The Murdaugh Murders (Part 3) | Alex Murdaugh’s Fall from Grace
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Today's story serves as the end of an era for our South Carolina dynasty. More specifically, it captures the family patriarch's very public and very lonely fall from grace.

The once prominent lawyer and low country fat cat had, for decades, gotten away with all manner of crimes, including murder, allegedly, of course. As of 2021, 53-year-old Alec Murdoch was stripped bare of the power and influence he held over his stretch of the southern coastline. He could no longer cover up his corruption nor hide behind his family name.

His house of cards had collapsed, and it all started with an oyster roast. In 2019, Paul Murdock gorged himself on mollusks and liquor before crashing his father's boat into Archer's Creek Bridge. Five lives were shattered because of his recklessness. One was lost forever. Mallory Beach was thrust into the depths of Beaufort River, where she succumbed to its icy waters.

In turn, Alec was thrust into the public eye and forced to endure its scrutiny. The Patriarch felt no pity nor remorse for the tragedy. His only concern was striking the Murdoch name from the investigation into the crash. However, this time, his flagrant abuse of power didn't go unnoticed or ignored.

Renee Searson, Mallory's mother, filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Alec while the Lowcountry sharpened its pitchforks. Conveniently, he claimed to be broke, a declaration that piqued the interest of not only the plaintiffs but his wife too. Whilst Maggie Murdock investigated her family's missing fortune, Renee unleashed her attorney, Mark Tinsley.

He promptly filed a motion to compel the patriarch into disclosing his finances. However, the hearing would never happen. Three days before Alec was expected to tell all in court, Maggie and Paul Murdock were murdered. The grieving father and widower hid behind the gates of Moselle as speculation and hearsay mounted. Alec insisted that he and his family had been the victims of revenge for the death of Mallory Beach, an accusation that came back to bite him.

The investigation into the double homicide spurred an inquiry into another suspicious death that had been linked to the Murdoch dynasty, that of Stephen Smith. Maybe Alec was being targeted. Perhaps he deserved it, whatever the case. His claims were conveniently proven to be true when he was supposedly shot in the head by a stranger in early September of 2021.

After a suspiciously brief hospital stint for what was barely a superficial wound, Alec released a statement that blindsided the Lowcountry. Not only had he resigned from PMPED, the Murdoch's illustrious law firm, but he was checking himself into rehab. The patriarch sniveled about regrets and remorse, blaming his behavior on an oxycodone addiction, and begging for prayers.

His feeble facade had the desired effect, but only momentarily. A few hours later, his law firm set the record straight. Alec hadn't abandoned his position. He was banished from it. It came out that Alec had done more than pervert the course of justice over the years. He had also been stealing money from his law firm and clients for decades.

PMPED publicly accused him of embezzling millions of dollars, which they had already confronted him about in private. Once on the morning of the Moselle murders, and again on the day he was apparently shot, the news exposed Alec's soft underbelly, revealing the predator that lay beneath his carefully curated image. Incredulously, even then, the story of the Shark of South Carolina wasn't over yet.

After losing both his kin and kingdom, Alec had nothing left to drag down with him as he descended into disgrace. He clutched at the remnants of his own web of deceit and corruption, desperate to clear his name. Instead, it continued to unravel as his alleged body count continued to climb. This is the story of Alec Murdoch's fall from grace and the labyrinth of lies that pushed him over the edge. This is the story of the liberation of the Lowcountry.

- Part one, the mother of all plot twists. After a lifetime of enjoying impunity from the law, Alec Murdoch suddenly found himself at its mercy. As of 2021, the 53-year-old was surrounded on all sides by sled investigations, which included the Moselle murders and allegedly the suspicious death of Stephen Smith. Astonishingly, that list only continued to grow with each new break in the case, of which there would be many.

On September 13th, SLED announced they were investigating PMPED's accusations against Alec. One day later, the police made an arrest. However, it was for an entirely different case. On September 14th, 61-year-old Curtis Edward Smith was taken into police custody for the attempted murder of the Murdoch patriarch.

