True Sunlight: MMP #91 - Casually Cruel: What Happened to Gloria Satterfield?

I don't know what happened to Gloria Satterfield, but now that Elik is admitting that he lied

about the circumstances that led to her death, now that two of the three people who knew

what happened to Gloria before she died have been murdered, and the third is their murderer,

we have more questions than ever about this case.

My name is Maddie Matney.

I have been investigating the Murdoch family for more than four years now.

This is the Murdoch Murders podcast produced by my husband David Moses and written with

journalist Liz Farrell.

Well here we are, May 3, 2023 on episode 91 of the Murdoch Murders podcast.

I want to start with an exciting announcement about an event that is so on point with our

mission here at Luna Shark Productions.

On Tuesday, May 9, Sandy Smith and I will be speaking among several special guests at

the Victims Matter Rally at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina.

Last year, the Victims Matter Rally was first created in response to the Bowen Turner case

as an effort to focus the attention surrounding the tragedy as a positive force to uplift

victims and make change in South Carolina.

And as we've said time and time again, our justice system too often prioritizes those

who are privileged and fails victims of violent crime, and too many of our lawmakers are working

for the bad guys.

As we are working to expand our reach at Luna Shark to focus on cases across the nation

and maybe eventually the world where crime meets corruption, we also want to ensure that

the pressure continues right here at home in South Carolina until real change happens.

And we will continue to fight for Stephen Smith, and we will be doing everything that

we can to keep his story alive until his case is solved and justice is served.

So join us at the State House on Tuesday at 9am, and we will be streaming the Rally live

for MMP Premium members.

And speaking of cases where the system tramples all over victims' rights, I want to talk

about the Gerard Price case for a minute.

And before we get into it, I just want to say that Beth Brayden, Callie Lyons, and

Allie Pavlich of the Luna Shark team made an incredibly insightful graphic for our premium

members to better understand the price case.

Members can check it out at MMP.supercast.com.

So it has been a week since the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled to void Judge Casey Manning's

order in releasing convicted killer Gerard Price 15 years early.

And surprise, surprise, Price is apparently on the run and nowhere to be found.

Sheriff Leon Lott, the sheriff of Richland County, where Price was convicted of murder

announced last week that the sheriff's office, aka the taxpayers, are offering a $5,000 reward

for information leading to his return.

The following day, Price's attorney, State Rep Todd Rutherford, held a press conference

where he asked Price to turn himself in.

But he didn't stop there.

Among the absurd things that Rutherford said in this press conference, he actually apologized

to Price, not the people of South Carolina, who he serves.

Quote, I'm sorry, Mr. Price, who has done nothing but help the citizens of South Carolina

saving the lives of correctional officers and somehow that lands him back in the South

Carolina Department of Corrections, Rutherford said.

Again, he said that Mr. Price has done nothing but help the citizens of South Carolina.

Speaking of lawmakers having no concerns about victims whatsoever, there is a clear example

for you.

Rutherford knows that Price attempted to appeal his conviction multiple times and failed.

He knows that in the eyes of the law, his client is a murderer and his client's release

certainly hurts the small's family.

Rutherford also knows that the evidence he offered to back up those claims that his

client was a hero to SEDC employees was not at all credible and essentially hearsay.

And Rutherford, who works for us, by the way, also knows just how costly his client has

been to the state of South Carolina.

Taxpayers are now having to pay for the reward money to get Price back into custody.

Taxpayers are now having to pay for all of the overtime hours and manpower in the search

for Price.

Taxpayers have been forced to clean up this mess that was made by elected officials.

All three of these elected officials, Rutherford, Solicitor Byron Gibson and Judge Casey Manning,

failed the taxpayers when they agreed to the secret order.

They failed to stop and think about the potential damage of their actions.

They failed to look out for the people who pay their salaries.

And now that the dust has settled and the Supreme Court has officially ruled that yes,

what they did was in fact wrong, the investigation must continue.

Not only do they need to find Price, but like Ellic Murdoch, Price is just another branch

of a corrupt tree.

The branches are just showing us that the problem exists at the roots.

We're never going to fix anything until we address the roots, and that is the system

itself and those in charge of it.

We need to not only find out how they did this, but why they did this.

What could have possibly incentivized three elected officials to care more about a murder's

early release than they do about public safety and following the law?

We are now less than three and a half months away from trial in the case that started it

all, the case that let Ellic Murdoch down that very dark path to murdering his own wife

and son, the boat crash case.

Over the past four years, this case grew from one case in April 2019 to two cases at the

time of the murders to seven cases total, including a civil conspiracy case involving

the release of confidential court documents and photos of Mallory Beach's body to the

media.

In November 2021, this case was behind the court decision that froze Ellic's assets

and led to the appointment of a receivership to do a full accounting of every last penny

they could find in Ellic's literal and figurative wallets.

From that, the receivership brought with it some of the more interesting findings in

the Murdoch investigations thus far, including the millions of dollars in checks that Ellic

wrote to Curtis Eddie Smith so that Eddie could cash them for him, as well as the money

Ellic gave to Yemisee police chief Greg Alexander before and after the murders.

Needless to say, this case has never been short on drama.

Remember this guy?

I think so.

I think the judge ultimately agreed to give it to him.

He agreed to give it to you?

Sure.

