May 20, 2023 • 28 mins
Join Nancy Grace and high-profile attorney Dale Carson as they delve into the ongoing legal saga of Alex Murdaugh. Explore Murdaugh's claims of innocence in the double murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, and question whether it's a strategic move to strengthen his appeal. Discover the latest developments, including Murdaugh's retraction of his account regarding the tragic death of housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, leading to an insurance company's lawsuit for $4.3 million. Gain insight into Murdaugh's motivations and Dale's expert analysis in this gripping discussion.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Crime stories with Nancy Grease.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Does this man never stop lying?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Alex Murdog, of course, has changed his story again, this
time about the death of Gloria Sadderfield. As you know,
Alex Murdog, the heir to a legal dynasty in South Carolina,
had millions of dollars at his fingertips, a wife, a family,
(00:41):
two sons, multiple homes. But that wasn't enough, was it.
He had to steal from all of his clients to
the tune of millions of dollars as dead bodies pile
up around him. Murdog convicted in the double murderers of
his wife Maggie and son Paul, but it ain't over yet.
(01:02):
There is the housekeeper that helped the family raise the
two sons, Paul and Buster, who dies at the foot
of his steps. At first, he blamed none other than
the dogs that live in the home. But in a
new development from inside a prison cells somewhere in South Carolina,
(01:24):
the defendant Alex Murdogg, has changed his story. His original
story that Miss Satterfield died from injury sustain at a
fall at his I guess hunting lodge, his country estate
as some people call it. For years he held onto
that story that it was the dog's fault that made
(01:46):
her fall down the stairs to her death. But now
he says he doesn't know how Satterfield fell, that he
quote invented the story only because it would give him
an avenue to file a wrongful a wrongful death lawsuit
for Saderfield's children against him, so he, as their lawyer,
(02:11):
can get.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That money and steal it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So just imagine, even at the beginning, the very beginning,
when Satterfield falls to her death down the stairs at
Moselle the hunting lodge, he already comes up with a
plan to pocket millions of dollars. He now behind Barr
says the dog's role in the tragedy was an invention,
(02:41):
joining me, high profile lawyer out of Jacksonville who's seen
it all not only in the courtroom, but as a
former special agent with the FBI. Dale Carson is with us. Dale,
thank you for being with us. What do you make
of this newest invention?
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know what I love about this power that exudes
out of this man before he falls. And so the
standard way of creating a settlement, first you have an
autopsy with an unattended death, which did not happened. And then,
in the standard manner of lawyering, you have depositions, you
(03:22):
have requests for admissions or interrogatories, which are questions put
to the potential witnesses. But instead of doing any of that,
the insurance company just settled. That's power, But it also
allows that the witnesses that were there on the scene,
(03:43):
which was not Alex Murdox, were never by attorneys for
the insurance carrier. So it's rather clever when we think
about it. And he's so good at lying. We saw
that on the witness stand during the murder trial. He
looked so casual and so powerful in his lies that
(04:06):
it would be very difficult for someone in a settlement
setting to really discern that he's not only not telling
the truth, but he's creating a scenario if he had
just fallen down the steps. That's one thing, But the
fact that the dogs caused it allowed him to get
a four point three million dollar settlement in cash that
(04:27):
he diverted through some friends and put in his own pocket.
That's pretty clever.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Well, I don't know that I would call it clever,
maybe nefarious, evil, malevolent. That said, I also find it
very probitive or it proves something to me that Alex
Marlok only made his u turn, his about face, his
new confession because of a lawsuit against him by I
(04:55):
believe it was a Nautilus insurance company that based on
their claim that they have been defrauded because they paid
out the settlement. The balance of the settlement funds were
paid by different insurance company, but because Murdog had no money,
his attorneys suggested that Nautilus go after Satterfield's state attorneys.
(05:21):
Now they claim Blann Richter claims are seven point five
million dollars that they collected from a lawsuit against Murdoch
and his firm. So I find it really interesting Dale
Carson that it's only when he is threatened with even
(05:41):
more money lawsuits that he finally coughs up the truth.
But just think about the level of evil this requires.