Don't get ahead of yourself though. Curtis wasn't a vengeful relative of Stephen Smith, nor was he a disgruntled victim of Alec's alleged financial crimes. He wasn't even a suspect in the shooting. The arrest stemmed from a shocking confession, one made by Alec himself just one week into his rehab treatment.

The motion to disclose his finances, the accusations of murdering his wife and child, and the threat of having his years of alleged embezzlement exposed had made him a desperate man. By early September, the pressure continued to mount, and apparently, Alec was willing to do anything to make it go away, including putting a hit out on himself.

On the very day that sled launched its investigation into his finances, he confessed to police that Curtis was his former client, distant cousin, and oxycodone dealer. More so, in the mother of all plot twists, he claimed that the 61-year-old was his own personal hitman. It came out that the shooting had been a bizarre suicide-for-hire insurance scheme.

Alec told state investigators that he had hired Curtis to shoot and kill him in a ploy to secure a life insurance payout for his surviving son, Buster. According to the 53-year-old, he had been suffering from massive depression since the Moselle murders and wanted to end it all. There was one problem though. If he killed himself, Buster would be left with nothing. It turned out that Alec was mistaken, but he didn't know that at the time.

Thinking that his policy had a suicide exclusion, he organized a hit on himself instead so that Buster could collect his $10 million life insurance payout. How touching. Curtis, however, told the police an entirely different story.

He insisted that he never conspired to commit insurance fraud. Alec had set him up. According to Curtis, the lawyer had asked to meet him in secret and upon arriving at Salcahatchee Road, he found out why. Alec wanted the dealer to help him commit suicide. In Curtis's version of events, he flat out refused the ridiculous request. Alec then tried to turn the gun on himself in what seemed like a last ditch attempt to see his plan go through.

Apparently, the dealer sprang into action and tried to wrestle the gun out of his hands when it suddenly went off. Curtis told the police he was 1000% certain that the bullet didn't even hit either of them, prompting him to flee the scene. The 61-year-old insisted that if he had intentionally pulled the trigger, Alec would be dead.

Interestingly, a couple drove past the lawyer moments later. The woman called 911 and made a telling report. She told the dispatcher that a man was bleeding on the side of the road. However, the woman said that he looked fine and frankly, the whole thing seemed like a setup to her. Fearing for their safety, the couple continued driving and decided to report the strange sighting instead.

following the unlikely duo's conflicting confessions, speculation around the incident was, once again, rife. Had Alec and Curtis truly conspired together in a suicide-for-hire plot? Or had the lawyer framed the drug dealer?

The situation was so ludicrous that it actually sounded like a bad joke. And at that stage, it was all but impossible to tell which man was telling the truth. However, maybe the truth was somewhere in the middle. Perhaps Alec had, in fact, hired Curtis to shoot him, just not fatally.

I can't help but wonder whether he staged the shooting in a desperate attempt to save face. Was Alec trying to prove that his family was being targeted by vigilantes? Or was he hoping to distract the public from the brewing embezzlement scandal? More so, if Curtis really was Alec's hitman, had the patriarch hired him to murder Maggie and Paul too? Only time will tell.

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Part 2. A Climbing Body Count

The mastermind and motive behind the supposed suicide-for-hire shooting were unknown. However, one thing was clear: SLED was certain that both Alec and Curtis had broken the law. Prosecutors promptly brought charges against the 61-year-old oxycodone dealer. Meanwhile, state investigators put out a warrant for the arrest of the patriarch of South Carolina's most infamous dynasty.

On September 15th, just one day after his arrest, Curtis Edward Smith was accused of committing several crimes. He was charged with assisted suicide, assault, battery of a highly aggravated nature, presenting and pointing a firearm, insurance fraud, and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. The law dealt with Curtis as it would anyone. Anyone except for Alex Murdock, of course.

Somehow, that same day, the patriarch's legal team managed to catch wind of the warrant for his arrest. His attorneys immediately addressed the public, announcing that he planned to surrender to the authorities the following day. As promised, on September 16th, Alec rolled up to the Hampton County Law Enforcement Center in his swanky SUV and turned himself in.

