Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Who Killed Stephen Smith? Part Two - (S01E4)

Starting point is 00:00:00 I don't know who killed Steven Smith, but I do know that something went wrong in the investigation of his death, and because of that, Steven's family has been waiting 2,194 days to get justice in his case. My name is Mandy Matney. I'm the news director at fitsnews.com. I have been investigating the Murdoch family for more than two years now, and this is the Murdoch Murders podcast. So this podcast is different from other true crime podcasts because it's all still developing. I'm waiting on freedom of information requests to come back. I'm waiting for different pieces of the story to finally come out. I understand that there's a lot to follow here, and it gets very complicated, but we will do our best to guide you through all of the twists and turns.

Starting point is 00:00:58 Two episodes ago, we introduced y'all to the Steven Smith case. I know so many of you are eager to learn more details of this investigation, so this week we're going to go back and do part two of Who Killed Steven Smith? So let's start with a recap. Smith was found dead just before 4 a.m. on July 8, 2015. He was found in the middle of Sandy Run Road in Hampton County, South Carolina. On June 22, 2021, huge news broke in his case. I was first to report that the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, also known as SLED, the same agency investigating the Murdoch Murders, opened an investigation into Steven Smith's death. SLED told me that this was based on information gathered during the course of the double homicide investigation of Paul and Maggie

Starting point is 00:01:42 Murdoch. We don't know what information led them to that position, but it's important to look back on the 2015 case and see what went wrong. Like the probe of the 2019 boat crash that killed Mallory Beach, the 2015 investigation into Smith's death was chaotic from the beginning, derailed by jurisdictional perplexity and suspicions of investigative interference. In the last episode, we discussed the evidence or lack thereof found at the scene on Sandy Run Road on July 8, 2015. So before I get into the details of this case, I want to describe this place for you, because Hampton County is different. If you've driven on I-95 in southern South Carolina, you wouldn't notice the exit for Hampton. Exit 38 is unremarkable. You'll see a loves travel stop,

Starting point is 00:02:29 a dollar general store, and a family dollar, but not much else. A trip to Hampton County is like a trip back in time. It's about an hour and a half northwest of Hilton Head Island, but it feels a world away. The town name and the local high school, Wade Hampton High, are named after a Confederate officer. He was one of the largest slave owners in the southeast. As you travel down Yemisee Highway, railroad tracks follow the route to downtown Hampton. Tall southern pines frame the highway. Hampton is along the corridor of shame. Counties in South Carolina with failing schools and inadequate funding. Hampton is one of the poorest counties in South Carolina with a median household income of around $32,000. Only about 19,000 people live

Starting point is 00:03:14 in Hampton County and that number decreases every year. There are very few jobs and very few businesses. Downtown Hampton is a place where time stood still and hasn't moved much since the 1950s. A large pedestal clock stands in the middle of Lee Avenue, which is the heart of downtown Hampton. Palmetto trees line the sidewalk of the sleepy downtown. You will see some old-fashioned store friends such as the Palmetto Theater and Olmer's Feed and Seed. Standing watch over Lee Avenue, the historic courthouse, built in 1878, is hard to miss. One block from Lee Avenue, there is one noticeably thriving business in Hampton, South Carolina. That is the Murdoch Law Firm. Peters, Murdoch, Parker, Ellsworth and Dietrich, also known as PMPED. For decades, Hampton County has been

Starting point is 00:04:03 known as a judicial hellhole, a place where you do not want to get sued. A 2004 report by the National American Tour Reform Foundation named Hampton County as the number three judicial hellhole in the United States. While the report is dated, many of the problems and names in the report still exist in Hampton County today. Because of Hampton County's longtime reputation of siding with plaintiffs and rewarding an unusually high amount for damages, a large amount of plaintiffs went to Hampton County to file their lawsuits. For years, South Carolina law allowed plaintiffs to file civil lawsuits against businesses virtually in any county in the state, specifically wherever the corporate defendant does business or owns property. According to the

Starting point is 00:04:51 report, one law firm brings the majority of the major lawsuits in Hampton County, and that is the Murdoch Law Firm, PMPED. The report listed intimidation through the use of subpoenas as one of the reasons why Hampton was a judicial hellhole. The litigation climate hurt the economy in Hampton County by scaring away businesses. In the early 2000s, Walmart considered opening a store in Hampton County. The report said, quote, a lawyer reportedly warned company executives that locating a store there could place the retailer's entire South Carolina operation at risk. Still today, Hampton remains one of the few counties in South Carolina without a Walmart. There is virtually no industry in the county. And I'm not making a value judgment here. Life in Hampton was hard

