Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Jellyfish and Moselle - What Happened To The Money? Part Three (S01E32)

Episode Date: February 16, 2022

The FITSNews.com team learned more about Alex Murdaugh’s ties to an alleged drug smuggler and it led us to... jellyfish? In this episode, Mandy Matney and Liz Farrell walk you through complicated property transactions that could suggest there is more to them than meets the eye. Considering the players involved, the millions of dollars missing, and the pieces of land they chose — everything should be inspected with a fine tooth comb.  Check out some of these properties on this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StHXgB0oSoQ Also in this episode, Liz and Mandy explain exclusive details from the Moselle sale. And! Bonus! You will hear from Eric Bland in this episode, too. See more videos on the Murdaugh Murders here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPC7aLBzSFHqIz_jDachzQA And a special thank you to our sponsors: Cerebral, Hunt-A-Killer, Bannon Law Group, Nature's Highway CBD, Embark Vet, VOURI, Hello Fresh and others. The Murdaugh Murders Podcast is created by Mandy Matney and produced by Luna Shark Productions. Our Executive Writer is Liz Farrell. Advertising is curated by the talented team at AdLarge Media. Find us on social media: https://www.facebook.com/MurdaughPod/ https://www.instagram.com/murdaughmurderspod/ For current and accurate updates: Twitter.com/mandymatney Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't know what happened to the millions of dollars Ellick Murdock allegedly stole from his clients, but we found out more about his previous relationship with an alleged drug smuggler. In the deeper we go into this rabbit hole, the more concerning it gets. My name is Mandy Matney. I've been investigating the Murdock family for almost three years now. This is the Murdock Murders Podcast with David Moses and Liz Farrell. So up until this week, it has been noticeably quiet on the breaking news front surrounding

the seven investigations related to the Murdock family. But things are already heating up again, noticeably. I do believe, like many of you have said, and as much as I hate saying it, that we're only at the tip of the iceberg in this case and we still have a really long way to go until all of the people involved are in handcuffs and the victims get the answers and the justice that they deserve. Until then, we're digging into property records in the Murdock's past as we look for answers to some of the biggest questions in this case.

Why would anyone need to steal millions of dollars from people who desperately needed it? Where was all of that money going? And did all of this have anything to do with the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdock? In the last episode, we told you all about Barrett T. Bowler, a good friend and business partner of Ellick Murdock who died of cancer in 2018. Bowler is also the previous owner of the Moselle property, which could be sold soon and we will get into all of that later in this episode.

And the most important thing to know about Barrett T. Bowler is that he was a suspected drug trafficker who shared multiple coastal properties with Ellick Murdock. So we left you all on a couple cliffhangers in the last episode and joining us today, right where we left off is the one and only Will Folk's who is the Fitznews founding editor. As we talked about in the last episode, Will and our researcher, Jen Wood, spent months putting the puzzle pieces together on this Bowler Murdock story. And what they found was shocking.

You know, oh my God, these people, they're into a lot more than just, you know, your typical run of the mill settlement scams. They're into something bigger, at least it certainly looks that way. You know, started pulling property records down in Beaufort County in particular and a lot of properties that we found were referenced islands and they were all around, you know, Harbor River and St. Helena. And again, for those of you who aren't familiar with the geography here, St. Helena Island is one of three barrier islands down there in Beaufort County, Hunting Island, Fripp Island,

Pritchard's Island. Of those three, Fripp is the only one that's developed. Hunting Island is actually a state park and Pritchard's Island is completely uninhabited. But this is, again, when we were talking earlier about parts of the Atlantic seaboard that are ideal for bringing in illicit drugs, this is like the perfect place. It's the perfect place to bring something in because, again, tons of water access and easy access to roads. Between 1998 and 2003, Murdock and Bowler purchased these properties under various partnerships.

