Stephen Smith, an LGBTQ activist and nursing student, died under suspicious circumstances in July 2015. (Justice for Stephen N. Smith Family Page; with permission)
The exhumation of Stephen Smith's body and second autopsy was conducted quietly over the weekend in Tampa, Florida, as an independent group of forensic experts works to determine how and why the 19-year-old died in July 2015 and why his body ended up in the middle of a Hampton County, South Carolina road.
Smith's death received renewed attention after Alex Murdaugh's conviction for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, last month. The Murdaugh name has loomed large over the investigation since Alex's brother, Randy Murdaugh, represented Stephen's father in a worker's compensation claim, and he and Alex showed up on the scene on Sandy Run Road the morning Stephen's body was found. Stephen was also a high school classmate of Buster Murdaugh, Alex's oldest son. No one in the Murdaugh family has been identified as a suspect.
Dr. Michelle DuPre, a retired forensic pathologist and former law enforcement officer who lives in South Carolina, oversaw Smith's exhumation and second autopsy. Dr. DuPre told Law&Crime's Sidebar podcast that Smith's casket was removed from a vault at the cemetery and then driven by police escort to Tampa, Florida. Once it arrived at a private lab, forensic pathologist Dr. Dan Schultz and forensic anthropologist Dr. Heather Walsh-Haney, performed the examination.
"Not knowing what condition we might find the body in, we wanted to make sure that we had all of our bases covered," Dr. DuPre said. "The bones were in very good condition, and the body was as well."
Dr. DuPre said the team got all of the information needed from the second autopsy to determine the cause and manner of death. However, the final reports are incomplete, so she is unwilling to discuss the conclusions now. Dr. DuPre called the first autopsy on Stephen Smith's body in July 2015 "very professional" and "well done."
The autopsy results have come under fire by some law enforcement officers and Smith's family because pathologist Dr. Erin Presnell determined the 19-year-old died from head trauma caused by a vehicle and labeled the manner of death undetermined instead of homicide. Some investigators have criticized Dr. Presnell's findings because she labeled the death a hit & run because Smith's body was found in the road.
"An autopsy is an opinion of that person, the pathologist doing the exam. So it is an opinion," Dr. DuPre noted. "That was just an unfortunate statement, really. If we find a body in a swimming pool, we don't say they drowned because they were in the pool. We say they drowned because of the evidence. And again, that I think it was a misstatement. I think I think she probably regrets it."
Dr. DuPre also called the decision to perform a rape kit on Smith in 2015 "thorough," given the circumstances under which his body was found. DuPre said that would be done with a female or male during an autopsy.
As the second autopsy was conducted, another part of the investigation began last weekend. Dr. Kenny Kinsey, a crime scene reconstruction expert who testified for the prosecution in Alex Murdaugh's double murder trial, has been retained to lead the independent investigation into Smith's death. Kinsey has been involved in more than 800 death investigations and has founded Kenny Kinsey & Associates LLC since the Murdaugh trial.
Dr. Kinsey told the Law&Crime Network's Angenette Levy that he spent part of the weekend at the scene on Sandy Run Road taking measurements and surveying the area where Smith's body was found nearly eight years ago.
"I did a lot of walking in the woods, out of the woods, on the pavement, a lot of measurement," Dr. Kinsey said. "I'd start over and get back in the vehicle and clock it again and use some Google and satellite imagery, that kind of thing."
Dr. Kinsey said there are four or five possibilities about what happened to Stephen Smith on July 8, 2015, including the possibility that he was the victim of a hit-and-run driver.
"If somebody heard something or knows something, we're asking them to please come forward because we can include it or exclude it, and then we can get back where we need to be if it takes us in the right direction is helpful. If not, we can exclude it. Then we don't go down that avenue anymore," Dr. Kinsey said.
Sandy Smith has raised more than $120,000 through a GoFundMe page to pay for the independent investigation and autopsy. Now, she's allocating $35,000 as a reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or people who killed her son. Tips can be emailed to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division or SLED at tips@sled.sc.gov. Tips can be phoned to SLED by calling 803.737.9000 and asking for investigative services.
Tips can also be emailed and called into the firm representing Sandy Smith, Bland Richter.