Apparently, the 53-year-old was more deserving of dignity than his less powerful and privileged co-accused, who ended up being blamed for the incident. Alec's attorneys wasted no time releasing a statement on his behalf. In it, they claimed that Curtis had taken advantage of their client whilst he struggled with drug addiction and mental illness. However, even his lawyers and legal connections couldn't protect him now.

Alec was formally charged with insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and filing a false police report.

The very same day of his dignified arrest, the 53-year-old stood before a judge for the first time, cuffed and clad in beige court scrubs. His arraignment and bond hearing was held at the Hampton County Magistrate Court in Varnville, South Carolina, where his attorney tried to elicit sympathy from Judge Tanya Alexander. Dick Harpootlian acknowledged that Alec had fallen from grace, but argued that he had been emotionally traumatized by the brutal murders of his wife and son.

The attorney went on to paint his client as a broken man, driven mad by a 20-year addiction to painkillers, insisting that it caused him to do what he did. "If anyone wants to see the face of what opioid addiction does, you're looking at it. This is a horrible, horrible disease," Arputlian told the court. Once he rested his case, Judge Alexander handed down her ruling. The prosecutors had previously asked for a $100,000 surety bond and GPS monitoring.

Oddly, neither request was granted. Judge Alexander declared that Alec wasn't a threat to the public and ordered him to surrender his US passport before releasing him on a $20,000 bond. In lieu of an ankle monitor, the disgraced lawyer was sent back to rehab and allowed to resume his treatment.

That same day, Curtis appeared in the same court for his own arraignment and bond hearing. Just like Alec, he was wearing court scrubs complete with a pair of handcuffs. Unlike Alec, however, the 61-year-old arrived armed only with a public defender. His blonde hair was matted to his head and his gait unsteady, forcing two sheriff's deputies to help him to his seat. The hearing was particularly brief.

Curtis shook and sobbed as his alleged crimes were read aloud, only interrupting the proceedings to offer his opinion on the case against him. - This is all crap. - Once both sides had rested their arguments, the 61-year-old had possession of marijuana and distribution of methamphetamine added to his charges, and his bail was set at $55,000.

At this stage, you may think that we've covered the last notable plot twist in this sensational story, but we're not even close. Alec was now at the center of four separate criminal investigations. Remarkably, he was about to face a fifth one. The day that SLED put a warrant out for his arrest was a dark one in the noticeably empty Murdock household.

not only because of the news that Alec was expected to turn himself in, but because he was notified that another family sought compensation from him. On September 15th, two brothers filed a civil lawsuit against Alec. It concerned an insurance payout they never received for another wrongful death lawsuit.

Following the newest development in the Murdock case, SLED officials came out with an announcement of their own. They released a statement in relation to the brothers' lawsuit, declaring that they would be opening a criminal investigation into another death that happened to take place at the Murdock's hunting property, that of 57-year-old Gloria Satterfield, the family's former housekeeper. Part Three: A Southern Lady Filled with Gratitude and Grace

Gloria Harriet Satterfield worked as a housekeeper and nanny for the Murdoch dynasty for more than two decades. She looked after Randolph and Libby's children, including Alec, and her big heart and love for little ones saw her being passed down the bloodline. Gloria went on to care for Buster and Paul, minding the brothers while she maintained the Murdoch's many mansions. However, she was more than just a housekeeper.

according to her sister, Ginger Hadwin. Gloria was a Southern lady filled with gratitude and grace, who had a heart of pure gold that she opened to everyone she met.

She loved tennis and the color purple, and is fondly remembered for her humble nature, hearty laughter, and gregarious personality. Sadly, since the Murdoch story broke, Gloria's memory has been overshadowed by Alec's unscrupulous scheming. Thanks to him, her name will now forever be synonymous with loss, death, and a deadly Southern scandal.

Just two and a half years after Stephen Smith's suspicious demise, 57-year-old Gloria Satterfield suffered a catastrophic fall. She was discovered at the bottom of the porch steps that led to the Murdoch's Moselle Manor, unresponsive and bleeding from a serious head wound. Apparently, Gloria had tripped and fallen down the stairs. Now, we're not so sure about that.