But I thought the hearing didn't happen.

Well, you thought wrong.

There's a lot of paper, so maybe you got confused.

He granted this motion?

I think so.

You want to see the order?

Yeah.

That was obviously Mark Tinsley from the February 6, 2021, in-camera hearing to determine whether

the jury would get to hear about Ellic's financial situation at the time of the murders

as well as the mounting pressures he was facing due to his years of alleged financial crimes.

As you know, Tinsley represents the Beach family, as well as boat crash victims Morgan

Doughty and Miley Altman.

It's safe to assume we'll be hearing a whole lot more from him in the lead up to

the boat crash trial, which is set to start August 14 and is expected to take about two

weeks.

Motions in Limony, meaning the issues that lawyers would like to have decided before

the start of the trial and outside the presence of the jury are already being filed in the

case.

This afternoon, in fact, Tinsley and company appeared before Judge Daniel Hall in Lexington

County to respond to the latest motions made by the defendants in the Beach case.

So let's start by talking about those because they're good ones, especially if you like

tone-deaf absurdity from rich white men who will never get it.

Speaking of Ellic Murdoch's attorneys, you might recall that on March 21, Dick and Jim

filed a motion on Ellic's behalf asking the court to give them more money to appeal

the case that they just lost.

We recorded this episode before the hearing started Wednesday afternoon, so we'll update

you on how it turned out on the next Cup of Justice episode.

As it stands right now, on Wednesday afternoon, we are really curious about whether Dick

and Jim will even show up to the hearing or if they'll send their associates, Margaret

Fox and Phil Barber, or if no one will be there to argue their motion.

Because that could be really awkward for them, right?

If they did show up?

Why?

Because they didn't bother to appear at Judge Clifton Newman's scheduling hearing

on April 21, citing Dick Harputlian's legislative immunity.

Dick, being a state senator, gets to push off his legal work until the legislative session

ends each year.

This year, it ends on May 11.

But Dick waved his rights for Ellic's trial.

Wasn't that nice of him?

We'll talk about this another time, but legislative immunity is something liberally

used by legislator lawyers as a way to endlessly extend their clients' cases.

Something that can be particularly damaging to victims and criminal matters.

At the scheduling hearing, Prosecutor Creighton Waters rightfully pointed out that neither

Jim, Maggie, nor Phil were legislators.

So yes, they were all too busy to get that satterfield case on the old schedule.

Our big question is, will they be too busy to stand in front of Judge Hall and beg for

the victim's money?

Should we take a bet on that one?

There are a couple of interesting things we want to point out about Dick and Jim's money-grubbing

motion.

The first is how dare they do that with a straight face.

Dick and Jim are lawyers, yes, but they're also business owners, right?

Jim's motion is like inviting an orangutan into your restaurant, letting the orangutan

order whatever it wants off the menu for 20 months, working yourself silly in the kitchen

to cook the orangutan's meals to his liking and with his feedback, cleaning up the orangutan's

mess after he predictably joins you in the kitchen to show you how it's done, then finally

asking him, are you ready for the check, sir?

Then going to court when he's inevitably like, what money?

I'm an orangutan, and then asking the judge if it's okay for you to raid the World Wildlife

Fund to pay the orangutan's debt.

Dick and Jim and their staff worked their tails off for Alec Murdoch, no one is begrudging

them that.

They gave that man every ounce of their abilities and they should be paid for it.

If I were them, I'd be up at McCormick every 30 days until the debt was paid off, shaving

Alec's head and selling locks of his hair to his Facebook fans because they would pay

for that.

But taking money from the victims, no, sir.

That is when I'd be like, why did I give that orangutan a perfectly cooked porterhouse

steak every night when he clearly had no money?

That Alec's case was going to be a long and tedious slog was foreseeable.

It was fully predictable that it was going to cost a lot of money.

And yet Dick and Jim are all, judge, we've already lost conservatively $700,000 on this

guy in attorney's fees alone.

Could we please get a measly $160,000 from his 401k for his appeal?

Remember the 401k?

Remember when Dick and Jim convinced the receivership and the court that if Alec were allowed to

cash in his $2 million retirement fund, which would obviously incur penalties and taxes,

then they'd only take $600,000 of that and leave the rest, which was about $425,000,

for his future creditors, which includes his victims.

Remember that deal?

We just need this $600,000 to hire some experts and you guys can have the rest.

I'll give them the benefit of the down and say, okay, fine.

At that point in time, Dick and Jim did not know they were going to lose Alec's case.

In fact, Dick was telling anyone who would listen that the state had a pathetic case

and therefore the case was super winnable.

However, their deal covered an appeal.

That $600,000 was inclusive of the trial and its appeal.

That brings me to point to the nerve of these guys losing a Murdoch case in Collett's

County and then expecting the court to give them a booster shot of money for it.

They had every advantage going into this trial and throughout it.

The blood spatter did not get brought up.

They effectively had people questioning sled about the integrity of the crime scene.

They lost the case because of arrogance, theirs, Alec's and the Murdoch families.

And here we are again with that arrogance.

The third point I want to mention is this.

In arguing for the court to grant their motion, Dick and Jim have taken the position that

the state is wrongfully holding on to Alec's money.

Here is David with their main arguments.

