South Carolina police have identified two people of interest in the mur*der of Stephen Smith, a teenager with ties to Murdaugh. One of them is said to have admitted to mowing down the nursing student, according to a shocking report.
Fitsnews obtained a case file on Thursday that showed police are looking into 25-year-olds Patrick Wilson and Shawn Connelly. Both of them were initially linked to Smith’s death in July 2015.
At the time, the two teens lived just a few miles from where the 19-year-old’s battered body was found on a road near the 1,700-acre Moselle estate where Alex Murdaugh ki*lled his wife Maggie and son Paul that same year.
About five months after Smith’s body was found, Wilson’s stepfather told police that the boys were involved in the death. He did this with the help of Alex Murdaugh’s older brother.
Wilson is said to have told his stepfather that Connelly, who has a history of traffic tickets and DUIs, was driving the car that “struck and k*illed Stephen Smith.”
The stepfather “stated that the reason he was passing this information on was because Randy Murdaugh told him to call,”
When Wilson told the truth, he was being charged with attempted mu*rder for something that wasn’t clear at the time. Soon after, those charges were dropped by a lawyer who “served at the pleasure of the Murdaughs,” a historian from Hampton told the outlet.
Within a year of Smith’s death, Randy Murdaugh brought two car accident lawsuits against Connelly on behalf of clients. Judges who liked Murdaugh’s case threw out both of them.
The DailyMail got records that show Connelly has a history of crimes that includes DUIs, domestic violence, hunting without a license, and ki*lling an antlerless deer without a permit.
Even though both men confessed, the original investigation team did not search them very carefully. At first, police said the death “appeared to be a homicide,” but in the end, they decided Smith was hit and ki*lled.
Smith’s death has finally been officially ruled a mur*der after almost eight years.
Police have not publicly said that the Murdaugh family is not part of their investigation, even though a law enforcement source told FitsNews that they have proof that the legal family has no ties to the case.
A source told the news source, “SLED has proof the Murdaughs were not there when Stephen Smith was killed.”
Last week, police said they “quickly” put Buster Murdaugh on their radar as part of the new investigation into the death of Smith. This was because of rumors that he killed Smith to hide a love affair between him and another baseball player.
Someone in Smith’s class is said to have told his brother that he saw Buster ki*ll Smith “with a baseball bat” because he was gay.
Sandy Smith, Smith’s mother, also linked Buster to her son’s death in a letter she sent to federal investigators. In the letter, she said that local police were tainting the investigation into her son’s death.
Buster said he “unequivocally” denied “vicious rumors” that he was involved in the mur*der. He is still grieving the deaths of his mother and brother and is dealing with the fact that his ki*ller father is in jail.