Starting point is 00:05:40 for a lot of people, and it was not easy for the Smith family. Stephen Smith was born two pounds 12 ounces at 7.05 a.m. on January 29, 1996. He was a twin and given a 50% chance survival rate, but he always overcame the odds, his mother says. Yeah, well, his room was a library. Every dollar he got from chores, he spent in the library buying their old books. No matter what it was, Greek mythology, whatever, he read it. He was so smart. And he always had a dream of being a doctor. And what he said, he didn't want to cost us any money. So he had to start from the bottom and be a nurse until he could become a doctor. And then he was going to go overseas to help children. Stephen was in class at Orangeburg Tech, a local community

Starting point is 00:06:39 college about 55 miles north of Hampton on July 7, 2015. Just hours later, he was found dead in the middle of Sandy Run Road around 4 a.m. on July 8, 2015. For the slews out there, the closest address to pinpoint the location where Stephen was found, according to the reports, would be 6199 Sandy Run Road. It's a country road about five miles north of downtown Hampton. The only commercial buildings for miles are the Crockettville Country Store in the Hampton Presbyterian Church. There is an occasional house every mile or so on Sandy Run Road, and the landscape is shaped mostly by cornfields. In crime scene photos, there appears to be a house adjacent to where Stephen was found. But again, there are no records and police reports of any officers canvassing the neighborhood and

Starting point is 00:07:27 asking neighbors if they heard anything strange that morning. Yet, they took several photos of the house nearby. This is one of many investigative peculiarities in the Stephen Smith case. Okay, so in the last episode, we discussed several important factors about the crime scene and evidence in this case, including Stephen's face was covered in blood. His forehead was heavily bruised and bashed in by blunt force. His shoulder was partially dislocated, but he had no other major injuries. Stephen's loosely tied shoes were still on his feet, and his phone was in his pocket with his key when he was found by authorities. His car was found about three miles away on Bamberg Highway with the gas cap off. Police could not get his car to start. Highway Patrol

Starting point is 00:08:13 searched the scene multiple times, and time and time again, they found no evidence of a motor vehicle accident. They found no tire marks. They found no debris from a vehicle. They found nothing. So as we explained in the last episode, there was a lot of dispute about the cause of Stephen's death from the beginning. The first few investigators on scene went back and forth between a gunshot homicide and a hit and run accident. South Carolina Highway Patrol officers were told it wasn't a vehicular accident and they didn't have to be at the autopsy. But then at the autopsy, pathologist Dr. Aaron Presnell ruled that Stephen was killed in a hit and run crash. Two Highway Patrol investigators who spoke with Presnell described hostile experiences with her

Starting point is 00:09:00 and couldn't get a direct answer for why she ruled Stephen's death a vehicle accident. In a month after Stephen's death, the coroner said that he didn't believe that Stephen's death was a hit and run. And despite the fact that officials rejected the ruling that Stephen was killed by a truck mirror in a hit and run accident, the Highway Patrol investigated the case. They started by interviewing Stephen's family members in a man that described himself as Stephen's boyfriend. Go back to episode two if you want to hear those interviews. In a letter, forensic scientist Michael Muscal of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said that he tested trace evidence in the case. He tested three items of clothing that Stephen was wearing the night he died and scanned

Starting point is 00:09:41 them for automotive paint. He found no paint on Stephen's black Nike shirt. He found no paint on Stephen's cargo pants. He found no paint on Stephen's blue tennis shoes. But then when he tested debris from the shoes and the shirt, he found 10 one millimeter single layer blue paint chips. For an idea of how small one millimeter is, it's about the width of a pencil tip, tiny. He indicated that the paint could be from an industrial tool, dumpster, or signpost. And he added that Toyota used this particular paint on its vehicles from 1982 to 1988. But there's something important to note about those clothes. Chana custody apparently was broken with Stephen's clothes when they were left unattended at the funeral home on the day of his death.

