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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

After nearly 50 years, the mystery of the “Lady of the Dunes” case has finally been solved with police concluding that the woman whose mutilated body was discovered on Cape Cod was killed by her husband. For decades, the victim had been known only as the “Lady of the Dunes” before she was finally identified in October as 37-year-old Ruth Marie Terry, following the use of genetic genealogy. On Monday, Cape and Islands District Attorney Robert Galibois announced that Terry’s husband Guy Rockwell Muldavin – who married her just a few months before she disappeared – has now been identified as her killer. Muldavin was also a prime suspect in the death of another one of his wives and a stepdaughter in the 1960s. He died in 2002. Further details about what led to the break in the investigation now were not revealed, with DA Galibois only confirming that one of the state’s most infamous cold cases had now been closed. “Based on the investigation into the death of Ms Terry, it has been determined that Mr. Muldavin was responsible for Ms Terry’s death in 1974. Mr Muldavin passed away in 2002,” he said in a statement. Terry’s nearly decapitated body was found in the sand dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts – a popular summer vacation spot – in July 1974. She was naked on a beach blanket with her hands severed so she could not be identified by her fingerprints. Her skull had been crushed and she was nearly decapitated. The cause of death was later determined to be a blow to the head, with authorities believing she had been dead for several weeks before her body was found. Terry was the oldest unidentified homicide victim in Massachusetts, despite authorities working for years to identify her and her killer by exhuming her remains, performing clay model facial reconstruction, and releasing age-regression drawings of her face. She was finally identified in October 2022 after her jaw was tested using genetic genealogy at the Othram forensics lab, the Cape Cod Times previously reported. Since then, investigators had zeroed in on Muldavin. State police said they learned he had been driving his wife’s car after they returned from a trip to Tennessee to visit her family. “When Mr Muldavin returned from that trip, he was driving what was believed to be Ms Terry’s vehicle and indicated to witnesses that Ms Terry had passed away,” Mr Galibois said in a statement. “Ms Terry was never seen by her family again.” Who was Guy Rockwell Muldavin? Muldavin is thought to have wed Terry in 1974 just months before her body was found on the beach. He previously made national headlines when his ex-wife and 18-year-old stepdaughter disappeared. Following their disappearances, he fled and was later questioned about what happened to them. But, he was seemingly never charged in their presumed deaths, according to media reports at the time. He went on to have at least two more long-term relationships with women, both of whom were mentioned in Muldavin’s 2002 obituary: his widow, Phyllis, who died in 2021; and a “sister,” Joan Towers. She was not a blood relation but the two referred to each other affectionately as siblings after a romantic relationship turned platonic, a family friend previously told The Independent in November. The family friend said back then that he was “speechless” over the revelations that were emerging about Muldavin. At the time he knew him, both he and Muldavin had been living in California – the state where the latter died – and “nowhere near Provincetown, Massachusetts or Reno, Nevada or any other locations that are referred to” now in connection with Muldavin, the friend tells The Independent. “He was great,” the friend said of the Muldavin he knew. “I really loved him. I mean, he was terrific. And I was very close to him ... I’m speechless, because none of it makes any sense.” He said, however, that he knew little of Muldavin’s history, other than the fact he believed he’d been born in New Mexico. Muldavin was born in 1923, police say, though details are scant regarding the early life of a man whose aliases include Raoul Guy Rockwell and Guy Muldavin Rockwell. According to a 1960 UPI report following his later brushes with the law, Muldavin “was schooled in Switzerland, New York, and Connecticut as well as tutored privately on his family cattle ranch at Tibera, N. M.” By the time he was a young adult, Muldavin had made his way to New York, where he was working as a professor at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, according to the obituary for his first wife, Joellen Mae Loop. A former beauty pageant contestant and model, she died in January 2002 - just two months before Muldavin passed away. The starry-eyed beauty and Muldavin – known to her as Guy Raoul Rockwell – “fell in love” in New York, the obituary continued. “She left her career and the big-city nightmare and moved into a tree stump along a river in California,” read the obituary, published in a Washington state paper. “Her husband sang at KIEM radio stationn Monday through Friday at 5 o’clock. “The couple later moved to the northwest, where Rockwell took a job in the Seattle Bon Marche furniture department. The couple then owned a large antique shop. They were married ten years.” Though the obituary does not state when the pair’s marriage dissolved, Muldavin was living in Seattle and running an antique shop in 1960 when another of his wives, Manzanita Aileen “Manzy” Ryan, disappeared. She and her 18-year-old daughter vanished on April Fool’s Day of that year, UPI reported; in July, Muldavin divorced Manzanita, claming desertion, and married Evelyn Emerson. When police went to the home he’d shared with Manzanita - his second wife, according to UPI - “bits of human tissue and pieces of human body were located in a newly sealed septic tank.” The report also pointed out that, five days after he married Ms Emerson, her stepmother had given him a cashier’s check for $10,000 “to buy antiquities for quick resale in Canada.” He and the money vanished, around the same time serious questions began swirling about the fate of Manzanita and Dolores. Muldavin was eventually picked up in an apartment in Greenwich Village, on the other side of the country in New York. He was described by media at the time as “a sometimes actor and DJ in California, an antiques dealer in Seattle and a ‘bunco artist and great lover’ everywhere he went,” according to SFGate.com. “The New York Daily News reported he had ‘three wives and many sweethearts’ by 1960 and was known around Greenwich Village for his nightly soirees with ‘beatniks, art lovers, celebrities and celebrity hunters, all bound by Muldavin’s magnetism and offbeat philosophy.’” Whatever happened within the justice system, Muldavin appears to have been free and up to his old tricks by the early 1970s, when police believe he married Terry months before she was murdered. While his former wife was lying buried in a Massachusetts cemetery plot, however, Muldavin continued to forge relationships and build a life on the West Coast. He also married Phyllis Roper, who was listed as his widow in his 2002 obituary. She died last year. Read More Lady of the Dunes’ late husband has been linked to two other deaths - now his friend speaks out Who killed The Lady of the Dunes? How Jaws could hold the answer

