Murdaugh Murders Podcast - What Happened To Hakeem Pinckney? Part One (S01E28)

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

Hakeem Pinckney was an inspiration. He spent his whole life overcoming the odds.  His hearing started deteriorating at a young age, but he never complained. In fact, he won a national championship in football when he was a senior at the SC School for the Deaf and Blind.  But when he was 19, he was in a horrific crash with three other family members that forever changed his life. For Hakeem, the injuries would leave him a quadriplegic dependent on a ventilator. In 2010, Alex Murdaugh, Corey Fleming and Palmetto State Bank's CEO Russell Lafitte began representing passengers of the vehicle accident, including Hakeem who was paralyzed but aware. But he persevered. His mother Pamela told us that he was improving before he died suddenly in 2011.  10 years later, Pamela learns that Murdaugh allegedly stole insurance money from the Pinckney family after the accident, and again from Hakeem's wrongful death settlement against his care facility after his ventilator was mysteriously "unplugged". In this episode, you'll hear the powerful voice of Hakeem's mother Pamela, from his former teacher, and from Justin Bamberg, who now represents at least 8 of the alleged victims of Alex Murdaugh. Justin's sights are set on justice, while Pamela just wants to know what happened to her son - something she never received from the first set of settlements. 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. And a special thank you to our sponsors: Cerebral, Betera, Aura Frames, Hunt-A-Killer, Bannon Law Group, Nature's Highway CBD, and others. 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 if anyone killed Hakim Pinkney, but I'm at a loss for words after hearing what Ellic Murdoch and his co-conspirators allegedly did to this man's family after he died. What I'm seeing looks like the Satterfield scheme but years earlier, and this time it was done to the family of a deaf quadriplegic man. My name is Mandy Matney, I've been investigating the Murdoch family for almost three years now, and this is the Murdoch Murders podcast with David Moses and Liz Farrell. So for starters, some breaking news.

Judge Allison Lee denied Ellic Murdoch's attorney's motion to reduce his bond on Tuesday. Ellic Murdoch's bond stays at $7 million, without the option to pay 10% of that. We need to talk about Hakim Pinkney. Out of all of the Murdoch stories that have come to light recently, this one hit me the hardest. As attorney Justin Bamberg showed me a paper trail of evidence that appeared to indicate that Corey Fleming, Palmetto State Bank and Ellic Murdoch stole from Hakim's family, I got really sad and taken aback.

Who steals from a deaf quadriplegic man's family, and just how evil are these people? Hakim Pinkney was an inspiration. He spent his whole life overcoming the odds. He's just a very energetic, very determined, very smart, intelligent, very bright, easy to catch on to anything. That's his mother, Ms. Pamela, who was kind enough to talk to us about her bright and beloved son, Hakim. At the age of three years old, we discovered that he had a severe, profound hair loss.

And at the age of three, he went to the audiologist and got testing and stuff done and they determined that he had a profound hair loss. But his hearing disability never got him down. He never was the type of child that would complain about anything. He would just, you know, just accept whatever comes his way and just deal with it. In middle school, his mother made the tough decision to send him to the South Carolina School for the Deaf and Blind in Spartanburg, which is several hours away from where he lived in the low country.

Debbie Dossie Davis, his teacher of ten years, told me that she remembers talking with Pamela when Hakim was in middle school and telling her that he would thrive in that environment. Oh my gosh, he was just, and he was so much fun. You know, always laughing and all the kids just, you know, they just loved being around each other, I think, too. And then when he got to the school for the deaf, it was just so many more deaf kids and it just helped his language, his ambitions, you know, sports, and he couldn't have excelled here in the public school setting with so few deaf kids.

