Murdaugh Murders Podcast - MMP #91 - Casually Cruel: What Happened to Gloria Satterfield?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The justice system can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us to hold public agencies accountable because we all want to drink from the same cup of justice. And it starts with learning about our legal system. With tales from the newsroom and the courtroom, Liz Farrell, Eric Blanda, and I invite you to gain knowledge, insight, and tools to hold public agencies and officials accountable. If you liked our Cup of Justice bonus episodes, you will love Cup of Justice shows on the new feed. Together, our hosts create the perfect trifecta of legal experience, journalistic integrity, and a fire lit to expose the truth wherever it leads. Search for Cup of Justice wherever you get your podcast, or visit cupofjusticepod.com. I don't know what happened to Gloria Satterfield, but now that Alec is admitting that he lied about the circumstances that led to her death.

Starting point is 00:01:04 Now that two of the three people who knew what happened to Gloria before she died have been murdered, and the third is their murderer, we have more questions than ever about this case. My name is Maddie Matney. I have been investigating the Murdoch family for more than four years now. This is the Murdoch Murders podcast produced by my husband, David Moses, and written with journalist Liz Farrell. Well, here we are, May 3, 2023, on episode 91 of the Murdoch Murders podcast. I want to start with an exciting announcement about an event that is so on point with our mission here at Luna Shark Productions. On Tuesday, May 9, Sandy Smith and I will be speaking among several special guests at the Victims Matter Rally at the Statehouse in Columbia, South Carolina. Last year, the Victims Matter Rally was first created in response to the Bowen Turner case as an effort to focus the attention surrounding the tragedy as a positive force to uplift victims and make change in South Carolina. And as we've said time and time again, our justice system too often prioritized those who are privileged and fails victims of violent crime, and too many of our lawmakers are working for the bad guys.

Starting point is 00:02:41 As we are working to expand our reach at Luna Shark to focus on cases across the nation and maybe eventually the world where crime meets corruption, we also want to ensure that the pressure continues right here at home in South Carolina until real change happens. And we will continue to fight for Stephen Smith, and we will be doing everything that we can to keep his story alive until his case is solved and justice is served. So join us at the Statehouse on Tuesday at 9am, and we will be streaming the rally live for MMP Premium members. And speaking of cases where the system tramples all over victims' rights, I want to talk about the Gerard price case for a minute. And before we get into it, I just want to say that Beth Braden, Callie Lyons, and Ally Pavlich of the Luna Shark team made an incredibly insightful graphic for our premium members to better understand the price case. Members can check it out at MMP.supercast.com. So it has been a week since the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled to void Judge Casey Manning's order in releasing convicted killer Gerard Price 15 years early. And surprise, surprise, Price is apparently on the run and nowhere to be found. Sheriff Leon Lott, the Sheriff of Richland County, where Price was convicted of murder, announced last week that the Sheriff's Office, a.k.a. the taxpayers, are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to his return.

Starting point is 00:04:19 The following day, Price's attorney, State Rep Todd Rutherford, held a press conference where he asked Price to turn himself in. But he didn't stop there. Among the absurd things that Rutherford said in this press conference, he actually apologized to Price, not the people of South Carolina, who he serves. Quote, I'm sorry, Mr. Price, who has done nothing but help the citizens of South Carolina, saving the lives of correctional officers, and somehow that lands him back in the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Rutherford said. Again, he said that Mr. Price has done nothing but help the citizens of South Carolina. Speaking of lawmakers having no concerns about victims whatsoever, there is a clear example for you. Rutherford knows that Price attempted to appeal his conviction multiple times and failed. He knows that in the eyes of the law, his client is a murderer, and his client's release certainly hurts the small's family. Rutherford also knows that the evidence he offered to back up those claims that his client was a hero to SEDC employees was not at all credible and essentially hearsay. And Rutherford, who works for us, by the way, also knows just how costly his client has been to the state of South Carolina.

Starting point is 00:05:44 Taxpayers are now having to pay for the reward money to get Price back into custody. Taxpayers are now having to pay for all of the overtime hours and manpower in the search for Price. Taxpayers have been forced to clean up this mess that was made by elected officials. All three of these elected officials, Rutherford, Solicitor Byron Gibson, and Judge Casey Manning, failed the taxpayers when they agreed to the secret order. They failed to stop and think about the potential damage of their actions. They failed to look out for the people who pay their salaries. And now that the dust has settled and the Supreme Court has officially ruled that yes, what they did was in fact wrong, the investigation must continue. Not only do they need to find Price, but like Ellic Murdoch, Price is just another branch of a corrupt tree.

Starting point is 00:06:43 The branches are just showing us that the problem exists at the roots. We're never going to fix anything until we address the roots, and that is the system itself and those in charge of it. We need to not only find out how they did this, but why they did this. What could have possibly incentivized three elected officials to care more about a murder's early release than they do about public safety and following the law? We are now less than three and a half months away from trial in the case that started it all. The case that led Ellic Murdoch down that very dark path to murdering his own wife and son, the boat crash case. Over the past four years, this case grew from one case in April 2019 to two cases at the time of the murders to seven cases total, including a civil conspiracy case involving the release of confidential court documents and photos of Mallory Beach's body to the media.

Starting point is 00:07:50 In November 2021, this case was behind the court decision that froze Ellic's assets and led to the appointment of a receivership to do a full accounting of every last penny they could find in Ellic's literal and figurative wallets. From that, the receivership brought with it some of the more interesting findings in the Murdoch investigations thus far, including the millions of dollars in checks that Ellic wrote to Curtis Eddie Smith so that Eddie could cash them for him, as well as the money Ellic gave to Yemisee Police Chief Greg Alexander before and after the murders. Needless to say, this case has never been short on drama. Remember this guy? I think so. I think the judge ultimately agreed to give it to him. He agreed to give it to you?