A group of geologists has recently achieved a breakthrough in identifying potential sites for the formation of diamonds. Diamonds, the hardest naturally occurring material we have found, originate under the extreme conditions of immense pressure and high temperatures deep within the Earth's interior. These precious gems are occasionally pushed to the surface in molten rock formations known as kimberlite. However, there are currently two competing theories regarding what is responsible for this rush of kimberlite which brings diamonds to the surface. In a recent study, these theories were closely examined by a research team. In a piece for The Conversation study author and Associate Professor in Earth Science at the University of Southampton, Thomas Gernon explained: “one proposes that kimberlite magmas exploit the ‘wounds’ created when the Earth’s crust is stretched or when the slabs of solid rock covering the Earth - known as tectonic plates - split up.” “The other theory involves mantle plumes, colossal upwellings of molten rock from the core-mantle boundary, located about 2,900km [1,802] beneath the Earth’s surface.” However, neither of these theories adequately explains how magma manages to find its way through the Earth's crust, or the specific composition of the resulting kimberlite. By employing statistical analysis and machine learning, the team analysed the breakup of continents and its correlation with kimberlite formation. Their findings indicated that the majority of kimberlite volcanoes erupt 20 to 30 million years after tectonic breakup. “It also added a major clue,” Gernon explained. “Kimberlite eruptions tend to gradually migrate from the continental edges to the interiors over time at a rate that is uniform across the continents.” Delving deeper into their investigation through computer-generated models, the team ultimately concluded that diamond eruptions stem from a "domino effect." As continents gradually drift apart from each other, they generate rifts of thinned crust. As this happens, regions of thick, cold rock descend into the hot magma beneath, inducing an upsurge of the mantle, which in turn triggers a similar flow in nearby continents. Gernon elaborated on the team's findings, saying, "Various other results from our computer models then advance to show that this process can bring together the necessary ingredients in the right amounts to trigger just enough melting to generate gas-rich kimberlites,” Gernon explained. “Once formed, and with great buoyancy provided by carbon dioxide and water, the magma can rise rapidly to the surface carrying its precious cargo.” Moreover, the same methodology could potentially be employed to locate diamonds and other rare elements. “The processes triggering the eruptions that bring diamonds to the surface appear to be highly systematic,” Gernon siad. “They start on the edges of continents and migrate towards the interior at a relatively uniform rate.” The study is published in the journal Nature. Sign up to 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.

