Stephen Smith died 8 years ago. More people than ever want to know why
State agents say Smith was murdered. Interest in his case has spiked in part because of where he died: about 8 miles from where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were shot to death.
Stephen Smith was 19 years old when his body was discovered on a rural two-lane road in South Carolina in 2015. His family has never accepted a medical examiner's ruling that Smith died from a hit-and-run. They think foul play was involved — and state agents agree.
"The Stephen Smith case is being investigated as a homicide," Renée Wunderlich, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's public information director, told NPR on Wednesday.
"We do believe it was a murder," as South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel told. "We don't believe it was a hit-and-run."
