Stephen Smith 2nd Autopsy Findings May Be 'Extremely Limited' 8 Years Later

The family of Stephen Smith is actively raising money to conduct a second autopsy of the 19-year-old after police revealed they're investigating his death as a possible homicide following the conclusion of the trial involving Alex Murdaugh. However, a former FBI agent told Newsweek that the findings of a secondary autopsy may be "extremely limited."

In 2015, Smith was found deceased on Sandy Run Road in South Carolina's Hampton County, and his death was ruled a hit-and-run.

However, on March 22 of this year, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) issued a press release saying, "On June 23, 2021, SLED opened an investigation into the death of Stephen Smith after SLED Agents received information about his death and subsequently reviewed the SCHP investigative file. From SCHP case notes it was apparent that the SCHP did not believe Mr. Smith's death was a hit and run by a motor vehicle."

CNN reported the probe was being reopened based on information gathered while investigating the deaths of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

Earlier this month, Alex Murdaugh, a former South Carolina lawyer, was found guilty of murdering his son Paul, and wife, Maggie, who were found dead in 2021. While speaking with Law&Crime, Eric Bland, an attorney representing Smith's family, said that an unidentified "piece of evidence" was found during the Murdaugh investigation and related to Smith's death.

Amid the new revelations in the case, Smith's family has launched a GoFundMe page accepting donations that will pay for a secondary autopsy of the 19-year-old.

"We feel it's critical to seek a new goal - an independent exhumation, autopsy and investigation - and we're launching #JusticeForStephen with that immediate goal in mind. While the state can elect and fund an exhumation and new autopsy, it is our understanding that it would be carried out at MUSC, where his death was initially classified as hit-and-run despite no evidence to support it," the GoFundMe Page said, which showed donations in excess of $116,000, much more than the $15,000 goal. "We need a new, unbiased look at his body and an accurate determination of his cause of death based on facts. There was no debris in the road, and his injuries were not consistent with a hit-and-run."

"It's going to be extremely limited," former FBI agent Jennifer Coffindaffer told Newsweek. "SLED will mainly use the autopsy that was already done, not the results necessarily but all the information that was gained on the first autopsy."

Coffindaffer explained that she doesn't expect a second autopsy to "glean much" compared to the initial autopsy.

"But I think it puts the family, the mother, at peace knowing there isn't anything that is different, at peace knowing there's no evidence that he was shot, at peace knowing that this autopsy will come up with the same thing that it was blunt force trauma," Coffindaffer told Newsweek. "From a law enforcement perspective, I don't think there's gonna be anything new found that's going to be different...you're not going to see anything different, I don't think."

Thomas O'Connor, a former FBI agent and current Senior Consultant at The Soufan Group told Newsweek that "A second independent autopsy would show the level of damage to the body. Bone damage from a vehicle strike would likely be much different than damage to the subject from a strike to the head or strangulation."

"A review of the first autopsy could shed light on cause and manner of death. Conducting a second autopsy would assist investigators in documenting evidence which may have not been recorded during the first autopsy," O'Connor told Newsweek.

Newsweek reached out to the SLED and the Smith family GoFundMe for comment.