And he did. His senior year, he won the National Deaf Football Championship and was recognized by the South Carolina State Senate. Hakim loved sports, especially football, and that national championship was one of the proudest moments of his life. But soon after he graduated high school, Pamela Pinkney, her son Hakim, and two other family members were in a horrific car accident that left them with serious injuries. However, for Hakim, the injuries would leave him paralyzed and fighting for his life on

a ventilator. He was conscious and could communicate, but was reliant on machines to keep him alive. Here is attorney Justin Bamberg, who is representing at least eight victims, including the Pinkney family. So back in August of 2019, Hakim's mother, Pamela, was driving. Hakim was in the car, his sister was in the car, his cousin was in the car, and everything was just a normal day. And then there was a tire tread separation on one of the tires that led to the car.

Flipping over and hitting some trees, and at that point, that's when life completely changed. And everybody was extremely hurt. It was a very, very bad accident. And unfortunately, Hakim suffered a very, very bad spinal cord injury that resulted in him becoming a quadriplegic. So he was unable to move anything from the neck down, couldn't breathe on his own, so he ended up having to be on a ventilator.

And he was in a very, very, very bad spot. Hakim was with his mother, sister, and a friend, and they were all injured badly, including Pamela, who was permanently injured in the crash. Pamela, one of her legs was pretty much destroyed, severe back injuries. It was one of those things, whenever there's a rollover, called wreck involving a rollover, you know, even if you had your seatbelt on, you're getting thrown around. And then when you impact the tree at a high rate of speed, it's just very jarring. So you're talking about broken bones, you're talking about lingering effects, surgeries,

things of that nature. So it was all in all, everybody was left completely different than they were before that accident happened. In 2010, Murdoch began representing multiple passengers in the accident, including Hakim, who was still alive at the time he hired Murdoch. Representation started relatively quickly. You know, this isn't a situation where, like, anybody was super close with Alec or anything like that.

I think there was a referral, like, hey, you might want to talk to Alec Murdoch. He ends up going and, you know, meeting with Ms. Pamela and everything like that, and then they kind of got things going. Alec then sent Ms. Pamela to Corey Fleming. Then Corey then began representing Pamela since she was the driver of the car. You know, technically speaking, passengers in the vehicle could make a claim against the driver. So it's not uncommon to see the cases separated out.

Yeah, Ms. Pamela was sent to Corey Fleming. Corey started representing her, and then Alec represented everybody else in the car. Corey Fleming's name should sound familiar to those following this podcast. So Corey Fleming is Buster Murdoch's godfather and Alec's best friend. Or maybe he's his former best friend. Real quick, though, I want to share this with you first just to show you how small the Murdoch circles are here in the Low Country and to give you a bit of a look at how different Corey's world looked before his bestie decided to fake a roadside murderer in September.

This past August, Mandy and I sat Corey with his wife and a member of the 14th Circuit Solicitor's Office at the outdoor bar of a popular seafood restaurant on Hilton Head Island. We were hanging out with a friend of ours in law enforcement who knew Corey. Mandy and I were sort of looking over at Corey and our friend was like, hey, you two meddling kids leave my boy Corey alone. At that point, Mandy and I already knew that Corey was potentially involved in some nonsense regarding the Satterfield case.

We just didn't know how bad it actually was. Anyway, it's amazing to both of us looking back how relaxed Corey seemed and how much fun he appeared to be having, given what we know now. And here's what we know. Corey seems to be the guy that Alec liked to send his alleged victims to when he himself couldn't represent the person. So the Satterfield family, Connor Cook, who felt like the Murdochs were setting him up for the boat crash.

And now, as we see here, Hakim Pinkney's mom. So Alec Murdoch and PMPED attorney Ronnie Crosby sued Michelin North America, the tire company, in a huge lawsuit that was filed in April of 2010 on behalf of Hakim's family. But Corey Fleming was representing Pamela, Hakim's mother who was driving. Then, Alec allegedly convinced Pamela Pinkney that she needed a banker to handle the financials of the lawsuit, which is when they appointed Russell Lafitte, CEO of Palmetto State Bank as the conservator over Hakim Pinkney's case. Again, this should sound familiar.