On the morning of February 2nd, 2018, Maggie Murdock heard a commotion outside and rushed out to their front porch where she found Gloria supine and severely injured.

the matriarch immediately called for an ambulance. She sounded concerned, but honestly, the 911 recording was strange, to say the least. Maggie was unusually uncooperative as the dispatcher asked her if Gloria was conscious or responding. I've already got them on the way. Me asking questions does not slow them down, ma'am. Knowing if she's conscious is one of the things that the medic needs to know if she's responding at all. Said the noticeably frustrated dispatcher.

Maggie was cool and calm in her response, stating that Gloria was mumbling. The dispatcher continued pressing the matriarch about the 57-year-old's condition, asking if they had controlled the bleeding. Maggie conceded that she hadn't even tried and became increasingly annoyed as she switched between speaking to the dispatcher and Paul. She gave up altogether and passed the phone to her son, who seemed to be equally irked by the 911 operator's questioning.

Eventually, Gloria was airlifted to a hospital in Charleston and tragically succumbed to her injuries just three weeks later. Alec told the police that his housekeeper had tripped over their dogs while walking up the stairs. He told her two adult sons, Michael and Brian, the same thing. He also told them that he felt responsible for their mother's death. It was his dogs that had tripped her up and his porch she had fallen from after all.

Alec later approached the Satterfield brothers at Gloria's funeral with an odd request. He wanted them to file a wrongful death lawsuit against him. In an act of apparent altruism, Alec swore that he would admit fault and promised to help the brothers win a healthy settlement. Apparently, he hoped it would ease their suffering as they grappled with their unspeakable loss. The patriarch put Michael and Brian in touch with an attorney and convinced them to hire the man as their legal representation in the suit.

It all went downhill from there. At the time, the brothers had no idea that the attorney was Alec's former law school roommate, close friend, and the godfather of his youngest son. His name was Corey Fleming. Sound familiar? Fleming was the very same attorney Alec tried to conspire with in the aftermath of the 2019 boat accident.

After implicating Connor Cook, the patriarch tried to pressure the teen's parents into hiring Fleming in a ploy to shield Paul from punishment. Now we know why. The Satterfield brothers, however, were caught completely off guard. Michael and Brian were vulnerable and out of their depth. They put their trust in Alec, who specialized in wrongful death lawsuits and seemed genuinely concerned for their well-being.

Little did they know, he had ulterior motives for bringing Fleming on board. Part four, leave it to the professionals. Corey Fleming seemed determined to handle the suit with the utmost care, initially at least. As promised, he filed the wrongful death lawsuit against Alec.

He also took the time to explain the procedure to the Satterfield brothers. However, Fleming made it explicitly clear that the complicated financial matters inherent in a case such as theirs were best left to the professionals. As their attorney, Fleming recommended that Michael and Brian hire a financial specialist to handle the specifics of their settlement. He assured them that it would be in their best interest.

The brothers were entirely lacking in legal know-how, making it easy for Fleming to convince them to sign on a banker as their personal representative in court. The banker's name was Chad Westendorf, the vice president of Palmetto State Bank and a known associate of Alec Murdoch. The moment Michael and Brian scrawled out their signatures, Westendorf was given the power to make all the legal decisions in court on their behalf.

Almost immediately, Fleming and Westendorf started making settlements in the lawsuit. Settlements which the Satterfield brothers were never made aware of. Just one day after they hired Westendorf, Fleming filed a petition in the Hampton Court of Common Pleas asking Judge Carmen Mullin to give the plaintiffs access to a partial settlement of $505,000.

As part of said petition, the attorney reserved the right to continue fighting for additional compensation on behalf of Gloria's sons, according to him at least. Judge Mullen granted Fleming's request and the funds cleared in January of 2019. But the Satterfield brothers never saw a dime of that money. In fact, Michael and Brian weren't even notified that a settlement had been reached. It was no accident either. It was by design.