This is a woman, Gloria Satterfield, Miss Satterfield, a mother,
a longtime friend of the family, who was literally changed
his son's diapers, taking care of them, cooked for them,
(06:06):
taking care of the whole family, cleaned their home, run
errands for them for decades.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
And in the South, this is the way it progresses
because when parents are working, it's oftentimes the caregiver who
raises all.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Okay, see, I don't know how you were. Where did
you grow up.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
In Jacksonville, Florida?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, so I don't know what made you in what
mayeu you were in. But my mother and father both
were as a bookkeeper and for the railroad, and we
did not have a housekeeper at all. My grandmother helped
raise me. We certainly cannot afford a housekeeper to live
in the house and clean up, are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
That's what we did as the children.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
But that said, this is a woman they knew as
a friend, as part of the family, and so she
falls to her death on Murdoch's steps, and he immediately
comes up with a plan so he could sue on
behalf of Gloria Satterfield's family, basically sue himself and his
(07:17):
family and instill the money from the Satterfield children.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
That's quite a plan, right.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Well, it absolutely is, and it requires a lot of forethought,
requires a lot of planning to do something like this,
and it speaks to his evil nature. I mean, this
man was thinking it through all along. And you've got
to know that this is partly genetic this is what's
(07:44):
been going on in South Carolina in the control of
these folks for many generations, and that in himself is frightening.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I don't know this genetic I mean, are you trying
to say that? What are you trying to say?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
What I'm they somehow.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Related the responsibility because it's just simply in his genes.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Not at all. What I'm saying is this is a
tradition with that family.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Oh yeah, that I agree.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
So now we've got him caught and yet another lie.
I don't know how it's going to benefit him at
this juncture, because he's already got life behind bars for
the murders of his wife and son. But that said,
we also have him sending out letters proclaiming his innocence.
Now we saw how that worked out on the stand.
(08:55):
Nobody believed him because he was caught tripped up in
so many lies. So I'm curious about his frame of mind.
What is is fueling his desire to make people believe
he's innocent.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
What do you think, Dale?
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Right, He's a narcissist. He's got an ego that's bigger
than all my house, and the result is. It's not
his fault. The circumstances caused him to act as he
did and that's beyond his control. And if you don't
agree with him, well you're just not very bright. And
(09:33):
so that's the method. And you know, when we talk
about him stealing money from clowns, from settlements, you've also
got to wonder how much money he stole from individuals
who paid him for legal services that didn't get properly
handled or didn't get handled at all. So this man
was rolling in money, and I've always had a question
(09:53):
where did this money go? You can't spend that much
money on drugs, so it wouldn't surprise me at all
that there's not a very chest of gold somewhere. Maybe
not physically, but certainly electronically, because you can put money
in other countries, in other places and hide it easily
these years, particularly with bitcoin, all you got to do
(10:15):
is have the code.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, what I'm asking you, aside from your seeming fascination
with bitcoin, despite today and prior to today, why to Seafield,
he needs to prove to other people he did not
murder Paul and Maggie, because number one.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
He did.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Okay, let's just start with that premise he did murder them,
So a jury's already found him guilty. What is driving
him to try to convince people the letters that he
didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Why is he doing that?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
If you look at his history, the family history was
well thought of by the general public for many years,
and now he's trying to recapture that goodness that he's
clearly abandoned and lost during that trial. I mean, he's
not a good person, but if he looks in the mirror,
he wants to see a good person. But of course
(11:11):
in prison, they're not glass mirrors, they're seamless steel mirrors, right,
so the reflections kind of warped. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Now, according to one friend that he's writing the friend
rights quote, he's a broken man. Really, he's kicking back,
playing checkers, getting love letters. People are dumping money into
his commissary account. Strangers are giving him money, women want
(11:40):
to meet him. That does not sound like a quote
broken man, But that is the facade which he is
portraying to the recipients of these letters.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So why he's not broken, he's.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Not broken, and particularly why his wife former wife and
his son are rotting in their.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Graves we're hearing that he writes that he's trying to
make amends for the financial crimes, but insists he did
not kill Maggie and Paul.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So is that where he draws the line.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, I'll steal millions and millions of dollars from my clients.
I'll lie to their face, I'll steal their money, I'll
use it on drugs. But I did not kill my
wife and son. So is that where he draws the line.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Well, of course he's just in denial. I mean, it's
fairly clear based on the evidence that you and I
Booth watched, you know, with the edification of magic, Cheryl.
I mean, we we know that he killed his son
and his wife.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
You know, it's really get go ahead.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Cragg As. That is Nancy. As tragic as that is.
This is a narcissist. And we know that people who
have strong egos will never just roll over and say, Okay, well,
it's really my fault. They believe, and you know this,
they believe that because they were allowed to fool somebody,
(13:13):
or trick somebody, or in this case, kill somebody, it's
that person's fault for being lured into the situation which
he planned and orchestrated where he had all his wife
and his son at home. She was on the verge
of divorce. She comes from one place to meet with him,
knowing and texting a friend that this seems kind of
(13:36):
off a little bit, and that was her failure to
abide by her gut, which put her in the position
of being manipulated by this guy who feels right, well,
I could manipulate her, so what I did was okay.
And we know, as people who care about other people,
that that's just wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
You know, I'm thinking of all the angles regarding these letters.