Starting point is 00:08:39 Sure. But I thought the hearing didn't happen. Well, you thought wrong. There's a lot of paper, so maybe you got confused. He granted this motion? I think so. You want to see the order? Yeah. That was obviously Mark Tinsley from the February 6, 2021 in-camera hearing to determine whether the jury would get to hear about Ellic's financial situation at the time of the murders, as well as the mounting pressures he was facing due to his years of alleged financial crimes. As you know, Tinsley represents the Beach family, as well as boat crash victims Morgan Dowdy and Miley Altman. It's safe to assume we'll be hearing a whole lot more from him in the lead up to the boat crash trial, which is set to start August 14 and is expected to take about two weeks.

Starting point is 00:09:21 Motions in Limony, meaning the issues that lawyers would like to have decided before the start of the trial and outside the presence of the jury, are already being filed in the case. This afternoon, in fact, Tinsley and company appeared before Judge Daniel Hall in Lexington County to respond to the latest motions made by the defendants in the Beach case. So let's start by talking about those because they're good ones, especially if you like tone deaf absurdity from rich white men who will never get it. Speaking of Ellic Murdoch's attorneys, you might recall that on March 21, Dick and Jim filed a motion on Ellic's behalf asking the court to give them more money to appeal the case that they just lost. We recorded this episode before the hearing started Wednesday afternoon, so we'll update you on how it turned out on the next Cup of Justice episode. As it stands right now, on Wednesday afternoon, we are really curious about whether Dick and Jim will even show up to the hearing or if they'll send their associates, Margaret Fox and Phil Barber, or if no one will be there to argue their motion. Because that could be really awkward for them, right? If they did show up? Why? Because they didn't bother to appear at Judge Clifton Newman's scheduling hearing on April 21, citing Dick Harputlian's legislative immunity. Dick, being a state senator, gets to push off his legal work until the legislative session ends each year.

Starting point is 00:10:55 This year, it ends on May 11, but Dick waved his rights for Ellic's trial. Wasn't that nice of him? We'll talk about this another time, but legislative immunity is something liberally used by legislator lawyers as a way to endlessly extend their client's cases. Something that can be particularly damaging to victims and criminal matters. At the scheduling hearing, Prosecutor Creighton Waters rightfully pointed out that neither Jim, Maggie, nor Phil were legislators. So, yes, they were all too busy to get that satterfield case on the old schedule. Our big question is, will they be too busy to stand in front of Judge Hall and beg for the victim's money? Should we take a bet on that one? There are a couple of interesting things we want to point out about Dick and Jim's money-grubbing motion. The first is how dare they do that with a straight face. Dick and Jim are lawyers, yes, but they're also business owners, right?

Starting point is 00:12:00 Their motion is like inviting an orangutan into your restaurant, letting the orangutan order whatever it wants off the menu for 20 months. Working yourself silly in the kitchen to cook the orangutan's meals to his liking and with his feedback, cleaning up the orangutan's mess after he predictably joins you in the kitchen to show you how it's done, then finally asking him, are you ready for the check, sir? Then going to court when he's inevitably like, what money? I'm an orangutan. And then asking the judge if it's okay for you to raid the World Wildlife Fund to pay the orangutan's debt. Dick and Jim and their staff worked their tails off for Alec Murdoch. No one is begrudging them that. They gave that man every ounce of their abilities and they should be paid for it. If I were them, I'd be up at McCormick every 30 days until the debt was paid off, shaving Alec's head and selling locks of his hair to his Facebook fans because they would pay for that. But taking money from the victims? No, sir. That is when I'd be like, why did I give that orangutan a perfectly cooked porterhouse steak every night when he clearly had no money?

Starting point is 00:13:14 That Alec's case was going to be a long and tedious slog was foreseeable. It was fully predictable that it was going to cost a lot of money. And yet Dick and Jim are all, judge, we've already lost conservatively $700,000 on this guy in attorney's fees alone. Could we please get a measly $160,000 from his 401k for his appeal? Remember the 401k? Remember when Dick and Jim convinced the receivership and the court that if Alec were allowed to cash in his $2 million retirement fund, which would obviously incur penalties and taxes, then they'd only take $600,000 of that and leave the rest, which was about $425,000 for his future creditors, which includes his victims. Remember that deal? We just need this $600,000 to hire some experts and you guys can have the rest. I'll give them the benefit of the down and say, okay, fine. At that point in time, Dick and Jim did not know they were going to lose Alec's case. In fact, Dick was telling anyone who would listen that the state had a pathetic case and therefore the case was super winnable.

Starting point is 00:14:24 However, their deal covered an appeal. That $600,000 was inclusive of the trial and its appeal. That brings me to point to the nerve of these guys losing a Murdoch case in Colletin County and then expecting the court to give them a booster shot of money for it. They had every advantage going into this trial and throughout it. The blood spatter did not get brought up. They effectively had people questioning sled about the integrity of the crime scene. They lost the case because of arrogance, theirs, Alec's, and the Murdoch families. And here we are again with that arrogance. The third point I want to mention is this. In arguing for the court to grant their motion, Dick and Jim have taken the position that the state is wrongfully holding on to Alec's money. Here is David with their main argument. The restraint of legitimate, untainted assets needed by a defendant to retain counsel of choice violates the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Starting point is 00:15:30 A defendant's right to counsel of his choice, whom the defendant can afford to hire with quote, Innocent Property, is a fundamental constitutional right. They're not wrong. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 decided in favor of a woman who was charged in a healthcare fraud case. The woman contended that she should be able to use property unrelated to her crimes to pay for an attorney of her choice. The government had frozen, quote, property that is untainted by the crime and that belongs fully to the defendant, end quote. But last time I checked, the receivers are not government agents. Let's go over the history real quick. Alec's 401K was not touchable, meaning the receivers couldn't consider that an asset for the victims. Alec made it touchable by asking to cash it in.