In the Satterfield settlement, Murdoch allegedly convinced the Satterfields that they should appoint another Palmetto State Bank employee to handle the money which was ultimately stolen. However, in the Pinkney case, it appears that Palmetto State Bank was more involved than they were in the Satterfield case. In order to understand, in part, why what went down is so problematic. You first have to understand what a conservator is. And in a situation where, let's say, somebody like Hakim, right, they're effectively incapacitated. They can't manage their own financial affairs and things like that, you have to have a conservator.

Somebody has to be over the money. Somebody has to be the person to step in and effectively be Hakim for Hakim. So when they pick Russell Lafitte, right, an experienced banker, he's not just a regular employee of the bank. He is an employee of the bank, but he's not just any employee, he's in upper management. He helps look at policies. He helps look at procedures. He oversees people who deal with loans and things like that, right, and collecting interest

from people that the bank loans money to. So when you see Russell Lafitte become conservator, you should be able to feel comfortable, like, oh, I've got a good conservator. I mean, Palmetto State Bank is a successful bank. They've been around for four or five generations. I'm going to be adequately protected here. Even if it doesn't happen, right, and A, a $60,000 conservative fee, you know, which part of this that doesn't make sense to me and is a red flag and the bank has to answer

for, is even if you were going to pay a conservative fee, why was it not payable to Russell Lafitte as conservator for Hakim Pantene or a PR fee, Russell Lafitte as PR for the estate of Hakim Pantene? That's not what happened. The $60,000 conservator fee was one of many red flags that Justin Bamberg discovered while looking into the Pinkney files. According to court documents, Hakim's lawsuit against the tire company settled on October 7th, 2011, and it was a big settlement.

Which is four days later, Hakim died on October 11th, 2011. You know, and I'm still investigating things, but apparently after this wreck, obviously Hakim was quadriplegic, he was on a ventilator, and at a certain point when you're in the hospital and you're effectively stable, you can't just stay in the hospital, right, ICU beds, things like that, those trauma units are needed for ongoing things, people who get hurt and you need to save their life. So at some point, he stabilized enough to be able to be transported to a nursing home and he ends up at Unihel, North Augusta, which is now Pruitt Health, North Augusta.

And this is a sad man, Ms. Pamela ends up, you know, getting a call that something happened with Hakim and everything like that, and, you know, she's talking with the doctors at the hospital. Now at this point, Hakim is in the hospital, he's not at the nursing home, and it's like what happened, you know, and the hospital tells her that apparently Hakim's ventilator somehow got unplugged, and it was at least 30 minutes before anybody found out. So we have to pause and think about this for a second. Hakim was in a long-term care facility, Pruitt Health, North Augusta, South Carolina, for

almost two years, and suddenly, right after his lawsuit was settled, that made Alec Murdoch and his buddies plenty of money legitimately. His ventilator wasn't plugged according to court records. This makes it even more crushing for Ms. Pamela and even pursuing this stuff, you know, like that is a strong, she is a strong woman because, you know, even me doing my job, I have to talk to her about certain stuff, and I know it's not easy for her to relive these moments, the saddest parts of her life, but when Hakim dies in that fashion, this is how much Ms. Pamela trusted Alec Murdoch so much that she hired him to represent her in the case against

the nursing home over the death of Hakim, and had no idea that he was stealing from her in the process, it's freaking disgusting. Are you hearing this? Alec Murdoch, the man who was at the center of several other death investigations, ended up benefiting from Hakim's mysterious death. We hope that it is a coincidence how Hakim died four days after the personal injury settlement, but we are looking into his death because there have been so few coincidences in this entire saga over the last three years.

