Insurance money missing after 2018 Murdaugh housekeeper death, lawsuit says
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Alex Murdaugh Coverage
The Murdaugh family saga has dominated the news after another shooting, a resignation and criminal accusations — with Alex Murdaugh at the center of it all. Here are the latest updates on Alex Murdaugh.
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A new lawsuit has been brought against Alex Murdaugh, the Lowcountry lawyer whose wife and son were murdered this summer.
The suit, filed in Hampton County state court, alleges Murdaugh and two other men were part of an arrangement that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance proceeds being wrongfully withheld from the heirs of a longtime housekeeper who died in a fall at Murdaugh’s house in February 2018.
Brian Harriot and Tony Satterfield, who filed the lawsuit, are the sons and heirs of Murdaugh housekeeper and nanny Gloria Satterfield.
So far, the sons said, they have not received “one dime” of the $505,000 that they learned that Lloyds of London paid out to in insurance proceeds in the death of their mother, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit seeks an accounting of all money received from the Lloyds of London payout in Satterfield’s death.
Jim Griffin, a lawyer for Murdaugh, said he has not yet seen the lawsuit and had no comment Wednesday afternoon.
SLED opens new Murdaugh investigation
On Wednesday, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division announced it was opening a criminal investigation into Satterfield’s death, when the Hampton County coroner told investigators the death was never reported to her office or an autopsy performed.
Alex Murdaugh accepted responsibility for the death, the lawsuit alleged.
Satterfield was a maid, nanny and housekeeper who worked for the Murdaughs more than 20 years until she was injured in a fall at Murdaugh’s home in February 2018. Satterfield died shortly thereafter at the age of 57.
“Gloria was told she was part of the Murdaugh family, and she believed it to be true,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit also names as defendants two associates of Murdaugh’s who were given the responsibility of collecting the $505,000 insurance payment from Lloyds of London for Satterfield’s death.
Those two other defendants are Beaufort lawyer Cory Fleming and Chad Westendorf, a vice president at Palmetto State Bank, a bank in Hampton.
Neither Fleming nor Westendorf could be reached Wednesday afternoon.
When he admitted responsibility for Satterfield’s death, Murdaugh told the Satterfield sons that he, Fleming and Westendorf would make sure the sons got their proper payment from the insurance proceeds, the lawsuit alleged.
Months after Satterfield’s death, Fleming and his firm collected attorney fees of $166,000 for work on their case, the suit alleges. But the Satterfield sons have so far received nothing, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit said that the two sons have no idea what happened to the rest of the money — some $338,000.
As time went on, the Satterfield sons learned that Fleming, whom Murdaugh chose, was “a former college roommate of Alex Murdaugh and was his best friend,” as well as the godfather of Murdaugh’s late son Paul, the lawsuit says.
Fleming appointed Westendorf, a vice president at Palmetto State Bank in Hampton, to act as the personal representative of Satterfield’s estate with the power to ask a court to approve any settlement, rather than one of Satterfield’s sons, the lawsuit said.
Satterfield’s sons also learned that Murdaugh, Fleming and Westendorf had previously had a relationship “for other legal matters.” The lawsuit did not give details of those other legal matters.
A personal representative such as Westendorf has substantial power to negotiate a settlement and help set the rules regarding payouts, the lawsuit says.
The Satterfield sons “did not participate in the settlement negotiations,” the lawsuit says.
“Neither Tony, nor Brian, signed any settlement agreements. Neither Tony, nor Brian were told that money was recovered for them,” the lawsuit said.
The suit asserts the two men only learned that money had been recovered on their behalf when it was reported in the press.
“To date, the children of Gloria Satterfield have not received the first dollar (from the settlement),” the lawsuit said.
Specifically, the two sons allege that Murdaugh, Westendorf and Fleming formed a civil conspiracy “combined together for the purposes of injuring (the) Plaintiffs.”
Lawsuit comes amid Murdaugh suicide scheme
Satterfield’s sons also seek “an accounting of any and all funds recovered” and any ... other claim, action or settlement involving the death of their mother or the Estate of Gloria Satterfield,” the lawsuit said. “Plaintiffs have never received an accounting from any Defendant.”
Satterfield’s death was classified as a “wrongful death,” and under state law, insurance proceeds paid out to survivors, heirs and others are supposed to be approved by a circuit judge, the lawsuit said.
However, no order approving the awards in Satterfield’s death were ever entered on the pubic court docket, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit comes on the heels of a bizarre series of events in which Murdaugh, a powerful attorney from one of the county’s top legal families, told police he was shot on a rural county road on Sept. 4. Murdaugh has since told investigators he hired a man to shoot him in an effort to kill himself and collect insurance money for his son.
Murdaugh had been fired from his law firm after partners claimed he was responsible for millions of dollars that went missing from the firm. Murdaugh has not been charged with a crime.
In June, Murdaugh’s wife Maggie and 22-year-old son Paul were found shot to death on the family’s property. Their killings, and a related shocking series of events, have gripped the state but no arrest for the killings has been made.
Lawyers for Satterfield’s sons include Eric Bland and Ronald Richter. The suit was filed in Hampton County.
News of the lawsuit was first reported by the Charleston Post and Courier.
Editor’s Note: An earlier headline on this story implied the suit only related to Alex Murdaugh. It has been updated to show that the suit alleges Murdaugh and two other men were part of an arrangement that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance proceeds being wrongfully withheld from the heirs of a longtime housekeeper who died from injuries received in a fall at Murdaugh’s house in February 2018.
This story was originally published September 15, 2021 at 3:59 PM with the headline "Insurance money missing after 2018 Murdaugh housekeeper death, lawsuit says."
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