Starting point is 00:16:27 In other words, he converted an untouchable asset to a touchable one and in doing so made a deal with the receivers that he could make that asset touchable, i.e. make it so it could go to the victims only if he could make a substantial portion to pay for experts in his murder case. And that is what he did. Here's David again, reading more of Dick and Jim's whining. Murdoch has sufficient innocent property to pay the undersigned. These funds are legitimate, untainted funds. Furthermore, the undersigned is informed and believes that there are additional funds that have been deposited into the receiver's escrow account that do not represent the proceeds from illegal activities. Oh, really? So, A, how exactly are we determining that Alec's substantial 401K was funded with untainted money? Are they using a marker on every dollar that went in there and holding it up to the light?

Starting point is 00:17:33 B, what is this so-called legitimate money? And again, how do they determine it to be legitimate? C, the court already let you have some of that 401K money. You made a deal. You got what you asked for. You should have planned for the appeal. Oh wait, you did. Or I don't know. Maybe you should have stayed at a comfort inn and not a luxury compound that is made for wedding guests where your chef serves you bourbon and the catch of the day every night. Indeed, it is not the victim's fault that you spent the money on a leftover boat guy from when you represented Paul as a gunshot expert who apparently only had one shooting case before this one and it was a hunting accident. Oh, and the blood spatter expert who believed two child-sized shooters had killed Maggie and Paul. How could I forget that guy?

Starting point is 00:18:30 I mean, Dick and Jim practically paid for Alec's one-way ticket to prison, or Alec did with his 401K money. Okay, final point about Dick and Jim's little Oliver Twist Act. In addition to claiming that this untainted money wrongfully was being held by the state, Dick and Jim say that if they don't get this appeal money, then Alec will gasp, have to hire a public defender. Did you just hear that? Alec having to face the justice system like everybody else? Oh, no. Here is David again. In South Carolina, the Division of Appellate Defense of the South Carolina Commission on Indigit Defense handles approximately 1,000 indigent appeals annually.

Starting point is 00:19:18 Currently, there are 10 appellate attorneys. If this court denies Murdoch's request, his appeal will fall upon the overworked attorneys and staff costing taxpayer money and diluting the limited resources from defendants who are truly indigent. Fair enough, maybe Alec should get that money for his appeal and donate to a person who cannot afford an attorney. Jim did say that Alec wants to help people while in general population at his new prison home. So go ahead, help people, and we'll be right back. The justice system can be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us to hold public agencies accountable because we all want to drink from the same cup of justice

Starting point is 00:20:10 and it starts with learning about our legal system. With tales from the newsroom and the courtroom, Liz Farrell, Eric Bland and I invite you to gain knowledge, insight, and tools to hold public agencies and officials accountable. If you liked our Cup of Justice bonus episodes, you will love Cup of Justice shows on the new feed. Together, our hosts create the perfect trifecta of legal experience, journalistic integrity, and a fire lit to expose the truth wherever it leads. Search for Cup of Justice wherever you get your podcast or visit cupofjusticepod.com. Okay, that was the motion for payment from Untainted Funds.

Starting point is 00:20:55 Now let's talk about Parkers and what they're trying to do. In March, attorneys for Parker's Kitchen and Tehisha Cohen, the clerk who sold the alcohol to 19-year-old Paul Murdoch, filed a motion for summary judgment asking the court for all intents and purposes to release them from the case. On Monday, they filed a 40-page memo in support of their motion laying out their arguments, which, if passed as prologue, is exactly what they plan to say at Wednesday's hearing, possibly even word for word. So there's really nothing new in the sense that Parker's Kitchen thinks it didn't do anything wrong here. Remember, this case is bigger than it appears to be, and that's saying something since the pressures Eric was feeling from it seem to make him a murderous maniac.

Starting point is 00:21:38 The thing to know here is this. This case is about the future and not just her Parker's Kitchen. Businesses like Parker's Kitchen, which is to say gas stations that have robust convenience stores attached to them, generally rely heavily on alcohol sales. At the heart of the boat crash case is a simple transaction. The moment when Tehisha Cohen scanned the ID that Paul Murdoch handed her, but did no further inquiry before selling him alcohol, Parker's maintains that Paul tricked Tehisha by giving her Buster's ID that their cashier did not knowingly sell Paul alcohol.

Starting point is 00:22:14 But in South Carolina, it doesn't matter legally whether someone knew a minor was of age before selling them alcohol. It is the act of giving a minor alcohol that is the problem. It's been described to us like this. If you're speeding and you're pulled over, legally it does not matter if you didn't realize you were speeding. You were speeding full stop. Obviously, the punishment for speeding is left to the discretion of the officer who witnessed the infraction, meaning whether or not you get that ticket. You broke the law whether or not you intended to break it.