As time went on, they used more complex techniques in their business relationship to apparently conceal their ownership in properties. One of those examples would be creating LLCs to hide their involvement. And so what we started pulling were these properties, and again, many of them co-owned by Bowler and Murdock, again, not any sort of separation here. They jointly owned these properties and we found nine in particular that were located at what you can only call looking at them on the map, strategic access points to St. Helena Sound, to the Harbor River down there, and literally perfect places for lookouts

to watch out for Coast Guard patrols or local law enforcement boats, just the ideal places to signal somebody, hey, they're coming or hey, we got a boat here or hey, hurry up and get everything offloaded. I mean, literally lookout properties. And so one of the things that I found that was amazing was there was one of these properties was a little strip island, and the island was subdivided into four different tracks. Two tracks had homes on them, like beach houses, if you will. But then the ends of the island were separate properties, and those were the ones that Bowler

and Murdock jointly owned. So it was like, what the hell are they doing buying this little tip of a, it just made absolutely no sense. And like Will said, these properties were perfect for drug smuggling, especially 18 years ago when the area was a lot less developed. I should say again that everything that Ellic Murdock touch should be looked at with a critical eye. Sure, these properties could have been used for hunting or fishing, but considering the

players involved, all of this missing money, in these particular pieces of land that they chose. We have to look at this with a fine two's comb. These properties on St. Helena Island, for instance, cannot be seen from the road when driving on the island. The main road going along the water is set back about 2,000 feet, with woods blocking the view of the water. Many of the properties ended up with deep water dock access while they were owned by Murdock

and Bowler. If y'all are visual learners like me, check out the link in the description to look at the properties. And again, the properties are varying size, you know, you've got some that are as big as 20 acres. One of them was like an island forest, which by the way would have been perfect for stashing stuff, various stuff, but then some of them were really small, 0.28 acres that were basically listed as islands with boat access.

And so we started plotting all these properties on the map, and once again they all looked just like perfect lookout properties. I started showing them to law enforcement friends, I started showing them to friends who are in the fishing business down there in the low country, started showing them to attorneys who followed these sorts of operations, and they're like, yeah, there's literally only one reason to own these properties, and that is as lookouts. Then we also found a few properties that looked like offload sites. And again, there was one that was located near Village Creek, which is a little offshoot

of the St. Helena Sound that cuts into St. Helena from the northwest. And this was again right off of US Highway 21, so it was like the perfect place to again offload whatever it is they're offloading and have ready access to that highway. And so I was very careful in reporting on this story, you know, that I'm not saying he's using these properties for any particular purpose, but what is the purpose? And there's just really not much in the way of rational explanation other than they're part of some sort of smuggling operation. And then when you add that to the fact he co-owns them with Bowler, who's a guy who

is clearly linked to that activity, you know, the connection becomes even, even stronger. And those mysterious properties discovered by the Fitz News team involve certain attorneys at PMP ED, or whatever they call the Murdoch Law Firm now, since they've rebranded themselves as the Parker Law Group. Again, it was very interesting to find another connection to the Murdochs, which was Ronnie Crosby, who was one of Murdoch's partners at the pimped law firm. And Crosby took out a mortgage a little over $150,000 on a piece of property that Bowler was selling to a company that's called Jenkins Creek Marine and Charters LLC.

And I'm going to say that again, because we're going to have another one of these properties come up very similarly named, but the Ronnie Crosby one was called Jenkins Creek Marine and Charters LLC. So a year and a half later, there's another mortgage, almost an identical amount, a little over $150,000 was taken out on another piece of property that Bowler was selling. And this time, the company was called Jenkins Creek Charters and Property Management. So again, very similar name, but a different company. Now I started pulling some of the records on who these properties were owned by.

And sure enough, Jenkins Creek Marine and Charters LLC, one of the owners is Alec Murdoch. And so I'm looking at this signature on a piece of paper that one of the researchers had sent, and I'm kind of like, well, wait a minute, surely he's just the registered agent. It's like the lawyer who signed off on it. But no, if you look under the line of the signature, list Alec Murdoch as a member of this LLC. So he's literally one of the owners of these properties. And then again, Ronnie Crosby, the owner of one of the other properties.

So we start looking at these two properties. It's like, well, wait a minute, what's the deal with these two companies? Why are they getting these two properties from Bowler? What's the purpose? So basically Crosby loaned himself $150,000 twice through his LLCs on property that Bowler was selling, which is legal, but obviously raises a lot of questions. In total, there were seven property transactions with Jenkins Creek Marine and Charters LLC between 2010 and as recently as September 2021.

Now remember, Jenkins Creek Marine and Charters LLC was owned by Crosby and Alec Murdoch. Also, we found financial transactions between Bowler and Crosby and other counties that don't appear to make any sense. And that's when we uncovered this jellyfish operation. And again, part of this has a legitimate connection. Jellyfish are apparently a delicacy in some parts of the East. There are folks who eat it, whether it's serve it as a salad, apparently, you can serve it as in duck salad and with chicken.