But there are a few details available about Hakim's death. What we know is that Hakim's ventilator was unplugged at Pruitt Health, North Augusta, which is also known as UNI Health post-acute care, a long-term care facility that has been sued many times for not meeting an adequate standard of care. According to an affidavit signed by a nurse practitioner who reviewed medical records in the case, the type of ventilator Hakim was on should have sounded off alarms to notify nursing staff that he was not receiving oxygen. The nurse practitioner testified that the nursing staff at Pruitt Health, North Augusta, deviated

from standard of care. In 2014, a lawsuit was filed by attorney Lee Cope, a lawyer at PMPED. However, just like the Gloria Satterfield Settlement, employees from LX Office filed several pieces of important paperwork in the lawsuit. Justin is still investigating Hakim's death and death settlement. We don't know whether or not money was stolen there. And they do sue the nursing home, and there is a settlement, a wrongful death settlement over that.

And I'm still waiting to get all the paperwork. I'm looking into that. I want to make sure that these people get everything that they're supposed to get. You know, Ms. Pamela, you know, the memory of Hakim, everybody tied to that one case, but all my clients, you know, Mr. Bush, Mr. Anderson, everybody, everything's got to get looked at. Everything's got, I don't care if it's $5. If somebody made a $5 error on a piece of paperwork, I want that $5 back to these people.

Remember, none of the people who LX stole from knew about it at the time. Because of the way lawsuit payments are typically set up. Lawyers are in a position of trust and have a duty to make decisions that are in their client's best interest. Part of that means maximizing the financial outcome while also protecting their client's assets moving forward. So structuring a settlement is a way to do that. When a settlement is structured, the money doesn't go to the law firm.

And that's been the giveaway in a lot of LX cases, because that's where the money seemed to go. In normal circumstances, the settlement money is instead sent directly from the insurance companies to a broker who purchases a life insurance policy that pays the client an annuity. And we'll be right back. So many dominoes had to fall in order for Justin Bamberg to get the truth about Hakeem's case. Fast forward, we're talking about the wreck happening in 2009.

In 2011, actually October 11th of 2011, that's when Hakeem passed away. And there was also a settlement in the underlying tire case that year. You get 2012, boom, boom, boom, so on. Obviously then everything starts coming out. Attorney Eric Gland and his team are exposing certain stuff with regards to what went on with Fatterfield, PMPED, Sue's, Alec, all of this is transpiring. And now everybody's looking back in time, so to speak. These indictments come down, eventually Ms. Pamela gets called in to the firm, PMPD

calls her in, to their credit, you've got to get credit where credit is being, to their credit, they do inform her and they're straight up with her, that there was a check that raised their red flag. That would be the $89,000 check that was written from Corey Fleming's firm, from their trust account payable to PMPD. That went to Alec, I guess, into the trust account at the firm with Palmetto State Bank and then a check was written from the trust account at the firm payable to Forge and ended up in those Forge accounts.

As they were digging through the file, they also saw some other stuff. She was made aware that it was $309,000 in some change that apparently she was supposed to get, but nobody knew where the money went. In total, Justin said that he's found that Alec and his co-conspirators stole around a million dollars from Hakim's family. Justin told me that Pamela Pinkney only went to him for help because of a conversation she had with a PMPED attorney about Palmetto State Bank. And I think the kicker here, and obviously there's certain things that I can't talk about

because of, you know, attorney-client conversations, things of that nature, but obviously we're in a situation where Ms. Pinkney and her family, they need to be reimbursed. They need to receive all the money that they were supposed to get a decade ago. And then one, Mandy, someone had a conversation with the president of Palmetto State Bank about the need for these people to be reimbursed and that, you know, the bank needed to contribute to the pot. The bank's stance was that they were going to look at it, as I understand it, they were going to look at everything and look at contributing to the reimbursement pot, but they wanted

a release signed. And this was relayed to the folks on my end, you know, now the person who was relaying this information did make it clear, you know, hey, the bank, they want a release, you don't have to sign it, but they do want one. And that really made the family nervous. Like, why do I need to sign a release or anything like that to get my own money back? And then now we're here. So, the question is why do they do that?

I think what's happening here is called conflict avoidance. It's kind of like here on Hilton Head, there are signs on the beach that say no drinking, but that rule is rarely enforced. The signs are effective, though, because the vast majority of people obey the law. So in this case, with the bank, it seems like they were betting that people would sign these documents and never think of suing them. And I heard about, you know, hey, the bank's looking at contributing, but they want a release, yada, yada, yada.