Starting point is 00:22:45 The same goes for businesses selling alcohol. If you sell to a minor, you have a problem, regardless of whatever wily coyote tricks were being played on you. This law is that simple. In South Carolina, it is unlawful for a person to sell beer, ale, quarter, wine, or other similar malt or fermented beverage to a person under 21 years of age. Notice that it does not say knowingly sell. Because guess what? People under the age of 21 are sneaky.

Starting point is 00:23:14 Maybe you weren't sneaky at that age. Maybe you did everything right, but I promise you, it's a thing. And that's why people selling alcohol need to be wary. That's why sellers of alcohol, whether they're bars or liquor stores or convenience stores, have training and it's why they have policies in place that help them prevent the sale of alcohols to minors. It's that important. In March 2018, the state newspaper published a series about the proliferation of underage drinking in five points, which is an area of bars and clubs where University of South Carolina students generally tend to party.

Starting point is 00:23:50 In that series, the state reported on how underage drinkers were now getting their IDs from overseas, and these IDs were very convincing. So convincing that they could pass the blacklight test performed by bouncers at bars and pass the scanner test where someone scans the barcode of the license and the information on their license is supposed to be displayed on the screen. This is what Teja Cohen did. She took Paul's ID, which was Buster's legitimate license, and she scanned it. According to surveillance footage, she did not look at the license or what came up on the scanner.

Starting point is 00:24:23 She did not do anything else to mitigate the potential of this baby-faced, five-foot, seven-inch guy in front of her who was lying to her to get alcohol by using his brother's license, which listed him as six-foot, two inches tall, and more than 200 pounds. That is what the issue really is, and it's the reason Parker's kitchen's attorneys keep going to the lengths that they've been going to. If Grant Parker's business is found to have been negligent in this particular case, then where does it end for them? It'll mean convenience stores everywhere in the state will have to put more effort into hiring employees, more effort into training their employees, and more effort into retaining employees.

Starting point is 00:25:05 Effort means more money. They might not be able to get away with having education requirements that end at the eighth grade and therefore get away with paying the absolute minimum wages to a transient and short-term workforce. It will also mean that businesses will lose sales when further inquiry leads to the revelation that the customer is using a fake ID. Again, that means money. It also means that more lawsuits will inevitably follow. Money, money, money. Which is likely why Greg Parker has put so much of it into fighting this lawsuit.

Starting point is 00:25:39 Also, we think he's driven by his personal hatred of Mark Tinsley, and has become so blinded by that that he'd rather flush money down his attorney's toilets than humble himself and take responsibility, which, if that's true, it's pathetic. Behind the scenes, though, Parker has also been trying to get the laws changed to prevent this kind of liability in the future. In the meantime, he's fighting the beach case in such a strange way that to some, his lawyer's latest motion appeared to have been written by a group of Facebookers. The motion makes four major points.

Starting point is 00:26:11 The first is that Parker's kitchen and Tahitia Cohen did not knowingly sell a minor to alcohol because Paul used Buster's license. The second is that because Sled didn't issue them a citation or prosecute them for the sale, that shows that what they did was legal. And the word they used to describe that is they've been exonerated. Let's talk about that real quick. So, there was an alcohol investigation into Parker's sale of alcohol, which was, at least philosophically, linked to Buster's alleged awareness

Starting point is 00:26:42 of Paul using his ID to buy alcohol illegally. Now, as you'll remember, Buster recently settled out of this case. In doing so, he was not admitting guilt. But there is testimony in the depositions that shows that there were witnesses to Buster not only being aware that Paul was using his license, but being frustrated by it because it meant that Buster had to use his passport at bars. At the time of the crash, Buster was in his second semester at University of South Carolina School of Law, which he reportedly was booted from for alleged plagiarism.

Starting point is 00:27:15 Law students cannot be breaking the law, so this lawsuit naming Buster as a party would have been a stressor on the family. Beyond that, it could have presented a problem for Buster as a law student or as a man trying to re-enter law school as it were. So, back to Sled. Remember, this is 2019. Alec Murdoch was still a man of the law then and generally seen as a man of considerable power and influence.

Starting point is 00:27:41 If Parkers was cited for their sale of alcohol, then what would have happened next? What would that have meant for Buster's alleged part in this? Remember, too, that Greg Parker admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he had hired private investigators Henry Rosado and Max Frittotti, the two men who allegedly went to Sandy Smith to get Steven Smith's iPad. Steven Smith, who was rumored for years to have been intimately involved with Buster. Also working for the Parker's team was private investigator Sarah Capelli, who has said she was following Paul to get photos of him being rowdy and drinking

Starting point is 00:28:14 and following Buster to get proof that he was gay. I want to note that, to our knowledge, Sarah did not find anything on Buster and I also want to note that we find this disgusting and shameful on Greg Parker's part. But why would Greg Parker want proof that Buster was gay? Why would he care? That said, neither Buster, whose father was Alec Murdoch and grandfather was Randolph Murdoch and great-grandfather was Randolph Murdoch

Starting point is 00:28:39 and great-great-grandfather was Randolph Murdoch. Nor Parker's, whose political influence in South Carolina is also notable, were cited for their alleged roles in Paul getting alcohol that night. But does it matter? Parker says yes, obviously it does matter. But if it mattered then, why are we here? Why are we still talking about this? And why did Parker's include more points in their motion for summary judgment?

Starting point is 00:29:02 Why wasn't this fact alone strong enough? We didn't get in trouble, so we didn't do anything wrong. Well, O.J. was found not guilty for killing Nicole Brown Simpson and Rod Goldman but he was found very guilty in the civil suits. The legal thresholds for guilt are different. Still in all, on April 27th, Conor Cook's attorney, Joe McCullough, the white-haired attorney who somehow had enough free time to sit in the courtroom for most if not all of Alex's trial, filed a motion asking the court to issue two orders.