Fleming chose his accomplice for a very important reason. As the brothers' personal representative, any and all settlement checks would be made out to one Chad Westendorf, which is precisely what happened to the $505,000. The Palmetto State Bank VP then quietly diverted the funds into a bank account named Forge, which belonged to, you guessed it, Alec Murdoch.

At first glance, that name seemed like a sick joke, but the patriarch chose it for a particularly cunning reason. Alec opened the account with Bank of America to impersonate Forge Consulting, a legitimate company that manages settlement accounts. That way, when he funneled the millions of dollars he allegedly embezzled into the Forge account, it would look like settlement payments. Astonishingly, his outrageous scheme worked.

For some unknown reason, Bank of America broke protocol and never verified that the account was real. Interesting. Alec and his accomplices were allowed to continue funneling huge sums of money into the fake account as they saw fit. It likely would have remained that way had it not been for Mark Tinsley, Renee Searson's attorney.

In 2021, unswayed by Alec's political and legal connections, Tinsley brought the patriarch's precarious financial situation into the public spotlight for all to see, including the Satterfield brothers. When they learned that Alec was being forced to disclose his finances and, later, accused of stealing millions from his firm and clients, Michael and Brian grew concerned. Perhaps he wasn't as trustworthy as they had initially thought.

The brothers immediately inquired about the wrongful death lawsuit that Fleming had filed back in 2018 and uncovered the truth. They had been duped. This discovery led to the civil lawsuit they filed against Alec on September 15th, 2021. This time, however, they hired Eric Bland, an attorney who swore no loyalty to the dynasty. Once again, more secrets were exposed.

Part five, say please. Bland found out that the partial settlement of $505,000 wasn't the only one that had been reached without Michael and Brian's knowledge. In May of 2019, Judge Mullen approved an additional $4.3 million settlement. After Fleming and Westendorf's fees had been deducted, $2.8 million of that settlement was meant to be paid out to the Satterfield brothers by Alex insurers. Of course, that never happened.

Although the paperwork documenting the order was signed by the judge, it was never filed. Why? Because Fleming asked nicely. Bland discovered that the attorney had requested that Judge Mullen refrain from filing her order with the county clerk to keep it off the public record. Apparently, Fleming told her it was a necessary evil to protect the Murdochs.

At the time, the family was in the midst of the media frenzy that followed Paul's accident and Fleming claimed that he wanted to prevent unwanted scrutiny of Alec's assets and finances. Though the attorney's request was blatantly shady and frankly, illegal, Judge Mullen was more than happy to oblige. Whether she knew it or not, it was all part of the patriarch's scheme to defraud the Satterfield brothers. A scheme which saw him being arrested for the second time.

On October 14th, SLED apprehended Alec at the rehab facility he admitted himself into in Orlando, Florida. He was charged with two counts of obtaining property by false pretenses, a felony with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Thankfully, his accomplices didn't escape punishment either.

Both were named as defendants in the Satterfields civil lawsuit, as well as Fleming's former law firm, Moss, Kuhn and Fleming. The same month Alec was arrested, a settlement was reached. Fleming and his former firm agreed to pay back all the legal fees and expenses they received from Gloria's wrongful death lawsuit. Naturally, they claimed that they too were victims of Alec's despicable scam.

However, the authorities weren't so sure. That same month, the South Carolina Supreme Court suspended Fleming's license to practice law, leaving him out of a job and facing charges of his own. Chad Westendorf, on the other hand, seems to have gotten off easy.

Like Fleming, the banker returned to his fees to the Satterfield brothers, which amounted to $30,000. However, unlike Fleming, he was eventually dropped from the suit and managed to keep his job. Chad Westendorf is currently still employed with Palmetto State Bank. Go figure. Unsurprisingly, Alec has yet to compensate Michael and Brian for his role as the mastermind of the scheme.

In fact, he felt that his co-conspirators settlements were equivalent to his own personal get out of jail free card. On November 17th, Alex's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss or stay the proceedings. In translation, the patriarch asked the court to dismiss any damages sought from him in the suit because his accomplices had already paid the Satterfield brothers. Alternatively, he asked that the lawsuit be adjourned until his criminal proceedings were over.