I'm like, that's a no-fly zone. You know, not only does the bank not have the right to ask for anything for contributing to giving these people their money back, for the bank to even mention the idea of someone having to sign away their rights in order to get their own money back is just indicative of what we see. That's how I view it. It's indicative of what we see, which is some shadiness that went down, you know, and that's on the bank.

You know, the firm, PMPED, they didn't ask for the release, you know, it was just brought up like the bank wants one, but this would have all transpired, I believe, during December. So in December, we dropped our first episode on PMPED and how they were allegedly mistreating L.A. Murdoch's victims and not handling those cases appropriately. Justin Bamberg, who is representing eight victims in this case, said that the firm attempted to take legal fees on cases where money was stolen and offered victims less money than what was owed to them. After that episode aired, Fitz News first reported that in the final two days of 2021, attorneys

at PMPED did something rather strange, seemingly all at once, a group of them registered a litany of new businesses with the South Carolina Secretary of State's office. Eight attorneys, including Alex's brother, Randy, created professional corporations in their own names. And one of those attorneys, Danny Henderson, a longtime member of the firm, submitted paperwork to create Parker Law Group LLP, listing himself as the registered agent. Parker is the last name of one of the firm's most feared, powerful, and wealthiest partners, Johnny Parker.

It still isn't fully clear what is happening here, but it's likely the first step into a future without the Murdoch name overtly attached to the firm. Some have speculated that it's an attempt for the firm to move their assets away from the alleged victims, but all the new quote-unquote businesses are registered to the same Mulberry Street address where the PMPED offices are located, which means that if they're trying to say PMPED who, never heard of them, we're the Parker Law Group. These are our gold coins. It's not going to work, at least not according to what we're being told.

Another theory here is that the PMPED attorneys are setting up separate legal entities in their own names so that moving forward, they will not be responsible for each other's malpractice claims, like now. In this case, it sounds like PMPED attorneys weren't handling the situation as they should have, which is how Justin got involved. What happens is Ms. Pamela receives a copy of some documents from MKF, Corey Fleming's firm. I start looking through everything and sometimes going through paperwork and checks and numbers

is dizzying, especially when you know something was missing, but you're trying to recreate and figure out exactly what happened. One of the first things that I saw was in looking at Corey Fleming's disbursement sheet. I'm like, why is there an $89,000 check being written in 2017 when the money was received in 2011? And that itself was a red flag, but then my question was, well, hell, if this is Ms. Pamela's money and Corey was Ms. Pamela's lawyer, why didn't he just call her in and give her for $89,000?

Why was this even made payable to PMPED in the first place? And why was it sent to Ali? Like obviously if Corey never sends that check to Ali, that money never disappears. So it just didn't make any sense in looking at everything. There were pretty substantial legal fees earned on Corey's side in that case, but I also saw there was a $150,000 check made payable to PMPED, you know, presumptively also given to Ali that didn't really make sense to me, you know what I mean, because if Corey Fleming was representing Pamela and Corey Fleming's law firm earned X amount in legal fees, none

of that legal fee money, and I don't know that this is the case. I don't know why there was a $150,000 payment. But if it was some sort of, hey, Ali, thanks for sending this case and we made all this money, here's $150,000 for your troubles, I don't know, but it shouldn't be happening. And if it is, all of that needs to be explained to the client, right, and obviously it wasn't. So that's kind of how it starts. Well then I go through, you know, we can start looking at some other documents. Justin had a light bulb moment when he found out that Russell Lafitte, the bank CEO himself,

was the conservator in this case. So obviously I'm looking for checks. I know that there was money paid to young master conservator, for example, you know, you see on the disbursement sheet, a $60,000 payment for conservator fee, quote unquote. So I'm looking for a check, payable to Russell Lafitte as conservator for the estate of Hakeem Payton. But I don't find that. What I do find is a $60,000 check written on P&PBD's client trust account at Palmetto

State Bank, payable directly to the order of Palmetto State Bank. And I'm like, we've got a problem here. So then I go and I'm looking and I say, okay, here's a sheet says client fund disbursement Hakeem Cash. So I'm looking for a check made payable to the estate of Hakeem Payton or payable to Pamela Payton or something like that. And I don't see that either. So I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking, and then boom, it's right there.

