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Authorities in South Carolina announced Wednesday that they have opened an investigation into the 2018 death of a housekeeper at the home of Alex Murdaugh, a prominent lawyer who is at the center of several investigations after his wife and son sons were shot dead at the family home. home in June.
The death of the housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, 57, has been attributed in court documents to a “travel and fall” accident, but Angela Topper, the coroner for Hampton County, SC, said the death no had never been reported to his office and no autopsy had been conducted.
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division’s announcement followed another astonishing development on Tuesday, when the agency said Mr Murdaugh asked a former client to kill him on the verge of ‘a road earlier this month so his eldest son could receive $ 10. million euros of insurance.
Mr Murdaugh survived a bullet to the head and concocted a false story of being shot by a passerby, a story his lawyers now admit to be false. Police arrested the former client who shot him, Curtis Edward Smith, 61, on Tuesday and charged him with attempting to help Mr Murdaugh kill himself, among other crimes.
Dick Harpootlian, an attorney for Mr Murdaugh, said Wednesday he expected Mr Murdaugh to be arrested in the next few days or weeks for his role in the scheme, but he was adamant that Mr. Murdaugh had not been involved in the murder. of his wife and son in June. He said Mr Murdaugh concocted the suicide plan because he was suffering from depression while trying to end his addiction to oxycodone.
None of Mr Murdaugh’s attorneys responded to requests for comment on the new investigation into Ms Satterfield’s death.
Mr. Murdaugh is named as a “co-accused” in the indictment documents for Mr. Smith; police spokesman Tommy Crosby said without giving further details that police expected to lay more charges in the case.
The case has already attracted attention because of the powerful history of the Murdaugh family in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, where family members have been the principal prosecutors of a five-county area for more than eight decades. . Mr Murdaugh was a prominent lawyer in his family law firm until he was deported the day before his assassination, after executives said they discovered he had taken millions of dollars from the firm and his clients.
The central question of who killed Mr Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and her student son, Paul, who were found shot dead at their home in June, remains unanswered.
The new inquest into Ms Satterfield’s death came after lawyers representing her two sons said the children had not received any of the $ 505,000 in settlements their previous lawyer made with Mr Murdaugh.
In this case, Ms. Satterfield’s death was attributed to injuries sustained during a “trip and fall”. But Ms Topper, the local coroner, said the death was listed as “natural” on Ms Satterfield’s death certificate, which she said was “inconsistent” with an accidental fall.
The sons, Tony Satterfield and Brian Harriott, who are both now in their 20s, were not involved in the negotiations and signed no settlement agreement, the sons’ new lawyers Ronnie Richter and Eric Bland said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday. The lawsuit named Mr. Murdaugh and the law firm and individual attorney who had represented the sons as defendants.
The new attorneys said Mr Murdaugh introduced Ms Satterfield’s sons to one of the attorneys who represented them in the settlement, but were unaware of how close the attorney was to Mr Murdaugh.
Mr Richter said in an interview that he did not expect the state police to open a criminal investigation, but he was happy that Ms Satterfield’s death was the subject of further scrutiny .
“I don’t remember a case that required more sunlight than this,” he said. “Wherever it comes from, that’s a good thing.
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