After the arrest of a prominent attorney in an alleged murder-for-hire, South Carolina’s state police are investigating the 2018 death of the family’s housekeeper.
Gloria Satterfield, 57, died after what was described as a “trip-and-fall accident” at the home of Alex Murdaugh.
The state police said Wednesday that they were opening a criminal investigation based on a request from the Hampton County coroner that highlighted inconsistencies in the ruling of Satterfield’s manner of death, as well as information gathered during the department’s ongoing investigations involving Murdaugh.
Murdaugh, 53, called 911 on Sept. 4 to say he had been shot while standing at the side of a road near his home. This week — after resigning from his law firm and entering an opioid addiction treatment program — he reportedly admitted he had hired someone to kill him.
The development came three months after the unsolved murders of Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, who were fatally shot outside their home on June 7.
Those shootings focused new attention on the deaths of two young people who had ties to the Murdaughs: Mallory Beach, who was killed in the crash of a boat that Paul Murdaugh was driving, and Stephen Smith, who was found dead on a road.
Satterfield’s death, on Feb. 26, 2018, had not previously been investigated. She never regained consciousness after suffering a head injury three weeks earlier at the Murdaughs’ home.
Alex Murdaugh reportedly told emergency responders that she had fallen down the stairs, possibly having tripped over one of the family’s dogs.
Her obituary listed Alex and Maggie Murdaugh — her employers for more than two decades — among “those she loved as her family.”
Satterfield’s survivors filed a wrongful-death claim against the Murdaughs and were granted $505,000. This week, however, their lawyer said they haven’t received any of the money.
The lawyer, Eric Bland, said: “Everybody took the word of Alex Murdaugh because when Gloria Satterfield fell down the stairs she had a traumatic brain injury, so she never woke up. … (She) was never able to explain. Mr. Murdaugh was the one who said their dogs were the one that caused her to trip and fall.”
The coroner’s request to the state police said Satterfield’s death was “not reported to the coroner at the time,” and because of that, an autopsy was never performed. Additionally, her manner of death was ruled “natural,” which was “inconsistent with injuries sustained in a trip-and-fall accident,” the coroner said.