The patriarch simply wouldn't do the honorable thing, no matter who he re-victimized in the process. While Eric Bland filed a memorandum to oppose the motion, Alec fought the legal system for his freedom. Finally, it fought back. The patriarch was promptly denied bail, twice. Whilst I don't take pleasure in the misfortune of others, I must admit, I would have paid a pretty penny to see the look on his face when his puppet turned on him.

Alec was eventually remanded in custody at a jail in Richland County, where he remained while SLED investigated Gloria Satterfield's questionable cause of death. Part 6: The Mysterious Death of Gloria Satterfield The Satterfields had long presumed that Gloria had tripped over the Murdoch's dogs and fallen down the front steps of the Moselle Manor, resulting in her slow and devastating death. However, this was solely based on her employer's version of events.

Since the dynasty fell under the glare of publicity and their many scandals were exposed, their word has proven to be anything but trustworthy. Morgan Dowdy, a survivor of the sea hunt accident and the abused ex-girlfriend of Paul Murdock, has since elaborated on this in the Netflix documentary. According to her, Paul took it very hard. Morgan explained that Gloria wasn't just like a second mother to him. The housekeeper was more akin to his only one.

Maggie treated Paul like a blight in the bloodline and very obviously favored his older brother, Buster, prompting Gloria to take pity on the boy. She raised Paul as her own, giving him the motherly love and attention he craved. Gloria held a special place in his heart, so much so that he kept a picture of her in his wallet, the only one of its kind. Naturally, after she died so unexpectedly, Paul was broken.

There was no question about that. However, many, including Morgan, didn't buy that Alec and Maggie were sincere in their grief over Gloria's death. More so, they didn't buy that her death was even an accident to begin with. Even today, law enforcement and residents of the Lowcountry alike have their doubts about how Gloria met her end and why. On that fateful morning in February 2018, Gloria Satterfield pulled up to the Murdoch's Manor home on Moselle

Apparently, she was there to collect a check from Maggie. Just 15 minutes later, she was found lying on her back at the bottom of their porch, with her legs splayed out on the steps above. The 57-year-old was twitching, barely conscious, and bleeding from her head and ears. Curiously, mere moments after her alleged fall and well before the ambulance arrived on the scene, Alec showed up.

No one bore witness to what befell his housekeeper, but naturally, the patriarch had an explanation. Upon his arrival, he'd loudly declared that Gloria had told him the dogs tripped her up. One can only presume that their exchange happened in the seconds between her falling and becoming unresponsive. The police seemed to be satisfied with Alec's story.

The community of Hampton County, however, was far from convinced, prompting one man to speak out, Ronnie Freeman, a young local and the caretaker for Moselle. Though law enforcement had largely forgotten about Stephen Smith's mysterious death, Steve Peterson hadn't.

The private investigator was determined to get answers for the teen's distraught mother, leading him to Ronnie Freeman. He approached the caretaker about Stephen's case, hoping the young man had overheard incriminating conversations between the Murdochs. Unfortunately, Ronnie had nothing to say about the apparent hit and run, but he had a lot to say about Gloria Satterfield.

The caretaker had been working at Moselle the morning she allegedly fell and was called over to help Maggie and Paul until the paramedics arrived. According to Ronnie, Alec was never even there that day, despite what the police reports said. That's not all. After being stabilized, the medical staff who treated Gloria insisted that Ronnie told them she had no idea why or how she fell. Though fishy, that wasn't why the Murdochs came under suspicion at the time and again years later.

What SLED officials were more interested in was what happened after her death. Part 7: No Autopsy, No Problem

Gloria sustained a right-sided head laceration and subdural hematoma, a traumatic brain injury, several left-sided rib fractures, a partially collapsed lung, and a pulmonary contusion or severe bruising of the lungs, which causes swelling and bleeding. Sadly, though most of her injuries were treatable, the subdural hematoma was not. To the dismay of her family, Gloria initially showed signs of improvement before rapidly deteriorating.

