hit by. And think about the physics of this. Think about what that would have done to him physically, how it would have knocked him over and where he would have landed. Steven appeared to have been perfectly placed in the middle of the road. His arms and legs were bent in the same way they would have been had someone been carrying

him by the arms and another person had been carrying him by his legs and then lowered him to the ground. Let's say this was the scenario. Any path left by Steven's bleeding from a vehicle, perhaps, could have been covered up by his pulling blood. And like Mandy said earlier, maybe the plan, if this was a coverup, was for Steven's body to be run over by a random vehicle to further taint the scene. So back to these two kids who supposedly killed Steven and don't appear to ever have been

questioned. As we reported in an earlier episode, one of them, Sean Connolly, was facing three attempted murder charges in Hampton County at that time and was, according to the public index, a client of Corey Fleming. According to sources, Sean Connolly was a friend of Paul Murdoch. Coincidentally, Sean lived on Sandy Run Road at some point after Steven's death, according to records. At any rate, the Hampton police officer said he was told this by his former stepfather,

Darrell Williams. According to the Highway Patrol report, Darrell Williams told the investigator that Randy Murdoch told him to tell his story to law enforcement. As we reported in our last episode devoted to Steven Smith, a private investigator hired by Sandy's former attorney, Andy Savage, told me last fall that Darrell Williams denies telling anyone that Randy Murdoch made any such request. We'll have more to say about Randy in a second. It was eight days after this revelation to law enforcement in December 2015 that Highway

Patrol decided to destroy the in-car recordings of one of the responding patrol officers from the night Steven was killed. Two things are so problematic here. The first is that no evidence should have been destroyed in this case, none. Even if that was a recording of dead air, destroying it would theoretically only help the defense after a suspect is charged. No defense attorney is going to pass on the opportunity to suggest to a jury that this destroyed audio and video contained evidence that their client is innocent.

That could be enough to sway one juror. The second problem is what was on that recording. In-car cameras not only record what's happening in front of the patrol vehicle, they record what the law enforcement officer is saying when they are within range. They can capture a lot of unintended conversations and comments, including phone calls that come in when the camera is engaged. The name of the Highway Patrol person who destroyed the evidence is, of course, illegible. But this is another area we hope Sled is looking into.

Recently, former trooper Michael Duncan, a main investigator for the Highway Patrol, interviewed with the Oxygen Channel for a special episode called Ellic Murdoch, Death, Deception, and Power. During that special, Duncan said there was no chain of custody with Stevens' clothes. He also said that troopers who were eventually in charge of the investigation weren't given the opportunity to see Stevens' car in the place that investigators found it, which was on Bamberg Highway, about three miles from where Stevens' body was found. The placement of Stevens' car has always bothered me.

For one, in the entire investigation file, it doesn't say the exact address as to where Stevens' car was found. It just says officers found it three miles from Stevens' body on Bamberg Highway. I have to point out that Bamberg Highway is the main drag that connects the town of Hampton to perhaps the most infamous location in this entire saga, the Moselle property. And again, to be fair, there aren't many roads in Hampton County. But it is striking when you look at the map. And that isn't all.

There are so many coincidences in this case. And every time we look at this file, we find more. For instance, remember the South Carolina Highway Patrol state trooper who Ellic Murdoch allegedly stole from? His name is Thomas E. Moore. And oddly enough, he was also one of the first troopers on the scene of the Steven Smith investigation. According to the case file, Moore was the first investigator to question Dr. Aaron Presnell's

decision to rule Stevens' death a hit-and-run. He is the one who wrote. I asked her why she was ruling it as a motor vehicle accident and what she thought caused the head injury and she told me it was not her job to figure that out. It was mine. This was one of the most bizarre statements I've ever seen in a police report. It was like he was trying to hint at something. Like in between his words, what I read was him saying, there is no evidence of a vehicular

accident here. I'm not sure why we're really investigating this. Moore, who is from Orangeburg, provided an extremely detailed report of his investigation between July 8th and July 15th, 2015, before other troopers took over the case. And that's another thing that's confusing about this case file. It's really impossible to tell who is in charge of the investigation. The only thing that is consistent is that all of the troopers trained to study vehicular crimes found no evidence that Steven was hit by a car.

