"A Good Idea Who Committed This" — Murdaugh Witness Investigates Stephen Smith Cold Case

rural South Carolina road in 2015. How did he die? It depends on who you ask because law enforcement and the pathologist disagreed. It wasn't until the Mardach martyrs that the state law enforcement division, it's like the state police for South Carolina, said it would investigate the case due to quote "information found while investigating the double murder of Paula Maggie, the wife and son of the disgraced, redheaded South Carolina attorney." The agency gave no more information about what was

found or how it related to Steven's case, still no answers. Until March 2023, when state police

declared Steven's death, a homicide. Since then, his body has been exhumed and a second autopsy

done. But are we any closer to solving this case? The last things led told me was, it's making progress. But today, I've got Kenny Kenzie. The forensic investigator hired by Attorney Eric Bland on behalf of Sandy Smith to get answers. Kenny Kenzie, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's

“good to see you again. It's been a minute. What have you been up to since the last time I saw you?”

Wow, another productive year, working cases and analyzing cases in about seven different states. So I've been really, really blessed. A lot of travel met a lot of fine people and just live in life. I've been working on the Steven Smith case for as long as it's been reopened by slides since 2021 and Steven Smith perished in a road in Hampton, probably not far from where your family lives. I mean, we're on 11 years now that Sandy Smith's trying to figure out how her son ended up dead

in the middle of a road. Tell me why we're stalled now. Well, I don't really know. I'll say up front and for most, she deserves these answers. This all came about about two weeks after the murder investigation into Maggie and Paul's death. So it was a couple of weeks later that Sandy Smith gets a call out of the blue from sled, which is our state law enforcement division telling her we've reopened the investigation into your son based on information we learned during this investigation.

Which just started a whole hornet snass of activity. I would have to agree and, and you know, when when I first started when Eric reached out to me and said, look, we need some help. Would you be willing to help? And I come on board. I can't tell you how many rumors

“how many false tips and you can't just discount them. You have to check them out and see if”

you can include or exclude that information. And some of them were outright outrageous. Sure.

I mean, I got list of of those and some of them sounded incredible. And I don't know if it's the

need to be involved or if you know, you see something and you just don't want to take the risk of it not being associated so you report. So I'm a big believer in passing on the information. You have to have it. But some of them, you would look at them and say, you know, if I was back with a caseload and someone called me with this information, I absolutely would ignore this. And not that I ever did that. I'm just saying some of it was outright outrageous, you know,

for instance, a person in a state, 10 states away. Don't remember the date. Don't remember the time. But no, they traveled. Oh, don't remember the town. No, they traveled through South Carolina. And they believed they saw Stephen that night. But they still can't remember their path. You know, what highway they were on or anything. And it was, it was just law enforcement has to to filter through all of this exhaust. And it will turn you around and send you the wrong direction

“every time. But you can't discount it. I believe that Stephen's case represents missed opportunity.”

So let me fill you in a little bit. Troopers on the scene that night, July 8, 2015,

believe that it was a homicide. In fact, at first because of the head trauma and lack of any

road rash, even Stephen's shoes with the laces untied and tucked in were still on his feet. Multiple agencies were involved, including local police, state police, and highway patrol. But when the pathologist rolled it a hidden run, despite a fierce denial from troopers,

of the road, told me about that night. I mean, I definitely think he was, he was murder.

“There's two things that kind of my mind, either he was murdered there, or he was murdered elsewhere”

and dropped there. And he took his concerns up the chain of command. I felt like the brass, which would be, you know, the people running highway patrol should have stood up and went to Slend said, this is not a hidden run. Y'all are asking us to investigate something that is not a hidden run. I have an oath. I can't walk away from that. He also went to the Hampton County Sheriff. Lying by line, by line, explained to them why this was not a hidden run and tried to hand in the

file, and they will physically not take it in their hand. See police backed off and the case went cold. It represents good old small town, small county

“law enforcement investigations and it investigates when that case went off the road into the weeds.”

