Lawyers for Alex Murdaugh allege in a new lawsuit that the convicted killer lied about how his family’s dogs fatally struck his housekeeper in 2018 as part of a phony insurance claim, and suggest that stolen insurance money came from her family, not him is repaid.
The disgraced former attorney, who is currently serving a life sentence for the murders of his wife and son, “made up the critical facts” behind Gloria Satterfield’s fall at his South Carolina home to pocket insurance money that was released Monday for her family was determined filing states.
“The defendant admits that his actions were reprehensible in that he abused vulnerable people who trusted him,” the filing reads.
“No dogs were involved in the fall of Gloria Satterfield on February 2, 2018. After Ms. Satterfield’s death, the defendant fabricated Ms. Satterfield’s alleged statement that dogs caused her fall in order to force his insurers to pay a settlement,” the filing continues, without explaining what actually happened to her on his family’s property. It adds that no one else was involved in this lie.
Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post And Courier via Associated Press
The filing further posits that if his former insurance company, Nautilus, should never have made payments as a result of this new approval, whoever received the money should be legally required to return it.
An attorney for the Satterfield estate denied that claim in a statement shared on Twitter Tuesday.
“Since when did Alex become the bare minimum of honesty and credibility,” wrote attorney Eric Bland, who argued that the Satterfield estate never received a penny from the insurance application.
“Technically, the money that Nautilus paid never got to our customers. It was stolen by Alex, so there’s an argument that they still owe it to our customers through releases signed by the parties,” he continued. “It’s nothing but noise. Just brave people trying to keep bullying Gloria’s siblings and children.”
Nautilus said in a lawsuit against Murdaugh last year over the insurance claim that it paid more than $75,000 in claims related to Satterfield’s death. The 57-year-old woman’s death came just two months after the start of a $5 million insurance policy that Murdaugh had taken out.
Through settlements by other parties sued in connection with Satterfield’s death, her estate received approximately $7.5 million, Myrtle Beach Station WPDE reports last year.
Nautilus’ attorneys did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s requests for comment on Wednesday.
Murdaugh’s wife Maggie and son Paul were the those who call 911 to report that Satterfield had fallen and hit his head on the steps of the family home. When they called 911, she was described as barely conscious and bleeding profusely from the head.
Murdaugh’s wife and son, who were later fatally shot by Murdaugh on the same property in 2021, never blamed dogs for falling in their call.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) announced in the months after Maggie and Paul’s deaths that it had opened a criminal investigation into Satterfield’s death and the handling of her estate. That review followed a local coroner who raised concerns about the case with the state police. Bluffton Today reported.
Hampton County Coroner Angie Topper said Satterfield suffered traumatic head injuries before suffering cardiac arrest and a stroke in the hospital in the days after. Her injuries were not “natural” as listed on her death certificate, Topper argued.
A SLED spokesperson did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on its investigation and Murdaugh’s recent alleged admissions regarding Satterfield’s death.