Starting point is 00:10:27 So it's hard to say where those paint chips came from. On August 4, 2015, Duncan, an investigator with the South Carolina Highway Patrol, picked up Stephen's iPhone from sled. He wrote in his notes there is no chain of custody with the phone. This is weird because in another sled report, it says that Duncan signed a chain of custody form on August 4 and transferred the phone to Jay Connelly of the Highway Patrol on I-95 on August 5. The phone is another key piece of evidence in this case that the South Carolina Highway Patrol apparently failed to get answers from. For years, the phone was tossed between agencies and they couldn't get it unlocked. We'll go back to more about the phone later. According to chain of custody reports,

Starting point is 00:11:09 there was a rape kit done on Stephen. It was transferred from the Hampton County Coroner to Highway Patrol investigator Todd Proctor at MUSC. Then Todd Proctor transferred the rape kit to a name that I can't read and it added a location that says TR-6A on August 11, 2015. But the rape kit is never mentioned again, which is weird. They never mentioned what the results are and none of the investigators seem to care about it at all. The gunshot residue kit was also taken to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division for analysis. But like the rape kit, it's never mentioned again outside of the chain of custody report. In another investigative inconsistency, Hampton County Sheriff's Office investigator Perry Singleton wrote that Stephen was wearing a white

Starting point is 00:11:53 polo shirt when he was found dead. However, in all other reports and photos from the crime scene, Stephen was wearing a black Nike T-shirt. Why would Singleton write that? Not all investigations are black and white, but this just seems odd. So now that we've told you about evidence in the case or lack thereof, we want to get into the interviews. On August 7, 2015, South Carolina Highway Patrol investigator Corporal Michael E. Duncan called Stephen's friend, who we will call Brittany in this podcast. We changed Brittany's voice due to the sensitive nature of this topic. Let me kind of go over a couple of things. Just a little information that I got and you can either confirm or not sure. She told me yesterday, or yes, she told me yesterday or it might have

Starting point is 00:12:42 been the day before, but she said that matter of fact, it was on Wednesday if I'm not mistaken, that she was at church and that both of y'all had spoken about Stephen's death about Buster Maddock. Is that correct? Kind of tell me what you told her about that. I told her that another friend of mine had picked me asking me if Buster 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. Okay, so he didn't have anything to base that upon just except for more or less a rumor. Is that correct? Yes sir. Had you ever heard of Stephen and Buster being involved with at all

Starting point is 00:13:29 before this? No sir, I haven't. So this was the first time you'd ever heard about something like this? Yes sir. Okay, did you know Stephen at all? Yes sir, he was my best friend. Okay, and did you know Stephen was gay? I did. Duncan asked who Brittany heard this rumor from and Brittany said she heard it from a guy who we will call Jack in this podcast. Later that day, Duncan makes a note of the rumor that Brittany told him about in the investigation file. This is the first time he ever wrote down the Murdoch name even though he had heard it in two previous interviews. A couple days later on August 10, 2015, Duncan notes that Jack's father has called him and wanted to know what was going on. This is a reminder that we are dealing with teenagers here. Very young. All of these kids

Starting point is 00:14:14 are around 19 or 20. August 11, 2015, Jack calls Duncan. Hello. This is Corporal Duncan again. Yes sir. All right, let me pull up this paperwork. Let me kind of go over a couple of things with you real quick and how your name kind of brought about. Long story short, you supposedly sent a text so let me let me go just kind of go in this. Do you know Stephen Smith? Yeah, he was my classmate. All right and and did you send that text to uh uh what was the text? Let me pull that out. Let me put it on my computer or get it unlocked real quick. All right, it says um if uh Buster Maddox ever had any type of relationship with Stephen? Yes. Did you send that text? Yes sir. And then the question was asked back uh uh how did you know about that? Where are you getting that information

Starting point is 00:15:10 from? It was a rumor. Rumor? Yes sir. I heard it. I know she's desperate Stephen so I just said. Okay and uh so so you heard it through just like uh people that you know or just people that in general come. All right. Any information that you know? Do you know any information about whether that's true or not? No, not at all. Not at all. All right. Do you know anything? Do you know anything about Stephen's death? No sir. Not at all. Nobody's come to you and and brought any information to you other than what uh what the question you asked. Is that correct? That's correct. What have you heard uh uh otherwise? Have you heard any other rumors? Nothing. Nothing. No sir. So the only rumor you heard is possibly uh Buster having a

Starting point is 00:16:03 some type of relationship with Stephen. Yes sir. Okay. All right. And how long ago was that? Do you recall uh when that was? I do not. A few weeks ago maybe. Was it after or before his death? After. Okay so it was after uh Stephen had died. Yes sir. All right. Anything else that you got that uh that I need to know about anything at all? No sir. While doing a background search on Jack we noticed that he was facing two different lawsuits from the Murdoch law firm. Attorney John E. Parker a powerful well-known firm partner filed two car accident lawsuits against Jack just two weeks after Stephen's death. The lawsuits were both dismissed in 2016. I am noting this only because this is something that I found during my reporting and I have not yet found an explanation

