On March 2, 2023, Alex Murdaugh was found guilty of murdering son Paul Murdaugh and wife Maggie Murdaugh. The jury took less than three hours to reach this decision. The next day, he was given the maximum sentence for his crimes: two consecutive life sentences.
In May 2022, Nautilus Insurance sued Alex Murdaugh and his former lawyer, Cory Fleming, for insurance fraud in the death of Gloria Satterfield. Satterfield was Murdaugh’s former housekeeper who died in 2018 at his residence under suspicious circumstances. The lawsuit was postponed because of Murdaugh’s murder trial but is now underway again. New court documents from this lawsuit reveal Murdaugh claims he lied about details of Satterfield’s death.
In February 2018, Gloria Satterfield died due to an alleged trip-and-fall accident at Moselle, the Murdaugh family's hunting estate. Alex Murdaugh claimed at the time that one of the family’s dogs got under her feet, causing her to fall and sustain a head injury. He is now changing his story.
Court documents in the lawsuit show Murdaugh’s new testimony. “No dogs were involved in the fall of Gloria Satterfield on February 2, 2018. After Ms. Satterfield’s death, Defendant invented Ms. Satterfield’s purported 2 statement that dogs caused her fall to force his insurers to make a settlement payment, and he stated that she was not on the property to perform work.”
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Murdaugh went on to keep $3.8 million from the insurance company because of his lies. He advised Satterfield’s grieving children to sue him because he was liable for their mom’s death. He never told them about his payout, claiming instead that he never reached a settlement with the insurance company.
Nautilus Insurance is not accepting Murdaugh’s falsification of the truth. The company believes he misrepresented the facts to get more money from the insurance claim. Nautilus also believes that Murdaugh did not act alone.
Murdaugh claims he did act alone. Neither Cory Fleming nor Satterfield’s children had any knowledge of his dealings. Murdaugh’s lawyers do believe, however, that if insurance fraud was committed, Nautilus should be going after Satterfield’s children because they received $7.5 million.
“If Nautilus never should have made any payment to the Satterfield estate and only attempted to do so because it was the victim of fraud, then the parties in possession of a recovery of the money allegedly stolen from Nautilus are necessary parties to an action by Nautilus,” court documents state.
Eric Bland, the attorney for Satterfield's estate, questions anyone who believes a convicted murderer. “Seems there is buzz because liar Alex now says he allegedly made up the story that Gloria Satterfield didn’t fall down Moselle stairs by his dogs. Since when did Alex become the modicum of honesty and credibility,” he tweeted. It is a valid point.
Bland also points out that the $7.5 million did not come from Nautilus. “Additionally, we recovered money for our clients from parties other than Nautilus for breaches of their duties to our clients and other claims,” he explained. “Technically the money that Nautilus paid never came to our clients.”
Murdaugh may have more to worry about than insurance fraud, as an investigation for Satterfield’s death has been initiated by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. A similar situation occurred with the death of teenager Stephen Smith. It appears as if all of the skeletons in the Murdaugh family closet are being slowly revealed.