It's a $309,000 check written after Hakeem had already died payable directly to Palmetto State Bank. And it makes no sense whatsoever because when that check was written and when that check was cast, Hakeem had died months before that. That is a big deal. That check in itself puts Palmetto State Bank on the hook for this mess. Another light bulb went off in Justin's head. This whole thing sounds exactly like the Gloria Satterfield settlement with Alec Murdoch,

Corey Fleming and Palmetto State Bank. So there would be zero reason to take that and put it into some account at Palmetto State Bank because that money now has to go to his mama. She never got it, you know, Mandy. And I think what we saw and what Eric uncovered in the Satterfield case was, you know, Chad Wessendorf, the vice president of the bank, got approval from us on the feet to get involved in the Satterfield case and to be the PR. And there was a PR fee that was paid, but that I believe was paid directly to Chad Wessendorf,

like as a person. Well, 10 years before, what we're seeing with the Pinkney case is this money was paid directly to Palmetto State Bank. And they're in the middle of this. And at the end of the day, you know, they're going to have to answer for this. And said from everything he's seeing, this appears to be a pattern. There's definitely a pattern. And you know, it makes me wonder, all right, checks made payable to Palmetto State Bank,

Russell Lafitte, the PR, the conservator. And then at some point, Alex starts using fords, these accounts he created with Palmetto State Bank and YD switch, like what led to him creating those fake accounts. Justin Bamberg was horrified when he made this discovery. You know, it's so prior to actually looking at any documents, I want to get to, you know, get to know Hakeem, the story, Ms. Pamela, what she went through, you know, what the process was like, how she feels, you know, who is your son? You know, obviously I go and I see certain things that really made me happy to see, you

know, for example, like the idea that Hakeem lost his ability to hear and he overcame in life and ended up winning the national championship in football. Yes, awesome. I see that. I see that the South Carolina Senate honored the South Carolina School for the death and blood and the football team that Hakeem played on the year before the red. I see that and I'm like, that's dope. And then when I see what was done to him by a people who owed him a duty to, in the worst

time of his life, the worst time of his mom's life, I see that he just stolen from and it's Alec Murdoch, you know, whose family has been wealthy for four or five generations. And then I see that that a bank worth $700 million is getting money that was supposed to go to him and that the president of the bank who's supposed to be protecting this man is like not doing his job. Like it made me really sad. Something else struck me as a part of this pattern which resembles the Satterfield Settlement missing documents.

The order approving Hakeem's wrongful death settlement was filed last week on January 13th, 2022. But that order was signed by a judge in 2016. Why did they suddenly file something after Hakeem's story came to light in the media? Oh, and another similarity to the Satterfield case. Even after a wrongful death case settled, the family still has no answers. Everybody want to know, but we just haven't had that answer yet. Opposite this dating, Hakeem never really told me what happened to my son.

All he did he told me is his son took a turn for the worse and that's all he told me. He never told me exactly what happened. Now remember, a lot of people file lawsuits for reasons other than money. A lot of times people file lawsuits to get answers and accountability. Think about it. Lawyers have the power to subpoena for documents and camera footage and they can depose people and get answers where regular citizens and journalists just can't. Ms. Pamela said what so many grieving parents have told me after they filed wrongful death

lawsuits. It's not about the money. When I asked Ms. Pamela if she wanted an investigation into Hakeem's death, she didn't hesitate to say yes. She wants to know how this happened. She wants to know who was on duty. She wants to know if the alarm went off on his ventilator, did somebody mindfully ignore it?

