By admin 
A libel lawsuit brought by Buster Murdaugh against media companies and a South Carolina editor can go forward, a state judge has ruled.
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Judge Heath Taylor ruled that Netflix Inc., The Cinemart LLC, Gannett Co. Inc and reporter Michael DeWitt failed in their motions to dismiss the case.
Taylor’s decision means that Murdaugh’s lawyer, Shaun Kent, can proceed with discovery and other preliminary evidence-gathering procedures.
Buster Murdaugh is the sole surviving son of Alex Murdaugh, a disbarred lawyer and convicted fraudster who is facing a retrial on double-murder charges that he killed his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, at the family estate in June 2021. Alex Murdaugh was convicted in 2023 of double murder, but his conviction was overturned this year by the S.C. Supreme Court. Alex Murdaugh’s retrial is slated to start April 5.
The Netflix series was about the Murdaugh deaths, the Murdaugh dynasty and other deaths and financial crimes connected to Alex Murdaugh.
The lawsuit, filed in 2024, is still in its initial stages. Any trial is still at least months away. The media defendants in the case can still ask the judge for summary judgment, another form of dismissal.
In fighting the defendants’ bid to stop a trial, Murdaugh attorney Kent wrote in a filing that the media companies in a documentary series called “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” falsely portrayed Murdaugh as having been involved in the killing of a young man named Stephen Smith on a rural road in 2015. Smith had been a classmate of Buster Murdaugh’s at the Wade Hampton High School in Hampton County.
“The series falsely contains statements that the Plaintiff was engaged in a romantic relationship with Stephen Smith and that it was Plaintiff, and maybe two other individuals, who killed Stephen Smith,” Kent wrote.
“The series publishes statements such as ‘everyone keeps coming up to me and saying it was the Murdaugh boys’ and ‘listening to these statements it is pretty clear; Stephen’s death is intertwined with the Murdaughs’,” Kent wrote.
The series also contained an image of a young man with red hair and a baseball bat, Kent wrote. Murdaugh has reddish hair, and Smith died of head injuries.
“The false statements were published to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of viewers who watched the show, including viewers in South Carolina, and the defamatory statements continue to be republished by Defendant Netflix, Inc.,” Murdaugh’s filing said.
DeWitt, editor of the Hampton Guardian and author of a book about the Murdaugh murders, declined to comment on the judge’s order. So did John T. Lay, one of a half-dozen lawyers for the corporate defendants.
Murdaugh lawyer Kent also declined comment.
What the reporter said
The Murdaugh attorney’s filing quoted DeWitt as saying in the series:
“Within one month of his (Smith’s) body being found (in 2015) we were hearing all these rumors about a possible Murdaugh connection. And I’ve learned as a reporter, that if you hear the same rumors from different groups of people wherever you go, it’s either a very good rumor or there’s some truth to it.
“So, we did a story in the Thanksgiving 2015 paper, and Sandy Smith [Stephen Smith’s mother] basically appealed to the community. My son was killed if you know something, please come tell us, we just want answers we want closure. So we could not put the Murdaugh name in a story unless we wanted to face lawsuits.”
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DeWitt’s comments continued: “We said a prominent well-known family was rumored to be involved. Everybody knew who we were talking about. We published the story and we waited. People would come up to me in the Piggly Wiggly, pat me on the back, we’re so thankful you ran that story, so proud of you to have the courage to do it. I mean, we did everything but put the Murdaugh name in the story, but the story did no good.
“I began to have a bad taste in my mouth about the members of the Murdaugh family as many people in the community did,” the Murdaugh attorney quoted DeWitt as saying in the series.
Unusual defamation lawsuit
Murdaugh’s lawsuit alleges that DeWitt’s statements were defamatory. The lawsuit also asserts that Murdaugh did not kill Smith and did not have a romantic relationship with him, despite the series’ suggestions to the contrary.
Under South Carolina law, people can be sued for the alleged defamatory implication of something they say or write.
In the minutes leading up to the lengthiest DeWitt quote, “the documentary refers to or displays Mr. Murdaugh’s name over ten times, depicts a dramatic reenactment of the moments before Mr. Smith’s death featuring a young male with red hair resembling Mr. Murdaugh holding a baseball bat, features high school photographs of Mr. Murdaugh juxtaposed with images of Mr. Smith from their high school year book, and republishes rumors and statements of individuals alleging that Mr. Murdaugh was in a romantic relationship with Mr. Smith, that he killed him with assistance from others, and that the crime was covered up,” a Murdaugh filing says.
Media companies’ defense
In court documents disputing Murdaugh’s claims, the media companies and DeWitt say that the series only contained various subjective views and interpretations and “it is a truthful fact that theories and speculations existed about a Murdaugh connection to the death of Stephen Smith.”
Defendants also say that public records that were part of an “official law enforcement investigation were used in the context of raising questions about that investigation and the First Amendment that protects free speech bars any successful claim by Murdaugh.”
In filings, DeWitt asserts that his statements don’t convey any defamatory meaning about Buster Murdaugh and that Murdaugh has failed to allege that any statement the reporter made is false.
The series “truthfully recounts theories of a Murdaugh connection reported to law enforcement and raises questions about the credibility of the investigation and whether Plaintiff’s powerful and well-connected family may have impacted or influenced it,” according to a defense filing.
What the judge said
In his eight-page order allowing the lawsuit to proceed, Judge Taylor said the series portrayed DeWitt’s remarks in a way that could be construed as implying Murdaugh had something to do with Smith’s death.
“The documentary introduces Michael DeWitt as the local Hampton County news reporter. In the context of the documentary, Mr. DeWitt is posited as someone who knows the community extremely well and who has been reporting on issues like this one for decades, and therefore, by implication, should be believed by the viewers,” the judge wrote.
“Mr. DeWitt goes on to make several statements that, in the context of the documentary, could be interpreted by viewers as implying Plaintiff was involved in the death of Stephen Smith. While it is a truthful statement that rumors were circulating in the community about Plaintiff’s possible involvement, Mr. DeWitt’s comments could be interpreted to endorse those rumors as truthful,” the judge wrote.
At this stage of the lawsuit, the judge wrote, Murdaugh’s claims have weight and the lawsuit should go forward.
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