>Two weeks after South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was convicted in the brutal murders of his wife and son, the body of a teenager who was found dead on a country road near the murder scene six years earlier is now set to be exhumed. Sandy Smith confirmed that the remains of her son Stephen, 19 at the time of his death, will undergo a private autopsy after a GoFundMe campaign raised $43,000 to pay for exhumation. “It’s Stephen’s year,” Smith told NBC News and thanked donors for “not allowing Stephen’s story to be swept under a rug”. >Stephen Smith’s death has long puzzled South Carolina investigators, who reopened the case into what was originally ruled a hit-and-run accident last year after Murdaugh, 54, was charged in the murders of wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, last year. The trial of Murdaugh on those killings captured the imagination of America – and the world – with its violence playing out against the corrupt politics of small town rural life in a dramatic slice of Deep South Gothic. But the two killings were not the only deaths in the Murdaugh family circle as legions of online investigators attracted to the trial, along with numerous documentary makers, looked at other cases involving the clan. >An investigator’s report at the time of Smith’s death found he had “defensive wound” on his hand and a homicide investigation was opened. But a medical examiner wrote in a report that Smith’s cause of death was from being struck in the head by a car mirror. >After Murdaugh was arrested on murder charges, agents with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, or Sled, said their investigation had triggered reviews into the other mysterious deaths with a connection to the Murdaugh family. >State investigators said it was opening an inquiry into Smith’s death “based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation”. Last week, they said they had “made progress” in its investigation into Smith’s death and that it “remains active and ongoing”. >Smith’s body was found 15 miles from the Murdaugh property known as Moselle. Questions were raised after it was noted that he was found in the middle of the road, far from where his car had run out of gas, and he was still wearing loose-fitting sneakers, a detail inconsistent with being violently struck by a vehicle. It strikes me as quite gruesome to observe that him still wearing loose fitting sneakers is inconsistent with being hit by a car.

Two schoolgirls aged 12 and 13 have confessed to stabbing a 12-year-old classmate to death in Germany, police said on Tuesday, in a case that has shocked the country. The victim, known only as Luise under Germany's strict privacy laws, went missing on Saturday afternoon after leaving a friend's house near the town of Freudenberg, in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Luise's body was found the following day in a wooded area not far from her home after a massive police search swept the area. Police later said the girl was stabbed more than 30 times with a small knife. 'The child died as a result of numerous knife wounds and the resulting loss of blood,' Koblenz prosecutor Mario Mannweiler told a press conference, adding that there was 'no indication of a sexual offence'. The two girls 'made statements about the matter and in the end admitted the crime,' said Florian Locker, head of Koblenz police's homicide department. The girls and Luise knew each other, Mannweiler said. He declined to give further details because the suspects are too young to be held criminally responsible for their actions in Germany. In Germany, the age of criminal responsibility starts at 14. Investigators have yet to locate the knife or knives used in the crime. Luise's parents reported her missing on Saturday after she failed to return from visiting the 13-year-old suspect at her home two miles away, The Times reported. The 12-year-old suspect joined the two of them and the girls were spotted by neighbours walking into the woods nearby. The 13-year-old had forced the younger suspect to assist her, according to reports. Police said that under questioning, the two girls started to make contradictory statements and both confessed on Monday. According to media reports, Luise had been friends with her killers but had fallen out with them. The two girls attended the same school as Luise, according to reports, and the older girl is said to have been in the same class. The parents of the suspects have moved away for the moment but are still in contact with their daughters.

According to the local outlet, a police citation says a witness at the childcare facility corroborated the details of the complaint, and the daycare's director said she was already aware of the allegations and had written up Childers over an incident regarding inappropriate comments. Childers, who identifies as a transgender woman, was arrested the same day as police investigated the center and initially denied touching the baby's diaper in an interview. However, Childers switched the story after the investigator read a text the daycare worker sent to the director confirming the diaper change. While admitting to changing the diaper, "Childers then maintained that he had not made inappropriate comments or touched the baby sexually," reported women's sex-based news site Reduxx. According to the outlet, Childers was hit with a charge of first-degree sexual abuse of a victim under the age of 12, and is incarcerated in the McCracken County Jail with a $100,000 bond. As the publication reports, the official sex listed on the jail's inmate roster is "male."