Alex Murdaugh’s oldest son, Buster Murdaugh, is speaking out against what he calls “baseless rumors” about his high school classmate Stephen Smith’s death in 2015.
He said in a Monday statement shared by his family’s attorney, Jim Griffin on Twitter –
“These baseless rumors of my involvement in Stephen’s death are false.”
Smith, who was 19 when he died, was killed in what police at first thought was a hit-and-run just a few miles from the Murdaughs’ hunting property in Islandton, South Carolina, called Moselle. This is where Alex Murdaugh killed his wife Maggie and his youngest son Paul on June 7, 2021.
Buster said that as he mourns the deaths of his mother and brother, he has done his best to “ignore the vicious rumors” that he had something to do with Stephen Smith’s sad death.
Adding that he has been “targeted and harassed” by members of the media and the public, he wrote –
“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.”
“I unequivocally deny any involvement in [Stephen’s] death and my heart goes out to the Smith family.”
Smith’s mother said in the description of her GoFundMe page last week that she had raised enough money to dig up her son’s body. Smith’s death is being looked into again by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Attorney Eric Bland is now representing the Smith family. He used to represent the children of the Murdaughs’ late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died at the Murdaughs’ home in Moselle in what seems to have been a fall in 2018.
Bland told “Fox & Friends” co-host Pete Hegseth earlier this month (as reported by Fox News) –
“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.”
“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.”
Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of the 2021 murders of his wife and son at Moselle by a Colleton County jury on March 2, which sparked suspicions about Smith’s death.
Prosecutors say the disgraced lawyer killed his wife and son to take attention away from his alleged financial crimes, which were getting worse.