It's a delicacy. I actually did some extensive research on this because I was trying to figure out exactly what these people were up to. So there is a legitimate case to be made that you can export jellyfish for consumption in various Asian nations. That's accurate. Now the process, though, is very involved. First of all, you got to catch them.

Then you have to dry the jellyfish, and that process takes as long as six weeks. Basically, you have to cut the tentacles off the jellyfish. You have to dehydrate them, usually with salt, alum. It takes, again, a long time to do this, typically between three to six weeks. The proposed plan from the start of the operation was to harvest and clean the jellyfish at the Golden Dock Road site, which was on the water, put them in a truck and transfer them to Williams Farm in Eilinton for processing. Eilinton, y'all should recognize because it's a super tiny town where Moselle is located.

Population 44. And so the properties that the Murdochs were connected to, and when I say the Murdochs, I mean Alec and Ronnie Crosby, the properties that they owned were two docks that were offloading jellyfish. And there was a company called Millenarian, which owned the operation that was going to process these jellyfish. But the Murdoch, whether it was Alec or Ronnie Crosby, they owned the properties. So it was sort of a partnership, if you will.

And the jellyfish, as we started investigating, okay, where are they going? There was an inland property, actually near Moselle, near Eilinton, South Carolina, where they were going to be processed. And the registered agent for that company was another Murdoch attorney, Mark Ball. Now, in this case, he wasn't a member. He was just a registered agent. But still, it's another connection between the firm and this operation. And so as we dug into this, it started like, okay.

So what Will is saying here is that Mark Ball, an attorney who works at the Murdoch law firm, was the registered agent of the Eilinton, South Carolina location called Williams Farms that was supposed to process the jellyfish. There was pushback with the jellyfish operation as documented in the Island Packet newspaper several times in 2013. People's were concerned mostly about environmental effects. But guess who represented Crosby's company as they fought county counsel for the rights to process the jellyfish?

David Teter, the current staff attorney for Jasper County, which borders Hampton and Buford County. Teter was convicted of multiple drug charges during Operation Jackpot, which we discussed in the last episode. Teter is the guy who represented the jellyfish operation in his fight against Buford County Counsel. However, the jellyfish company, whatever it was, apparently failed in 2014 after the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control halted operations due to health code

violations. The jellyfish processing plant suddenly ceased operations altogether after that. And that was it. The jellyfish thing was done. What's also interesting in September 2021, all seven of the properties were transferred to Ronnie Crosby for $5 when Jenkins Creek Marine and Charter's LLC was apparently dissolved and liquidated and all of the property previously owned by Buller and owned for years by Murdoch and Crosby's company was given to Crosby in a covenant with Bizarre Language that said

Crosby wouldn't sue Murdoch. What's really odd about that? PMPD partners, where Crosby still works, filed a lawsuit against Ellic that same month. You know, what's really going on? There's been documented smuggling connected to the guy who owned these docks. There's been connections between him and Ellic on properties that sure as heck look like, you know, look out properties. What are they doing with these docks and these jellyfish?

Uncovering all of this was shocking. And led us to more and more rabbit holes. Still calls this the jellyfish gambit. And so at this point it starts getting like, okay, where's this rabbit hole going? Yeah, because it's clear that these guys are into something much bigger than just shipping jellyfish over to Asia. And again, at this point, still trying to dig in to all of the connections because there's a lot of incorporations that these people hide behind.

There's a lot of, you know, export import licenses and things that you have to track and find out, okay, is that a legitimate license? Who is the person who applied for the license? I mean, it's just a ton of research to get to the bottom of it. But again, at this point, we found at least one Chinese national that has ties to prior money laundering that was linked up with this jellyfish operation. It's like, wait a minute, you know, this is just, and it's like everything with this story.

It's like you look at a field of rabbit holes and you keep thinking, okay, well, one of these has got to be a dead end, right? But no, it's like there are no dead ends with this story and it's just, it's crazy. And again, like the stuff in the 1980s, I'm not saying these guys are running drugs. Okay. Again, I don't have any proof that they're running drugs, but the people who are involved in these companies, and again, whether that's Barrett Bowler or some of these Chinese nationals, they are, they are.

