The Murdaugh Family Murders Part 2

On June 7, 2021, Alex Murdaugh came home to his large property in Colleton County, South Carolina to find his wife, 52-year-old Maggie and his youngest son, 22-year-old Paul, dead from multiple gunshot wounds. The Murdaughs were a powerful and prominent family throughout the low country of South Carolina and the murders of Maggie and Paul made national news. Unfortunately, the significant media attention shed a bright spotlight on the Murdaugh family and their suspicious involvement in multiple deaths and the theft of millions of dollars. Throughout multiple investigations, law enforcement and the media have uncovered lies on top of lies that proved the Murdaughs weren’t only powerful and prominent; they had been above the law and used their name to cover-up countless crimes without any remorse. However, the question remained…who targeted Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, and most concerning, was it their own husband and father?

For part one, click here!

Stephen Smith

On Wednesday, July 8, 2015, around 4AM, a driver called 911 and told the dispatcher that he saw a man laying in the middle of Sandy Run Road in Hampton County. He was concerned that someone was going to hit him. The caller did not stop. When officers arrived on scene, they found 19-year-old Stephen Smith laying dead in the middle of the road. He had a seven inch gash on the right side of his forehead, with that side of his head caved in. First responders initially believed that the man was a victim of a homicide and had died from a GSW to the head. Once they identified the victim as Stephen, they found his vehicle parked on the side of the road a few miles away. The car was out of gas and the gas cap was hanging off. His wallet was still in the car, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary.

First responders called SLED since they believed the cause of death to be a GSW. SC State Highway Patrol also responded. On scene, SLED and Hampton County PD decided that the death must’ve been a homicide and released HP. Then, the pathologist who performed Stephen’s autopsy, ruled that the death was a result of a hit and run. This sent the case back to HP’s jurisdiction. HP was very confused as to what indicated that the death was from a hit and run. There was no evidence on scene to indicate that a vehicle struck Stephen. No skid marks, no vehicle debris, no glass. Nothing. Stephen’s body had no abrasions, no torn clothing, his shoes were still on his feet, and he still had his cell phone and car key in his pocket. In June of 2021, Todd Proctor, a former SC HP investigator said that it appeared as though Stephen’s body had been placed in the middle of the road.

During the autopsy, the pathologist determined that Stephen’s death was due to blunt head trauma from a motor vehicle crash. He had a large, deep laceration along the right side of his forehead, along with bruises on his forehead. The right side of his skull had multiple fractures and bruises. He had several small cuts on his head, the inside of his left arm, his right hand, and a six inch “irregular cut” on the inside of his right arm. He also had a dislocated right shoulder and blood in his airway. The pathologist ruled that Steven had died as a result of being struck by a vehicle.

After the SCHP was handed the investigation, one of their sargeants attempted to contact the pathologist to understand why she ruled it as a pedestrian struck. He said that he was told by her that it didn’t look like a bullet wound and there were no fragments found during the x-ray. She told him that since his body was found in the roadway, she theorized that it had to be a vehicle that caused his death. The pathologist said that she did not find any glass fragments or other evidence that might’ve been left by a vehicle. The sergeant asked her again, why she was ruling it as a motor vehicle accident and what she believed caused the head injury, to which she responded that it was his job to figure that out, not hers. The theory was that Stephen was walking home after running out of gas and was struck by the mirror of a semi-truck.

Stephen’s mother, Sandy, said that there was no way that her son would’ve started walking home in the middle of the night. He was only six miles from his house and had his cell phone. Sandy said that he would’ve called someone and that her son was smarter than that. Additionally, his tox screen did not show anything that indicated impairment. Stephen lived at home with his mother and his twin sister, Stephanie. The two said that he was funny, intelligent, sassy, and the life of the party. He and his sister were very close and spent lots of time together. She said that his hair and outfit always had to be perfect. Stephen was openly gay in the small town, which brought its own difficulties. His family was incredibly supportive and Sandy said she was so proud of her son. His favorite thing to say was “I am who I am and God made me, and God don’t make mistakes.” Stephen had plans to get out of Hampton, specifically to get his nursing degree and work his way up to becoming a doctor. He wanted to be able to go overseas and help take care of children who didn’t have access to medical attention.

