MURDAUGH SON TANGLED IN GAY MURDER PROBE!
Pal’s body being exhumed as cops reopen the case
JUST weeks after diabolical lawyer Alex Murdaugh’s doublemurder conviction, damning evidence has emerged linking his surviving son, Buster, to the mysterious 2015 death of a gay buddy!
Investigators at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SCLE) have reopened the homicide investigation into the bloody demise of 19-year-old nursing student Stephen Smith, who apparently was good pals with the Murdaugh kid.
Now Stephen’s body is slated to be exhumed in a desperate bid to unravel the truth!
Smith’s battered corpse was discovered on a country road about 15 miles from the sprawling 1,700-acre estate where Alex would later brutally gun down his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. At the time, his cause of death was determined to be a hit-and-run, but new evidence points to something much more sinister.
Newly released crime scene photos show the teen’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the road. Among other injuries, his skull was partially crushed and he had a gaping hole in his forehead. There was so much blood, the first officers to arrive thought he’d been shot.
“No way that was a hitand-run,” declares Shannon Beekhuizen, a forensic sleuth who holds a degree in crime scene technology. Shannon’s been studying the case for nearly a year and declares, “It was murder.”
Initially, investigators figured the same thing. Suspicion immediately fell on Buster, who went to high school with Stephen and may have been romantically involved with him.
Buster, now 26, has branded talk of his involvement in Stephen’s death “baseless rumors.”
But the dead teen’s shattered mom, Sandy Smith, says a “young man” once told her
other son Chris that Buster beat Stephen with a baseball bat because he was gay.
She claims, “The witness said they were out smashing mailboxes when they came upon Stephen, and Buster seized the opportunity.”
Despite evidence strongly suggesting murder, the coroner bizarrely concluded Stephen was likely hit by the sideview mirror of a passing truck, which was never found.
However, one state trooper declared the death scene looked staged. And another investigator reported that he saw “no evidence to suggest the victim was struck by a vehicle.”
Lawyer Ronnie Richter, who’s representing Stephen’s mom, agrees, saying no skid marks, broken glass or vehicular debris was found near Stephen’s body, and his “loosely tied shoes were still on his feet.”
Other experts note his cell phone didn’t even fall out of his pocket, and there was no evidence his body tumbled along the road after being struck by a vehicle going 55 mph or so.
Amateur detective Beekhuizen also believes Stephen’s death was foul play but has her doubts about Buster’s involvement.
“I’m not sure that Buster did it — or that it was a hate crime because of Stephen’s sexual orientation,” she says. “Stephen was hanging around with a lot of people who indulged in very risky behavior including drugs and money laundering. He may have known too much about some bad stuff.”
Veteran investigator Paul Huebl tells GLOBE Stephen’s exhumation is definitely warranted.
“He could have been killed because of what he knew about Buster or because of what Buster had told him about his father,” says the Chicago cop turned Hollywood private eye. “His death smells and demands more investigation.”