They mean a lot if you examine them for any
prohibitive value. Number one, it shows that it's still all
about him, just as it was, just as.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It is, just as it always will be.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It's all about how he feels, what he wants to portray.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
It's not about Paul and Maggie.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
He's not writing so help me God in Heaven, even
though I'm in this jail cell, I'm going to find
out who murdered them.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
It's not that that's exactly right, exactly right, show.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Who he is yet again, it's not about a never
ending quest to get justice or truth for his wife,
and his son. It's about clearing his own name, getting sympathizers,
and getting support.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Well exactly it works with all these angers on that
seems to believe and care about him. I don't understand
the culture where we even allow that. It's like edifying
and glory.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Rush back into the middle of the road.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Let me just steer us back on to why he's
writing the letters, not the nuts that are sending.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Him money and love letters.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
He is insisting on his innocence regarding the team murders.
Why because it's who he is. It's not about Matthew y'all.
It's about him and point two, it's about his appeal.
If he were ever ever to once admit, okay, I
did it. I was high out of my gorge on pills.
(15:35):
I did it there. If he did that, he would
never win on appeal. I don't care how great.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Legal loophole the defense came up with. The appellate court
would find out he admit admitted it, and they would say, yes,
there was an error at trial, but it was harmless
and the outcome would have been the same if with
this error had not occurred. You know, That's what the
appellate court would do right.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
There's no question that that's what they would do. So
he's got to play that close to the vest. But
I would argue that there's no way in hell he
was high on drugs when he did this. The ability
to kill two people with two separate weapons at a
distance belives the fact that he was off on drugs,
(16:26):
knew what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I don't care if he was on drugs or not,
because voluntary use with drugs or alcohol it's not a
defense under earth agreed the law, and most jurisdictions, but
particularly in South Carolina where the case was tried. My
point is, why is he doing this? What is motivating
him to write scores of letters declaring his innocence in
the murders because he wants to win that appeal. If
(16:51):
he's crazy, he's crazy like a fox. I don't care
if he's on drugs or not.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
He did it.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
They're still dead whether he's on drugs or not. Deal Carson.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Those letters are going to people who owe him favors,
and those people are connected to the jailers. I mean,
the depths and penetration of that family's power is uncalculable.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
He has a raison.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You know another thing, if he cared about Paul and Maggie,
you know they still don't have gravestones. His father has
a graystone, they don't what about that. It's just going
to leave them out there with dirt on top of them.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Right, right. Of course, his economic situation may prohibit it
with them both.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
If he wants to write letters, he could write letters
to people that could help him get the gravestones up.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
What about that ding ding?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
That's an excellent.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Point Prime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Okay, let's talk about his life behind bars. You do
know that he has been moved to protective custody, right, dew.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
All, right, I do, yes. What do you think about
eight x ten Ceil and his portrayed as being really
horrible conditions, But that's not necessarily the case. They still
have access to the outside, and it's in a courtyard
that's prevented to them from escaping. But the upshot of
all of this is he's being protected from who now
(18:42):
they say he's being protected from people who had want
his death, and it may be one of the reasons
he's lying about the dogs because the insurance company certainly
wants to keep him alive, so you don't know where
the octopus's tentacles go and how far they penetrate into
(19:02):
that system. We know people who've committed suicide, questionably while
in custody. Any number of things could happen, and so
he needs to be kept alive by the insurance company
if they ever have a hope of getting seven point
five million dollars back.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Do I have to say pedophile father John Gogan. They
praested and molested and molested and molested and molested until
another inmate killed him. He was in protitive custody too.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Well. The prison Nancy, And let me just tell you,
the prison has a way of taking care of people.
I had the case in Atlanta in the eighties where
a young lady who was providing food options for the
inmates in population now and was getting ready to go
home for Thanksgiving was assaulted and killed by someone she
(19:57):
was giving counseling to. It was six months later that
he died from a bail that was in a typewriter,
that little wire that used to hold the paper down
on the rollers for the typewriters. He was stabbed one
hundred and eighteen times. So the prisons do have a
way of equalizing all of this for us, even though
(20:19):
we don't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I don't know that I would count on jailhouse justice here,
because that's few and far between. He never even approached
the death penalty. It was not on the table, it
was not an option. I don't know that I would
count on an inmate to carry out an execution where
the court wouldn't do it. I mean, it has happened
(20:43):
in the past, but it's few and far between. And
speaking of his dire circumstances behind bars, each inmate has
their own cell. They are allowed out basically from nine
am to four pm. They played Checkers, Checkers, cars, and
watch TV. They have a courtyard to go outside. They
(21:05):
each have a private tablet for phone calls, emails, internet access,
face time. He's calling his girlfriends, they're calling him. Yes,
he's got admirers that are sending him money.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's what he's doing. That doesn't sound that bad to me.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
He's got a tablet. And the truth of the matter
is that existence is not so unlike those of us
who work every day. We go one place, we stay there,
we come home, but our lives are not filled with
a whole bunch of adventure beyond that, and he's being
granted that authority, that lifestyle, even though he's guilty of
(21:47):
killing probably more than one or two people.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I want to talk to you about him being in
protective custody. Do you believe that he will ultimately go
back to court on the financial crimes, and if so,
would he be taken out of protective's custody to be
transported back and forth to the trial.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Well, the way it works now is that individuals who
bring litigation, both criminal and civil, are allowed to bring
that person back into the courtroom to face their accusers.
