HAMPTON COUNTY, S.C. — Investigators now say they have received permission from family members to exhume the body of jailed attorney Alex Murdaugh's former housekeeper whose family is among many now suing him.
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division spokesperson Renee Wunderlich announced late Friday that the agency would be allowed to remove the remains of Gloria Satterfield from her grave after working with the attorney of the Satterfield family.
However, this isn't expected to be a simple operation, she said.
"This is a complex process that will take weeks, not days," Wunderlich said.
She said that SLED had no further information to provide since the investigation is still underway.
Satterfield had been a family employee of the Murdaugh family for more than 20 years when she died from what authorities said at the time was a fall at the Murdaugh Estate on Feb. 26, 2018.
Years later, and amid numerous lawsuits against Alex Murdaugh, the head of the family, SLED opened a criminal investigation into her death.
Murdaugh has been jailed in the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center for months on several charges that include counts of breach of trust, forgery, money laundering, and computer crimes.
Among the lawsuits that, altogether, allege Murdaugh attempted to steal nearly $8.5 million is one filed by the Satterfield family which claims he attempted to do the same to them.
He's also accused of attempting to arrange his own death in a way that his surviving son received $10 million in insurance funds.
His other son, 22-year-old Paul Murdaugh, was found shot to death a year earlier alongside his mother Margaret at a family hunting lodge on the Hampton County-Colleton County line when he arrived at the location.
Alex Murdaugh told authorities at the time that he found the two there already dead. No arrests have been made in that shooting to this day.