Why didn’t Curtis ‘Eddie’ Smith testify in Murdaugh trial? Here’s what one SC lawyer suspects

No name outside the Murdaugh family has been uttered during the trial of Alex Murdaugh more than that of Curtis Edward Smith.

He’s the guy who met Murdaugh on the side of the road, as prosecutor Creighton Waters regularly refers to it, the fateful meeting on Old Salkehatchie Road where Murdaugh asked Smith to shoot him in the head Labor Day weekend.

This was three months after Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, were shot to death at the family hunting lodge in Islandton. Murdaugh had just been fired from his family’s law firm for stealing millions of dollars from clients and the firm itself.

A South Carolina Law Enforcement Division investigation into the thefts was underway with many, many charges expected. (Ultimately there would be 99.).

Murdaugh wanted to die, he told Smith, because he needed to get his surviving son, Buster, the proceeds from a multi-million -dollar life insurance policy.

After first saying a stranger rode by and shot him, Murdaugh told law enforcement Smith fired and missed. Smith said they struggled as he tried to get the gun from Murdaugh and it went off. Smith famously boasted to a television reporter if he’d fired at the guy he wouldn’t have missed.

Last week, courthouse regulars and television pundits predicted Smith’s testimony was imminent.

Then Judge Clifton Newman ruled the testimony about the side of the road could not be admitted. But as has happened in this trial of twists and turns, Newman reversed his ruling, saying the defense opened the door — the jury needed to hear more to understand the case.

So it was with some anticipation that this guy, a man so different from the other friends of the four-generation legal family, was going to break the case wide open. Would he tell about Murdaugh’s drug use? Money laundering? Did Murdaugh tell him something about that June night in 2021 when Paul and Maggie were gunned down in the most brutal fashion?

Each day, people speculated this was the day the man commonly known as “Cousin Eddie” for his distant relationship with Murdaugh, would testify.

There were reports Smith was in Walterboro last week, transferred there from Lexington County Detention Center, where he’s awaiting trial on financial crimes charges involving Murdaugh.

His lawyer Aimee Zmroczek was in Walterboro as well.

She could not be reached for comment, but told Court TV’s Vinnie Politan on Feb. 10 Smith wanted to testify to get his side of the story out to the public. She called him a scapegoat for the Murdaugh family.

Politan said his testimony could be key to the case.

But in a television moment as deflating as Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone’s vault and coming up empty, Smith was never called to testify.

What happened?

A lawyer not involved in the case say the answer is simple.

No one really knew what Smith would say.

“He’s a loose cannon,” said Jack Swerling, who represented South Carolina’s most infamous serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins. Murdaugh’s attorney Dick Harpootlian prosecuted that case and the two lawyers were law partners for a time many years ago.

Swerling said neither side likely wanted to take the risk on what might come out, especially on cross-examination. It was a strategic decision.

Smith could have been asked about allegations of drug dealing, which would bolster the defense case that Murdaugh’s downfall began decades ago when he began using Oxycontin.

The defense could have been undermined if Smith was asked about other allegations. They have already filed motions accusing Smith of being involved in the murders, which have been discredited by alibi witnesses and digital evidence, Zmroczek said.

Both sides, Swerling suspects, have a wealth of information about Smith.

“There was a real danger,” he said. “Smith is a wild card.”

This story was originally published February 23, 2023 at 10:07 AM.