It's one of the requirements of the law. But I
will tell you that today's use of zoom video is
rather fascinating. We have that in court. I could sit
(22:35):
right here in my living room and I could in
fact appear in court in twenty minutes waiting to give
testimony or obtain testimony. I mean that certainly is a possibility.
But of course, if he gets out, he's in general
population again, he's exposing he's exposed to whatever risk that
(22:56):
they're suggesting he may have.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Going back to the glorious Satterfield debacle, where he immediately
formulates a plan to defraud steal from Satterfield's family. Explain
to those that are not familiar with civil lawsuit doings,
how he approached Satterfield's children and said, Hey, i'll represent present.
(23:24):
I'll represent you while you sue me and my estate
for her death, and I'll get you several hundred thousand dollars.
And he gets the money, and then Pocket said, explain
how that whole thing works about soliciting clients.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Sure, well, So what you do, though, is if you're
the responsible party, you're not allowed to have any contact
with the victim directly. So you hire another attorney to
go represent them, and you coordinate with the other attorney
how all of this happens. And then you create, as
he did, a company that's sound alike for an existing
(24:01):
consulting company. You have the company, the insurance company send
the check to that LLC that company that he's created,
and then you have a buddy cash the checks for you.
But you have to be well connected to do that.
And that's one of the concerns of the bar generally,
is you full well know if you mess around with
(24:23):
somebody's trust fund, you mess around with somebody's money you're
going to raise the ire of the bar, which is
our controlling agency, immediately. Because you're in such a position
to lie to people. People believe you, they want to
believe you, and you can draft them on for years,
which is exactly what happened here. And because you're trusting
(24:46):
your lawyer to save that money for you, and he's
telling you, I'm taking care of this, buddy, don't worry
about it. I got this. It's just going to be
a little bit longer. Who are you gonna believe? So
he has that ability, that skill set, and we saw
what he was on the stand, his ability to twist
things around where they sound reasonable even though it's a
(25:07):
clear lie.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
What do you anticipate happening in the Mallory Beach boat
homicide case.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Well, you know, it's what you and I would call
stere decisives right in the sense that the guy the
courts have already ruled essentially that the case is done.
They've ruled that, so if it's done, it's closed. You've
got to reopen all of that. And now you've got
to find a party that's a guilty party. How do
(25:37):
you make this guy the custody for killing his wife
and son guilty for the younger son's behavior only.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
By allowing him, and I'm talking about Paul murdog, only
by allowing him. The parents knew how to drinking problem,
to commandeer the boat and now Mallory Beach is dead
the only way.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I think.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
That's the only way for criminal, any criminal liability. But
I don't think there's going to be any criminal liability
in the death of Gloria Sadderfield. As far as the
fall itself.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Well, I mean they never investigated it, you know exactly.
You got mom on the nine one one call. You
got son in the background chatting things up and telling
him to get off the phone. Yeah, you got the
husband the driving to the scene. He didn't know what happened,
he wasn't there. If he knew anything, he knew it
from the witnesses that were never deposed. No information was
(26:39):
other gathered from him. And the insurance company simply wanted
to settle because of their history of manipulating the system.
And it's just easier to settle for four point three
million dollars than it is to go to trial in
South Carolina, where your warriors alone are going to cost
you two million dollars, So you just settled to the limits.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You've got Mallory Beach, you have Gloria Satterfield, and you
have the Stephen Smith case, which we're still waiting to hear.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
The next step.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It seems to me the next step for Murdoch anyway,
and a long line of lawsuits is going to be
about the financial crimes. A lot of people don't care
about the prosecution of the financial crimes.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I do. And this is.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
If for any reason his murder convictions are reversed, which
I do not anticipate, we will still have the convictions
for millions of dollars worth of financial fraud. So those
cases must be prosecuted, and they're going to go straight
back to the same judge who's.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Already had a snoop full of Alex Murdoch.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
You got that right, And of course the victims themselves
they want the guy to be convicted if there's any
recovery ever made, because you and I both know that
the bar has funds that it can use to make
people whole when they've been cheated by their lawyers.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So that's right, okay, Del Carson. We wait.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Apparently the Alex Murdoch story isn't over yet.