But six years after Moore investigated Steven's death, he apparently hired Alec Murdoch to represent him in a personal injury lawsuit. And according to indictments, Alec stole $125,000 from his settlement through the Forge game. I point this out because it's weird and I have no idea what to make of it. South Carolina is not that small. We have over 17,000 attorneys and more than 10,000 police officers. And yet, it seems like the same few names repeat themselves over and over in this story and we still don't know why.

Maybe this is a coincidence, sure, but there have been so few coincidences so far. In something else we've noticed about this case, several of the people initially involved in this investigation seemed to quickly change careers. For instance, Kelly Green, the deputy coroner who was in charge of the evidence transfer, was apparently fired after Steven's autopsy in 2015, according to the report. Todd Proctor, who clearly sniffed out something was wrong in the investigation, no longer works for the Highway Patrol. Michael Duncan, who was a lead investigator at the Highway Patrol, now works as an insurance

claims addresser. And Laura Lynn Hydrick, the last person to be in control of the rape kit, the one that disappeared apparently, left the Highway Patrol soon after that case got started in 2015. And please, if we are saying your name in this podcast and you know more about what went down, please reach out to us. We would love to know. Lastly, we need to talk about the Murdochs. Like we've said over and over for Sandy and Mike and for us, this is not quote-unquote

about the Murdochs, meaning all of us want investigators to follow the truth wherever it leads. That said, the Murdoch name is inextricably linked to this case, not only because of the rampant rumors and their dozens of appearances in the investigation, but because no matter who gets indicted in this case, Steven's killing is not solved because of a dysfunctional law enforcement system in Hampton County. No matter how you slice it, the Murdochs have played a pivotal role in shaping how justice has been wrought in the 14th Circuit for more than a hundred years.

The system is what it is because of their influence, no matter how much they don't want that to be true right now. So Randy Murdoch, like we said earlier, a highway patrolman, Todd Proctor, to be exact, had noted in the case file that Daryl Williams told him Randy had said to call law enforcement about the Sean Connolly information. This isn't the only time Randy's alleged involvement in the case was noted. Randy Murdoch was helping Steven's father with a workers' comp claim. On the time of Steven's death, on the morning Steven was killed, before the Smith family

knew officially that the body found in the road belonged to Steven, Randy called Joel Smith. Here's Sandy. They called him at work and told him that he needed to get to the Sheriff's Department. So he went and I was on the phone. And then he put me on hold, he said, hold on, Randy Murdoch's calling. So he took that call and then when he got back and he said, well, that was strange. Randy Murdoch's wanting to take Steven's case pro bono.

And he said yes. And then Randy says he never called. You know, Joe's not here to say, but me and Stephanie are because we heard the phone conversation. Yeah. And even asked to the point of Randy wanting Steven's electronics. But the thing is, this is my story. Why would you want his iPad that was at the house? The iPad was not even on his, all they found was his key, his phone.

And when they got to the car, they found his wallet with his ID in it. The iPad, how can it ping at 10 p.m. at the school when it was at, see, whatever, Joe Miley Raid, you would confiscated all that if it was in the car. In an interview with investigators from the highway patrol, Stevens twin sister Stephanie said she had witnessed the phone conversation between her father and Randy. Patrolman Michael Duncan noted in his report that he asked whether anyone from the sheriff's department had contacted her. No lawyers have contacted you about anything, have they?

Stephanie told him about the call from Randy and said he was the second person to call her dad after the coroner. And he said he wanted to take the case and it would be free of charge and everything. And my dad's a little iffy on that. So, because it's kind of weird. No lawyer sits here and says it'll be free and you can have whatever money you want. Then Duncan says, And I'm required to ask this.