The restraint of legitimate, untainted assets needed by a defendant to retain counsel of

choice violates the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, a defendant's

right to counsel of his choice, whom the defendant can afford to hire with, quote,

Innocent Property is a fundamental constitutional right.

They're not wrong.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 decided in favor of a woman who was charged in a healthcare

fraud case.

The woman contended that she should be able to use property unrelated to her crimes to

pay for an attorney of her choice.

The government had frozen, quote, property that is untainted by the crime and that belongs

fully to the defendant, end quote.

But last time I checked, the receivers are not government agents.

Let's go over the history real quick.

Alec's 401K was not touchable, meaning the receivers couldn't consider that an asset

for the victims.

Alec made it touchable by asking to cash it in.

In other words, he converted an untouchable asset to a touchable one.

And in doing so, made a deal with the receivers that he could make that asset touchable, i.e.,

make it so it could go to the victims, only if he could make a substantial portion to

pay for experts in his murder case.

And that is what he did.

Here's David again, reading more of Dick and Jim's whining.

Murdoch has sufficient innocent property to pay the undersigned.

These funds are legitimate, untainted funds.

Furthermore, the undersigned is informed and believes that there are additional funds that

have been deposited into the receiver's escrow account that do not represent the proceeds

from illegal activities.

Oh, really?

So A, how exactly are we determining that Alec's substantial 401K was funded with untainted

money?

Are they using a marker on every dollar that went in there and holding it up to the light?

B, what is this so-called legitimate money?

And again, how do they determine it to be legitimate?

C, the court already let you have some of that 401K money.

You made a deal.

You got what you asked for.

You should have planned for the appeal.

Oh wait, you did.

Or I don't know.

Maybe you should have stayed at a comfort end and not a luxury compound that is made for

wedding guests where your chef serves you bourbon and the catch of the day every night.

Indeed, it is not the victim's fault that you spent the money on a leftover boat guy

from when you represented Paul as a gunshot expert who apparently only had one shooting

case before this one and it was a hunting accident.

Oh, and the blood spatter expert who believed two child-sized shooters had killed Maggie

and Paul.

How could I forget that guy?

I mean, Dick and Jim practically paid for Alec's one-way ticket to prison.

Or Alec did with his 401K money.

Okay, final point about Dick and Jim's little Oliver twist act.

In addition to claiming that this untainted money wrongfully was being held by the state,

Dick and Jim say that if they don't get this appeal money, then Alec will gasp, have

to hire a public defender.

Did you just hear that?

Alec having to face the justice system like everybody else?

Oh no.

Here is David again.

In South Carolina, the Division of Appellate Defense of the South Carolina Commission on

Indigent Defense handles approximately 1,000 indigent appeals annually.

Currently, there are 10 appellate attorneys.

If this court denies Murdoch's request, his appeal will fall upon the overworked attorneys

and staff, costing taxpayer money and diluting the limited resources from defendants who

are truly indigent.

Fair enough.

Maybe Alec should get that money for his appeal and donate to a person who cannot afford an

attorney.

Jim did say that Alec wants to help people while in general population at his new prison

home.

So go ahead, help people.

And we'll be right back.

Okay, that was the motion for payment from Untainted Funds.

Now let's talk about Parkers and what they're trying to do.

In March, attorneys for Parker's Kitchen and Tehisha Cohen, the clerk who sold the alcohol

to 19-year-old Paul Murdoch, filed a motion for summary judgment asking the court for

all intents and purposes to release them from the case.

On Monday, they filed a 40-page memo in support of their motion, laying out their arguments

which, if passed this prologue, is exactly what they plan to say at Wednesday's hearing,

possibly even word for word.

So there's really nothing new in the sense that Parker's Kitchen thinks it didn't do

anything wrong here.

Remember, this case is bigger than it appears to be and that's saying something since the

pressures Alec was feeling from it seemed to make him a murderous maniac.

The thing to know here is this.

This case is about the future and not just her Parker's Kitchen.

Businesses like Parker's Kitchen, which is to say gas stations that have robust convenient

stores attached to them, generally rely heavily on alcohol sales.

At the heart of the boat crash case is a simple transaction.

The moment when Tejija Cohen scanned the ID that Paul Murdoch handed her but did no

further inquiry before selling him alcohol, Parker's maintains that Paul tricked Tejija

by giving her Buster's ID that their cashier did not knowingly sell Paul alcohol.

But in South Carolina, it doesn't matter legally whether someone knew a minor was of

age before selling them alcohol.

It is the act of giving a minor alcohol that is the problem.

It's been described to us like this.

If you're speeding and you're pulled over, legally it does not matter if you didn't

realize you were speeding.

You were speeding full stop.

Obviously, the punishment for speeding is left to the discretion of the officer who

witnessed the infraction, meaning whether or not you get that ticket.

You broke the law whether or not you intended to break it.

The same goes for businesses selling alcohol.

If you sell to a minor, you have a problem regardless of whatever Wiley Coyote tricks

were being played on you.

This law is that simple.

In South Carolina, it is unlawful for a person to sell beer, ale, quarter, wine or other

similar malt or fermented beverage to a person under 21 years of age.

Notice that it does not say knowingly sell because guess what?

People under the age of 21 are sneaky.

Maybe you weren't sneaky at that age.

Maybe you did everything right, but I promise you it's a thing.

And that's why people selling alcohol need to be wary.