What happened? Let's pause here for a moment and think about the mess that Ellic has created, whether he is guilty or not. Pamela Pinkney, a mom who was behind the wheel when the wreck occurred, a wreck that left her son with no ability to move or even breathe on his own, who then later died as a result of negligence or worse, has had 10 years to grieve and heal and navigate her pain. And all of a sudden gets yanked back in time through no fault of her own. Because Ellic allegedly did what he did, so many victims are now having to face the fact

that they were taken advantage of. And so many victims like Pamela are having to relive and think about what is likely the worst time of their lives. This isn't just about the money that was allegedly stolen. It's about the emotional terrorism that Ellic's alleged misdeeds have caused. In the last month, Ms. Pamela has had to deal with another stage of grief she never anticipated. Betrayal. I mean, to totally be honest about it, the way I feel is like I just got the news that

my son just passed away and I'm just going through the motion all over again. That's just how deep the pain is, but it's two times harder because I'm going through it on a second phase again. You know, I never thought I would have to relive this again. I thought I could just put my past behind me and press forward and move on with my life. But it's just so complicated to know that you put your trust and your emphasis on someone that says they have your best interest. Look you in your face, tell you and your entire family that you have our best interest.

You don't have anything to worry about. You got us 100% and then you go and you steal from us, even though you got paid through legal fees and all this to work the case, you turn around and you steal on top of that from the family. And my son is deceased. That really tears me apart little every day. And what really tears both Justin and I apart is that it took so much for Miss Pamela to find out the truth about her attorney, Ellick Murdock, and what really happened with their

money. It made me feel really bad to see that, you know, and it made me wonder like, what if you hadn't been covering all of this for all this time? What if Eric hadn't fought for the Santa Fields the way that he did, right? What if no one ever found out? What if no one ever found out? You know, and you think about how Hakeem passed away, you know, in the ventilator being unplugged and all of that, and it's like, damn, like could that money have made a difference?

I don't know, you'll never know. But the fact that these people had lived through some very trying times, they never gave up. Hakeem never, until he took his last breath, this young man never gave up, and his mom never gave up. You're supposed to have a lawyer fighting for you that never gives up, and you're supposed to have a conservator and a PR fighting for you that never gives up. And it looks like the bank and Ellick Murdock and Russell Lafitte in that instance were fighting for themselves, not him.

You know, so initially, yeah, Mandy, it was almost tearing up over sadness, and then it was like a switch flip, and I got angry. And we'll be right back. When you look at this case in its entirety, it's truly disgusting behavior. It's rich people who have had all the privilege and power they could ever need stealing from vulnerable people who desperately needed that money. Ms. Pamela told me that Hakeem's condition was actually improving around the time he died.

She had plans to bring him home, and as a kid who never complained, she knew her son hated that facility. Yes, at one point, they was weaning him off the vent, he got off the vent, he'd been off the vent for like, a couple of hours a day, he was doing good. Every detail of this story is gut-wrenching, and the wreckage goes far beyond a financial crime. Just think about it, right? Like, Hakeem dies on October 11th of 2011.

Okay? These checks that were payable to Pimento State Bank were written after that. Everybody knew he died a horrible death. Can you imagine being Hakeem, and this is what makes me angry. Can you imagine being Hakeem, and your ventilator is unplugged, and you're sitting there, and you can't talk, and you can't move, and you can't hear, but you're suffocating? Oh, it gets me so upset to think about and put myself in his body in that moment, and to know that his mom has to think about that too.

And then, you steal her money, and then in 2017, you've got more money that's supposed to go to her. Not that money fixes any of this, right? Money doesn't fix any of it. She would rather have her son than have a penny of money, right? All these people who went through these horrible, horrible accidents, and got hurt, and I had to have my back fused, I'd rather have a good back than have money. You see what I'm saying?

And in this situation, Mandy, she has to come to grips with the fact that my son will never be the same, and now my son is gone, and all I can get is money, and she's got to come to grips with that. I've done wrongful death cases, right, and it is hard as the lawyer to talk to the client about the value of life in terms of settling a case, or in terms of a defendant paying money like it actually makes things better. It doesn't make things better. It's the system that we have, right?