It was because, you know, it only seen it was established that Steven had perished from a gunshot wound and two typically in South Carolina. I've been in too many of these battles as an agency administrator with other agencies. Once you hear that word, then, you know, other agencies say, "Well, that's not ours. It's not an accident. It was intentional. It's by gunshot." And just by volume alone, the autopsy process now, it used to be, you know, I could work a homicide scene this

morning and this afternoon, I'm at the autopsy suite and they're doing the autopsy. Now it can be days sometimes a week before you get that examination conducted, there's a lot of misoperability, especially when you're not sure of calls and manner of death. There's a lot of misoperative

utilities that go away that you'll never get back in that time. And it's that what wouldn't happen to

Steven? In my opinion, it is, you know, you had a share sawp his own scene, you had a coronavirus office own scene and then you had Highway Patrol own scene and Highway Patrol typically, it's, it's not their job to investigate intentional homicides. And once it was, you know, presented that Steven Paris from a gunshot loon, I know if I was a trooper. I would pack my stuff up or I would go to assisting function and that's where it went and it, it was it corrected until, you know, sometime later,

by then you've missed opportunities. You've missed interviewing people. You've missed locating people. You've missed beyond the lookouts for and you don't get that back. You just can't, it's really hard to get that back. I had interviewed Trooper Tommy Moore who was on the scene of Steven Smith's accident

“or however it went down. He was there and he, I think, and I'll check my notes, but he was told to”

pack it up like you're saying, which was very frustrating to him. About an hour later, I've got a call to come back to the scene and when we did, they said, this is a hitting run and I said, and no, it's not. Can you tell me medically why you're ruling this hit, hitting run? Because he was in the road. And I said, man, that's not a medical reason. I knew at some point they did an x-ray of his head and there was no bullet inside his head.

You're talking to a wall, they've already made their minds up. Well, I mean, I don't know,

everybody's got enough fish in there barrel to clean in law enforcement. You never have enough

manpower and there's never enough hours in the day. And I'm not saying that it's something that you look forward to, but if someone will take a little bit off your plate, sometimes it makes your day manageable. And I had a different philosophy here in Orangeburg, of course, with the approval of the share because look, if you can twist that sign any way you won't, you couldn't make it say share of Kenny Genzi, but I ran the day-to-day operations. And I would just, I would compromise.

I would say look, let's both work this in conjunction with one another. Let's share documentation,

calls and manner, then whichever side does it take primary, then we'll assist the other agency.

And it always work for us, but I'm not telling you what in those days where you had that argument.

And as a sled agent, I witnessed that in many of the counties here in South Carolina, where we would be asked to respond to a call for service, a death, usually. And it have absolutely nothing to do with what we did, but we were an assisting agency and the chief and the major and certainly the major

“over the forensic department. That's what they told us to do. We expected to do that and we did it.”

But now in the days of limited resources, you may have restrictions on that. So the miss opportunity happened at the point where basically the highway patrol walks off and says, over to you. I don't know that they walked off and said that, but yes, I'm being, I'm being

too like with it. But like basically you're talking about that's where the communication kind of

fell apart. It was. And I believe there was bad blood at that point in time. And it's certainly not with Lieutenant, the Lieutenant you mentioned earlier, but I'm talking about some of the warns were responsible for the actual collision report. And then certainly the lead investigators.