Starting point is 00:29:34 One, barring Parker's from submitting testimony and or evidence at trial related to Sled's decision not to ticket them. And one, prohibiting Parker's from making further public announcements about the untrue notion that Sled has exonerated them. Here's David with a passage from McCullough's filing. Whether Sled conducted a competent review of the circumstances of the underage sale by defendant Parker's to Paul Murdock, failing to discover the other underage sale as noted above,

Starting point is 00:30:05 and whether Sled reached a correct decision in its no-charge determination is irrelevant, highly prejudicial, and confuses the jury. Additionally, it will result in a mini-trial not only as to Sled's investigation into the underage sale, but its involvement in the boat crash as a whole. Additionally, in Conor's case, McCullough filed a stipulation of dismissal releasing Buster from the lawsuit. And the third point Parker's makes is that the boat crash victims,

Starting point is 00:30:40 all of whom were under the legal age for drinking alcohol, quote-unquote hatched a plan to drink illegally and knowingly got on the boat with a reckless drunk. But that point isn't likely going to fly. In 2005, the South Carolina Supreme Court in Markham v. Bowden wrote that quote, a reason for imposing a duty to protect underage persons from the effects of alcohol is that minors as a class are incompetent by reason of their youth and inexperienced to deal responsibly with the effects of alcohol.

Starting point is 00:31:13 Even though someone under the age of 21 might be considered an adult in other settings and circumstances, the General Assembly of South Carolina finds them to be minor when it comes to the sale and dispensing of alcohol. So even though Parker's attorneys probably patted themselves on the back for repeatedly referring to the boat crash passengers and Paul as adults, they simply were not in this case. The final point that Parker's made in the motion was this, no other adult at the oyster roast stops the boaters from getting on the boat

Starting point is 00:31:45 and it's not Parker's fault that these people didn't do the right thing. It's like, sure, we sold that 10-year-old fireworks, but why did his parents let him go outside into their backyard where he lit the fireworks and hurt someone? Well, because guess what? The word knowingly now actually matters. In South Carolina, again, affirmed in Markham v. Bowden, social hosts, i.e. the adults at the oyster roast,

Starting point is 00:32:11 are liable if they knowingly or intentionally served or caused to be served an alcoholic beverage to a person he knows or reasonably should know is between the ages of 18 and 20. There is no liability in South Carolina for not stopping an impaired person from operating a motor vehicle. Bars and stores can't sell alcoholic beverages to someone who appears to be drunk but stopping them from getting behind the wheel is another thing. So, like we said, it doesn't seem like there's any legal basis for any of this.

Starting point is 00:32:46 It'll be interesting to see how Wednesday's hearing goes and again, we will update you on Twitter and in the next episode of Kappa Justice. It's been a really long time since we've done a deep dive into the Gloria Satterfield case. Actually, since the time we last really talked about the case, Alec Murdoch has been convicted of murdering his wife and son. The two people who might have known the truth about what happened at Moselle on February 2, 2018 when Gloria allegedly fell. This is important because in the eyes of the law,

Starting point is 00:33:29 Alec Murdoch is now seen as a cold-blooded killer who murdered his family to avoid getting exposed for the mountain of crimes that he was sitting on. And honestly, the latest move by Team Murdoch makes Gloria Satterfield's death even more suspicious. So, on Monday, Alec's defense team, including Jim Griffin, Dick Harputlian, Phil Barber, and Margaret Fox, filed a shocking but not-so-shocking answer in the federal lawsuit against Alec's former insurance company, Nautilus, for the fraud that occurred in the Satterfield case. In the motion, Alec Murdoch is finally admitting to lying about the fall that led to Satterfield's death.

Starting point is 00:34:12 Specifically, they said that he, quote, invented Ms. Satterfield's purported statement that dogs cost her to fall to force his insurers to make a settlement payment. So, my question is, why admit to lying about her death now? We know how cruel Alec Murdoch can be, but his lawyers? To open up a whole new set of wounds about Brian and Tony's mother's death after all of this time, for Alec to say, I lied about the dog's tripping Gloria, but I'm not saying what actually happened is, in the words of Taylor Swift, so casually cruel in the name of being honest.

Starting point is 00:34:53 It's inhumane. It is continuing to treat Gloria as means to an end rather than as a person. It is continuing to disrespect her years after her mysterious death, and it's causing another layer of worry and heartbreak for a family who has endured so much grief, betrayal and trauma in the past five years. At the end of the day, the Satterfield family deserves the truth. This is something Team Murdoch has never even pretended to care about, but we do. So now, knowing what we know about Alec Murdoch, knowing what he is capable of and how he problem solves,

Starting point is 00:35:33 let's take another look at the Satterfield case and clean up some questions that have been buzzing online. The worst part about Gloria Satterfield's death is that it's really hard to piece together what happened that day, because two of the people who were there after she fell are now dead, and the other person who was there is a habitual liar and a murderer. For a settlement this large, there is very little paperwork to back up the reasoning for why two insurance companies, Lloyds of London and Nautilus, would pay millions for a trip and fall death without putting up much of a fight at all. We took another look at one report which was written by Lloyds of London attorney Scott Wallinger,

Starting point is 00:36:18 who, as a reminder, was technically working for Alec at the time as his insurance company's attorney. So first of all, before we get into February 2nd, this report says that Gloria Satterfield was in a car accident on February 1st, 2018, the day before she allegedly fell. According to the report, Satterfield's vehicle struck a parked car. I'll have David read this part of the report. We do not have details about that event yet, and Mr. Murdock was not aware of it until I mentioned it.