And so I think that the facts that we're looking at right now are certainly pointing to a particular conclusion. And again, at this point, it's just trying to follow the rabbit holes all the way to the bottom, which again, just takes time. And we'll be right back. We are still looking into the jellyfish gambit and its potential links to criminal activity. By the way, stay tuned for more on that. But 10 days after this story ran and fits news about the jellyfish gambit, we noticed

a story emerging about a Walterboro gang known as the Cowboys potentially being connected to the Murdoch murders. As we said before, it was interesting that these two local newspapers, the Post and Courier and the Island packet, whose reporters have well known favorable relationships with Murdoch's defense attorneys, published this tip and pushed this narrative. In a previous episode, we mentioned how this might have been a red herring to distract from the double homicide investigation, but it's possible that it was a distraction from this storyline.

And it was really interesting that that's when the Cowboys make their brief appearance on the stage as actors in this unfolding drama. And again, I don't know what the point of that was. I don't know whether or not that was a deflection tactic, like, oh, let's not look at the international drug smuggling operation that we could be looking at here. Let's focus on these gang bangers from Walterboro, you know. And again, I'm not saying that there weren't ties between the Murdochs and the Cowboys. I mean, there obviously were.

And the Grand Jury, the statewide Grand Jury is obviously investigating those, Sled is investigating those. But I think my point was, guys, let's not take our eye off the prize here. You know, if these guys are involved, it's going to be at a much lower level, a much lower level. So let's try to keep our eyes focused on the big picture. And again, I don't see much of a focus on the state level regarding some of these larger connections.

I'm hoping that that's going to be something that the feds are going to look into or are looking into. I mean, obviously, we know there's an extensive Murdoch investigation underway at the federal level, just as there are multiple investigations underway at the state level. And just hoping that, hoping that somebody is pulling these threads, because my God, they need to be pulled. I asked Will if he was scared when he initially published a story about the bowlers and these connections to drug smuggling, which are showing that this investigation is heading into territory

that none of us expected. Definitely a little bit. In fact, I was kind of relieved in January when the Island Packet newspaper, I guess four or five months after the fact, they published a report which indicated that the Supreme Court was investigating some of these connections. And again, we don't really know. The Supreme Court's not really a player in the investigation of the Murdochs. Their investigatory role is exclusively tied to suspending lawyers or disbarring lawyers.

So that's literally all they can do as far as investigating, but they are looking into these connections. And so I'm not going to lie, it was nice, even though the packet decided not to throw any love to Fitznews, shocker. It was nice to see another news outlet kind of start to talk about this a little bit. And again, the context wasn't particularly encouraging because it's not exactly an entity that's got a lot of investigative pull. But the fact that, again, others are looking into this, yeah, that was kind of reassuring

because for a while it's like, yeah, kind of out there on my own, on an island, on this particular angle. But I'm glad to see that others are connecting some of these dots. And again, I think the dots are, it's not like this is a stretch. It's not like this is crazy speculation. I mean, the common property ownerships, the common incorporations, and just the nature of these properties and these assets and these operations, I mean, what else could it be? And then you add that, you add to all that the history of the family and the relations

between the Murdochs and the bowlers. And again, you just have to step back and look and say, what else could it be? And again, I'm just glad to see others starting to connect those dots. One thing that we've learned in this investigation is that it's important to report this information as we go along because the dots tend to connect when new sources emerge, which is why we are always asking for people who have information to come and talk to us on or off the record. Well, I think the main thing that I started to think about as these dots started to be connected, the main thing I thought about was, wow, here's a potential rationale for

what happened at Mizzel because if you've got a family that's mixed up in this kind of activity, and again, it's all alleged at this point, they haven't been accused of any of this at this point formally, but if you've got a family that's mixed up in this kind of stuff, it would explain what we saw at Mizzel back in June of 2021. It would be a rationale for that. And again, I don't know what they were into, but they were into something. And I think it was something that got out of their control. And again, with this family for so long, it was just, they did as they pleased.

There was no scrutiny, there was no light on them. And obviously in 2019, in the aftermath of the boat crash when Mallory Beach died, and again, you look at Mallory Beach's death, it's a tragedy of the first order, you know, to see a life cut short like that. But I will say this, the death of Mallory Beach is what really turned the light on. It turned the light on, and all of a sudden, this family was not able to move in the shadows any longer. Again, we don't know the narrative at this point.

We don't know what led from that night in February to that night in June when Maggie and Paul Murdock were murdered. We don't know if they connected. Maybe seems like it. We don't know how yet though. But one thing we do know is that all of a sudden, the light was on and that the things that were happening in the dark, all of a sudden, this family just could not keep up that cover.

