What occurred to Alex Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield? | EUROtoday

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For greater than 20 years, Gloria Satterfield helped to lift Alex Murdaugh’s two sons Buster and Paul.

And, when she died after falling down steps on the household’s house, he claimed to wish to return the favour by caring for her two sons financially.

But, as an alternative, he schemed and conned and stole $4m from them by a wrongful loss of life lawsuit payout.

Now, for a second time within the area of some months, Murdaugh has been sentenced to a prolonged jail time for these crimes.

On 1 April, the convicted killer and fallen authorized dynasty inheritor was handed a further 40 12 months jail sentence for stealing hundreds of thousands from victims together with the Satterfields as a part of a decade-long, multi-million-dollar fraud scheme.

The sentence shall be served concurrently together with his state sentence of 27 years on the identical monetary crime prices, touchdown him with a further 13 years when his state sentence is over.

Regardless of those prices, Murdaugh is already destined to die behind bars after he was handed two life sentences for murdering his spouse Maggie and son Paul at his so-called “trial of the century” in spring 2023.

So what occurred to Gloria Satterfield?

Satterfield had labored because the Murdaugh household housekeeper for greater than 20 years, even appearing as a “second mom” to Buster and Paul.

In February 2018, she was discovered on the backside of the steps main into the Murdaugh household house on their 1,700-acre Moselle property in Islandton, South Carolina – the identical property the place Murdaugh murdered his spouse Maggie and son Paul simply three years later.

She by no means resumed consciousness and died from her accidents three weeks in a while 26 February.

At the time, Murdaugh claimed that she had tripped over the household’s canines and hit her head, and her loss of life was considered an unintentional fall.

However, her loss of life certificates cited her method of loss of life as “natural” and no post-mortem was ever carried out.

Following her loss of life, Murdaugh advisable that her sons rent his confederate and fellow lawyer Cory Fleming to symbolize them in bringing a wrongful loss of life declare in opposition to him in order that they may gather from his house owner’s insurance coverage insurance policies.

The insurance coverage corporations in the end settled the property’s declare for greater than $4.3m – two funds of $505,000 and $3.8m.

Murdaugh and Fleming then stole the settlement cash for themselves and the housekeeper’s sons by no means obtained a dime.

The scheme got here to gentle within the months after Maggie and Paul’s June 2021 murders.

That September, Murdaugh was arrested over the fraud scheme and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) introduced it was reopening an investigation into her loss of life.

Investigators additionally stated they deliberate to exhume her physique, with questions mounting in regards to the nature of her loss of life.

While awaiting trial on the fraud prices, Murdaugh sought to say that he lied about her loss of life initially – saying he “invented” the story that she fell over their canines with a view to make sure the life insurance coverage firm paid up.

However, a 2018 interview poured chilly water on his sudden change of story – and victims’ attorneys stated that he was altering tact to keep away from paying up.

At each his state and federal sentencings, Satterfields’ members of the family delivered emotional statements in regards to the impression he had on their lives.

Speaking at his federal sentencing, Satterfield’s son Tony Satterfield revealed how his religion gave him hope.

“A lot of people say there is no hope, but there is and it starts with the gospel,” he stated.

Satterfield’s sister Ginger Hadwin informed Murdaugh at his state sentencing in November how her sibling beloved his kids like his personal – and but he betrayed her in a method she “will never understand”.

“Gloria worked very hard for you for 20 years. She loved Buster and Paul as her own. She loved Maggie and she trusted you wholeheartedly,” she stated.

“She trusted you and your family as her own family. To be betrayed by you, I will never understand. And how you were able to profit from her death, we wil never be able to understand.”

To Murdaugh immediately, she requested: “Do you not have a soul? I don’t understand it but then I thank God I don’t understand it as maybe I would be in the same positon as you.”