Sellers of alcohol, whether they're bars or liquor stores or convenience stores, have

training and it's why they have policies in place that help them prevent the sale

of alcohols to minors.

It's that important.

In March 2018, the state newspaper published a series about the proliferation of underage

drinking in five points, which is an area of bars and clubs where University of South

Carolina students generally tend to party.

In that series, the state reported on how underage drinkers were now getting their

IDs from overseas, and these IDs were very convincing.

So convincing that they could pass the blacklight test performed by bouncers at bars and pass

the scanner test, where someone scans the barcode of the license and the information

on their license is supposed to be displayed on the screen.

This is what Teja Cohen did.

She took Paul's ID, which was Buster's legitimate license, and she scanned it.

According to surveillance footage, she did not look at the license or what came up on

the scanner.

She did not do anything else to mitigate the potential of this baby-faced five-foot-seven-inch

guy in front of her who was lying to her to get alcohol by using his brother's license,

which listed him as six foot, two inches tall, and more than 200 pounds.

That is what the issue really is, and it's the reason Parker's Kitchen's attorneys

keep going to the lengths that they've been going to.

If Greg Parker's business is found to have been negligent in this particular case, then

where does it end for them?

It'll mean convenience stores everywhere in the state will have to put more effort into

hiring employees, more effort into training their employees, and more effort into retaining

employees.

Effort means more money.

They might not be able to get away with having education requirements that end at the eighth

grade and therefore get away with paying the absolute minimum wages to a transient and

short-term workforce.

It will also mean that businesses will lose sales when further inquiry leads to the revelation

that the customer is using a fake ID.

Again, that means money.

It also means that more lawsuits will inevitably follow.

Money, money, money.

Which is likely why Greg Parker has put so much of it into fighting this lawsuit.

Also, we think he's driven by his personal hatred of Mark Tinsley, and it's become so

blinded by that that he'd rather flush money down his attorney's toilets than humble himself

and take responsibility.

Which, if that's true, it's pathetic.

Behind the scenes, though, Parker has also been trying to get the laws changed to prevent

this kind of liability in the future.

In the meantime, he's fighting the beach case in such a strange way that to some, his

lawyer's latest motion appeared to have been written by a group of Facebookers.

The motion makes four major points.

The first is that Parker's kitchen and Tahitia Cohen did not knowingly sell a minor the alcohol

because Paul used Buster's license.

The second is that because Sled didn't issue them a citation or prosecute them for the

sale, that shows that what they did was legal.

And the word they used to describe that is they've been exonerated.

Let's talk about that real quick.

So there was an alcohol investigation into Parker's sale of alcohol, which was, at least

philosophically, linked to Buster's alleged awareness of Paul using his ID to buy alcohol

illegally.

Now, as you'll remember, Buster recently settled out of this case.

In doing so, he was not admitting guilt.

But there is testimony in the depositions that shows that there were witnesses to Buster

not only being aware that Paul was using his license, but being frustrated by it because

it meant that Buster had to use his passport at bars.

At the time of the crash, Buster was in his second semester at University of South Carolina

School of Law, which he reportedly was booted from for alleged plagiarism.

Law students cannot be breaking the law, so this lawsuit naming Buster as a party would

have been a stressor on the family.

Beyond that, it could have presented a problem for Buster as a law student or as a man trying

to re-enter law school as it were.

So back to Sled.

Remember, this is 2019.

Catholic Murdoch was still a man of the law then, and generally seen as a man of considerable

power and influence.

If Parkers was cited for their sale of alcohol, then what would have happened next?

What would that have meant for Buster's alleged part in this?

Remember too that Greg Parker admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he had hired private

investigators Henry Risotto and Max Frittotti, the two men who allegedly went to Sandy Smith

to get Steven Smith's iPad.

Steven Smith, who was rumored for years to have been intimately involved with Buster.

Also working for the Parker's team was private investigator Sarah Capelli, who has said she

was following Paul to get photos of him being rowdy and drinking and following Buster to

get proof that he was gay.

I want to note that to our knowledge Sarah did not find anything on Buster, and I also

want to note that we find this disgusting and shameful on Greg Parker's part.

But why would Greg Parker want proof that Buster was gay?

Why would he care?

That said, neither Buster, whose father was Alec Murdoch, and grandfather was Randolph

Murdoch, and great grandfather was Randolph Murdoch, and great great grandfather was Randolph

Murdoch.

Nor Parker's, whose political influence in South Carolina is also notable, were cited

for their alleged roles in Paul getting alcohol that night.

But does it matter?

Parker says yes, obviously it does matter.

But if it mattered then why are we here?

Why are we still talking about this?

And why did Parker's include more points in their motion for summary judgment?

Why wasn't this fact alone strong enough?

We didn't get in trouble, so we didn't do anything wrong.

Well OJ was found not guilty for killing Nicole Brown Simpson and Rod Goldman, but he was

found very guilty in the civil suits.

The legal thresholds for guilt are different.

All in all, on April 27th, Connor Cook's attorney, Joe McCullough, the white-haired

attorney who somehow had enough free time to sit in the courtroom for most if not all

of Alec's trial, filed a motion asking the court to issue two orders.

One, barring Parker's from submitting testimony and or evidence at trial related to Sledge's

decision not to ticket them.