It was all in the light. And I think that, again, a tragedy of Mallory Beach's death in many ways is what is responsible for turning that light on. And as we head down this road in the investigation with money laundering and potential drug trafficking, we're all wondering what the feds are doing since this seems to be right up their alley. I asked Will about this since he has more sources on the federal level than I do. Yeah, there's been a lot of discussion. I think it's obvious that the feds are assisting in the state criminal investigation.

Certainly we know that the feds are helping with the Mazzell homicide investigation. They're providing forensic support, I believe, and other support as requested by Sled. But as far as what they're looking at beyond that, very little intel coming out. As the federal investigation moves toward indictments, hopefully we will start to get a better sense of what they're looking at. My sense is that their expertise would really be helpful in looking at the following the money. And again, whether or not the settlement scams are part of a broader money laundering operation.

If so, who are they laundering money for? Is it connected to some of these alleged smuggling activities? Again, I don't know. Like you said, it's just a huge puzzle. And we've gotten some pretty important pieces on the board, but it's like you're still fumbling through the box. Every time you go in, there's some new crazy piece that doesn't seem to fit anywhere. You know, it's like, where the hell does this go?

You know, so it is challenging. You guys are digging, we're digging. And the good news is that law enforcement at both the state and the federal level, I do think they're digging in the right places. In December, Fitz News reported that Red DeHart, the acting U.S. attorney for the South Carolina District, who was based in Charleston, would quietly step down at the end of the year. This is after multiple sources had told Will that there was a turf war happening between state and federal investigators, and that Red was repeatedly trying to insert himself

into the investigation. Why would he do this? Apparently, there were backdoor deals being worked out by Elex attorneys and the feds. Anyone familiar with the Jeffrey Epstein case should be feeling the hair stand up on the back of their necks right about now. Before Julie K. Brown's amazing reporting at the Miami Herald, Epstein's attorneys had worked out a sweet deal at the federal level, and then pressured state officials in Florida to honor it.

Epstein had pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitutes. They weren't prostitutes, and served his time by basically having sleepovers at a local holding cell in Palm Beach. So with Dick Harputlian's close connections to the Biden administration, and Red DeHart's alleged willingness to entertain Harputlian's wishes, some had strong suspicions that a similar flimsy deal might be hammered out for Elex. With Red gone, we're hearing that the federal investigation into Murdoch might be heating up at a much faster pace.

And this is a good thing, because there seems to be a lot of federal angles here. And we'll be right back. Over the weekend, Fitz News happened to ask the right question during our preliminary reporting for Monday's hearings. Much to our surprise, we found out that not only has Moselle been up for sale for a couple of weeks, within days of it allegedly being listed, there were already two buyers lined up to purchase it. I say allegedly being listed because sources have told us that there are questions about

the timing here. For instance, the property was only publicly posted after we wrote our story early Monday morning. Many real estate agents have pointed out to us in the past two days that there is nothing unusual about this. I would agree with that under normal circumstances, but we are talking about the Murdoch family and Palmetto State Bank here, so we can't assume that all lines are straight ones. What we're about to explain to you guys is yet another dodgy situation involving Moselle.

But we're going to try to make it as simple as we can. So let's start with this. The land belongs to Maggie's estate. It is being rebranded as Cross Swamp Farm and, according to the broker's site, is priced at $3.9 million. The listing boasts dog kennels, which you know what happened at those dog kennels, in a rifle range, and easy river access. What it doesn't mention is a shady rural airstrip that we talked about in the last

episode. Okay, so Elec is the beneficiary of Maggie's estate and would have been the executor of it. But Elec is in jail, and also his assets are frozen. Anything he stands to gain from Maggie and Paul's estates would also be frozen. As you know, Elec allegedly spent the past three years since the boat crash trying to offload or hide his assets, as well as hide the fact that he was apparently stealing other people's assets.

So, due to his very despicable state of affairs, his younger brother, John Marvin Murdoch, became the personal representative of Maggie's estate, even though Maggie's sister Marion was supposed to be the next in line for that responsibility. Now Maggie's will does not give the personal representative the power to sell her assets. This means that before John Marvin could sell her real estate holdings, which are Moselle and her Attisto Beach home, he will need the permission of a probate judge, and as such will have to demonstrate that he is selling the properties at a quote, commercially reasonable price.

