The attorneys appointed to comb through Alex Murdaugh’s finances and determine the sum total of his assets have withdrawn the motion to compel they filed Tuesday in Hampton County Court against an Estill, South Carolina, funeral home owner connected to Murdaugh.
On Wednesday, FITSNews reported that Murdaugh had wired more than $110,000 from his checking account in January 2020 to “personally fund the purchase” of a funeral home, a hearse, a limo and three properties under foreclosure in Brunswick, Georgia, according to court records.
The funeral home purchase in question was for the Hall Jones and Brown Funeral Home, which is now a second location of Martin’s Funeral Home in Hampton County.
The property was purchased in a foreclosure auction by John Martin, the owner of Martin’s.
On Jan. 27, the attorneys who were appointed by the court to comb through Murdaugh’s finances sent a subpoena to Martin asking for “any and all documents in your possession regarding the transaction referenced … including, but not limited to, any correspondence, text messages or emails.”
Martin did not respond to the subpoena nor did he respond to a follow-up letter sent on March 18, which gave him an additional 10 days to respond before a motion would be filed with the court.
On Tuesday afternoon, attorneys Amy L.B. Hill and Jordan M. Crapps of Gallivan, White and Boyd — the law firm of co-receiver John T. Lay — filed a motion to compel Martin to provide the records requested.
The co-receivers are tasked with accounting for every penny they can find belonging to Murdaugh as a long line of creditors continues to form.
Murdaugh is the defendant in at least nine lawsuits so far. In late March, Murdaugh admitted to $4.3 million from the surviving family of Gloria Satterfield, who was the longtime nanny to his sons before she died after a “trip and fall” incident in 2018 at Murdaugh’s Moselle home.
In addition to the Satterfield case, Murdaugh is being sued by his former law firm, Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth and Detrick; his brother, Randy Murdaugh; his former law partner Johnny Parker; the family of Mallory Beach, who was killed in a 2019 boat crash involving Murdaugh’s boat and his now-deceased son Paul; as well as four passengers who were injured in that same crash.
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On Thursday, Martin emailed FITSNews with a PDF of scanned bank records that he said showed that the money fronted to him by Murdaugh was “deposited back into his bank account.”
Martin took issue with the story published by this news agency, calling the report “totally untrue regarding Richard Alexander Murdaugh owning Martin Funeral Home.”
However, FITSNews never wrote that Murdaugh “owned” Martin’s Funeral Home. Rather, we reported that Murdaugh had purchased the Brunswick funeral home “on behalf” of Martin, which is what occurred, according to the motion to compel and Mr. Martin‘s email to us.
In his email to FITSNews, Martin said, “Mr. Murdaugh was my attorney at the time and stood for this money until I could return these funds back to the bank.”
Friday’s filing says that Martin’s Funeral Home has now provided Gallivan, White and Boyd with documents and that Martin’s response “satisfies the subpoena requests.”