Buster Murdaugh, the surviving son of Alex Murdaugh, was handed a “victory” this week as a federal judge allowed his defamation lawsuit against CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros., to proceed. This development was shared by former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon with Fox News Digital.

On June 9, court documents from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina revealed that Judge Richard Mark Gergel denied Warner Bros. and Blackfin Inc.’s request to dismiss the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that the two media companies “insinuated and implied” in their documentaries about the Murdaugh family that Buster, who is now 28 years old, “was involved in the murder of a 19-year-old Hampton County man named Stephen Smith.”

Smith — Buster’s former classmate — was found dead on a rural road in Hampton County, where the Murdaugh family is from, in the summer of 2015. 

An autopsy later concluded that Stephen Smith had died after being struck by a vehicle in a hit-and-run accident while he was walking along the road after running out of gas.

The retired solicitor, who had served as the region’s top prosecutor before retiring in 2005, is the late father of Alex Murdaugh.

He allegedly told Smith’s mother he was willing to work pro bono as a liaison between the family and investigators but soon stopped returning their calls, the letter says. An attorney for the Smith family did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Buster issued a statement in 2023 through his attorney denying any role in Smith’s death: “These baseless rumors of my involvement in Stephen’s death are false,” he said. “My heart goes out to the Smith family.” 

Fox News Digital reached out to Buster’s attorneys for comment regarding Gergel’s order this week.