“And then it was a TF with a very credible pathologist. And you know, I'm not going to get into the”

details, but her report, my report up on the examination and my the exclamation and my analysis. And then from what I understand to additional reputable top of their field pathologists,

all of our reports mirrored one another. And we never spoke. You know, we never got together and

compared notes. So I'm pretty sure we're going down to right path. It doesn't make it any less of a homicide. If you run over someone or if you call someone's death in a highway and then leave the scene. Sure. But it's not a gunshot with. And that just sent everyone to their own toy box, you know, playground. And I don't it's hard to get it back. Once that happens, it takes a very strong person in charge. And I'm talking about probably above any rank that was present there to get all those

people back together. And tip your hat and say, look, we had some problems. Let's work together. Let's get this sent you. You see it in the paper. You see it on the news. Does it really happen? It's really hard to get it back at that point. And I commend them guys that slid. They've had a, I don't know there results. I don't know that I'll ever know there results. But I have strong relationships that slid. And I know they, they've been working. And they don't have to tell. They don't have to have my

permission. And they certainly don't have to share information with me. But 24 hours a day. If I receive information, I'm going to pass it on to them. And that's the way that relationship has to work. Well, and I, I know that sled has an open investigation into it in active and open investigation. And I know that we did this examination. You were very enthusiastic about what you were able to discover once you, once you were able to get into the examination, like once you were able to examine

see them. Yeah. And I feel like I was successful at that. I feel like I got the answers. I validated what needed to be validated. And the validation point to me came by review in those other reports after after Steven's second autoxy. And I can't tell you how odd it is that it worked out that way because usually after that amount of time is very, very hard to document and verify physical evidence

“of injury on a decident. And but it just shined in our favor. And I believe, yeah, I don't, you know,”

I'm not sure I get a lot of things right. But knowing that two medical doctors at least two afterwards, their findings were in line with my findings. Then I know we're down that we're going down the right path or either all of us are wrong. And I just don't believe that with the evidence that I review. And when you're saying, I mean, I've, I've gone through Dr. Aaron

And that is your, that is the original pathologist. And, you know, that lady took a lot of heat. He's talking about the pathologist who ruled Stephen's death ahead and run. A lot of heat, because of a personality conflict. And, you know, and I don't know that that's ever been rectified or ever will be rectified. But she's got my respect. And, you know, I don't know her personally. I know the name. But, you know, everything that I looked at was validated by my findings and then

the findings from the second autoxid. I talked to Michelle Dupree, a forensic pathologist

who was at the second autopsy. It lasted six hours. This is what she told me after. We did an external review of the body. We noted everything that was on the body. We also then did the internal examination. We had a forensic anthropologist in the autopsy suite as well. Because, you know, we're looking for fractures and things of that nature. Everybody that took care of Stephen did such a professional man or that we were actually able

to do a complete and thorough second autopsy. At the time she said those results would be back in a few weeks. That was April 2023. And those results are sealed. You know, you got it. Sometimes you

got to back up and humble yourself. And, but, you know, that doesn't always happen.

Well, so we know we have a very good idea. We don't know anything. I mean, we weren't there that night, you know, but we have a good idea that he was hit by a truck or or by a large vehicle.

“He got hit. I think it's elected to a vehicle. Yes, ma'am. And maybe it was the the side mirror.”

It could have been on the side of the car, right, on the side of the truck. So someone can did. Yes, ma'am. Something. Something. Is there is that theory that something could have been sticking out of the car? Is that still

a valid thing for some? It's not in my opinion. Okay, viable. Just from the physics of it.

Just from the physics and like I said, I'm not going to get into the particular wounds. I understand. But just by Stephen's wounds, I don't see the possibility of that. Okay. So if we got the how or we think we're close to a how he died or how he was struck and and made him expired there in the street, right? Am I right? Am I close on that? Yes, we're good on the how, but we don't know the who exact. I don't know the who. Oh, that or why. Yeah, that that comes from

the, you know, the investigation part of it. And unfortunately, you know, I'm not privy to that. Right. And I think that's where it's frustrating because as a journalist, you know, we want to know everything. I mean, and can he's so frustrating too, because I felt like we were so close to them really grabbing on and being able to to follow some of these leads, but we're really we don't know though, right? So I could be working on it behind, you know, they could still be working on the

Stephen Smith case, but for whatever reason, it feels it's just gone ice cold again. Yeah, and you know, I said missed opportunities earlier. You know, memories fade. People leave this earth. People that had a motivation 11 years ago might not be so motivated now. And that's the