Three days later, Stephen’s family held his wake. They chose to leave his casket open so people could see what had been done to him. Police interviewed an older man who called himself Stephen’s boyfriend, though Sandy and Stephanie didn’t believe him. The man said that Stephen was harassed in Hampton County and that he was being harassed on the night he died at Snider’s Crossroads by what the man described as “redneck in a big truck with big mud tires.” His family was very skeptical of this man’s testimony, as he openly admitted to having brain damage from significant drug use. They said that Stephen had been more secretive lately and had been coming home later than usual. Police asked if any lawyers had contacted them about Stephen’s case. Stephanie said that just after the coroner called her father to tell him of Stephen’s death, Randy Murdaugh, Alex’s brother, called him to offer to take Stephen’s case, free of charge. Stephen’s dad was very skeptical of this.

The first time that Stephanie went out in public after her brother’s death, several people came up to her and asked her if she’d heard that the Murdaugh boys did it. They said that they’d heard that Buster and some of his friends had killed Stephen. Stephanie knew of Buster, since they all attended the same school, but didn’t see any reason why Buster would have hurt her brother. Sandy also told investigators that she’d been hearing the same rumors about the Murdaugh boy being behind her son’s death. In fact, the SCHP heard the Murdaugh name come up multiple times during their investigation into Stephen’s death. They couldn’t seem to pinpoint where the rumors had started. They attempted to call Buster once, but were unable to reach him. I couldn’t find any other information that showed that they attempted to speak with him any further. The family, of course, denied any involvement. There were also rumors that Buster perhaps was engaged in a relationship with Stephen. This rumor was also never able to be substantiated. The case grew cold and it didn’t seem like Stephen’s family would ever have closure. However, in 2021, SLED reopened the investigation into the murder of Stephen Smith. They said they reopened it due to information found while investigating the murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, but have not been more specific about what the information was.

Oh, There’s More…

You might be thinking, wow, that’s a LOT! But reporters continued to dig into the Murdaugh family and found yet ANOTHER mysterious death. At 9:28AM, on Friday, February 2, 2018, Maggie Murdaugh called 911 and told them that her housekeeper had fallen, that her head was bleeding and she couldn’t get her up. 57-year-old Gloria Satterfield had worked as a housekeeper for the Murdaugh family for over 20 years. During the 911 call, Maggie told the dispatcher that Gloria had fallen down while climbing up eight brick steps outside of the Murdaugh home. She was lying at the bottom of the steps and bleeding from the head. Maggie said that she wasn’t talking to them, that she was barely conscious and just mumbling. Maggie became irritated with the dispatcher asking questions and handed the phone to her son, Paul. Paul told the dispatcher that Gloria was also bleeding from her ear. He told her that she’d cracked her head and that there was blood all over the concrete. He said that he was trying to hold her up, but she’d told him to “let her loose” and she fell back onto the ground. Paul also became very irritated with the questions being asked by the dispatcher, even telling her to stop asking so many questions. At no point during the six minute 911 call did anyone give a reason as to how or why Gloria fell. Responders arrived and quickly transported the critically injured housekeeper to the hospital.

Gloria was a hard worker and treated the Murdaugh boys as her own, even though she had her own two sons at home. She was a people person and would always help anyone who needed it. She had a huge hand in raising Paul, who referred to her as go-go when he was little. Gloria lived for three more weeks before finally passing away at the hospital on February 26th. She never regained consciousness and was never able to tell anyone what truly happened that day at Moselle. At Gloria’s funeral, Alex told the family that it was his fault she died, that it was his dogs that had jumped up on her and caused her to fall. He said that he would get a lawyer to represent them so they could bring a lawsuit against him. Alex said he’d agree to the settlement from his insurance and Gloria’s two sons would receive money to help them after their mother’s death. The family had no reason not to trust Alex. The Murdaughs had always treated Gloria well and treated her family like their family. They waited for further instruction from Alex and continued to grieve their mother’s death.