The 57-year-old was eventually placed on a ventilator, after which she unexpectedly contracted pneumonia. Fluid began to fill up in her already damaged lungs, and she had a heart attack. Gloria flatlined and was miraculously revived, but the hospital staff's efforts were in vain.

After coding, her brain had been deprived of oxygen for far too long, leaving her in a deep coma and on life support and hospice. The Satterfield family was inevitably forced to make an agonizing decision. On February 26th, 2018, Gloria Satterfield was sadly taken off life support and died surrounded by her loved ones. Though unimaginably tragic, the 57-year-old's death was largely consistent with a very, very bad fall.

What didn't make sense was her death certificate. In Hampton County, coroners are responsible for suspicious deaths and those that occur outside of medical facilities, amongst others.

According to the county's website, by law, its coroners are also responsible for investigating all accidental deaths. This would usually entail documenting the injuries found on the deceased and performing an autopsy to confirm the cause of death. However, in Gloria's case, that never happened.

The 57-year-old's death was reported as an accident to the police and to the hospital staff, but for some unknown reason, it was listed as natural on her death certificate. Of course, this is completely inconsistent with an accidental fall. However, there might've been a reason for that.

coroners and autopsies aren't legally required for natural deaths. Because of this, the Hampton County Coroner's Office was never notified about Gloria's death and, subsequently, no autopsy was ever performed. Clearly, someone was hiding something. The question that remained were who and why. The first was relatively easy to answer. It had to be one of the Murdochs. The second was slightly more complicated.

Had Gloria been the victim of foul play, forcing the dynasty to orchestrate another cover-up to avoid further investigation? Or had Alec exploited her death to cash in on the suit he would later convince her sons to file against him? Let's explore the latter theory first, which was posed by Fitz News, a local independent media outlet that has been covering the Murdoch scandal from the very beginning.

According to them, it's possible that Gloria's death had, in fact, been the result of an accidental fall. Alec simply lied about her blaming it on his dogs. In short, Fitznews believes that the patriarch might have seen her death as an opportunity to defraud his insurers and the Satterfield family. Alec made it abundantly clear that Gloria said his dogs had tripped her up, which essentially made her death his fault, albeit indirectly.

If she had fallen because of clumsiness or a medical emergency, his umbrella insurance policy wouldn't have covered the $4.3 million he later got the Satterfield brothers to sue him for, the same settlement he would go on to steal. More so, Alec also made it clear that Gloria wasn't working that day. According to him, she was there to pick up a check from Maggie.

That ensured that he avoided a workers' compensation defense, which wouldn't have been covered by his umbrella policy either. That said, Gloria's death certificate still doesn't make sense. Alec couldn't possibly be at fault for a natural death. So, why wasn't it listed as accidental? If the Patriarch hoped to avoid an autopsy, what was he hiding?

Fitznews certainly made a compelling argument. However, whether Alec had always planned to exploit Gloria's death or not, many still wonder if he caused it, including Morgan Dowdy. According to her, the patriarch was at the peak of his painkiller addiction at the time, something the rest of the family was well aware of.

Morgan claims that Paul often spent his weekends at Moselle to keep an eye on his father and to make sure that he was detoxing. On one occasion, she actually witnessed the patriarch's pitiful state for herself. Morgan remembers Alec being near-translucent, his blue veins striking underneath his already pale skin. He moaned and groaned as he rocked on the couch in obvious distress from withdrawals.

"It was heartbreaking to watch," she said. Apparently, she and Paul weren't the only ones who worried about Alec's addiction. Morgan claims that at one point, Gloria found several small bags of pills taped underneath Alec and Maggie's bed. Apparently, the 57-year-old housekeeper had confided in Paul about her discovery, telling him that she was too scared to approach Maggie.

Maybe Gloria worried that she would lose her job if the matriarch found out that she knew about Alec's addiction. Perhaps she should have been more concerned about losing her life because later that year, the 57-year-old died.

After Gloria's death, Hampton County came alive with hearsay. Many felt that she knew too much and was silenced by the dynasty, taking Alec's secret to her grave. Though these accusations are nothing but rumors at this stage, some think that Gloria was pushed down the stairs. Initially, it was Maggie who fell under suspicion. Now, the finger has been pointed firmly at Alec, for far more than the death of his housekeeper, might I add.

