Murdaugh son’s dead classmate to receive autopsy after found dead near Murdaugh property in 2015
Fox News senior correspondent Laura Ingle reports on the family of the deceased Stephen Smith, a classmate of Buster Murdaugh, raising enough money to receive an independent autopsy after he was found dead near the Murdaugh estate in 2015.
Buster Murdaugh, Alex Murdaugh's eldest son, is speaking out against what he describes as "baseless rumors" surrounding the 2015 death of his high school classmate, Stephen Smith.
"These baseless rumors of my involvement in Stephen's death are false," he said in a Monday statement shared by his family's attorney, Jim Griffin, on Twitter.
Smith, who was 19 at the time of his death, was killed in what police initially described as a hit-and-run just miles from the Murdaughs' Islandton, South Carolina, hunting property called Moselle, where Alex fatally shot his wife, Maggie, and his youngest son, Paul, on June 7, 2021.
Buster said he has tried his best to "ignore the vicious rumors" about his "involvement in Stephen's Smith's tragic death" as he grieves his mother and brother.
ALEX MURDAUGH: TIMELINE OF ONCE-POWERFUL SOUTH CAROLINA LAWYER'S SPECTACULAR DOWNFALL
Buster Murdaugh, left, and Stephen Smith, right, a high school classmate that was killed in 2015. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital/ Facebook)
"I haven't spoken up until now because I want to live in private while I cope with their deaths and my father's incarceration," he wrote, adding that he has been "targeted and harassed" by members of the media and the public.
He continued, "I unequivocally deny any involvement in [Stephen's] death and my heart goes out to the Smith family."
A cross marks the spot where Stephen Smith was found dead, Hampton County, South Carolina, Feb. 28, 2023. 19-year-old Stephen Smith's body was found here in 2015. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
Smith's mother wrote in a GoFundMe page description last week that she has raised enough money to exhume Smith's body.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division has reopened an investigation into Smith's death.
Buster Murdaugh, the son of Alex Murdaugh, stands in the courtroom after his father Alex Murdaugh is found guilty on all counts for the murder of his wife and son at the Colleton County Courthouse on Thursday, March 2, 2023. (Joshua Boucher/The State/Pool)
Attorney Eric Bland, who represents the children of the Murdaughs' late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield — who died at the Murdaugh's Moselle home in an apparent 2018 fall — is now representing the Smith family.
"He was found in the middle of a country road in Hampton County, and… the highway department said he was hit by a car, but there was no broken glass, no car parts," Bland told "Fox & Friends" co-host Pete Hegseth earlier this month. "His clothes were intact, his shoes were on, and he had… a clear head trauma injury that looked like it was done by something other than a car."
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On March 2, a Colleton County jury found Alex Murdaugh guilty in the 2021 murders of his wife and son at Moselle, prompting suspicion about Smith's mysterious death.
Prosecutors say the disgraced lawyer killed his wife and son in an effort to divert attention away from his mounting alleged financial crimes.