Okay, we'll come back to that phrase and how it's going to mean different things to different people. But first, let's talk about the motives. Mark Tinsley, as you probably remember, is the attorney for the Beach family for Morgan Dowdy and Miley Altman, who were survivors of the 2019 boat crash. In September, Mark put a lien on both of Maggie's properties. He did this not only because there were suspicions about Ellick hiding his assets, but like I said, Ellick had just admitted to hiring a guy to murder him.

So basically, Mark saw this sketch show and decided he needed to take action. He put the lien on the properties to make it harder for the Murdoch family to liquidate these two valuable assets ahead of the Beach trial. Mark was thinking ahead, should a jury find Ellick guilty in the death of Mallory Beach and award the family damages? He wanted to make sure money was available for Ellick to honor that award, at least in part. Fast forward to today, and the growing list of people Ellick is going to owe money to,

and you can see why that was necessary. In November, Mark moved to have Ellick's assets frozen and put under the authority of the court. The court agreed and assigned two receivers whose job it is to find and count every penny Ellick has. Now, in the interim, we all found out that Ellick didn't commit these alleged crimes without help, and that two of his alleged co-conspirators are connected to Palmetto State Bank, a family-owned bank in Hampton County, with deep ties to the Murdoch family,

especially Ellick. One of those two alleged co-conspirators is Russell Lafitte, who was the CEO until he was fired last month. Okay, so before Ellick transferred the property to Maggie for $5 in 2016, he had taken out two loans from Palmetto State Bank using the property as collateral. In January, John Marvin asked for the loans to be withdrawn because Ellick still owes Palmetto State Bank more than $2 million and is now at risk of defaulting on the loans and potentially losing the property, property that he doesn't even own.

We'll have to discuss that mess on another day because this is yet another Moselle rabbit hole. Now, the motives. Any victim who stands to have a claim against Ellick is going to want there to be is much money in the pot when all is said and done, right? So those advocating for victims want this property to sell at top dollar, regardless of how long that might take. The bank, which will likely have giant liability problems of their own because of Lafitte,

just wants their alleged money back and fast. John Marvin, whose family is tight with the Lafitte's, has arranged for the sale of this property according to our sources. Whose side is he on? The banks or the alleged victims? I'm not John Marvin, so I can't answer that. But he chose the broker. And the broker offered his opinion on how much the property is worth.

Then, just days later, had two buyers ready and willing to pay slightly above what he said it was worth. He does not appear to have advertised it locally or nationally. The property was not even on the broker's website as of Monday morning. By the way, the broker is Todd Crosby, who doesn't appear to be related to Ronnie Crosby, and I know that's weird. So back to the phrase commercially reasonable. To John Marvin and the bank, commercially reasonable might mean anything that covers

the alleged loans. To the probate judge, commercially reasonable might mean, oh, it's slightly above what the broker estimated it to be worth, nice. And to the victims and their representatives, it probably means as much as the market will bear. To sum this up, a broker estimated the property's value. Days later, that same broker had buyers lined up for slightly more than what he said it was valued, and it was never publicly listed, so there were no other offers.

Now, we have one more element to introduce. The list pendants were the liens that were filed. Eric Bland said that he will be withdrawing his list pendants on behalf of the Satterfields. Mark Tinsley has not yet withdrawn his, nor has he said he will be willing to withdraw his. But we had put these list pendants, which is a notice to the public, if there was going to be a buyer, that there's a lien on the property. And so John Marvin and his lawyers, Billy Newsom and this EW Burnett guy, made a motion

to strike or to dismiss our list pendants. We reached an agreement late last week with them that we would remove or dismiss the list pendants, the lien on the property, with the agreement that if the property fell, once the bank is paid, their bona fide note, whatever the bona fide note is owed on those properties, any remaining funds, they don't go to Maggie's estate, they don't go to John Marvin, they don't go to Alex because Alex is the sole heir of Maggie's estate. The net proceeds after the bank is paid has been agreed to go to the receiver. And so with that, we feel fine.

And like I said to you in my statement, it's time that other victims start to get their compensation and their justice. No, I haven't gotten the full measure of it, but I'm getting pretty close to the top of the cup for my clients and I'm proud of that. But I also feel for Justin Vrainberg's clients. And I feel for Mark's clients Badger and State Trooper, those people need to get paid. It's hard to believe, but we're here on Valentine's Day and my clients are the only clients who have received a dollar.