And one, prohibiting Parker's from making further public announcements about the untrue

notion that Sledge has exonerated them.

Here's David with a passage from McCullough's filing.

Whether Sledge conducted a competent review of the circumstances of the underage sale

by defendant Parker's to Paul Murdoch, failing to discover the other underage sale as noted

above, and whether Sledge reached a correct decision in its no-charge determination is

irrelevant, highly prejudicial, and confuses the jury.

Additionally, it will result in a mini-trial not only as to Sledge's investigation into

the underage sale, but its involvement in the boat crash as a whole.

Additionally, in Connor's case, McCullough filed a stipulation of dismissal releasing

Buster from the lawsuit.

And the third point Parker's makes is that the boat crash victims, all of whom were under

the legal age for drinking alcohol, quote-unquote hatched a plan to drink illegally and knowingly

got on the boat with a reckless drunk.

But that point isn't likely going to fly.

In 2005, the South Carolina Supreme Court in Markham v. Bowden wrote that quote a reason

for imposing a duty to protect underage persons from the effects of alcohol is that minors

as a class are incompetent by reason of their youth and inexperienced to deal responsibly

with the effects of alcohol.

Even though someone under the age of 21 might be considered an adult in other settings and

circumstances, the General Assembly of South Carolina finds them to be minor when it comes

to the sale and dispensing of alcohol.

So even though Parker's attorneys probably patted themselves on the back for repeatedly

referring to the boat crash passengers and Paul as adults, they simply were not in this

case.

The final point that Parker's made in the motion was this.

No other adult at the oyster roast stops the boaters from getting on the boat and it's

not Parker's fault that these people didn't do the right thing.

It's like, sure, we sold that 10-year-old fireworks, but why did his parents let him

go outside into their backyard where he lit the fireworks and hurt someone?

Well, because guess what?

The word knowingly now actually matters.

In South Carolina, again, affirmed in Markham v. Bowden, social host, i.e. the adult at

the oyster roast are liable if they knowingly or intentionally served or cause to be served

an alcoholic beverage to a person he knows or reasonably should know is between the ages

of 18 and 20.

There is no liability in South Carolina for not stopping an impaired person from operating

a motor vehicle.

Bars and stores can't sell alcoholic beverages to someone who appears to be drunk, but stopping

them from getting behind the wheel is another thing.

So like we said, it doesn't seem like there's any legal basis for any of this.

It'll be interesting to see how Wednesday's hearing goes, and again, we will update you

on Twitter and in the next episode of Kappa Justice.

It's been a really long time since we've done a deep dive into the Gloria Satterfield

case.

Actually, since the time we last really talked about the case, Elik Murdoch has been convicted

of murdering his wife and son.

The two people who might have known the truth about what happened at Moselle on February

2, 2018, when Gloria allegedly fell.

This is important because in the eyes of the law, Elik Murdoch is now seen as a cold-blooded

killer who murdered his family to avoid getting exposed for the mountain of crimes he was

sitting on.

And honestly, the latest move by Team Murdoch makes Gloria Satterfield's death even more

suspicious.

So on Monday, Elik's defense team, including Jim Griffin, Dick Harputlian, Phil Barber,

and Margaret Fox, filed a shocking but not so shocking answer in the federal lawsuit

against Elik's former insurance company, Nautilus, for the fraud that occurred in the

Satterfield case.

In the motion, Elik Murdoch is finally admitting to lying about the fall that led to Satterfield's

death.

Specifically, they said that he, quote, invented Ms. Satterfield's purported statement that

dogs cost her to fall to force his insurers to make a settlement payment.

So my question is, why admit to lying about her death now?

We know how cruel Elik Murdoch can be, but his lawyers?

To open up a whole new set of wounds about Brian and Tony's mother's death after all

of this time, for Elik to say, I lied about the dogs tripping Gloria, but I'm not saying

what actually happened is, in the words of Taylor Swift, so casually cruel in the name

of being honest.

It's inhumane.

It is continuing to treat Gloria as means to an end, rather than as a person.

It is continuing to disrespect her years after her mysterious death, and it's causing another

layer of worry and heartbreak for a family who has endured so much grief, betrayal and

trauma in the past five years.

At the end of the day, the Satterfield family deserves the truth.

This is something Team Murdoch has never even pretended to care about, but we do.

So now, knowing what we know about Elik Murdoch, knowing what he is capable of, and how he

problem solves, let's take another look at the Satterfield case and clean up some questions

that have been buzzing online.

The worst part about Gloria Satterfield's death is that it's really hard to piece

together what happened that day, because two of the people who were there after she

fell are now dead, and the other person who was there is a habitual liar and a murderer.

For a settlement this large, there is very little paperwork to back up the reasoning

for why two insurance companies, Lloyds of London and Nautilus, would pay millions for

a trip and fall death without putting up much of a fight at all.

We took another look at one report, which was written by Lloyds of London attorney Scott

Wallinger, who, as a reminder, was technically working for Elik at the time as his insurance

company's attorney.

So first of all, before we get into February 2, this report says that Gloria Satterfield

was in a car accident on February 1, 2018, the day before she allegedly fell.

According to the report, Satterfield's vehicle struck a parked car.

I'll have David read this part of the report.

We do not have details about that event yet, and Mr. Murdock was not aware of it until

I mentioned it.