**Just a quick recap since things were discovered and brought to light, not necessarily in chronological order:

Stephen Smith was found dead in July of 2015.
Gloria Satterfield died in February of 2018.
Mallory Beach was killed in February of 2019.
Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were murdered in June of 2021.

The Shit Hath Hitteth the Fan

On September 4, 2021, Alex placed yet another 911 call. He said that he’d been out on a road changing a tire on his car when someone stopped to help him. He said that he turned his back and the person shot him in the head. He was quickly airlifted to a hospital in Savannah, Georgia. A few days later, Alex’s attorney, Jim Griffin, released a statement saying that Alex sustained both an entry and exit wound from the bullet and was lucky to be alive. A family spokesperson said that the bullet had fractured his skull and that it was clearly not self-inflicted. Weirdly enough, the Hampton County incident report of the shooting said that the victim, Alex, had “no visible injuries.” Hours after this report was released, the sheriff’s office said that that part had been a mistake. SLED however, stood by their report that Alex had suffered a superficial gunshot wound to the head.

The Sheriff’s Office report stated that Alex was being flown out from a landing zone to be treated while deputies were still en route to the scene, but that one officer was able to speak with Alex before he boarded the helicopter. It would be very odd that a medical helicopter could’ve been summoned, landed, and loaded before officers arrived on scene from their office, which was 15 minutes away from the crime scene. Another press release, three days after the shooting, said that deputies were dispatched to the scene at 1:55PM. This was 25 minutes after Alex made the 911 call.

Another strange detail was that multiple sources reported to FITSNews that Alex left the scene of the shooting just after calling 911 and a car transported him to meet EMS and the helicopter. It’s unknown who was driving this vehicle. FITSNews was told that the C.A.R.E. Flight that transported Alex from the landing zone that was 7 miles from the shooting scene, was dispatched at 1:43PM. This would be about 9 minutes after Alex’s 911 call and about 12 minutes before the Hampton County SO was dispatched. It didn’t take long before law enforcement and reporters to grow suspicious of the entire story. Everything began to truly unravel from here…

Two days following the shooting, Alex’s attorney, Dick Harpootlian, who is also a South Carolina senator, released a statement on his behalf. He was resigning from his law firm and checking into rehab. He claimed that he had an addiction to opiates. Two days after the “shooting,” Alex was released from the hospital and checked into an out-of-state rehab center.

“The murders of my wife and son have caused an incredibly difficult time in my life. I have made a lot of decisions that I truly regret,” Alex said. “I’m resigning from my law firm and entering rehab after a long battle that has been exacerbated by these murders. I am immensely sorry to everyone I’ve hurt including my family, friends and colleagues. I ask for prayers as I rehabilitate myself and my relationships.”

The next day, PMPED, Alex’s law firm, also released a statement. It said that the company had discovered that Alex had “misappropriated funds in violation of PMPED standards and policies.” It was implied that Alex had been forced to resign, and alleged that he had been regularly misappropriating funds on an ongoing basis for years. Shortly after, Alex lost his law license and his privileges to work as an assistant solicitor.

Nine days after the shooting, Harpootlian said that his client realized it was time to tell the truth. HAHA. Alex admitted that he set up the shooting so his son, Buster, would receive a $10 million life insurance policy. During his confession, Alex FINGERED 61-year-old Curtis Edward “Eddie” Smith in helping him with the attempted insurance scheme. He said that he told Smith about the plan, gave him the gun, and that Smith shot him. He said that Smith was a former client of his, a distant cousin, and was his long-time drug dealer. Smith was arrested and charged with assisted suicide, assault and battery of a high aggravated nature, pointing and presenting a firearm, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. Alex was ACTUALLY CHARGED WITH CRIMES THIS TIME. He was charged with three felonies of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and filing a fake police report. At his bond hearing, he was handcuffed and wearing shackles and clothed in a Hampton County Jail jumpsuit. Harpootlian argued that all of this was brought on by Alex’s addiction, that they were truly looking into the face of opiate addiction. Alex was released on bond and allowed to return to rehab.