Starting point is 00:36:53 He believes that would have been a low impact accident, else Ms. Satterfield would have mentioned it to him, and would have called him for legal guidance. Why wasn't that mentioned before? And again, why is he asking Alec about it instead of finding out for himself? You would think that an insurance company would want to investigate this car accident further to see exactly what happened. You would think the insurance company, which is trying to get out of paying millions of dollars, wouldn't just mention that casually and move on. I mention this again because, gosh, if people just would have done their jobs all of those years ago,

Starting point is 00:37:32 maybe we would have answers as to what happened to Gloria by now. So according to Wallinger's report, which relies heavily on Alec's word, Alec claims he left the house at 7.45 in the morning to go to work. But guess what, Maggie and Paul were sleeping at that time. The only other people on the property were workers Ronnie Freeman and Travis Martin, and according to the report, Wallinger apparently didn't bother to ask either of them if they remembered seeing Alec Murdoch leaving that morning according to the report. So we don't know if Alec was on the property or not when Gloria arrived at Moselle that morning,

Starting point is 00:38:07 likely around 9 a.m. Gloria was apparently there to pick up a check either for her work or for someone else, which is another conflicting thing about these insurance documents. According to the report, Maggie said she suddenly heard the dogs barking, quote, in an unusual tone that morning, which alerted her to go outside. She said she went out the front door and found Gloria lying on her back toward the bottom of the steps with a bleeding head wound. Gloria's eyes were open.

Starting point is 00:38:35 She was conscious, and she was mumbling, quote, gibberish, according to the report. Gloria did not know what happened, and Maggie apparently shouted, oh my god. That's when Paul allegedly came outside. I want to play a few parts of the 911 call. Maggie Murdoch called 911 around 9 24 a.m. on Friday, February 2nd, 2018. Okay, can you give me the address? Okay, let's go out of there. My housekeeper has fallen, and her head is bleeding.

Starting point is 00:39:29 I cannot get her up. Okay, you said she's fallen. She's bleeding from the head? Yes. How old is she? I'm not sure, like 58, maybe. Do you know if she felt some standing or not? No.

Starting point is 00:39:46 Where'd she fall from? She felt going up the steps, but the bridge steps. Okay, so she's outside or outside? Outside. Okay. How many steps is there? Eight. Okay, is she on the ground, or is she up the top?

Starting point is 00:40:07 She's on the ground, she's on the ground. Is she conscious? No, not really. Is she awake at all? Yes. Okay. Remember, in Maggie's interview with Wallinger, she said that Gloria's eyes were open,

Starting point is 00:40:24 that she was conscious, and she was mumbling gibberish, which also matches up with a 911 call. She's not responding appropriately, but she is awake. Maybe she's not responding. Okay, I've already got them on the way, and you're asking questions, does not fill them down, Ram. Knowing if she's conscious is one of the things that the medic needs to know if she's responding at all to you.

Starting point is 00:40:53 No. Okay, so she's not responsive at all? Well, I mean, she's mumbling. Okay, so she is somewhat conscious. Is she breathing, okay? Yes. Is she bleeding from anywhere? Yes, her head.

Starting point is 00:41:10 Okay, are you guys able to control the bleeding? Maggie said that no one rendered first aid before EMS arrived, which also lines up with a 911 call. And another thing, no mention of dogs in the 911 call, which isn't surprising at all. But again, why didn't the insurance companies notice this? During the 2018 call, remember, Maggie says that Gloria fell back down after she initially fell.

Starting point is 00:41:39 What happened? She just fell back down. Can I have your name and phone number? Are you able to bring the phone down by her? What? Are you on a cell phone where you can walk down there and talk? Okay, can you bring it with you so we can ask her some questions about what kind of pain she's having?

Starting point is 00:41:59 Gloria's feet were on the second or third step from the bottom as she was lying on her back. She was bleeding from a head wound, and blood was on the brick landing area. Gloria was awake, but not making any sense. Hello? Yeah, can you ask the patient what kind of pain she's having? She can't talk.

Starting point is 00:42:18 Okay, do you know... She's cracked her head and there's blood on the concrete and she's bleeding out of her left ear. Okay, she's bleeding out of her ear. And out of her head, she's sent to school. Okay. All right, did the other lady say that she had tried to stand up and fell down again?

Starting point is 00:42:35 No, I was holding her up. Okay. She told me to turn her list and she was trying to do his own, but then she fell back over. In the Lloyds of London report, Ellic claimed that Maggie had called him around 9.45 at work, and he said that he left work immediately and was able to get there before EMS.

Starting point is 00:42:54 But there are two issues with that. The EMS report says that they arrived at Moselle at 9.41, and just doing a quick Google search. If Ellic was at PMPED when he allegedly got this call, it would have taken him about 20 minutes to reach Moselle. In the meantime, the EMTs, according to the dispatcher, were coming from the Ruffin Station, which is about 15 minutes away at normal speed.

Starting point is 00:43:20 How was Ellic able to get there before EMS? Great question. Another question might be, was he already there? Given the inconsistencies in the nature of this case, we have to ask that. And also, this is Ellic Murdoch we are talking about. If we have learned anything during the murder trial, it's that he is really bad at alibis.