Nobody with any law enforcement agency, including the highway patrol or department of public safety, has asked you to change any facts or make up any lies or say anything that's not true. No, sir. So, we're obviously very skeptical about whether Duncan was actually required to ask those questions. He was either doubting the integrity of his fellow law enforcement officers or getting Stephanie on the record early to dispel any rumors that the fix was in. After Duncan's appearance in that oxygen special about Alec Murdoch that aired last winter and after his assertion that this case was, quote, shrouded in secrecy, it seems

like he knew shenanigans were afoot. Again, we hope this is the kind of thing that Sled is drilling down on. What did Duncan suspect? What did he know? What parts of that experience in July 2015 did he not commit to paper? And if he did indeed perceive that the case had been shrouded in secrecy, where was that coming from and how far up did all of this go inside the halls of the State's Department of Public Safety?

We mentioned all of this to basically say that the Smith family did not ask for any part of this. The case's connections to the Murdoch family, however unclear those may be, along with this persistent lack of communication from law enforcement and the fact that Stephen's case remains pitifully unsolved, have put the Smiths in the center of a superstorm that is inherently unfair to them. Let me say that again. It is unfair.

This is not how the people in power, how those law enforcement officers would want their families to be treated if they were in the Smith's position. They would not stand for it. I can promise you, when I say that the vast majority of us cannot imagine the amount of pain that the Smith family has been through in the last seven years, the state owes Sandy Smith and her children an apology in the reassurance that they will do better than that. As Sled and the Attorney General's Office tell the public, they can be trusted to see this through no matter how ugly and embarrassing it gets for people in power.

And we'll be right back. So what do we do with all of this? How do we get more momentum in order to get it solved? Are there any workarounds for getting answers? We asked Smith family attorney Mike Hemlip about the possibility of a civil lawsuit in this case. The civil suit in the Mallory Beach case was essentially the catalyst to elic Murdoch secrets that eventually were exposed.

What power could Sandy have if she pursued things civilly? Could she subpoena people mentioned in the case file? Could she depose people? Who can they hold accountable for taking Steven's life? As it turns out, there's not a whole lot that they can do right now because of the simple fact that they don't know who did this. They don't know if the truth was intentionally covered up. They don't know if they're in this spot because of gross incompetence or corruption.

There is no smoking gun right now. To file a civil case, they would need to know who is responsible or reasonably know who is responsible. I know that this is South Carolina and that we don't do things like the rest of the world, but you still can't go around accusing people of murder or covering up murder. No court in this state would let Sandy in the door with that kind of lawsuit, not even right now. Here's Mike.

He can explain this better. This entire Murdoch saga has been in the public media in large part because of financial indiscretion and the lawsuits that have resulted from that. There are, I don't even know how many lawsuits there are, and there are lawsuits about money stolen by Alec Murdoch. There are lawsuits, multiple lawsuits about the boat crash that killed Mallory Beach. Of course, people want this case to fit into that mold of being just like them. This case is not like this.

There's no financial component in this case. This is not an easy case. This is not a boating accident that was easily solved. This is a murder, a legitimate murder. One of the most frustrating things for me, and I can't even begin to explain how frustrating this is for all of the Smith family, especially Sandy, is be listening to all these cases that have already been solved, and yet we know nothing. We know nothing.

We know when his body was found. We know where it was found. We know the injuries that he suffered. We don't know who did it. We don't know why they did it. We don't officially know why they did it. We all kind of do, but we don't officially know that. There are no answers.

So the idea of having a lawsuit in this case, I think that the botched investigation in 2015, 2016, the way that this was handled falls under one of two categories. Such gross incompetence that I have never seen on the level of law enforcement, or people intentionally obstructing justice. If we were to ever discover that that was intentional, absolutely, I think the Smith family should seek a remedy for that. I absolutely think they should, but the problem is we don't know that yet, and the statute of limitations for that is two years from when you knew or should have known.