He believes that would have been a low-impact accident, else Ms. Satterfield would have

mentioned it to him, and would have called him for legal guidance.

Why wasn't that mentioned before?

Again, why is he asking Elik about it instead of finding out for himself?

You would think that an insurance company would want to investigate this car accident

further to see exactly what happened.

You would think the insurance company, which is trying to get out of paying millions of

dollars, wouldn't just mention that casually and move on.

I mention this again because, gosh, if people just would have done their jobs all of those

years ago, maybe we would have answers as to what happened to Gloria by now.

So according to Wallinger's report, which relies heavily on Elik's word, Elik claims

he left the house at 7.45 in the morning to go to work.

But guess what?

Maggie and Paul were sleeping at that time.

The only other people on the property were workers Ronnie Freeman and Travis Martin,

and according to the report, Wallinger apparently didn't bother to ask either of them if they

remembered seeing Elik Murdoch leaving that morning according to the report.

So we don't know if Elik was on the property or not when Gloria arrived at Moselle that

morning, likely around 9 a.m.

Gloria was apparently there to pick up a check either for her work or for someone else,

which is another conflicting thing about these insurance documents.

According to the report, Maggie said she suddenly heard the dog's barking quote in

an unusual tone that morning, which alerted her to go outside.

She said she went out the front door and found Gloria lying on her back toward the bottom

of the steps with a bleeding head wound.

Gloria's eyes were open.

She was conscious and she was mumbling quote gibberish according to the report.

Gloria did not know what happened and Maggie apparently shouted, Oh my God, that's when

Paul allegedly came outside.

I want to play a few parts of the 911 call.

Elik Murdoch called 911 around 9.24 a.m. on Friday, February 2nd, 2018.

Come here.

911, where's your emergency?

4147 Moselle Road.

Can you give me the address?

Make sure I got it right.

4147 Moselle Road.

Okay, let's go out of there.

I'm sorry?

What's going on out there?

My housekeeper has fallen and her head is bleeding.

I cannot get her up.

Okay.

You said she's fallen.

She's bleeding from the head.

Yes.

Here you come.

How old is she?

I'm not sure.

Like 58 maybe?

Do you know if she saw some standing or not?

No.

No.

Where'd she fall from?

She fell going up the steps, but the bridge steps.

Okay, so she's outside or outside?

Outside.

Okay.

How many steps is there?

Eight.

Okay, is she on the ground or is she at the top?

She's on the ground.

She's on the ground.

Is she conscious?

No, not really.

Is she awake at all?

No.

Okay.

Remember, in Maggie's interview with Wallinger,

she said that Gloria's eyes were open,

that she was conscious, and she was mumbling gibberish,

which also matches up with the 911 call.

She's not responding appropriately, but she is awake.

Maybe she's not responding.

Okay, I've already got them on the way,

so if you're asking questions, does not fill them down, man.

Knowing if she's conscious is one of the things

that the medic needs to know if she's responding at all to you.

No.

Okay, so she's not responsive at all?

Well, I mean, she's mumbling.

Okay, so she is somewhat conscious.

Is she breathing, okay?

Yes.

Is she bleeding from anywhere?

Yes, her head.

Maggie said that no one rendered first aid before EMS arrived,

which also lines up with the 911 call.

And another thing, no mention of dogs in the 911 call,

which isn't surprising at all.

But again, why didn't the insurance companies notice this?

During the 2018 call, remember,

Maggie says that Gloria fell back down after she initially fell.

What happened?

She just fell back down.

Can I get off the stairs while I can go down there?

Can I have your name and phone number?

Are you able to bring the phone down by her?

What?

Are you on a cell phone where you can walk down there and talk to her?

Okay, can you bring it with you so we can ask her some questions

about what kind of pain she's having?

Gloria's feet were on the second or third step from the bottom

as she was lying on her back.

She was bleeding from a head wound

and blood was on the brick landing area.

Gloria was awake but not making any sense.

Hello?

Yeah.

Can you ask the patient what kind of pain she's having?

She can't call.

Okay, do you know...

She's cracked her head and there's blood on the concrete

and she's bleeding out of her left ear.

Okay, she's bleeding out of her ear.

And out of her head, she's sent to school.

Okay.

All right.

Did other ladies say that she had tried to stand up and fell down again?

No, I was holding her up.

Okay.

She told me to turn her list and she was trying to use it on

but then she fell back over.

In the Lloyds of London report,

Ellic claimed that Maggie had called him around 9.45 at work

and he said that he left work immediately

and was able to get there before EMS.

But there are two issues with that.

The EMS report says that they arrived at Moselle at 9.41

and just doing a quick Google search.

If Ellic was at PMPED when he allegedly got this call,

it would have taken him about 20 minutes to reach Moselle.

In the meantime, the EMTs, according to the dispatcher,

were coming from the Ruffin Station,

which is about 15 minutes away at normal speed.

How was Ellic able to get there before EMS?

Great question.

Another question might be, was he already there?

Given the inconsistencies in the nature of this case,

we have to ask that.

And also, this is Ellic Murdoch we are talking about.

If we have learned anything during the murder trial,

it's that he is really bad at alibis.

So why didn't the insurance company question this?

Another thing that we found is that Ellic and Paul

have different accounts of how Gloria was positioned

when Ellic arrived,

which could be important in the bigger puzzle here.

