Content warning: This article contains references to murder some may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised.
There are more questions than answers in Netflix's three-part true crime series, Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal, about five deaths spanning six years, all somewhat connected to a prominent South Carolina family, the Murdaughs. The five deceased are: Stephen Smith, Gloria Satterfield, Mallory Beach, Paul Murdaugh, and Maggie Murdaugh.
While the docuseries explains how some of the people were killed — Mallory suffered blunt-force trauma to her head and, after that, she drowned, while Paul and Maggie were shot to death — we still do not know how 19-year-old Stephen died. And Gloria? Her death is an even bigger mystery.
Episode 3 of Murdaugh Murders spent a lot of time focusing on Gloria, the Murdaugh family's longtime housekeeper. On the docuseries, the 57-year-old woman was described by Paul's ex girlfriend, Morgan Doughty, as a second mother to Paul.
On February 2, 2018, while working at the Murdaugh house in South Carolina, Gloria became injured and needed medical assistance. According to Maggie Murdaugh, Gloria had "fallen" while "going up the steps" to the Murdaugh house.
The docuseries explained Gloria's surviving family members were told she had "tripped over the [Murdaugh] family dogs on the stairs, and fell backward, and hit her head violently and died." (She did not die that day; she actually passed away on February 26, 2018.)
Gloria's siblings — Scott, Ginger, and Eric — were interviewed for the series and shared how their sister "really wasn't responsive to [them] the whole time she was in the hospital."
Morgan shared a story about Gloria allegedly finding drugs in bags taped underneath Alex's bed, and told Paul about it because she, as Morgan put it, "was scared to go to Maggie about it." This exchange occurred before Gloria's "trip and fall." Interestingly, Morgan's parents, Bill and Diane Doughty, who were also interviewed for the Netflix series, thought Gloria "knew too much" and that knowledge is what got her killed.
Rumors mentioned in the docuseries included either Maggie or Paul pushing Gloria down the stairs. Paul's friend, Anthony Cook, whose girlfriend, Mallory Beach, was killed in the boating accident that Paul was involved with, said Paul didn't kill Gloria. "He'd never hurt her."
In June 2022, WJCL reported Gloria's body was going to be exhumed because "her death was never reported to the coroner. And no autopsy was performed [at the time]." Unfortunately, there aren't any updates about the status of the exhumation at this time.
As the Netflix series explains, Alex Murdaugh wanted to do something to help Gloria's two surviving sons, so he set out to sue himself for wrongful death because it was supposedly his family's dogs that caused Gloria to fall, and she got hurt while at work (aka on the Murdaughs' property). However, Gloria's family allegedly never received a dime from the death settlement.
As Netflix Life reported, "Approximately one month before Gloria died on the Moselle property [the Murdaugh's land], [Alex] took out commercial insurance and then allegedly collected more than $4.3 million from the insurance claim related to her death."
Michael DeWitt, a journalist interviewed for the docuseries, shared that neither of Gloria's sons knew there had been a death settlement; news of the settlement came out in the paper. Gloria's siblings saw it and wanted to investigate as to why no one in their family ever received money from Gloria's death settlement.
Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter, two attorneys for the Satterfield family who were also interviewed for the docuseries, went to the Murdaughs to ask what was going on and where the money was. What they eventually found out was Alex had misappropriated the money — more than $4 million — that was meant to go to Gloria's family.
Michael Satterfield, one of Gloria's sons, actually testified in February 2023 during Alex's murder trial for the deaths of Paul and Maggie that Alex had stolen the money. Michael had previously testified in June 2021 that "his family heard their case was settled but Murdaugh did not disclose that he had collected on two settlements — one for more than $500,000 and another for $3.8 million," according to ABC7 Eyewitness News.
In December 2021, one of the Satterfield family's attorneys shared Alex apologized to the grieving family and "agree[d] to a $4.3 million settlement with [them]."
Stacey Grant is a senior editor at Seventeen who runs the brand's Snapchat Discover channel. She also covers entertainment topics specializing in nostalgia, such as classic '90s and '00s Disney Channel and Nickelodeon content.
