Eric Bland Wiki – Eric Bland Biography
Lawyers representing the family of a South Carolina teenager believed to have been killed on or near a dark road in the summer of 2015 said the state’s top law enforcement agency explicitly named the murders of the Murdaugh family during an unusual phone call about the controversial Stephen Smith case. this week. During that phone call, one of the attorneys said, unidentified “evidence” related to Smith’s death was discovered during the state’s investigation into the Murdaugh murders.
Smith family attorneys Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter broke the news during separate interviews with Law&Crime Network correspondent Angenette Levy on Wednesday morning. The death of the gay teenager has long been more than mysterious. He was found dead on Sandy Run Road of blunt force trauma in Hampton County on July 8, 2015.
Eric Bland Age
Eric Bland age is Between 40-50 years old.
Eric Bland Incident Detail
Shifting narratives plagued the case. According to his mother, Sandy Smith, the family was told his son was shot and beaten before authorities ruled his death a hit-and-run. That eventual determination never sat well with him. Bland and Richter are donating their time to the Smith case. They are working to exhume the victim’s body and secure an independent autopsy to determine his cause of death.
According to the lawyers, law enforcement now wants to be a part of that process, citing the phone call with SLED boss Mark Keel. “Obviously, it was an extraordinary, sudden, surprising phone call, because very rarely does the head of SLED call a private attorney and tell that attorney what the state’s position is, discuss the case with them, where they are. ,
where they go, and then I really offer to collaborate and cooperate with my client in the process of finding out what happened to Stephen Smith on July 8, 2015,” Bland told Law&Crime. “Honestly, it took me about a minute or two to regain my composure because I didn’t really understand the phone call. It was so impressive.” Keel referenced several recent press conferences with Sandy Smith, Bland told Law&Crime.
The attorney said Keel wanted to reassure him that “the state has not given up on this case.” Bland then relayed what the SLED chief told him that led to Tuesday’s public homicide determination change of heart. “He said, ‘Contrary to what everyone says, this is still a full and open investigation,'” Bland said. “He Said: ‘I understand that you want to exhume Stephen’s body.’
He said: ‘We will not oppose that. But I don’t think you need to do that. And I said, ‘Boss, what do you mean? We have to show or prove that he didn’t die from a car accident, that it was intentional homicide. “And he said, ‘Well, I’m going to tell you now the official position of the State of South Carolina: and that is that the official position of the State of South Carolina is that Stephen Smith did not die as a result of a car accident or Collision on July 8. In fact, he was the victim of a homicide ”.
Bland said he asked Keel for permission to speak publicly about what SLED had determined and was given permission to do so. The Smith family will go ahead with the exhumation and independent autopsy, the lawyer said, to prove that the coroner’s report, death certificate and pathologist’s report were wrong. “For historical purposes, we have to vindicate Sandy Smith,” Bland told Law&Crime. .
“She spends eight years as the lonely town crier who says, ‘Someone has to investigate my son’s death. It is not what has been represented by the state.’” As a result of her conversation, the exhumation and autopsy of the family would be collaborative in the future with the help of SLED. The Smith family attorney said SLED made a connection to the recent double murder trial and conviction of infamous Lowcountry lawyer and legal scion Alex Murdaugh, who is serving two consecutive life sentences for killing his wife and youngest son in the family hunting lodge in June 2021.
“Our job was to find out what happened to Stephen and why,” Bland said, paraphrasing the call from him to the SLED official. “Your job is to determine who did it. We are not in the business of solving crimes and prosecuting people. That’s what SLED has to do. And I’m very happy that you’re committed to this. And he said, ‘We’re so committed that we’re reallocating a lot of the resources that we had dedicated from the Murdaugh case, in the Lowcountry, to the Stephen Smith case.’
Smith family attorney Richter expressed similar sentiments in an earlier interview with Levy on Wednesday morning. “We received an incredible phone call yesterday,” Richter told Law&Crime. “The top state trooper calls you and says, ‘Look, if they’re planning to exhume that body because they feel like they need to convince us and SLED that there’s something more, something different here than a hit-and-run, they don’t need to do that.
So it was an amazing phone call. And he communicated to us that SLED is in this investigation, that they don’t see it as just a hit and run and that they are devoting resources, especially now that those resources have been released after the Murdaugh murder trials.”
Bland said Keel reiterated that there would be resources, collaboration and commitment from SLED to find out who killed Stephen Smith. “And he said, ‘Look, we think it’s a small circle of people who have this information,'” the attorney said. relaying Keel’s words of the conversation again. “They may not know who did it, but they have relevant information.”
And he said: “We really felt that throughout the period of the Murdaugh trial and the Murdaugh investigation over the last two years, a lot of people in the Lowcountry were reticent.” when talking – they knew things, but they didn’t want to talk. But we believe that now, with Alex Murdaugh’s guilty verdict, people will now change and be willing to speak up.”
Bland then put him on the line, again quoting Keel. “He said, and I agree, that: ‘I don’t think Murdaugh’s stranglehold is as strong as it once was in that part of the state.'” In a Wednesday press release issued after Bland’s statement, SLED wrote: “On June 23, 2021, SLED opened an investigation into the death of Stephen Smith after SLED agents received information about his death and subsequently review the SCHP investigative file.
From SCHP’s case notes, it was apparent that SCHP did not believe that Mr. Smith’s death was a hit and run of a motor vehicle.” In January, Law&Crime reported that SLED found evidence to reopen the case of Smith’s death while investigating the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh sometime in 2021. Angelette Levy contributed to this report.
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