From what I understand, the issue hanging Mark Tinsley up is the bank loans. Palmetto's state bank has tried to step far away from what its CEO allegedly did with Murdoch, saying that it was him, not us. But one of those things he did with Murdoch was to give Murdoch this alleged loan. I've been saying alleged loan all of this time because, well, do you blame me? How can anyone actually trust the particulars on this thing? You're probably wondering how Moselle can be sold given that there are all these leans on it and given the receivership and how Elex assets are frozen.

So one, Elex does not own Moselle. This is not one of his assets, therefore it is not frozen. Two, while a lien on the property is usually a deal breaker, the only thing standing between the property being sold is the probate judge. She just has to approve the sale price. So technically, if the buyers don't mind owning property with a lien on it, they're free to buy it. Back to our original point.

This is why we think it's weird that the property was never advertised. And beyond that, everyone has every reason to be skeptical of any real estate dealing the Murdochs are involved in. The question is basically, who should the sale benefit the most? The broker, the bank, or the victims? You know who's side we're on. And for a bonus this week, we spoke with Eric Bland. Those of you following us on social media would know that the motions Dick Harputlian

and Jim Griffin filed back in November are going to be withdrawn. One of those motions was to remove Elex Murdoch from the Satterfield lawsuit because Dick and Jim said that the Satterfields had already gotten enough money from Elex alleged co-conspirators. And therefore, Elex didn't need to pitch in. The other one was to silence Eric Bland and punish him for speaking to the media, which mainly meant this podcast and Fitznews. Here's Eric with what happened with those motions. Well, I mean, I think it was a, you know, obviously it was an arrow in Dick's quiver

that he decided to play, which I thought was an inappropriate thing to do because I thought and do think that everything that I have said has been in accordance with the rules of professional conduct and under South Carolina law, correcting a false narrative that was put out there at different times by Elex's attorneys, but we've reached our agreement, which for me, it was about holding Elex accountable and getting him to acknowledge what he did. Once he got up on December 12th and through Dick acknowledged that he had wronged the boys in the Satterfield family and he was willing to confess judgment for $4.3 million, that's pretty much as much as we can do from a civil standpoint.

So, you know, I'll talk anytime somebody wants to ask me a question that's relevant to what's going on, but really over the past month and a half there hasn't been reason for me to talk. We asked Eric about the complaint that Dick, who again is a state senator, filed against him with the South Carolina Supreme Court's Office of Disciplinary Counsel in November. The complaint was basically an effort on Dick's part to compromise Eric's ability to practice law in South Carolina and to put it simply, Eric Bland will not be silenced. that that should have some persuasive effect, but I'm not scared of that and it's not stopping me in the interim talking. You know, I haven't talked a lot, but the reason is there's not a lot for

me to talk about. You know, from September to through December there was, you know, every day required a rapid response, but been kind of quiet until we see more charges, until others besides Alex are charged. There's not a lot for me to say. I mean, we struck hard, we struck early, we struck fast, and we struck effectively. Before we sign off, we want to take a moment and thank Ella for listening as she goes through cancer treatment. Ella, I want you to know that we are rooting for you and we believe in you. We have been working hard interviewing sources and gathering a lot of background, especially on the Murdoch family's past, and we have some really great episodes in store. On top

of that, we expected to be a busy few weeks of breaking news ahead of us in this case. So stay tuned to fitsnews.com and follow us on social media for the latest updates. Y'all, I hope you have an amazing week. We are almost done with winter, at least here in the south, so stay warm and stay curious. Brighter days are ahead. Visit fitsnews.com and check out an amazing video by my colleague Dylan Nolan that shows these questionable properties purchased by the Murdochs, Bullwears, and their associates. Be sure to follow fitsnews on YouTube to check out our latest videos on the Murdoch murder saga and I will post those links in the description. We want to thank everyone who was able to support Hopeful Horizons in our Merch with a

Mission campaign. Because of your sales, we are sending a big check to Hopeful Horizons, and that is a big deal. We decided to partner with Hopeful Horizons for our merch sales throughout March, so be sure to visit murdochmurderspodcast.com slash merch. 100% of the proceeds will go to Hopeful Horizons. Hopeful Horizons is a children's advocacy, domestic violence, and rape crisis center. Together, we can create safer communities by changing the culture of violence and offering a path to healing. Learn more at HopefulHorizons.com. The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Our executive editor is Liz Farrell. Produced by Luna Shark Productions.