The sister of Alex Murdaugh's longtime housekeeper and nanny, who died after a fall at their home, said she had thought of the prominent legal family as her own.
In their first television interview, the family of Gloria Satterfield said they were also close with the Murdaughs.
"She worked hard at what she did, and she loved what she did, she took honor in the job she did," Satterfield's sister Ginger Harriott Hadwin told "Dateline." "We thought of them as extended family also because Gloria did."
A preview of the exclusive interview aired Friday morning on NBC's "TODAY" show.
Harriott Hadwin added that after Satterfield's February 2018 death following what was described as an accidental fall, Murdaugh told her two sons "'I want to make sure the boys are taken care of'"
"Because he loved Gloria that much," Harriott Hadwin said.
“Gloria was special in her own way, just like everyone else is special in their own way,” she added. “She was special. She wasn't only just a housemaid or someone that cleaned for somebody. She was a person."
But attorneys for her adult sons, Michael "Tony" Satterfield and Brian Harriott, claim they received none of the proceeds from a $4.3 million settlement they said was orchestrated in secret by Murdaugh, according to a lawsuit filed against their mother's employer and others. State investigators allege about $3.4 million was stolen after legal fees were paid.
"We’re still tracing where the money landed, but it is impossible to burn that kind of money in Hampton, South Carolina," one of the attorneys said.
For more on this story, watch "Dateline" tonight at 9 p.m. ET.
Murdaugh was charged earlier this month with two felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses, in connection with the investigation into millions of dollars missing from the settlement. He has not entered a plea.
Murdaugh, instead of paying out the money, set up the sons with an attorney, Cory Fleming, a close friend and former college roommate, to represent the family's estate, Waters said. The sons say they didn't know the two were friends.
Waters said Fleming helped to divert millions of dollars to an account set up by Murdaugh for a sham company. Fleming's law license was suspended but he has not been charged.
Waters added that Murdaugh used the money to pay off credit card debts and write checks to himself and his father, and that there may be another $118,000 stolen.
State police are investigating a claim by Murdaugh's former law firm, founded by his great-grandfather a century ago, that he also may have stolen millions of dollars from it.
On June 7, Murdaugh found his wife, Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, shot to death outside their Colleton County home. The case remained unsolved. On Sept. 4, Murdaugh was shot in the head on the side of a highway.
His legal team said Murdaugh was depressed and trying to arrange his own death so his surviving son could collect a $10 million insurance policy.
Murdaugh is a member of a respected and well-known family in South Carolina that has produced multiple prosecutors and attorneys.
