Boat passenger told attorneys he was scared of Murdaugh family’s influence, docs show
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2019 Boat Crash Coverage
The crash of a Murdaugh family boat in 2019 killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach and started a chain of events that would remain in the news two years later. Here are the stories from that crash.
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This story first published Aug. 19, 2021.
Connor Cook, one of six passengers aboard the Sea Hunt boat that crashed and killed Mallory Beach in 2019, said in sworn testimony that he was scared to tell police Paul Murdaugh was driving the boat because of the Murdaugh family’s influence, according to court documents filed in Richland County Wednesday.
Cook, in his testimony to attorneys from the separate wrongful death suit, appears to reference two other deaths — Stephen Smith and Gloria Satterfield — rumored to be connected to the Murdaugh family.
“I mean, just anything they get in, they get out of,” Cook said, referring to the Murdaughs. “I’ve always been told that.”
A lawyer for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources filed Cook’s testimony in response to a civil petition from Cook’s attorneys. The petition, filed in July against SCDNR and the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, claimed law enforcement officers may know about intentions to hamper the crash investigation and shift blame from Murdaugh to Cook. The petition sought access to law enforcement officers’ work and personal cell phone records.
SCDNR filed Cook’s deposition Wednesday as proof that Cook “lied early and often to investigators” about who was driving the boat on Feb. 24, 2019. Cook, according to the response, still refuses to provide a statement to SCDNR saying he knew Paul Murdaugh was driving the boat. The response argues that because Murdaugh, found shot to death in June, and was the only person charged in the crash, Cook “suffered no damages.” It asks a judge to dismiss the petition.
In the more than 100 pages of testimony released Wednesday, Cook, who broke his jaw in the crash, describes in detail what happened in the hours leading up to and after the infamous boat wreck.
The documents provide new details about the crash, the Murdaugh family’s attempts to influence the investigation and two other deaths rumored to be linked to the family:
▪ Cook told attorneys multiple times that Murdaugh was driving the boat when it crashed, according to his deposition. He said he told investigators he didn’t remember who was driving because Alex Murdaugh, Paul’s father and an attorney and volunteer prosecutor, told him to “keep my mouth shut and tell them I didn’t know who was driving and that he’s got me.”
▪ He said that he didn’t give investigators any more information than a brief statement after the crash because he “was told not to.”
Connor Cook’s written statement to DNR about the crash was two sentences, one of which read: “I remember seeing the bridge and that’s about it.”
▪ He said Paul Murdaugh left his hospital bed and visited Cook’s room as he was leaving the hospital.
▪ Alex Murdaugh recommended an attorney, Corey Fleming, for Cook at the hospital, according to the deposition. Cook later hired attorney Sam Bauer before he was represented by his current attorney Joe McCulloch, according to his testimony.
▪ Cook told attorneys that “a couple of things that had happened in Hampton” concerned him about the Murdaugh family. Asked what made him scared, Cook responded: “Them being who they are.” He references a rumor that “Paul had pushed his housemate down the stairs and she died and nothing ever happened.” This rumor — with the name Gloria Satterfield — have circulated online in the wake of Paul Murdaugh’s death.
Gloria Harriott Satterfield, 57, died on Feb. 26, 2018, at Trident Medical Center in North Charleston, according to her obituary.
Her obituary says she loved Alex and Maggie Murdaugh and their family “as her family.”
On Dec. 19, 2018, a representative of Satterfield’s estate filed a wrongful death claim against Alex Murdaugh. The suit says Satterfield died from injuries she sustained in a trip-and-fall accident in Hampton County. The initial court filing said Murdaugh’s insurance provider would pay $500,000 plus an additional $5,000 for medical payments.
Of that money, $177,500 was to be paid to the law firm Moss, Kuhn & Fleming.
The claim was settled on Oct. 5, 2020, according to court filings. The documents do not indicate whether anything else was included in the settlement.
No interviews or public records released in these cases link Paul Murdaugh to Satterfield’s death.
▪ Cook told attorneys about “another” incident where “Paul was supposedly involved with a guy, got found beat up in the middle of the road that they got out of,” his deposition said.
Cook’s statement appears to refer to the unsolved death of 19-year-old Stephen Smith. Smith’s body was found in the middle of a rural road near Hampton in 2015.
After Murdaugh and his mother, Maggie, were found shot to death, the S.C. Law Enforcement Division opened an investigation into Smith’s death “based on information gathered” during the double homicide investigation.
▪ Cook told attorneys that, just after the boat crash, he overheard Paul Murdaugh call his grandfather and say that Cook was driving the boat. Cook, according to his deposition, became worried that the Murdaughs were going to blame him for the crash.
▪ When asked by attorneys whether he blamed Paul Murdaugh for the boat crash, Cook said yes, according to his deposition. He told the attorneys that he never tried to take control of the boat when Murdaugh was “driving erratically.” Asked whether he ever took over the wheel, Cook said he only steered at slow idle when it “needed to be steered because we were going round and round like getting us pointed back. That’s it.”
▪ Cook told attorneys that Murdaugh had “always been the one that wanted to drive the boat and will not let anyone else drive the boat. He told us it was his boat and no one could operate his boat like him and no one is driving his effing boat.”
▪ Cook told attorneys that after an argument on the boat, Murdaugh “was pissed and everybody was ready to get home, so he hauled ass.” After the boat hit bridge pilings, Cook said he remembered waking up in the bottom of the boat.
▪ Referring to the other boat passengers, Cook told attorneys that “we all knew I wasn’t driving.”
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 11:07 AM with the headline "Boat passenger told attorneys he was scared of Murdaugh family’s influence, docs show."
