Last year a host of media companies and a journalist wanted to change the channel on Buster Murdaugh’s filing of a defamation suit. According to Blair Sabol, media entities connected with Netflix, other representatives of HBO, Discovery+, and The Hampton County Guardian want to move the proceedings to federal court. The companies maintain since there businesses are outside of Hampton County, this is the correct venue for the case. (There 8 defendants in total: Blackfin, Warner Bros., Discovery, Warner Media Entertainment Pages, Campfire Studios, The Cinemart, the Hampton County Guardian, and Michael DeWitt, Jr., individually). Now a federal judge has ordered the suit be tried in Hampton County, a win for Murdaugh.
The suit involves an alleged connection between Murdaugh and Stephen Smith with Murdaugh citing severe damage to his reputation and mental anguish involving a rumored association between Murdaugh and Stephen Smith in a personal/romantic relationship and Smith’s murder. Mr. Smith was a gay man living in Hampton County and was found dead on a rural road July 8, 2015. After an exhumation and second autopsy it was found that Smith’s cause of death was homicide. The rumored connection, Murdaugh stated, was he having a personal/romantic relationship with Stephen Smith and his subsequent murder. No member of the Murdaugh family has ever been charged in Smith’s homicide.