According to his interview with Wallinger,

Paul said that Gloria started throwing up,

and so Ellic and Paul sat her up while they waited for EMS to arrive.

But according to Ellic,

he arrived at Moselle and found Gloria sitting on the brick landing

at the base of the steps.

Maybe this is nothing,

but remember during the 911 call when Paul said that he sat Gloria up

and that's when she fell back down?

Is it possible that Ellic was actually there

at the time that the 911 call was placed?

And did anyone attempt to figure that out

before handing over millions of dollars

for a settlement that was based on a theory from a sketchy homeowner?

And where did this dog theory come from exactly?

Well, Ellic, of course.

Reading this report again and seeing the same phrasing used

and knowing what we know happened to Maggie and Paul,

I honestly wonder if Ellic told Maggie and Paul to lie to the insurance company.

Why?

Because this is the phrase that Wallinger wrote

in two different sections of the report he wrote.

Alex told me that he had heard

from one or more of Satterfield's relatives he cannot really recall

was that Satterfield had reported that the dogs tripped her up.

Maggie said that the Satterfield's relatives told Maggie

that the dogs tripped Gloria up.

So a couple things to note here.

Notice that neither of them could say which relative actually said that.

Notice that Wallinger never bothered to interview any member of Gloria's family,

but instead he wrote a summary of Tony Satterfield's Facebook post.

It's almost like maybe, just maybe,

Ellic Murdoch told Maggie to tell the insurance company

that Gloria's family believes this is how she died

as a way to apply pressure and get them to settle faster.

And it worked.

Further, in Wallinger's report, it says,

I asked Maggie what she thinks happened in the incident

and she believes one or more of the dogs got in Satterfield's way

as Satterfield was coming up the steps.

Paul remembers that his father Alex arrived and asked what happened

and that Satterfield said something about dogs.

And now, those two people who said that are dead

and the third person who said that has been convicted in their murders

as well as dozens of other crimes.

Satterfield died after several weeks of ups and downs in the hospital.

She was never able to communicate what caused the fall that led to her death.

And literally, just over a week after Gloria died,

Ellic's best friend Corey Fleming sent Ellic a letter of intent to sue,

which immediately kicked the insurance companies into action.

Now, a lot has happened since then.

In 2019, Mallory Beach was killed in a bow crash

that pulled Liz and I into a four-year investigation into the Murdoch family.

During this investigation, I found a $500,000 settlement

in the Satterfield case with Lloyds of London, the company that Wallinger worked for.

The Satterfield family didn't know about this settlement

until they stumbled on an article that I wrote.

That article made them start asking questions and adding to his mountain of pressure.

Ellic murdered Maggie and Paul, the two main witnesses in the Satterfield insurance case,

on June 7th, 2021, the same day that he was confronted by a P&P de-employee about stolen money.

Ellic believed that the double homicide would get everyone off his back.

But we made this podcast in June 2021 to ensure that a harsh spotlight

didn't leave him until we got answers.

In the summer of 2021, Tony Satterfield contacted Eric Bland

and soon found out that Ellic not only stole every penny of the $500,000 settlement,

but he stole an additional $4.3 million settlement that was signed in secret by Judge Carmen Mullen.

All of this time, we were pesky. Tony Satterfield was pesky, and Eric Bland was especially pesky.

And in September of 2021, a pesky Hampton County coroner named Angela Topper

requested that Sled open an investigation into the death of Gloria Satterfield

due to inconsistencies surrounding her death.

Sled opened that investigation and it is still ongoing.

To our knowledge, investigators have not exhumed her body,

but Sled has asked for the family's permission and they agreed to it.

Again, the most frustrating part of all of this is this.

If just one person with a little authority would have been pesky back then,

back in 2018 and asked very basic questions about Gloria's death, then maybe.

Maybe it wouldn't be such a mystery to solve five years later.

Her death was not reported to the coroner at the time,

nor did officials perform an autopsy according to her death certificate.

According to her death certificate, which was full of problems that should have been caught,

her cause of death was listed as acute subdural hemorrhage, which is essentially a brain bleed.

The manner of death was listed as natural.

From what we know about Gloria's death,

her brain bleed appeared to have been caused by her injuries at Moselle,

which seemed to be far from natural.

According to documents during her fall, Gloria sustained a right-sided head laceration,

a right-sided subdural hematoma, a traumatic brain injury,

multiple left-side posterior rib fractures, a partially collapsed lung, and a pulmonary contusion.

How does someone have rib fractures on the left side and head injuries on the other

from a single fall backwards down a few stairs?

How?

And how is someone's death ruled as natural when it is caused by a brain bleed

and surrounded by suspicious circumstances?

Why wasn't anyone asking these questions before they handed Elick millions of dollars?

We'll be right back.

Now, let's put all of this into context.

In his testimony in Elick's murder trial,

attorney Mark Tinsley talked about the pressures Elick would have felt from the boat crash lawsuit,

because ultimately the lawsuit would have led to Elick's alleged financial crimes being discovered.

In December 2020, Mark had offered Elick a way out of the lawsuit

and a way to protect Maggie and Paul.

Mark was wary of Elick's ability to fix juries in Hampton County,

so he held on to the possibility of later suing Maggie and Paul in Buford County,

where there is limited Murdoch influence over the jury pool.