Crime stories with Nancy Grease.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Does this man never stop lying?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Alex Murdog, of course, has changed his story again, this
time about the death of Gloria Sadderfield. As you know,
Alex Murdog, the heir to a legal dynasty in South Carolina,
had millions of dollars at his fingertips, a wife, a family,
(00:41):
two sons, multiple homes. But that wasn't enough, was it.
He had to steal from all of his clients to
the tune of millions of dollars as dead bodies pile
up around him. Murdog convicted in the double murderers of
his wife Maggie and son Paul, but it ain't over yet.
(01:02):
There is the housekeeper that helped the family raise the
two sons, Paul and Buster, who dies at the foot
of his steps. At first, he blamed none other than
the dogs that live in the home. But in a
new development from inside a prison cells somewhere in South Carolina,
(01:24):
the defendant Alex Murdogg, has changed his story. His original
story that Miss Satterfield died from injury sustain at a
fall at his I guess hunting lodge, his country estate
as some people call it. For years he held onto
that story that it was the dog's fault that made
(01:46):
her fall down the stairs to her death. But now
he says he doesn't know how Satterfield fell, that he
quote invented the story only because it would give him
an avenue to file a wrongful a wrongful death lawsuit
for Saderfield's children against him, so he, as their lawyer,
(02:11):
can get.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
That money and steal it.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So just imagine, even at the beginning, the very beginning,
when Satterfield falls to her death down the stairs at
Moselle the hunting lodge, he already comes up with a
plan to pocket millions of dollars. He now behind Barr
says the dog's role in the tragedy was an invention,
(02:41):
joining me, high profile lawyer out of Jacksonville who's seen
it all not only in the courtroom, but as a
former special agent with the FBI. Dale Carson is with us. Dale,
thank you for being with us. What do you make
of this newest invention?
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know what I love about this power that exudes
out of this man before he falls. And so the
standard way of creating a settlement, first you have an
autopsy with an unattended death, which did not happened. And then,
in the standard manner of lawyering, you have depositions, you
(03:22):
have requests for admissions or interrogatories, which are questions put
to the potential witnesses. But instead of doing any of that,
the insurance company just settled. That's power, But it also
allows that the witnesses that were there on the scene,
(03:43):
which was not Alex Murdox, were never by attorneys for
the insurance carrier. So it's rather clever when we think
about it. And he's so good at lying. We saw
that on the witness stand during the murder trial. He
looked so casual and so powerful in his lies that
(04:06):
it would be very difficult for someone in a settlement
setting to really discern that he's not only not telling
the truth, but he's creating a scenario if he had
just fallen down the steps. That's one thing, But the
fact that the dogs caused it allowed him to get
a four point three million dollar settlement in cash that
(04:27):
he diverted through some friends and put in his own pocket.
That's pretty clever.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Well, I don't know that I would call it clever,
maybe nefarious, evil, malevolent. That said, I also find it
very probitive or it proves something to me that Alex
Marlok only made his u turn, his about face, his
new confession because of a lawsuit against him by I
(04:55):
believe it was a Nautilus insurance company that based on
their claim that they have been defrauded because they paid
out the settlement. The balance of the settlement funds were
paid by different insurance company, but because Murdog had no money,
his attorneys suggested that Nautilus go after Satterfield's state attorneys.
(05:21):
Now they claim Blann Richter claims are seven point five
million dollars that they collected from a lawsuit against Murdoch
and his firm. So I find it really interesting Dale
Carson that it's only when he is threatened with even
(05:41):
more money lawsuits that he finally coughs up the truth.
But just think about the level of evil this requires.
This is a woman, Gloria Satterfield, Miss Satterfield, a mother,
a longtime friend of the family, who was literally changed
his son's diapers, taking care of them, cooked for them,
(06:06):
taking care of the whole family, cleaned their home, run
errands for them for decades.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
And in the South, this is the way it progresses
because when parents are working, it's oftentimes the caregiver who
raises all.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Okay, see, I don't know how you were. Where did
you grow up.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
In Jacksonville, Florida?