Chimpanzees are our closest relatives, so it’s not surprising that they can do many of the things that we can. They’re able to create tools and can even use sign language, plus they share 98.8 per cent of their DNA with humans. It is, therefore, no wonder that the question has often been asked: could humans and chimps ever produce offspring? The answer, according to one evolutionary psychologist, is yes – and it’s already happened. Gordum Gallup made the eyebrow-raising claims in an interview with The Sun Online back in 2018. He told the news site that a human-chimpanzee hybrid – which he dubbed a “humanzee” – was born in a Florida lab 100 years ago. And if you’re wondering how the scientists behind the experiment managed to keep it hushed up for decades, it’s because – according to Gallup – they swiftly killed the infant when they realised the implications of what they’d done. Gallup, a professor at New York’s University at Albany, said his former university teacher told him that the secret birth took place at a research facility in Orange Park, where he used to work. “They inseminated a female chimpanzee with human semen from an undisclosed donor and claimed not only that pregnancy occurred but the pregnancy went full term and resulted in a live birth,” the psychologist told The Sun. “But in a matter of days, or a few weeks, they began to consider the moral and ethical considerations and the infant was euthanised.” Putting Gallup’s unsubstantiated story to one side, it’s unclear whether a human-chimpanzee hybrid is even possible. Some experts believe that our human ancestors and chimpanzees may have been capable of interbreeding as late as 4 million years ago according to IFL Science, which notes that our last common ancestor lived 6-7 million years ago. However, the website also notes that this theory is widely contested. It also points out that other animals with similar genetic differences to that of humans and chimps, such as horses and zebras, have been able to reproduce. And yet, the offspring are often infertile. Nevertheless, back in the 1970s, plenty of people believed that a chimp called Oliver was a human-monkey hybrid thanks to his humanistic walk, intelligence and physical features (he was said to have a smaller, flatter face than his ape peers, according to Historic Mysteries). It wasn't until tests were conducted on Oliver in 1996 that the matter was finally settled: he had 48 chromosomes so was categorically not a humanzee but a regular chimp. Oliver The Humanzee www.youtube.com Still, one certainty is that scientists continue to tread an ethical tightrope when it comes to investigating chimps and their potential to further biomedical research. In 2021, scientists created the first (publicly documented) part-monkey, part-human embryo by growing human stem cells in a macaque monkey. The aim of the work, which was carried out at California’s Salk Institute, was to help create organs for transplants and improve our understanding of human development and disease progression. In 2020, a team of German and Japanese scientists spliced human genes into the brains of marmosets, resulting in the monkey fetuses having larger, more human-like brains, according to the study, which was published in the journal Science. Once the experiment was complete, the team destroyed their creations “in light of potentially unforeseeable consequences with regard to postnatal brain function”. One thing’s for sure, no scientist wants to find themselves the architect of a real-life Planet of the Apes. 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.

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.

Fiorentina have rejected fresh attempts from Manchester United to sign Sofyan Amrabat on an initial loan before Friday's transfer deadline.

The death toll from Legionnaires’ disease in Poland has risen to 16 with another 140 people infected in the southeastern region close to the border with Ukraine, health authorities said Wednesday. The region of Rzeszow, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the border, is a key transit hub for international military support for Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion last year. Some 10,000 U.S. troops are stationed in the area. Fatalities from the disease were among elderly people who also suffered from other health issues like cancer, authorities said. Laboratory tests have confirmed the presence of Legionnaires' disease germs in the city’s water pipeline system. Authorities are still looking for the source of the infections, the numbers of which were unprecedented in the region. The Internal Security Agency was also checking for any signs of malicious action. Experts say it could come from rarely used plumbing, where the germs could have spread in high temperatures during the recent heat wave. Chlorine was applied to Rzeszow’s water system over the weekend for disinfection. Legionnaires’ disease is a lung infection that comes from inhaling infected water spray. It's not spread through drinking water. It is usually caught in places like hotels, hospitals or offices where the bacteria have got into the water supply, for example in air conditioning systems or taps and showers that are not in frequent use. The germs multiply in temperatures of between 20 and 50 degrees Celsius (68-122 degrees Fahrenheit). The disease is treated with antibiotics. Read More Legionnaires' disease kills 7 people in a strategic Polish city on the Ukrainian border Government’s ‘small boats week’ ends in humiliation as barge evacuated over legionnaires’ disease fears

HONG KONG (Reuters) -China's largest private property developer Country Garden on Wednesday reported a record loss in the first half

Some 15,000 people, including many tourists, pasted each other with tomatoes on Wednesday as Spain’s annual “Tomatina” street battle took place in the eastern town of Buñol. Workers on trucks tipped 120 tonnes of overripe tomatoes into the main street of the town for participants to throw. The street fight leaves both the street, its houses and participants drenched in red pulp. Tickets for the festival start at 12 euros ($13). The town hoses down the area and the revelers shower off within minutes of the hourlong noon battle finishing. The festival, held on the last Wednesday of August, was inspired by a food fight between local children in 1945 in the town, located in a tomato-producing region. Media attention in the 1980s turned it into a national and international event, drawing participants from every corner of the world. Participants use swimming goggles to protect their eyes and usually dress in T-shirts and shorts. The party is ranked by Spain as an international tourism attraction. Read More Revelers hurl tomatoes at each other and streets awash in red pulp in Spanish town's Tomatina party Rubiales crisis hangs over European soccer ahead of gala award ceremony in Monaco Alumni grieve for Jesuit-run university seized by Nicaraguan government that transformed their lives

Sean McDermott lifts weights during interview.

A federal judge has determined Rudy Giuliani forfeits the defamation lawsuit from two Georgia election workers against him, a decision that could lead to significant penalties for the former Donald Trump attorney.

Mostafa Rajai receives a lifetime ban after taking a photo with an Israeli competitor in Poland.