It's our only option. For Corey Fleming, Alec, a metal state bank, to know all of this and not do things the right way to give them every penny of what they're supposed to get, it is infuriating. It is disgusting. It is heartbreaking. It's cold. It's callous. People forget that at the end of the day, and I don't, you know, people believe different

things, me personally, I'm a Christian. I have strong beliefs in that regard, and I try to live my life a certain way. Every knee shall bow at the end of the day, and it feels like people ain't thinking about that. You know, bow shall not kill. Don't steal. Do what the others you have them doing to you, and even if you don't believe in anything, you still want to be a decent person, you know, and if you would steal money from somebody

in Hakeem's position, what wouldn't you do? That's what I've been thinking about. What wouldn't you do? Because that's cold. That is cold as hell to do that. At the end of the day, Ms. Pamela wants the world to remember her son, Hakeem Pinkney, for the strong, inspiring man he was before his life was suddenly taken. The impact that he put on people's lives, meaning that there's no limitation on whatever

kind of disability that you may have in life, that the sky is the limit. You can do whatever you want to do, you just put your mind to it. Ms. Pamela misses her son every single day. I just miss him being here, his presence. I just miss him just being here to help do things, I mean, because if you see someone doing something and he can do it, he'll tell you, stop, let me do it, and you sit down, I got this. That was the type of kid he always was.

While this story makes most of us, myself included, filled with rage and anger, Ms. Pamela, amazingly, has no room for hate in her heart. But, you know, one thing that I want to say is that my heart is pure, my conscience is clear, I don't have any grudges, I don't hate Alex Murdoch, I forgive him because the Christian walk that I have in my life, and I'm a God-fearing woman, so if I love God, I have to forgive him, and I forgive him for everything that he has caused me and my family to go through physically, mentally, emotionally. I have to forgive him, but I can never forget this.

According to our sources, we expect charges to be filed against Alec in the Hakeem pinking case sometime soon. On the civil side of the law, Bamberg is still weighing options before filing lawsuits in the case. When I expect the pinking family to get reimbursed for the money that was taken, if someone bucks and doesn't want to do what has to be done, then yeah, we'll sue them, and we're going to let Hampton County and the citizens living there, the 12 that end up on the jury, we'll let them hold them accountable.

And I think that is one of the scariest things. If I'm on the other side, that's one of the scariest things. Do you want to be a bank or a lawyer or a firm who, you know, the Murdoch family, the Lepeit family, right? They've been empowering and wealthy for five generations, like that when most of the people who live in Hampton or Bamberg County, like, couldn't even go to schools that had good textbooks or, you know, you couldn't get along to build something. You didn't have access to any of that because you were a minority, right?

Or because you were deemed to be a lower class white person, right? You don't want to be sitting in the defendant chair letting 12 people who know history determine how much they need to award to punish you and to deter other people from doing what the defendant did. But again, to each his own, we're open, me and my clients, they're open lines of communication. And, you know, I think that some folks will do the right thing here. But if somebody doesn't, it's going to be what it's going to be. So relevant right now, we're hearing from sources that Alex Coe conspirators will be

indicted soon, too. Will we see Corey Fleming and Russell LePheit in handcuffs? Corey had his law license suspended this past fall and was fired by his law firm after he was exposed in the media. And earlier this month, Russell LePheit was suspended by the bank's board of directors then fired a few days later. Another question we have. At what point do the feds start filing charges?

Surely they're going to play some role. Now there is so much more related to Hakim's story that we can't fit into one episode. And much of the story has yet to come out. And it's not just another case and a long list of crimes associated with this saga. Each of the victims matter. And we plan to share Hakim and Pamela's story until each layer is peeled back and justice is delivered. Stay tuned.

The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Manny Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Our executive editor is Liz Farrell, produced by Luna Shark Productions.