Starting point is 00:43:45 So why didn't the insurance company question this? Another thing that we found is that Ellic and Paul have different accounts of how Gloria was positioned when Ellic arrived, which could be important in the bigger puzzle here. According to his interview with Wallinger, Paul said that Gloria started throwing up, and so Ellic and Paul sat her up while they waited for EMS to arrive.

Starting point is 00:44:09 But according to Ellic, he arrived at Moselle and found Gloria sitting on the brick landing at the base of the steps. Maybe this is nothing, but remember during the 911 call when Paul said that he sat Gloria up and that's when she fell back down? Is it possible that Ellic was actually there at the time that the 911 call was placed?

Starting point is 00:44:30 And did anyone attempt to figure that out before handing over millions of dollars for a settlement that was based on a theory from a sketchy homeowner? And where did this dog theory come from exactly? Well, Ellic, of course. Reading this report again and seeing the same phrasing used and knowing what we know happened to Maggie and Paul, I honestly wonder if Ellic told Maggie and Paul

Starting point is 00:44:57 to lie to the insurance company. Why? Because this is the phrase that Wellinger wrote in two different sections of the report he wrote. Alex told me that he had heard from one or more of Satterfield's relatives, he cannot really recall, was that Satterfield had reported that the dogs tripped her up. Maggie said that the Satterfield's relatives told Maggie that the dogs tripped Gloria up.

Starting point is 00:45:25 So a couple things to note here. Notice that neither of them could say which relative actually said that. Notice that Wellinger never bothered to interview any member of Gloria's family, but instead he wrote a summary of Tony Satterfield's Facebook post. It's almost like maybe, just maybe, Ellic Murdoch told Maggie to tell the insurance company that Gloria's family believes this is how she died

Starting point is 00:45:55 as a way to apply pressure and get them to settle faster. And it worked. Further, in Wellinger's report, it says, I asked Maggie what she thinks happened in the incident and she believes one or more of the dogs got in Satterfield's way as Satterfield was coming up the steps. Paul remembers that his father Alex arrived and asked what happened and that Satterfield said something about dogs.

Starting point is 00:46:24 And now, those two people who said that are dead and the third person who said that has been convicted in their murders as well as dozens of other crimes. Satterfield died after several weeks of ups and downs in the hospital. She was never able to communicate what caused the fall that led to her death. And literally, just over a week after Gloria died, Ellic's best friend Corey Fleming sent Ellic a letter of intent to sue, which immediately kicked the insurance companies into action.

Starting point is 00:47:01 Now, a lot has happened since then. In 2019, Mallory Beach was killed in a bow crash that pulled Liz and I into a four-year investigation into the Murdoch family. During this investigation, I found a $500,000 settlement in the Satterfield case with Lloyds of London, the company that Wallinger worked for. The Satterfield family didn't know about this settlement until they stumbled on an article that I wrote.

Starting point is 00:47:31 That article made them start asking questions and adding to his mountain of pressure. Ellic murdered Maggie and Paul, the two main witnesses in the Satterfield insurance case, on June 7th, 2021, the same day that he was confronted by a P&P de-employee about stolen money. Ellic believed that the double homicide would get everyone off his back. But we made this podcast in June 2021

Starting point is 00:47:59 to ensure that a harsh spotlight didn't leave him until we got answers. In the summer of 2021, Tony Satterfield contacted Eric Bland and soon found out that Ellic not only stole every penny of the $500,000 settlement, but he stole an additional $4.3 million settlement that was signed in secret by Judge Carmen Mullen. All of this time, we were pesky. Tony Satterfield was pesky and Eric Bland was especially pesky. And in September of 2021,

Starting point is 00:48:33 a pesky Hampton County coroner named Angela Topper requested that Sled open an investigation into the death of Gloria Satterfield due to inconsistencies surrounding her death. Sled opened that investigation and it is still ongoing. To our knowledge, investigators have not exhumed her body, but Sled has asked for the family's permission and they agreed to it. Again, the most frustrating part of all of this is this. If just one person with a little authority would have been pesky back then,

Starting point is 00:49:06 back in 2018 and asked very basic questions about Gloria's death, then maybe, maybe it wouldn't be such a mystery to solve five years later. Her death was not reported to the coroner at the time, nor did officials perform an autopsy according to her death certificate. According to her death certificate, which was full of problems that should have been caught, her cause of death was listed as acute subdural hemorrhage, which is essentially a brain bleed. The manner of death was listed as natural.

Starting point is 00:49:39 From what we know about Gloria's death, her brain bleed appeared to have been caused by her injuries at Moselle, which seemed to be far from natural. According to documents during her fall, Gloria sustained a right-sided head laceration, a right-sided subdural hematoma, a traumatic brain injury, multiple left-side posterior rib fractures,

Starting point is 00:50:03 a partially collapsed lung and a pulmonary contusion. How does someone have rib fractures on the left side and head injuries on the other from a single fall backwards down a few stairs? How? And how is someone's death ruled as natural when it is caused by a brain bleed and surrounded by suspicious circumstances? Why wasn't anyone asking these questions before they handed Elick millions of dollars? We'll be right back.

Starting point is 00:50:47 Now, let's put all of this into context. In his testimony in Elick's murder trial, attorney Mark Tinsley talked about the pressures Elick would have felt from the boat crash lawsuit because ultimately the lawsuit would have led to Elick's alleged financial crimes being discovered. In December 2020, Mark had offered Elick a way out of the lawsuit and a way to protect Maggie and Paul. Mark was wary of Elick's ability to fix juries in Hampton County, so he held on to the possibility of later suing Maggie and Paul in Buford County,

Starting point is 00:51:19 where there is limited Marduk influence over the jury pool. If he had gotten any sense that Elick was up to no good, but Elick didn't take that offer. Mark testified that he found this strange, especially because Elick was an attorney and he would have understood how valuable that deal was. Tinsley believes that this is when Elick began toying with the idea of killing Maggie and Paul. This isn't that crazy of a theory because what we learned in trial is that Elick routinely sat on his alleged thefts.

