Body of Murdaugh family’s housekeeper to be exhumed amid new rumors around troubled household

Coroner says manner of death on certificate ‘is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident’

The body of the housekeeper who worked for the influential Murdaugh family for more than 20 years will be exhumed amid fresh rumours concerning the troubled household.

Alex Murdaugh allegedly told the sons of housekeeper Gloria Satterfield that she fell down the stairs after being tripped by the family dogs.

The alleged incident took place at the home in 2018, with her death certificate saying that her manner of death was “natural” despite that not being in line with injuries sustained in a falling accident.

Ms Satterfield’s two sons have said they still don’t know how the fall led to such severe injuries that she died three weeks after the incident.

State authorities are now planning on exhuming the body to gain further knowledge about what might have caused her death.

Mr Murdaugh’s insurance company reportedly agreed to pay Ms Satterfield’s family $4m in a settlement, but they never received any of it. Mr Murdaugh, a former attorney, has been in jail since October on charges that he stole insurance funds from Ms Satterfield’s sons, in addition to being a person of interest in the murders of his wife and son.

Ms Satterfield’s death wasn’t reported to the office of the Hampton County coroner. The office requested that state police look into why they weren’t asked to investigate Ms Satterfield’s passing in what they would call “an accidental death”.

Hampton County has said that they want further investigation to take place after they showed inconsistencies between the information provided to them and what they found to be Ms Satterfield’s cause of death, as well as actions taken by Mr Murdaugh.

The Satterfield family has given the authorities permission to exhume the housekeeper’s body.

A request by the coroner to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) said that “the decedent’s death was not reported to the Coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed”.

“On the death certificate, the manner of death was ruled ‘natural,’ which is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident,” the coroner added.

In this Sept. 16, 2021 file photo, Alex Murdaugh sits during his bond hearing, in Varnville, SC (AP)

Court documents say that Mr Murdaugh, a former lawyer, told Ms Satterfield’s sons that he was responsible for the housekeeper’s fall, adding that he would “sue himself” in order for the Satterfields to be cared for financially. Four years later, the sons hadn’t received any money, prompting them to sue Mr Murdaugh for wrongful death.

Mr Murdaugh was charged in October 2021 with stealing insurance settlements that were set aside for the housekeeper’s sons. The lawsuit states that the former attorney got $4.3m from his insurers, but told the Satterfields that the sum was $500,000 – but they never received a single dollar.

Mr Murdaugh is in jail and has been charged with 51 counts concerning money laundering and forgery.

The Murdaugh family initially garnered national headlines in June last year after the shooting deaths of Mr Murdaugh’s wife and son.

Then Mr Murdaugh himself was shot, but survived. Now Mr Murdaugh has admitted to arranging his own shooting as part of a $10m insurance fraud scheme. Meanwhile, based on information they uncovered in relation to the first two shootings, police have opened investigations into the deaths of his housekeeper and a seemingly unrelated teenager who died under mysterious circumstances.

The story is as confusing as it is complicated. As Mr Murdaugh’s lawyer, Jim Griffin, put it, “It makes us all wonder what the hell’s going on”.

Mr Murdaugh, 53, is a former attorney and the heir to a powerful family of lawyers in the 14th Judicial Circuit of South Carolina, which includes Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton, and Jasper counties. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather all held the office of solicitor in that circuit, and other family members were prominent civil attorneys in the region.

On 7 June last year, Mr Murdaugh called 911 to report that he’d found the bodies of his wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, near some dog kennels on their hunting property in Colleton County. Both were dead of gunshot wounds. Their murders remain unsolved.

“He is totally distraught,” Mr Murdaugh’s attorney, Richard Harpootlian, later told NBC News. “He did not murder them.”

On 4 September, Mr Murdaugh himself was shot while changing a tire on the side of a road in Hampton County. He survived, and was treated at a hospital for what police called a “superficial gunshot wound to the head”.