How we don't know, and how could we know? How could we know at this point? Because Sled hasn't given us any answers yet. So at some point, I still have faith that Sled will give us answers. I believe in, I believe that the agent, and the lead agent on the case of the agents who are working for that agent, I believe that he sincerely wants to find answers, and that he's working diligently at that. If we ever find that there were people in Hampton County who were hiding the truth and

protecting somebody on this gruesome murder, all bets are off. They should, the Smith family should go after everyone. It's gross. It's disgusting. And it is disgusting. For every single person who has gone to bed all of these years, knowing that they are choosing to make the Smith family suffer more because they are too cowardly to come forward, there are no more excuses.

Fear is no longer an excuse. Now we are angry, and we hope Sled is angry too. We hope that they are grilling every single person named in this investigation until they get answers. We hope that one day Liz and I will look through Sled's investigation file and not see sloppy errors and egregious mistakes. We hope to read that file and see bravery and decency from the people of South Carolina. We all owe the Smith family that.

We need people to come forward, either to crime stoppers of the low country or by contacting us at the Murdoch Burgers podcast or Mike Hemlips office. We crave information. We're in an information vacuum. All the other cases that have arisen out of Hampton County, I mean, consider some of these financial cases, right? The victims knew that they had a case. They knew that one was being pursued, and then they knew that they didn't get the money.

So then there was a paper trail after that, and what it was is go find the paper trail. Burgers don't have a paper trail. There's no paper trail. Burgers are solved by people talking. We're in it. We're in an information desert right now, and for whatever reason, the community in Hampton County, they talk to each other, but they won't talk on the record, and that's what needs to change.

That's what needs to change. I'm firmly convinced that there are people right now in Hampton who know exactly what happened, and they'll gossip, and they'll talk about it, and they'll heard rumors about it, but they won't get on the record and talk about it, and it's time that they start living with courage, and living with bravery, and come forward and tell what they know. Call me. Call me at my office. I'll come down and meet you.

We'll talk about it. People need to start having courage. Stephen's case is so different from every other case in this entire mess, because it requires a lot more courage. These secrets have been buried for too long, and yet Sandy has stood tall and taken the high road. She has supported other victims, including the Satterfields and recently attended Gloria's gift celebration.

A few weeks ago, CNN hosted a roundtable with several victims of the Murdoch murder saga. Sandy sat for that interview and looked around and realized that she was the only one without any answers, and that just breaks my heart. It's like I called Mike. That day that we done CNN interview, I was the only one sitting at that table. Didn't have answers. The only one. And that made me so mad.

But I was there to talk about my son, but I was the only one there who had no answers. But his case was not about money. To me, his case was about hate. Somebody hated him enough to kill him, and it's not fair. This story is as much important as everybody else's story. What matters is what happens from this point forward. What matters is that we all do the right thing to get the Smith family justice. What we need more than anything is for people to have courage and come forward.

And they need to tell us what they know. You know, it'd be great if they called Crime Stoppers and it would be great if they called Sweat. If they're nervous about that, then call me. Then call me. I'll talk to them. I'm not a private investigator. I'll talk to them.

I'll guide them through what they need to do. And they can call, man, they can call, come and call you. I mean, call Sandy. People just need to come forward. They need to come forward. They need to tell what they know. The lid has been lifted off of Hampton County, and there is, there was a level of corruption there that used to exist that is no longer going to exist.

But there is crust on the bottom of the pan that needs to be cleaned off. And it's, it's, that's going to be, the hard work begins, right? I mean, clearly the people who are not coming forward are not coming forward because, A, they're scared for themselves, B, they're scared for somebody else. There's no reason to be scared anymore. There's nothing to be scared about. Come on. Come forward.

Tell us what you know. The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Our executive editor is Liz Farrell, produced by Luna Shark Productions.