Starting point is 00:51:50 He would allegedly have a check made out from client funds and then wait months and months before depositing them. That is a sign of someone who plans these things out. Now, knowing what we know about Elick, we have to ask the question, was Gloria's fall planned? Elick appears to have been in financial crisis around the time of Gloria's death. In 2017, he reported the lowest income he had earned in a decade. When you include both legitimately earned money and stolen money,

Starting point is 00:52:17 his gross income was around $316,000. 2017 was also the year when Elick was desperate enough to steal from his own brother. When he took a $120,000 check from PMPD, that was supposed to have gone to Randy. At that time, Elick owed more than $2 million on the Mosel property. He couldn't borrow money like he used to from Palmetto State Bank after they acquired the troubled Allendale Bank in 2015 because federal regulators were involved in that sale. Elick's options for quick cash were limited.

Starting point is 00:52:50 Just two months before Gloria's fall, the Nautilus umbrella policy, which ended up paying millions of the settlement, went into effect in January 2018. It's hard to tell if this policy was something that Elick already had in place and it was just renewing annually or if it was something he had just purchased. Elick was more than comfortable with his scheming by 2018, though, and he had fooled dozens of clients by then. Oh, and let's not forget, fooled his own law firm.

Starting point is 00:53:17 In 2018, Elick was also long familiar with a rumor that had been haunting him and his sons, which is that they had something to do with Stephen Smith's death. In other words, Elick could have been feeling some sort of heat at that time. Now that Elick is admitting to lying about the circumstances of Gloria's death, it's fair to demand answers about what really did happen. Elick Murdoch owes that to the Satterfield family at the very least. Now let's talk about the response Elick filed to Nautilus's lawsuit and the online buzz that's been surrounding it this week.

Starting point is 00:53:50 The idea that the Satterfields would have to give back money has no merit. First, Nautilus did not pay a dime to the Satterfield family, not now and not back then. Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter are legal malpractice attorneys. Their case against Elick, PMPED, Palmetto State Bank, Corey Fleming, and others, was based on Elick and Corey's alleged conspiracy to steal from clients. It was about bad lawyering and about all the people and agencies who Eric and Ronnie believe contributed to that conspiracy, whether knowingly or not. It was not about how Gloria died.

Starting point is 00:54:23 So for anyone out there saying that the Satterfields and Bland Richter need Gloria to have been killed by a fall, they are profoundly and fundamentally incorrect. And to anyone saying Eric has pivoted on this, going from saying that the dogs had nothing to do with it to now insisting that the dogs did it, check your facts. That does not at all represent reality. The question we have is why are people saying this? Why is it so important to some people to drag the Satterfields through the mud? What did the Satterfields do to deserve any of this vitriol?

Starting point is 00:54:54 They are not the bad guys in this. It is not their fault that Alex swindled them. But you know who might bear fault in this? Nautilus. Loids of London. And the lawyers who advocated for those large settlements. We get why they would have settled with Elick Murdoch back then because of the influence that Elick had over Hampton County juries was so widely known. It is even mentioned in the insurance report. But this is generations of that. Generations of insurance companies being forced into a corner to pay out large settlements

Starting point is 00:55:31 to avoid even larger jury awards. The system is rotten from inside out. How does that go on for generations? How did insurance companies and their lawyers remain complicit for so long? Had someone spoken up and put their foot down? Had someone said, it sounds like you're blackmailing us, Alec, then Nautilus would not be in this position right now. They can sue Elick all they want, but the truth is they bear responsibility for this too. Now after reading the Loids of London report again,

Starting point is 00:56:07 it is very clear how the insurance company was fooled by a prominent Hampton County attorney who they wouldn't expect to be a liar or a thief and certainly wouldn't expect to be a murderer. But after Elick's mask has been lifted and the world now knows who he really is, the report that led the insurance company to pay out the maximum in the Satterfield case is almost laughable. Wallinger spent several paragraphs talking about Elick's poor dogs, like their suspects, even mentioning their obedience training, despite the fact that there was no evidence that the dog did this, except for the Mardoc's word. Nowhere was he suspicious as to why an insured homeowner would be so eager to convince an insurance company

Starting point is 00:56:56 that he was liable for the death of his housekeeper. These insurance companies got played by Elick because no one was brave enough to say something isn't right here. Bank of America got played by Elick when they let him open two fake business accounts named Forge. Palmetto State Bank got played when they gave Elick the world's most lenient overdraft policy over and over again. This is why they were sued by the Satterfields and why they settled for so much. Their people didn't ask questions when they should have, just like elected officials should have asked questions before signing off under Rard Price's release, just like Parkers selling alcohol to Paul Mardoc. If you don't want to be played, you need to ask questions.

Starting point is 00:57:48 Asking questions makes it a whole lot harder for bad people to get away with bad things. And wow, do we have so many more questions coming their way. Stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight. The Murdoch Murders podcast is created and hosted by me, Manny Matney, produced by my husband, David Moses, and Liz Farrell is our executive editor. From Luna Shark Productions.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast - MMP #91 - Casually Cruel: What Happened to Gloria Satterfield?

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