Alex Murdaugh looking to rescind confession relating to housekeeper’s death

COLLETON COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - After admitting to stealing millions in settlement money from his former housekeeper’s family, convicted killer Alex Murdaugh is now looking to rescind a different admission: that he lied about the circumstances surrounding his housekeeper’s fatal fall.

Murdaugh is now petitioning the court to vacate the judgement because, according to the filings, if the insurance company that initially sent him the money obtains a judgment against him as they seek to retrieve it, “the only effect will be to reduce funds available to Mr. Murdaugh’s many other victims.”

Gloria Satterfield died after allegedly falling at the Murdaugh’s Colleton County property, Moselle, in 2018. Murdaugh represented Satterfield’s sons, Tony Satterfield and Brian Harriot, in a subsequent wrongful death suit.

He later confessed to stealing the settlement money from Nautilus, his insurance company and admitted to owing the Satterfield’s sons more than $4.3 million.

In May 2022, Nautilus filed a complaint against Murdaugh and other defendants stating that the information they received from him regarding this case was incorrect.

Murdaugh had maintained for years that “one of his dogs tripped her up or somehow caused her to fall,” according to court filings. In a response filed earlier this month, Murdaugh admitted his dogs’ involvement in Satterfield’s death was a lie.

The disgraced lawyer also admitted in that filing that the money from the settlement went to an account he owned rather than to the Satterfield family.

His lawyers say in a new filing Tuesday that Murdaugh’s lie and ultimate admission to said lie “is another chapter in a bleak and dispiriting story of a man brought to his knees by a crippling drug addiction, who also had the means and knowledge to effect great financial harm upon others to feed that addiction.”

They argue that by not nullifying the confession, Murdaugh’s other victims suffer because there is already a “limited pool of money,” as Nautilus is seeking to recover the $4.3 million he stole from Satterfield’s sons.

Eric Bland, an attorney representing the Satterfield family, called the motion “yet another filing in a long line of rolls of legal toilet paper.”

“Alex Murdaugh gave the judgment for reasons that only his counsel and him knew at the time in May 2022. Now they seem to be singing a different tune,” Bland says. “The very attorneys filing this frivolous motion advised Murdaugh to sign the confession of judgment they now seek to vacate.”

As it related to Murdaugh’s other victims, the disbarred attorney admitted during his criminal trial for the murders of his wife and son that he stole even more money from other clients. It’s unclear when he will go on trial for those charges.

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