Starting point is 00:16:55 for the timing. It could be nothing but it's worth mentioning in case any listeners can shed light on this. At the very least it shows just how small of a web we're dealing with in Hampton County and just how much of that web is covered by the Murdoch family law firm. A couple weeks pass and not much happens with the investigation. On August 27th 2015 Duncan interviews a man who we will call Ben over the phone. The day before Sandy Smith told Duncan that this man had information on Stephen's death. Unfortunately the interview really doesn't go anywhere. The man doesn't say that much but he does mention a rumor that he heard. And uh now let me ask you this have have you heard anything strange about how Stephen died or any rumors or anything like that? What I heard was that he said

Starting point is 00:17:41 he was running from somebody. Said he was running from? Yeah he was running in the woods from a guy like he was running from a somebody in the woods. Now who'd you hear that did you hear that from Stephen's mama? No I heard this from my classmate. Okay all right and did they even describe who it may have been? You know they said it was an older guy. He was running from and he was like he was trying to figure out who to see if he was running from and he was like maybe it was somebody that he was messing with that nobody knew off and I guess Stephen was trying to bring them out or something like that. Okay the next day Lance Corporal Conley interviews a man we will call him Joe who lives on Hilton Head. He called Joe after Sandy Smith found a gate pass for a Hilton Head gated community with Joe's

Starting point is 00:18:32 name on it. This gate pass was found inside Stephen's car which was supposed to be searched for evidence by police and Stephen's mom was the only one to find this pass. For those of you who aren't familiar a visitor to one of Hilton Head's gated communities must obtain a gate pass in order to enter. This usually means stopping by a gate house producing an ID and telling an armed guard whose house you're going to visit. Then you are provided a gate pass to enter the community. This man that the highway patrol interviews called in a gate pass for Stephen 10 days prior to his death and the pass was still in the car with his name on it. The forensics team must have missed this and Stephen's mom must have been the only one who cared enough to examine this call the source

Starting point is 00:19:20 and motivate investigators to follow up on this lead. Even then investigators still pretty much brush past this interview. Joe was an older man in recently divorce. He said that he met Stephen online but said no money was exchanged in their encounter. Joe said that he doesn't do this kind of thing often. He said that they hooked up on June 28th but it was a one night stand. Joe said that he texted Stephen a few times after that and didn't realize that he passed away until after he was contacted by Sandy. Now keep in mind that investigators just heard the day before that there were rumors that Stephen was running from an older guy when he was killed a guy that he possibly had hooked up with and then they meet a man who fits this description and they don't even bother to

Starting point is 00:20:06 ask him for an alibi. So who knows if there's any truth to this older man rumor whatsoever but all of the show's sloppy police work at the very least. A couple days later an investigator named Todd Proctor steps in. Proctor interviews a man and will call him Kevin and the investigation takes another turn. But I'll tell you my office is out of Charleston so I have no ties to Hampton. There's no big name in Hampton that that worries me you know and I want you to feel at ease about that as well because I've heard that this name people associated with this name have been going around kind of kind of threatening or putting the heat on people saying you know keeping mouth closed if you heard something whatever. And the conversation gets very interesting.

Starting point is 00:20:59 First we heard he was shot then we heard it was a hit and ruin but recently probably week ago we can half ago I'd say something like that. I heard that these two maybe three young men were in the vehicle. They were right down 601 saw the car on the side of the road I guess saw the boy walking. They turned back around I guess they were attempting to I don't want to say you know mess around with him or something like that and stuck something out the window in it you know hit him in I don't know if he hit him in the head or the back or where it hit him and then that's pretty much all I heard I did hear names and I'm or heard a name and that name was he goes about Buster Murdoch.

Starting point is 00:21:49 So there's a lot more to this interview and others but there's just not enough time in this episode so stay tuned for part three of Who Killed Stephen Smith and be sure to check out fitsnews.com where you can see crime scene photos and read interviews from this case. For the latest updates in all of these cases subscribe to fitsnews.com and to support our mission go to murdochmurderspodcast.com. So for the latest developments on this case visit fitsnews.com or follow me on twitter at twitter.com slash Mandy M-A-N-D-Y Matney M-A-T-N-E-Y and don't forget to leave a five star review unless you're gonna be nasty and talk about my vocal fry. The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me Mandy Matney and my

Starting point is 00:22:41 fiance David Moses produced by Luna Shuck Productions.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Who Killed Stephen Smith? Part Two - (S01E4)

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