In late 2021, Alec Murdoch was in scalding hot water. The same month the patriarch was arrested for the missing Satterfield settlement, his former law firm sued him for the millions he embezzled over the decades. Next, federal judge Sherry Lydon ruled that Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance didn't have to cover him in Mallory Beach's wrongful death lawsuit.

As if it couldn't get any worse for him, Sled then announced that he was officially a suspect in the murders of his wife and son. Of course, once again, it didn't end there. On November 18th, Alec was issued five indictments by the South Carolina State Grand Jury. He was charged with 27 counts of financial misconduct in relation to the crimes that he committed against his own firm, his own clients, and the family of his own nanny and housekeeper.

With that, the floodgates burst open and Alec was submerged in a deluge of charges. Just weeks later, on December 9th, the same grand jury issued seven more indictments, formally accusing him of a host of financial schemes, which added up to 21 new counts. Naturally, the patriarch pulled out all the stops to salvage what was left of his public image.

Days after the latest indictments were issued, in a hearing for the Satterfield scam, his attorneys announced that he had agreed to pay $4.3 million back to Michael and Brian. Alec also offered a long overdue apology to the Satterfield brothers, but it was too little too late.

The judge promptly set his bond at $7 million and, with his finances under scrutiny and in jeopardy, Alec was forced to return to jail. This time, he was held at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center, where he remained until his trial. By the end of 2021, the patriarch had 48 charges against him and counting.

In January of 2022, the state's grand jury issued four more indictments complete with 23 new charges against Alec, bringing the total up to a staggering 71 charges. These included nine counts of breach of trust with fraudulent intent, seven counts of computer crimes, four counts of money laundering, one count of forgery, and one count of obtaining signature of property by false pretenses.

It was also discovered that Alec had defrauded an amount surpassing $8 million whilst committing those crimes.

However, as the complicated web of lies he weaved continued to unravel, that number would continue to grow, along with the list of charges against him. Adding well-deserved insult to injury, Moselle was put up for sale for $3.9 million that February. Just in time, it seems. In the months that followed, Alec faced four brand new charges in the Satterfield case, after which he finally paid back the settlement he stole from them.

This time, he wasn't alone in court. Corey Fleming, Alec's college roomie and co-conspirator, was slapped with 18 charges for his role in the despicable scheme. After that, things seemed to go quiet as investigators and prosecutors sifted through the mountains of evidence from the multitude of cases against Alec.

until June came around, that is. On June 3rd, SLED made an announcement that left the Lowcountry speechless. The autopsy that should have happened four years ago would finally be performed on Gloria's body. Renee Wunderlich, a spokesperson for SLED, declared that they planned to exhume her body with her family's blessing.

"This is a complex process that will take weeks, not days," she said. Perhaps she should have said months, even years, because to date, we still haven't heard anything more on the matter.

Thankfully, the same cannot be said for the fallen star of our story. On June 28th, Alec and his hired hitman, Curtis Smith, were indicted by the state's grand jury on two conspiracy counts, one of which was related to narcotics. The latter charge was issued for, get this, an alleged eight-year money laundering and painkiller ring. You can't make this up.

By the end of June 2022, Alec's alleged crimes had resulted in a whopping 81 charges. On July 12th, the South Carolina Supreme Court formally and finally disbarred the disgraced lawyer. Two days later, his most infamous charges came to a head. On July 14th, Alec Murdock was indicted by the state's grand jury in Colleton County for the brutal slaughter of his wife and youngest son.

That moment marked the end of his unbridled reign as the puppeteer of the Lowcountry. The shark of South Carolina was now a small fish in an even smaller pond, sitting in a prison cell as he shook from withdrawals and, most likely, the fear of what was to come.

You see, the world had yet to hear precisely why Alec had been accused of the Moselle murders. Though his financial crimes and cover-ups had been thrust into the spotlight, there was more lurking in the shadows, and he knew it.