On 13 September, Mr Murdaugh admitted to police that he had arranged the shooting. A former client of his, Curtis Edward Smith, 61, was charged two days later with shooting him at Mr Murdaugh’s behest.

Police say the plan was for Mr Murdaugh to die so his surviving son, Buster, could inherit $10m in life insurance money.

Mr Murdaugh was arrested and charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and filing a false police report after turning himself in.

On 15 September, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) announced that it was investigating the death of Ms Satterfield, the longtime housekeeper and nanny for the Murdaugh family.

Ms Satterfield died in 2018 after more than two decades working for the Murdaughs. Mr Murdaugh told her family that she tripped and fell down some stairs at his home. She sustained a traumatic brain injury, went into a coma, and died three weeks later.

But the Hampton County coroner, Angela Topper, thought Mr Murdaugh’s story didn’t add up, and wrote a letter to SLED asking them to investigate.

“The decedent’s death was not reported to the Coroner at the time, nor was an autopsy performed,” Ms Topper wrote. “On the death certificate the manner of death was ruled ‘Natural,’ which is inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip and fall accident.”

Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were killed at their Islandton estate. Authorities believe Paul was the intended target (Handout)

Based on this letter and new information uncovered during the investigation of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh’s deaths, SLED has agreed to open a criminal investigation.

Mr Murdaugh’s lawyers have said he had nothing to do with Ms Satterfield’s death, and that an insurance company determined it was an accident.

On 14 October, Mr Murdaugh was arrested in Florida, this time in connection to “misappropriated funds” from a years-old settlement with the children of Ms Satterfield.

After Ms Satterfield died, her two sons sued Mr Murdaugh – at his own suggestion, and with his own best friend, Cory Fleming, as their lawyer. In 2019, the Satterfield sons won a large settlement – but according to their current lawyer, they never received any of the money.

In September this year, Ms Satterfield’s family sued Mr Murdaugh a second time. In October, their new lawyer, Eric Bland, announced that the money – which he said amounted to $4.3m – was finally making its way back to them.

In a statement, Mr Bland said that Mr Fleming “did the right thing” and arranged the return of the money.

“Mr Fleming and his firm agreed that the Estate will be paid back all legal fees and expenses Mr Fleming and his law firm received from the $4,300,000 they recovered for the Estate in connection with the claims asserted against Alex Murdaugh for the death of Gloria Satterfield,” Mr Bland said. “Mr Fleming and his law firm maintain that they – like others – were victims of Alex Murdaugh’s fraudulent scheme.”

Mr Fleming’s law licence was later suspended.

Later that month, agents of SLED and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement arrested Mr Murdaugh as he was leaving a drug rehabilitation facility in Orlando, Florida. According to SLED, Mr Murdaugh has been charged with two new felony counts of “obtaining property by false pretenses.”

“Today is merely one more step in a long process for justice for the many victims in these investigations,” SLED Chief Mark Keel said in a statement. “I want to commend the hard work and dedication that our agents have shown over the last four months. They will continue to work tirelessly on behalf of those who were victimized by Alex Murdaugh and others.”

On 8 July, 2015, a 19-year-old man named Stephen Smith, who had been a classmate of Mr Murdaugh’s older son, Buster, was found dead on a road in Hampton County. No arrests were made, and the case remains unsolved.

As with Ms Satterfield, SLED has said it is reopening an investigation into Mr Smith’s death based on information it obtained after the Murdaugh killings.

Mr Murdaugh’s attorney, Richard Harpootlian, says Mr Murdaugh has struggled with a decades-long addiction to drugs, and this played a role in his attempted suicide.

“For the last 20 years, there have been many people feeding his addiction to opioids. During that time, these individuals took advantage of his addiction and his ability to pay substantial funds for illegal drugs,” Mr Harpootlian said in a statement. “One of those individuals took advantage of his mental illness and agreed to take Alex’s life, by shooting him in the head.”

The lawyer maintains that the botched suicide attempt was unrelated to the murders of Maggie and Paul, and that Mr Murdaugh does not know who killed them.