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, so I don't know what made you in what
mayeu you were in. But my mother and father both
were as a bookkeeper and for the railroad, and we
did not have a housekeeper at all. My grandmother helped
raise me. We certainly cannot afford a housekeeper to live
in the house and clean up, are you kidding?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
That's what we did as the children.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
But that said, this is a woman they knew as
a friend, as part of the family, and so she
falls to her death on Murdoch's steps, and he immediately
comes up with a plan so he could sue on
behalf of Gloria Satterfield's family, basically sue himself and his
(07:17):
family and instill the money from the Satterfield children.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
That's quite a plan, right.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Well, it absolutely is, and it requires a lot of forethought,
requires a lot of planning to do something like this,
and it speaks to his evil nature. I mean, this
man was thinking it through all along. And you've got
to know that this is partly genetic this is what's
(07:44):
been going on in South Carolina in the control of
these folks for many generations, and that in himself is frightening.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
I don't know this genetic I mean, are you trying
to say that? What are you trying to say?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
What I'm they somehow.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Related the responsibility because it's just simply in his genes.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Not at all. What I'm saying is this is a
tradition with that family.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Oh yeah, that I agree.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Crime stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
So now we've got him caught and yet another lie.
I don't know how it's going to benefit him at
this juncture, because he's already got life behind bars for
the murders of his wife and son. But that said,
we also have him sending out letters proclaiming his innocence.
Now we saw how that worked out on the stand.
(08:55):
Nobody believed him because he was caught tripped up in
so many lies. So I'm curious about his frame of mind.
What is is fueling his desire to make people believe
he's innocent.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
What do you think, Dale?
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Right, He's a narcissist. He's got an ego that's bigger
than all my house, and the result is. It's not
his fault. The circumstances caused him to act as he
did and that's beyond his control. And if you don't
agree with him, well you're just not very bright. And
(09:33):
so that's the method. And you know, when we talk
about him stealing money from clowns, from settlements, you've also
got to wonder how much money he stole from individuals
who paid him for legal services that didn't get properly
handled or didn't get handled at all. So this man
was rolling in money, and I've always had a question
(09:53):
where did this money go? You can't spend that much
money on drugs, so it wouldn't surprise me at all
that there's not a very chest of gold somewhere. Maybe
not physically, but certainly electronically, because you can put money
in other countries, in other places and hide it easily
these years, particularly with bitcoin, all you got to do
(10:15):
is have the code.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Well, what I'm asking you, aside from your seeming fascination
with bitcoin, despite today and prior to today, why to Seafield,
he needs to prove to other people he did not
murder Paul and Maggie, because number one.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
He did.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Okay, let's just start with that premise he did murder them,
So a jury's already found him guilty. What is driving
him to try to convince people the letters that he
didn't do it.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Why is he doing that?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
If you look at his history, the family history was
well thought of by the general public for many years,
and now he's trying to recapture that goodness that he's
clearly abandoned and lost during that trial. I mean, he's
not a good person, but if he looks in the mirror,
he wants to see a good person. But of course
(11:11):
in prison, they're not glass mirrors, they're seamless steel mirrors, right,
so the reflections kind of warped. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Now, according to one friend that he's writing the friend
rights quote, he's a broken man. Really, he's kicking back,
playing checkers, getting love letters. People are dumping money into
his commissary account. Strangers are giving him money, women want
(11:40):
to meet him. That does not sound like a quote
broken man, But that is the facade which he is
portraying to the recipients of these letters.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
So why he's not broken, he's.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Not broken, and particularly why his wife former wife and
his son are rotting in their.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Graves we're hearing that he writes that he's trying to
make amends for the financial crimes, but insists he did
not kill Maggie and Paul.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So is that where he draws the line.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Yeah, I'll steal millions and millions of dollars from my clients.
I'll lie to their face, I'll steal their money, I'll
use it on drugs. But I did not kill my
wife and son. So is that where he draws the line.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Well, of course he's just in denial. I mean, it's
fairly clear based on the evidence that you and I
Booth watched, you know, with the edification of magic, Cheryl.
I mean, we we know that he killed his son
and his wife.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
You know, it's really get go ahead.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Cragg As. That is Nancy. As tragic as that is.
This is a narcissist. And we know that people who
have strong egos will never just roll over and say, Okay, well,
it's really my fault. They believe, and you know this,
they believe that because they were allowed to fool somebody,
(13:13):
or trick somebody, or in this case, kill somebody, it's
that person's fault for being lured into the situation which
he planned and orchestrated where he had all his wife
and his son at home. She was on the verge
of divorce. She comes from one place to meet with him,
knowing and texting a friend that this seems kind of
(13:36):
off a little bit, and that was her failure to
abide by her gut, which put her in the position
of being manipulated by this guy who feels right, well,
I could manipulate her, so what I did was okay.
And we know, as people who care about other people,
that that's just wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
You know, I'm thinking of all the angles regarding these letters.