Smith’s attorney said that there was no evidence that Alex had ever actually been shot. He had no bandages, stitches, or hair that had been shaved to expose an injury. In fact, neither SLED or Alex’s representatives have ever released any proof that Alex was actually shot. Smith said that Alex’ account of what happened is wrong, and that he was never shot. He said that Alex called him that day and asked him to bring his truck with him. Smith was a handyman and often did odd jobs for people around town, including the Murdaughs. When he arrived, Alex had a gun and was acting erratically, pointing the gun at his own head. Smith said he attempted to wrestle the gun away from Alex when it went off. He said that it didn’t hit anyone. He openly admitted to being present when the gun discharged and that he disposed of the gun afterwards, but denied that Alex was ever actually shot and said he was never involved in dealing drugs to Alex. He said that he was so scared after the gun discharged accidentally, he wound up with it in his car as he fled the scene. He threw it away. Smith even went as far as to say, “If I’d have shot him, he’d be dead. He’s alive.” This is a pretty good argument. Smith was released on a $20,000 bond in October.

Also during this time, SLED announced that they were opening an investigation into Alex’s alleged misappropriation of funds at his law firm. When asked about these charges, Alex pled the fifth.

What a RAT

As the investigations continued into Alex Murdaugh and his background, suspicion grew around the death of his former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield. Several odd things were noticed by the Hampton County Coroner. She said that Gloria’s death was not reported to her office in 2018 and an autopsy was never performed. This was very strange. Additionally, it was noticed that on Gloria’s death certificate, the manner of death was ruled as natural, which obviously doesn’t match with the reported accident of tripping and falling down several steps. Due to these findings, the coroner asked SLED to open an investigation into Gloria’s death.

On September 5, 2021, SLED announced that they were opening a criminal investigation into the mysterious death of Gloria Satterfield. 10 days later, Gloria’s family filed a lawsuit against Alex, claiming they never received any money from any settlement. In fact, they didn’t even know that a settlement had been reached in the case of their mother’s death. They didn’t know until they read about it in the news in 2021. Remember, at Gloria’s funeral, Alex had told her sons that he would help them with receiving a settlement from his insurance company for their mother’s death? Alex introduced Tony Satterfield, Gloria’s oldest son, to his best friend from college, Cory Fleming. Fleming was a lawyer who sued Alex for Gloria’s wrongful death, under Alex’s homeowner’s insurance. Tony was listed as the personal representative of his mother’s estate. Somehow, Alex convinced Tony to resign from this title in favor of a banker that Alex knew, named Chad Westendorf. The day after Westendorf took over, settlement papers were filed and the homeowner’s insurance paid out a significant amount of money to Westendorf. The Satterfields knew nothing of this.

The new lawsuit brought against Alex by the Satterfields also found there was a second settlement made around their mother’s death, that wasn’t properly recorded, so it wasn’t connected initially. The settlement amount was $4.3 million. After taking their fees from the amount obtained, Fleming and Westendorf gave the rest of the settlement to Alex, who funneled it into a secret bank account. The Satterfields didn’t know anything ever came of their lawsuit against Alex. It took the family a while to come forward to police about not having received any of the money, because they were frightened of the Murdaughs and the power they held.

In October of 2021, Alex was arrested and charged with two felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses, which could hold up to ten years in prison for each charge. He was arrested right after being released from a Florida rehab center. Alex had supposedly initially detoxed at a facility in Atlanta, then was transferred to a center in Florida. He was held at the Orange County Corrections Center until he was extradited to South Carolina for his bond hearing. The judge in South Carolina denied bail for him. Over the next two months, Alex was indicted on almost 50 other charges, including money laundering and forgery. Fleming’s law firm agreed to two separate settlements with the Satterfields and Westendorf paid back the fees he received from the settlement. Despite these two not being named in the Satterfield lawsuit, it’s likely they’ll be named in other lawsuits involving Alex.

