Could cell phone evidence be the key to solving Stephen Smith’s unsolved case?

On 22 June 2021, two weeks after Alex MurdaughScion of the Murdaugh dynasty, reported the discovery of the bodies of his son Paul and his wife Maggie shot the dog kennels of the family’s sprawling estate Mosel propertyThe South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED, issued a simple statement to the media: “SLED has launched an investigation into the death of Stephen Smith based on information obtained during the investigation into the double murder of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.”

This single sentence was the turning point for Sandy Smith, who was fighting to the case of her son from being forgotten, even writing letters to high-ranking politicians and the FBI. “That was the happiest day of my life,” she tells “48 Hours” contributor and CBS News correspondent Nikki Battiste in “Stephen Smith: A Death in Murdaugh Country,” which reruns Saturday, July 27, on CBS and streams on Paramount+.

For nearly a decade, Sandy Smith refused to let her son’s case go unsolved. In the early morning hours of July 8, 2015 Stephen Smith’s body was discovered on a country road in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Here, three generations of the Murdaugh family held the chief legal office and enjoyed power and influence for a century, especially with local law enforcement. Stephen’s death was quickly ruled a hit-and-run by the medical examiner, a conclusion that neither Sandy Smith nor South Carolina Highway Patrol investigators believed at the time.

“I wanted a second opinion,” says Sandy Smith Battiste.

With a new, high-caliber legal team at her side, she finally gets it. A few days after Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter announced that they would represent Smith pro bono, SLED CEO Mark Keel publicly admitted that SLED Treating Stephen Smith’s death as murderAnd thanks to over $130,000 in GoFundMe donations from Sandy Smith’s supporters, Bland and Richter were able to arrange for Stephen Smith’s body to be exhumed to conduct an independent autopsy.

When Battiste asks Sandy Smith, “What do you think it took to finally get Stephen’s case the attention it deserves and that you wanted?” Smith doesn’t mince her words. “Someone else had to die,” she says, referring to Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.

Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of the double murders of his wife and son after a sensational six-week trial that was watched around the world. Bland and judges, who have represented several of Murdaugh’s victims, Alleged financial fraud amounting to millionsoffered to represent Sandy Smith pro bono. “This is a woman who has been fighting this battle alone since 2015…she screams as loud as she can…and hardly anyone listens to her,” says Bland.

Almost immediately after Stephen Smith’s death, rumors of Murdaugh’s involvement spread like locusts throughout the Lowcountry. Michael DeWitt Jr., editor of the Hampton County Guardian and author of The Fall of the House of Murdaugh, says he has heard the same rumors in the farthest corners: “that at least one Murdaugh child was in a car with other boys and that someone in the car allegedly … struck the young man with a baseball bat and killed him.” A similar story was told to Highway Patrol investigators in taped interviews, and the name Murdaugh, specifically Buster Murdaugh, appears dozens of times in the original case file obtained by “48 Hours” through public records requests.

Buster Murdaugh, the eldest son of Alex Murdaugh, who according to the file had neither spoken to Highway Patrol investigators nor commented publicly on the allegations, broke his silence two weeks ago after his father’s conviction. In a statement released by his father’s attorney, Jim Griffin, Buster Murdaugh denied the rumors, calling them “baseless” and saying, among other things, “I unequivocally deny any involvement (in Stephen Smith’s) death.” Buster Murdaugh denied this a second time several months later in a television interview on Fox Nation. And for the first time, he also offered an alibi, stating that he was with his mother and brother at their beach house when Stephen Smith was killed.

“We have no evidence today to suggest that Murdaugh played a role in the death of Stephen Smith or in attempts to cover up the investigation into his death,” Richter said.

But the Murdaugh and Smith cases remain inextricably linked through the SLED’s findings. Richter told “48 Hours”: “Somehow, at some point in the course of the Murdaugh murder investigation, a new thread emerged about Stephen Smith.”

While SLED is keeping its investigation top secret, it is the subject of intense speculation what evidence investigators found while looking into the Murdaugh murders that led them back to Stephen Smith. “Whatever it was, it’s important enough that … the highest law enforcement agency in the state is launching its own investigation,” DeWitt says.

Given the crucial role that cellphone evidence played in the Alex Murdaugh trial, Bland and Richter say it’s possible that evidence from Stephen’s tablet or phone found in his front pocket could play a key role in this case as well. But Sandy Smith says she asked the FBI to crack Stephen’s phone as early as 2016.

“Do you know if … anyone was actually able to read Stephen’s text messages or use the cell phone evidence to figure out where he might have been?” asks Battiste.

“What I heard from the FBI agent,” says Sandy Smith, “was that there was a lot of interesting information in the phone that needed to be investigated.” But she says neither local nor state authorities pursued the case, and Stephen’s case was closed. “There’s something in that phone that nobody wants out there,” she tells Battiste.

According to Sandy Smith’s attorneys, SLED now has all the evidence in the Stephen Smith case, including his phone and tablet, and an investigative grand jury is focusing on possible suspects. In the meantime, Sandy Smith remains hopeful that she will get answers and justice soon. She has announced a scholarship fund in Stephen’s name and is offering a $30,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.

During an independent investigation by Sandy Smith’s team led by Dr. Kenny Kinsey, who recently retired as a deputy sheriff with the Orangeburg County Sheriff’s Office and served as an expert witness in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial, the baseball bat theory was ruled out. Kinsey and Dr. Michelle DuPre, a retired investigator and forensic pathologist who oversaw the case, Stephen’s new autopsytheorized that Stephen died from a single fatal blow to the head and died on the street where he was found.

“The injuries can tell us so much about what happened,” says DuPre. And in this case, she says, that was the case.

“Whatever hit him, it was fast and big,” says Kinsey Battiste.

These and other surprising findings, shared exclusively with Battiste, are part of the latest “48 Hours” report.

“How sure are you that you know what happened to Stephen Smith that night?” asks Battiste Kinsey. “I’m as close to scientific certainty as I’ve ever felt,” he says.