They mean a lot if you examine them for any
prohibitive value. Number one, it shows that it's still all
about him, just as it was, just as.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
It is, just as it always will be.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
It's all about how he feels, what he wants to portray.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
It's not about Paul and Maggie.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
He's not writing so help me God in Heaven, even
though I'm in this jail cell, I'm going to find
out who murdered them.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
It's not that that's exactly right, exactly right, show.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Who he is yet again, it's not about a never
ending quest to get justice or truth for his wife,
and his son. It's about clearing his own name, getting sympathizers,
and getting support.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Well exactly it works with all these angers on that
seems to believe and care about him. I don't understand
the culture where we even allow that. It's like edifying
and glory.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Rush back into the middle of the road.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Let me just steer us back on to why he's
writing the letters, not the nuts that are sending.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Him money and love letters.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
He is insisting on his innocence regarding the team murders.
Why because it's who he is. It's not about Matthew y'all.
It's about him and point two, it's about his appeal.
If he were ever ever to once admit, okay, I
did it. I was high out of my gorge on pills.
(15:35):
I did it there. If he did that, he would
never win on appeal. I don't care how great.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
Legal loophole the defense came up with. The appellate court
would find out he admit admitted it, and they would say, yes,
there was an error at trial, but it was harmless
and the outcome would have been the same if with
this error had not occurred. You know, That's what the
appellate court would do right.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
There's no question that that's what they would do. So
he's got to play that close to the vest. But
I would argue that there's no way in hell he
was high on drugs when he did this. The ability
to kill two people with two separate weapons at a
distance belives the fact that he was off on drugs,
(16:26):
knew what he was doing.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
I don't care if he was on drugs or not,
because voluntary use with drugs or alcohol it's not a
defense under earth agreed the law, and most jurisdictions, but
particularly in South Carolina where the case was tried. My
point is, why is he doing this? What is motivating
him to write scores of letters declaring his innocence in
the murders because he wants to win that appeal. If
(16:51):
he's crazy, he's crazy like a fox. I don't care
if he's on drugs or not.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
He did it.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
They're still dead whether he's on drugs or not. Deal Carson.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
Those letters are going to people who owe him favors,
and those people are connected to the jailers. I mean,
the depths and penetration of that family's power is uncalculable.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
He has a raison.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
You know another thing, if he cared about Paul and Maggie,
you know they still don't have gravestones. His father has
a graystone, they don't what about that. It's just going
to leave them out there with dirt on top of them.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Right, right. Of course, his economic situation may prohibit it
with them both.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
If he wants to write letters, he could write letters
to people that could help him get the gravestones up.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
What about that ding ding?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
That's an excellent.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Point Prime Stories with Nancy Grace.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Okay, let's talk about his life behind bars. You do
know that he has been moved to protective custody, right, dew.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
All, right, I do, yes. What do you think about
eight x ten Ceil and his portrayed as being really
horrible conditions, But that's not necessarily the case. They still
have access to the outside, and it's in a courtyard
that's prevented to them from escaping. But the upshot of
all of this is he's being protected from who now
(18:42):
they say he's being protected from people who had want
his death, and it may be one of the reasons
he's lying about the dogs because the insurance company certainly
wants to keep him alive, so you don't know where
the octopus's tentacles go and how far they penetrate into
(19:02):
that system. We know people who've committed suicide, questionably while
in custody. Any number of things could happen, and so
he needs to be kept alive by the insurance company
if they ever have a hope of getting seven point
five million dollars back.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Do I have to say pedophile father John Gogan. They
praested and molested and molested and molested and molested until
another inmate killed him. He was in protitive custody too.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
Well. The prison Nancy, And let me just tell you,
the prison has a way of taking care of people.
I had the case in Atlanta in the eighties where
a young lady who was providing food options for the
inmates in population now and was getting ready to go
home for Thanksgiving was assaulted and killed by someone she
(19:57):
was giving counseling to. It was six months later that
he died from a bail that was in a typewriter,
that little wire that used to hold the paper down
on the rollers for the typewriters. He was stabbed one
hundred and eighteen times. So the prisons do have a
way of equalizing all of this for us, even though
(20:19):
we don't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
I don't know that I would count on jailhouse justice here,
because that's few and far between. He never even approached
the death penalty. It was not on the table, it
was not an option. I don't know that I would
count on an inmate to carry out an execution where
the court wouldn't do it. I mean, it has happened
(20:43):
in the past, but it's few and far between. And
speaking of his dire circumstances behind bars, each inmate has
their own cell. They are allowed out basically from nine
am to four pm. They played Checkers, Checkers, cars, and
watch TV. They have a courtyard to go outside. They
(21:05):
each have a private tablet for phone calls, emails, internet access,
face time. He's calling his girlfriends, they're calling him. Yes,
he's got admirers that are sending him money.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
That's what he's doing. That doesn't sound that bad to me.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
He's got a tablet. And the truth of the matter
is that existence is not so unlike those of us
who work every day. We go one place, we stay there,
we come home, but our lives are not filled with
a whole bunch of adventure beyond that, and he's being
granted that authority, that lifestyle, even though he's guilty of
(21:47):
killing probably more than one or two people.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
I want to talk to you about him being in
protective custody. Do you believe that he will ultimately go
back to court on the financial crimes, and if so,
would he be taken out of protective's custody to be
transported back and forth to the trial.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Well, the way it works now is that individuals who
bring litigation, both criminal and civil, are allowed to bring
that person back into the courtroom to face their accusers.
