The household of a teen who was discovered lifeless eight years in the past on a street close to the searching property of disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh says they will exhume his physique for an impartial post-mortem.

Stephen Smith’s demise was initially dominated an unsolved hit-and-run, however his mom has rejected that suggestion and says she hopes the brand new post-mortem will assist reply questions on what actually occurred to her son.

“Our family is so very grateful to all of you who came together to help us in our fight for justice for Stephen,” Sandy Smith wrote on a GoFundMe page that had raised greater than $60,000 to pay for the exhumation.

“Thank you for not allowing Stephen’s story to be swept under a rug,” she added. “This is Stephen’s year.”

Earlier this month, Alex Murdaugh was discovered responsible of the 2021 shooting deaths of his wife and son, Maggie and Paul, and sentenced to 2 consecutive life phrases in state jail. Murdaugh admitted to mendacity to police throughout the investigation however maintains he didn’t kill the pair.

During the investigation into the killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh two years in the past, the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division introduced that it was additionally opening its own inquiry into Smith’s death, the Augusta Chronicle reported.

A spokesperson stated on the time that the company would look into Smith’s demise “based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.”

Smith’s household has lengthy dismissed the idea that he was killed in a hit-and-run, suggesting that his accidents weren’t in line with a hit-and-run and that there was no particles alongside the agricultural street the place his physique was discovered, about 15 miles from the Murdaugh property.

Sandy Smith has stated her son, who was overtly homosexual, was killed after his automobile ran out of gasoline.

Both Smith and Murdaugh’s oldest son, Buster, graduated from the identical Hampton County highschool in 2014, NBC reported.

Though he is been convicted of the 2 murders, Murdaugh nonetheless faces a slew of different felony costs associated to alleged monetary crimes, a few of which the previous lawyer admitted to on the stand throughout his trial.