Stephen Smith’s body exhumed after Alex Murdaugh conviction

A second autopsy has been conducted on the body of Stephen Smith — the 19-year-old whose death investigation was reopened following the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh — a lawyer for Smith’s mother said.

Smith’s body was exhumed and re-examined before being returned to its “final resting place this past weekend,” lawyer Eric Bland tweeted late Sunday.

Smith was found dead on a road in Hampton County, S.C., in 2015 in what officials originally ruled a hit-and-run. His death garnered new attention after the killings of the Murdaughs, for which ex-lawyer Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of murder last month.

Authorities reopened the investigation into Smith’s death in 2021 but haven’t said what information from the Murdaugh case inspired them to do so. Last month, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) said his death is now being looked at as a homicide.

“A tremendous amount of planning went into this past weekend by a lot of people including the funeral home, coroner, [South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control], the excavators, doctors Dupre, Schultz and Haney and at least 12 SLED Officers,” Bland wrote Sunday.

“The biggest thanks goes to SLED Chief Mark Keel because without him this could not have gone on without a hitch. Chief Keel gave me his word and followed through on it.”

Alex Murdaugh, who maintained his innocence, received two life sentences for the 2021 deaths of his wife, Maggie, and younger son, Paul. Surviving son Buster Murdaugh broke his silence about Smith’s death last month to refute “vicious rumors” about his involvement.

“These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his death are false,” Buster Murdaugh, 26, said through his lawyer. “I unequivocally deny any involvement in his death, and my heart goes out to the Smith family. I am requesting that the media immediately stop publishing these defamatory comments and rumors about me.”