If he had gotten any sense that Elick was up to no good,

but Elick didn't take that offer.

Mark testified that he found this strange,

especially because Elick was an attorney

and he would have understood how valuable that deal was.

Tinsley believes that this is when Elick began toying with the idea of killing Maggie and Paul.

This isn't that crazy of a theory,

because what we learned in trial is that Elick routinely sat on his alleged thefts.

He would allegedly have a check made out from client funds

and then wait months and months before depositing them.

That is a sign of someone who plans these things out.

Now, knowing what we know about Elick, we have to ask the question,

was glorious fall planned?

Elick appears to have been in financial crisis around the time of glorious death.

In 2017, he reported the lowest income he had earned in a decade.

When you include both legitimately earned money and stolen money,

his gross income was around $316,000.

2017 was also the year when Elick was desperate enough

to steal from his own brother.

When he took a $120,000 check from PMPD,

that was supposed to have gone to Randy.

At that time, Elick owed more than $2 million on the MoZel property.

He couldn't borrow money like he used to from Palmetto State Bank

after they acquired the troubled Allendale Bank in 2015

because federal regulators were involved in that sale.

Elick's options for quick cash were limited.

Just two months before glorious fall, the Nautilus umbrella policy,

which ended up paying millions of the settlement,

went into effect in January 2018.

It's hard to tell if this policy was something that Elick already had in place

and it was just renewing annually, or if it was something he had just purchased.

Elick was more than comfortable with his scheming by 2018, though,

and he had fooled dozens of clients by then.

Oh, and let's not forget, fooled his own law firm.

In 2018, Elick was also long familiar with a rumor

that had been haunting him and his sons,

which is that they had something to do with Stephen Smith's death.

In other words, Elick could have been feeling some sort of heat at that time.

Now that Elick is admitting to lying about the circumstances of glorious death,

it's fair to demand answers about what really did happen.

Elick Murdoch owes that to the Satterfield family at the very least.

Now let's talk about the response Elick filed to Nautilus' lawsuit

and the online buzz that's been surrounding it this week.

The idea that the Satterfields would have to give back money has no merit.

First, Nautilus did not pay a dime to the Satterfield family,

not now and not back then.

Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter are legal malpractice attorneys.

Their case against Elick, PMPED, Palmetto State Bank,

Corey Fleming and others, was based on Elick and Corey's alleged conspiracy

to steal from clients.

It was about bad lawyering and about all the people and agencies

who Eric and Ronnie believe contributed to that conspiracy,

whether knowingly or not.

It was not about how Gloria died.

So for anyone out there saying that the Satterfields and Bland Richter

need Gloria to have been killed by a fall,

they are profoundly and fundamentally incorrect.

And to anyone saying Eric has pivoted on this,

going from saying that the dogs had nothing to do with it

to now insisting that the dogs did it, check your facts.

That does not at all represent reality.

The question we have is why are people saying this?

Why is it so important to some people to drag the Satterfields through the mud?

What did the Satterfields do to deserve any of this vitriol?

They are not the bad guys in this.

It is not their fault that Alex swindled them.

But you know who might bear fault in this?

Nautilus.

Lloyds of London.

And the lawyers who advocated for those large settlements.

We get why they would have settled with Alec Murdoch back then

because of the influence that Alec had over Hampton County juries was so widely known.

It is even mentioned in the insurance report.

But this is generations of that.

Generations of insurance companies being forced into a corner

to pay out large settlements to avoid even larger jury awards.

The system is rotten from inside out.

How does that go on for generations?

How did insurance companies and their lawyers remain complicit for so long?

Had someone spoken up and put their foot down?

Had someone said it sounds like you're blackmailing us Alec?

The Nautilus would not be in this position right now.

They can sue Alec all they want, but the truth is they bear responsibility for this too.

Now after reading the Lloyds of London report again,

it is very clear how the insurance company was fooled by a prominent Hampton County attorney

who they wouldn't expect to be a liar or a thief and certainly wouldn't expect to be a murderer.

But after Alec's mask has been lifted and the world now knows who he really is,

the report that led the insurance company to pay out the maximum in the Satterfield case is almost laughable.

Wallinger spent several paragraphs talking about Alec's poor dogs, like their suspects,

even mentioning their obedience training, despite the fact that there was no evidence that the dog did this,

except for the Mardoc's word.

Nowhere was he suspicious as to why an insured homeowner would be so eager to convince an insurance company

that he was liable for the death of his housekeeper.

These insurance companies got played by Alec because no one was brave enough to say something isn't right here.

Bank of America got played by Alec when they let him open two fake business accounts named Forge.

Palmetto State Bank got played when they gave Alec the world's most lenient overdraft policy over and over again.

This is why they were sued by the Satterfields and why they settled for so much.

Their people didn't ask questions when they should have,

just like elected officials should have asked questions before signing off under Rard Price's release,

like Parkers selling alcohol to Paul Mardoc.

If you don't want to be played, you need to ask questions.

Asking questions makes it a whole lot harder for bad people to get away with bad things.

And wow, do we have so many more questions coming their way.

Stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight.

The Mardoc Murders podcast is created and hosted by me, Manny Matney, produced by my husband, David Moses, and Liz Farrell is our executive editor.

From Luna Shark Productions.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.