“unfortunate part of it. If you, that's why it's better when the iron's hot to get some”

money and a lot. You've heard to turn a lot them into a statement. Sure. Well, five years later, they said, well, I don't really recall, well, here review your statement that you gave five years ago and see if this jar is anything. I don't know that I've ever remembered anybody say, well, yeah, I wrote that statement, but now I don't remember a thing. So those missed opportunities, uh, I believe they've got a good idea who committed this, uh, and once again, opinions or, you know,

variable, but uh, everyone won't sit to be tied to, uh, the Murdoch family. And I can only speak from my analysis. I saw nothing that would make me even draw an inference that that's to be true. After so many rumors swirling about Buster and Steven, Muster put out a statement in March,

“2023 through Attorney Jim Griffin. I'm going to read the entire statement. I think it's really”

important. I have tried my best to ignore the vicious rumors about my involvement in Steven's

of my mother and brother. I love them so much and miss them terribly. I haven't spoke up until

“now because I want to live in private while I cope with their deaths and my father's incarceration.”

Before, during and since my father's trial, I have been targeted and harassed by the media and followers of this story. This is gone on far too long. The baseless rumors that I have been involved in Steven and his death are false. I unequivocally denied any involvement in his death and my heart goes out to the Smith family. I am requesting that the media immediately stop publishing these defamatory comments and rumors about me. Now, I haven't seen everything. I'm not the do-all

catch-all. I don't know, but if you ask Kenny Cansey, I'm going to say there's no evidence that I've seen that would support that in any shape form or fashion. Do you think there's evidence that

“support somebody else was involved? I do believe there were missed opportunities and there are”

names associated with that investigation. Yeah, that just did not get finished up, did not get

followed up. Did not get interview period, period, incredible information. Well, I hopefully this is

going to get resolved. I'm still supposed to talk to Sandy. We've had two meetings that have had to get canceled because of this weather in South Carolina, Kenny. I love Miss Sandy and I'm telling you, I pray often that someone will step forward. I've got to hold out hope and have faith that someone's going to have to answer to what happened to Steven because it was certainly a promising life lost way too early. Way too early. You know, I still believe in my heart. I

won't believe in my heart that they're going to come up with the answers. I know Miss Sandy is so grateful for the work that you did on this to come back in with Eric and look at this again. And I'm grateful to Eric for letting me talk to you about it because he wants to see resolution on this, of course. Eric is a fierce, fierce advocate. He's fierce.

Here's what Eric Lans said. The last time I asked him about the Steven Smith case.

I really thought that after Alex was put away that the owner's silence that exists down there

“and Hampton would break. Somebody would come forward. I think there's six people that”

are absolutely no exactly what happened to Steven, but they're just not willing to talk. And I've been retained by Eric to work on cases for him and I've been across the courtroom from Eric. And he doesn't pull punches. He'll tell you, you know, we're friends. We're great friends. But, uh, can he? Can he? Has he got it wrong this time? And, uh, he just makes a big laugh. And he fights and I fight. And I don't believe either one of us would

accept it any other way, but I would like to just say he is a fierce advocate. And if I was in the position of a, of a misunderstanding, I would certainly welcome Eric to be my advocate. Yeah, number one call. Tell you what. Yes, Mike. We will, he'll get to the bottom of it. We've watched him do it a couple of times. There's a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Steven Smith case. It's time to come forward and give this family the answers they deserve

and have been waiting for for 11 years now. If you recognize Kenny Kenzie's name is because he was a star witness in the Murdoch murder trial. And that trooper, Lieutenant Tommy Moore, he was one of Alec Murdoch's financial victims. Alec represented Tommy, who was injured while working for the highway patrol. His patrol car was struck by another driver and he broke his back and had to retire. The money Alec stole was to pay for Tommy's medical bills. Have I peaked your

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