Could cellphone evidence be the key to solving Stephen Smith's cold case?

On June 22,  2021, two weeks after Alex Murdaugh, scion of the Murdaugh legal dynasty, reported finding the bodies of his son Paul and wife Maggie fatally shot at the dog kennels of the family's sprawling Moselle property, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, known as SLED, released a simple statement to media: "SLED has opened an investigation into the death of Stephen Smith based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh."

That single sentence was the turning point for Sandy Smith, who'd been fighting to keep her son's case from fading into obscurity, even writing letters to high-level 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," an all-new "48 Hours" airing Saturday, Nov. 25 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.  

For nearly a decade, Sandy Smith has refused to let her son's case grow cold. In the early morning hours of July 8, 2015, Stephen Smith's body was discovered on a rural road in South Carolina's Lowcounty. This is where three generations of the Murdaugh family had occupied the top solicitor's office and enjoyed a century of power and influence, particularly among local law enforcement. Stephen's death was quickly ruled a hit-and-run by the medical examiner, a conclusion that neither Sandy Smith nor the investigators with the South Carolina Highway Patrol believed at the time.