Since his arrest, Alex’s attorney, Harpootlian has petitioned multiple times for Alex to be released on bail. Most recently (in mid-January of 2022), Judge Lee has continued to deny a change in Alex’s bail. It is currently set at $7 million, with no option to pay 10%. Judge Lee feels that Alex is a flight risk and could be a danger to himself or the community. Harpootlian has essentially been arguing that his client is broke, that all of the money he’d stolen was used for drugs. However, testimonies indicate that Alex has approximately $10,000 in one bank account, as well as a $2.2 million retirement account. The prosecutor referenced multiple jail phone calls that Alex had made, including one where he told a family member to go ahead and use money for golf. The prosecution continued on to say that Alex is being accused of stealing more than $6.2 million and at least $2.5 million of that was cashed out. The investigation also determined that a large amount of the money was also returned to Alex, bringing the entire amount of cashed out money to around $3.7 million. So where is all of this money??

Where is Buster?

You may be asking, where is the oldest Murdaugh son throughout all of this? Buster was very close to his father, and had even attempted to follow in his footsteps by enrolling in the law program at the University of South Carolina. However, rumors said that Buster was kicked out of school in 2019 for plagiarism. Shortly after his father’s arrest in October of 2021, Buster and his uncle John, Alex’s brother, were spotted in several casinos in Las Vegas. Someone that was familiar with the family said that John had taken the family on a “fall break” trip.

Prior to his arrest, Alex signed over power of attorney of the family assets to Buster. Buster began moving money around, which concerned prosecutors. In November, a judge granted an order to freeze all Murdaugh accounts and removed Buster as the power of attorney. The two men appointed power of attorneys by the court were given permission to have access to all Murdaugh assets to preserve them in the event that the victims were awarded money in their lawsuits against the family.

Regarding the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, several sources close to the investigation have told FITSNews that physical and forensic evidence directly ties Alex to the murders, but the details of this have not been publicized. There have been rumors circulating that Maggie was in contact with a divorce attorney just weeks prior to her murder, but Alex, of course, denies this.

STILL MORE

In 2011, 21-year-old Hakeem Pinckney passed away in a rehab center. He and his mother had been in a severe car accident and Hakeem ended up being paralyzed. He was recovering and doing well in rehab when his ventilator was somehow left unplugged for 30 minutes before staff noticed. Unfortunately, Hakeem was dependent on the ventilator and died. His mother, Pamela, hired PMPED to help her with filing a lawsuit on Hakeem’s behalf for the car accident and eventually, a wrongful death claim against the rehab center. While the initial lawyer she hired from the firm wasn’t Alex, his staff and name was all over the lawsuit.

These lawsuits gave Alex and his co-conspirators (Cory Fleming and Palmetto State Bank) the opportunity to steal approximately $1 million from Hakeem and Pamela. Pamela is now part of a group of at least eight different parties who are being represented by attorney Justin Bamberg and have filed lawsuits against Alex after finding out that he stole significant amounts of money from them.

Also in this group of Murdaugh victims is South Carolina State Highway Patrol Officer, Lieutenant Thomas Moore. Moore was struck by a vehicle during a snowstorm while on the job in February of 2018. He didn’t realize that Alex had stolen money from his settlement until news of other crimes he’d committed began to come to light. Investigations into Moore’s settlement found that Alex had stolen around $100,000 from the state trooper. Recently, in January of 2022, PMPED sent Moore a check for $38,000, less than half of the original settlement amount.

Alex Murdaugh is currently detained in the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center in Richland County, South Carolina. He is facing 51 charges involving his financial crimes. Most news sources feel confident that Alex will face more charges in the future. We still do not know what truly happened to Gloria Satterfield or Stephen Smith, however, both cases are currently being investigated by SLED. There have been no arrests made in the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh. There are continuously new developments in this mess. If you want to dive further into the inner workings of this family, you can listen to Murdaugh Murder Podcasts.