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Buster Murdaugh has broken his silence to deny any involvement in the mysterious killing of gay teenager Stephen Smith – and insist that he still believes his father is innocent of the murders of his mother and brother. Alex Murdaugh’s only surviving son spoke out in his first TV interview since his family was propelled to national attention, for the new three-part FOX Nation documentary “The Fall of the House of Murdaugh”. In the interview, Buster slammed rumours that he too could have been involved in a heinous murder – that of 19-year-old Smith in July 2015 – and offered an alibi for his whereabouts on the night the teenager was killed. “I never had anything to do with his murder, and I never had anything to do with him on a physical level in any regard,” he said in a clip from the documentary, due for release on 31 August. Smith, a nursing student, was found dead on a road in Hampton County, South Carolina, in the early hours of 8 July 2015 – not far from the prominent Murdaugh family’s estate where Alex Murdaugh murdered Maggie and Paul six years later. Despite Smith suffering blunt force trauma to the head and there being no skid marks or vehicular debris on the road, officials ruled his death a hit-and-run at the time. Smith’s mother long questioned this official account and, for years, the Murdaugh name continued to crop up in connection to the case. Buster and Smith were classmates and there were unsubstantiated rumours that the two had been in some sort of relationship around the time of his death. Smith’s mother Sandy Smith named Buster as the prime suspect in her son’s murder in a letter begging the FBI to get involved in the case back in 2016. In June 2021 – mere days after Maggie and Paul’s murders – SLED announced that it was opening a new investigation into Smith’s death. This April, the agency then finally announced that Smith’s death was being investigated as a homicide and his body was exhumed for a private autopsy. No one has ever been charged over Smith’s death and law enforcement have never announced anything linking Buster to the killing. In the FOX Nation documentary, Buster for the first time offered an alibi for the night of Smith’s death saying that he was at his family’s Edisto Beach house with his late mother and brother. Hitting out at the rumours that continue to swirl, he said it was “a terrible thing” to be accused of. “I don’t want to be rude here, but have you ever been accused of murdering somebody?” he asked. “Well, let me tell you, this is very, very, very, very, very, it’s a terrible thing to place on somebody with absolutely no fact. I mean, it has harmed my reputation. I mean, people perceive me as a murderer.” In the interview, Buster also doubled down on his father’s innocence in the murders of Maggie and Paul – even after a jury of 12 peers convicted him back in March and he was sentenced to life in prison on the charges. Maggie and Paul were found shot dead on the family’s 1,700-acre Moselle estate back on 7 June 2021. Alex Murdaugh had called 911 claiming to have found their bodies. When asked if he ever thought it possible that his father might have killed their loved ones, Buster insisted no. “No, because I think that I hold a very unique perspective that nobody else in that courtroom ever held. And I know the love that I have witnessed,” he said. The 29-year-old went on to say that he thinks there are a lot of questions that still need to be answered about the murders. “My biggest thing that I want people to realise, that there are always two sides of the story. Now, they can pick which one they want to believe,” he said. “But I think there’s a heck of a lot that still needs to be answered about what happened on June the 7th.” He said that prosecutors presented a “crappy motive” and that the case was not “fair”. “I do not believe it was fair,” he said. “I was there for six weeks studying it, and I think it was a tilted table from the beginning. “And I think, unfortunately, a lot of the jurors felt that way prior to when they had to deliberate. It was predetermined in their minds prior to when they ever heard any shred of evidence that was given in that room.” Buster said that he believed the police were under “an awful lot of pressure” to come up with a suspect in the killings and so “the route that they decided to go with” was to charge his father. He also blamed the media coverage of the case which he said left jurors going into the process with their minds already made up. “Because of everything they had the ability to read prior to the trial,” he said. “I think that people get overwhelmed, and I think that they believe everything that they read. And I think it took advantage of a jury pool in a very small town in a very small county.” Now, with his father behind bars, he said he fears that the real killer is still walking free. “I think I set myself up to be safe but yes, when I go to bed at night, I have a fear that there is somebody that is still out there,” Buster added. Throughout the high-profile murder trial, Buster stood by his father, attending each day of the court’s proceedings with his family members. Buster also testified in his father’s defence saying that Murdaugh had been “destroyed” and “heartbroken” in the aftermath of the deaths of his mother and brother. But despite continuing to insist his father’s innocence even now, Buster did not deny that his father may be a psychopath. “I’m not prepared to sit here and say that it encompasses him as a whole, but I certainly think there are characteristics where you look at the manipulation and the lies and the carrying out of that such, and I think that’s a fair assessment,” he said. When asked if he worries he might be like his father, Buster also had some harsh words for his father’s character. “No, I do not worry, because I am not a thief. I am not a liar. I’m not a manipulator,” he said. “In those regards, I am nothing like him, but, in other regards, I believe that I do hold some of his more admirable traits, which I am quite proud of.” Murdaugh, 54, was sentenced to life in prison for the murders and is serving his time in the maximum security facility McCormick Correctional Institution in South Carolina. He is also facing a slew of financial fraud charges for stealing millions of dollars from his law firm clients and his dead housekeeeper’s family and over a botched hitman plot where he claims he paid an accomplice to shoot him dead. As well as Smith’s death, Murdaugh’s high-profile conviction also shone a spotlight on some other mystery deaths tied to the South Carolina legal dynasty. An investigation was also reopened into another mystery death connected to the Murdaugh family – that of their longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. She died in 2018 in a mystery trip and fall accident at the family home. Murdaugh then allegedly stole around $4m in a wrongful death settlement from her sons. At the time of his murder, Paul was also awaiting trial for the 2018 boat crash death of Mallory Beach. Read More Alex Murdaugh set to plead guilty to federal financial charges Alex Murdaugh’s friend gets jail sentence for scheming to steal millions from dead housekeeper’s family New Alex Murdaugh jail call audio reveals awkward interaction with surviving son Buster