It's one of the requirements of the law. But I
will tell you that today's use of zoom video is
rather fascinating. We have that in court. I could sit
(22:35):
right here in my living room and I could in
fact appear in court in twenty minutes waiting to give
testimony or obtain testimony. I mean that certainly is a possibility.
But of course, if he gets out, he's in general
population again, he's exposing he's exposed to whatever risk that
(22:56):
they're suggesting he may have.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Going back to the glorious Satterfield debacle, where he immediately
formulates a plan to defraud steal from Satterfield's family. Explain
to those that are not familiar with civil lawsuit doings,
how he approached Satterfield's children and said, Hey, i'll represent present.
(23:24):
I'll represent you while you sue me and my estate
for her death, and I'll get you several hundred thousand dollars.
And he gets the money, and then Pocket said, explain
how that whole thing works about soliciting clients.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Sure, well, So what you do, though, is if you're
the responsible party, you're not allowed to have any contact
with the victim directly. So you hire another attorney to
go represent them, and you coordinate with the other attorney
how all of this happens. And then you create, as
he did, a company that's sound alike for an existing
(24:01):
consulting company. You have the company, the insurance company send
the check to that LLC that company that he's created,
and then you have a buddy cash the checks for you.
But you have to be well connected to do that.
And that's one of the concerns of the bar generally,
is you full well know if you mess around with
(24:23):
somebody's trust fund, you mess around with somebody's money you're
going to raise the ire of the bar, which is
our controlling agency, immediately. Because you're in such a position
to lie to people. People believe you, they want to
believe you, and you can draft them on for years,
which is exactly what happened here. And because you're trusting
(24:46):
your lawyer to save that money for you, and he's
telling you, I'm taking care of this, buddy, don't worry
about it. I got this. It's just going to be
a little bit longer. Who are you gonna believe? So
he has that ability, that skill set, and we saw
what he was on the stand, his ability to twist
things around where they sound reasonable even though it's a
(25:07):
clear lie.
Speaker 3 (25:09):
What do you anticipate happening in the Mallory Beach boat
homicide case.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Well, you know, it's what you and I would call
stere decisives right in the sense that the guy the
courts have already ruled essentially that the case is done.
They've ruled that, so if it's done, it's closed. You've
got to reopen all of that. And now you've got
to find a party that's a guilty party. How do
(25:37):
you make this guy the custody for killing his wife
and son guilty for the younger son's behavior only.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
By allowing him, and I'm talking about Paul murdog, only
by allowing him. The parents knew how to drinking problem,
to commandeer the boat and now Mallory Beach is dead
the only way.
Speaker 2 (26:01):
I think.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
That's the only way for criminal, any criminal liability. But
I don't think there's going to be any criminal liability
in the death of Gloria Sadderfield. As far as the
fall itself.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Well, I mean they never investigated it, you know exactly.
You got mom on the nine one one call. You
got son in the background chatting things up and telling
him to get off the phone. Yeah, you got the
husband the driving to the scene. He didn't know what happened,
he wasn't there. If he knew anything, he knew it
from the witnesses that were never deposed. No information was
(26:39):
other gathered from him. And the insurance company simply wanted
to settle because of their history of manipulating the system.
And it's just easier to settle for four point three
million dollars than it is to go to trial in
South Carolina, where your warriors alone are going to cost
you two million dollars, So you just settled to the limits.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You've got Mallory Beach, you have Gloria Satterfield, and you
have the Stephen Smith case, which we're still waiting to hear.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
The next step.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
It seems to me the next step for Murdoch anyway,
and a long line of lawsuits is going to be
about the financial crimes. A lot of people don't care
about the prosecution of the financial crimes.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
I do. And this is.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
If for any reason his murder convictions are reversed, which
I do not anticipate, we will still have the convictions
for millions of dollars worth of financial fraud. So those
cases must be prosecuted, and they're going to go straight
back to the same judge who's.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Already had a snoop full of Alex Murdoch.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
You got that right, And of course the victims themselves
they want the guy to be convicted if there's any
recovery ever made, because you and I both know that
the bar has funds that it can use to make
people whole when they've been cheated by their lawyers.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So that's right, okay, Del Carson. We wait.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Apparently the Alex Murdoch story isn't over yet.
Host
Nancy Grace
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