Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has now admitted, through his lawyers' court filing, "he invented the critical facts" about the family dogs tripping housekeeper Gloria Satterfield in a fatal fall down the stairs.
"No dogs were involved in the fall of Gloria Satterfield on Feb. 2, 2018," a court filing obtained by the New York Post read. "After Ms. Satterfield's death, [Murdaugh] invented Ms. Satterfield's purported statement that dogs caused her to fall to force his insurers to make a settlement payment."
Sentenced to life in prison, Murdaugh was convicted earlier this year of having shot his wife and son in 2021, and now there are ties to other potential crimes being revealed.
Murdaugh's dog story was used to explain the death of the family housekeeper in February, 2018, claiming the dogs tripped her and caused her to fall down the stairs to her death at the South Carolina estate.
The story helped Murdaugh collect $3.8 million in insurance for Satterfield's sons, having told them to sue him for having liability for their mother's death, but Murdaugh told the sons the settlement failed and he pocketed the money.
Nautilus Insurance sued Murdaugh and alleged co-conspirator Cory Fleming last May, according to the report.
The recent filing obtained by the Post had Murdaugh claiming he acted alone and Satterfield's sons had no knowledge of the insurance fraud. The Satterfield family was awarded more than $7.5 million for the payments stolen by Murdaugh.
"If Nautilus never should have made any payment to the Satterfield estate and only attempted to do so because it was the victim of fraud, then the parties in possession of a recovery of the money allegedly stolen from Nautilus are necessary parties to an action by Nautilus," the lawyers claimed in the filing.
The Satterfield estate attorneys stopped short of not believing Murdaugh on anything, though.
"Seems there is buzz because liar Alex now says he allegedly made up the story that Gloria Satterfield didn't fall down Moselle stairs by his dogs," attorney Eric Bland tweeted.
"Since when did Alex become the modicum of honesty and credibility."
Also, the $7.5 million the Satterfield estate received did not come from Nautilus, he added.
"Additionally, we recovered money for our clients from parties other than Nautilus for breaches of their duties to our clients and other claims," added.
"Technically the money that Nautilus paid never came to our clients."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.