A former member of Belarus President Aleksander Lukashenko’s special security forces is to face trial in Switzerland next month for the forced disappearances of political opponents in the late 1990s

The only person who spent time behind bars as a result of the indictment related to efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia has been released from jail

Social media users are in awe of a series of Burning Man festival snaps taken from space. The world-famous festival returned to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada on Sunday (27 August) and will run until Monday (4 September). Organisers of the festival believe it can "produce positive spiritual change in the world," and "generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society." Festival-goers have already flocked to TikTok to share their enlightening stories from previous events. One person called it "a life-changing experience," while another said it was "one of the coolest experiences ever". Well now, Maxar Technologies has shared satellite images of the festival. It shows the setting a day before thousands of people flocked to the desert for a week filled of fun. Another X/Twitter post shows an image of the festival at night, taken by Copernicus EU. They wrote: "Yesterday's view of #BurningMan #festival in #BlackRock City, #Nevada. Image taken by @CopernicusEU #Sentinel2 seems to show some kind of fire Mix of greyscale visible light and SWIR. Data processed in @sentinel_hub." Burning Man is expected to pump $60 million into the Nevada economy, according to Work Live Play, with tickets said to cost anywhere between $575 to $2,750. "Going to Burning Man, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, isn’t a straightforward operation," We Are Global Travellers shared. "It’s not cheap, it’s in the middle of the Nevada desert and it’s not something (unless you’ve been before or have friends in the know) that you can just whip together last minute." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

A federal judge has entered a default judgment against Rudy Giuliani in a defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers who say they were falsely accused of participating in fraud during the 2020 election

The White House says it has new intelligence that shows Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have swapped letters as Russia looks to North Korea for additional munitions for the Ukraine war

Deadly Hurricane Ian -- downgraded Thursday to a tropical storm as it crawls across Florida -- smashed into the state's southwestern coast on Wednesday, destroying homes and cutting power to millions. If you're without power during the hurricane, here's what you can do to stay safe.

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. economy grew at a slightly less brisk pace than initially thought in the

The family of four found dead in an apparently murder-suicide inside an apartment on New York’s Upper West Side have been identified. The bodies of Edison Lopez, Aleksandra Witek and their children Calvin, one, and Lucian, three, were found at the home on West 86th Street on Monday afternoon. The grim discovery was made by Edison Lopez’s father, Mario Lopez, who is the building’s former superintendent. He told the New York Times that he went to check the apartment after his son, the current super, failed to drop the children off for babysitting that morning. Upon drilling the door lock out of the cylinder, he said he could see his daughter-in-law Witek on the floor with “blood already all over her”. Police then arrived to find Witek, 40, and her children in the hallway with fatal stab wounds, including to the throat. Edison Lopez was found on a bed in another room with a fatal slash to the throat. Authorities believe the 41-year-old father killed his family before himself. Speaking to the Times on Tuesday, Mario Lopez said he was still reeling from the shock and did not believe his son could be responsible. “How would you feel if you found your two grandchildren and your son and your daughter-in-law laying there?” he asked. Police said there were no warning signs of domestic violence. The investigation is still ongoing. A GoFundMe in memory of Witek and her sons has raised over $51,000 as of Wednesday morning.

A judge in Haiti is for the first time interrogating some of the 18 Colombian suspects arrested more than two years ago in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse

The president of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, knew well the threat of military coups in his part of the world

The Russian currency has stabilized after dipping below 100 rubles to the U.S. dollar — but that doesn't mean the pressure is off Russia's economy