Alex Murdaugh lied when he claimed his housekeeper tripped over his dogs and tumbled to her death down the steps of his family’s home.
In a legal filing made this week, the convicted murderer’s lawyers admitted that the tale had been invented, Fox News reported.
"No dogs were involved in the fall of Gloria Satterfield," they wrote in their reply to a fraud lawsuit filed against Murdaugh by the Nautilus Insurance Company.
“After Ms. Satterfield’s death, defendant invented Ms. Satterfield’s purported statement that dogs caused her fall to force his insurers to make a settlement payment."
“He invented the critical facts,” the filing went on.
The filing does not say how Satterfield died.
The housekeeper died in Feb. 2018 after falling on the steps of the Murdaugh’s South Carolina home. It was suggested in a Netflix documentary that she had been pushed.
Murdaugh is being sued for fraud for allegedly pocketing $3.8 million in insurance money that should have gone to Satterfield’s children. He told her sons to sue him, saying he had liability for the death, then took the payments while telling them there had been no settlement, Nautilus claims.
Murdaugh is serving two life terms in prison after being convicted in March for fatally shooting his son, Paul, 22, and his wife, Maggie, 52, in June 2021.
During his trial, he admitted to lying to his family, friends and clients for decades.