The Exhumation of Gloria Satterfield

The body of Gloria Satterfield, longtime housekeeper for disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, will be exhumed. Satterfield died after a trip and fall accident at the Murdaugh home. No autopsy was performed and her manner of death listed as natural. Now, after the string of deaths linked to the Murdaugh name, investigators want to know more. Exhumations are not ordered for just any old case, but when a court orders the embalmed remains of a human being be uninterred, everyone pays attention, including our forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan. In this episode of Body Bags, Joseph Scott Morgan and Jackie Howard discuss what exhumation is, and why exhumation must be handled with the utmost of care.

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Show Notes:
Introduction [02:00]
Events that lead to the pending exhumation of Gloria Satterfield [03:32]
Judiciary regulations regarding exhumations [05:58]
The effect that embalming (or not) has on exhumations, and factors that impact a successful exhumation and investigation [08:31]
Joseph Scott Morgan describes the investigative process, vital medical records, and test results he would study prior to the exhumation of Gloria Satterfield [17:08]
The impact that medical intervention, autopsy, and body preparation for burial have on the investigation of a trauma-related death, and the particular problem with the Gloria Satterfield case [20:24]
Information investigators will be looking for when reviewing Gloria’s body [27:27]
The types of professionals who perform autopsies of exhumed bodies, and concerns regarding the omission of the South Carolina medical-legal community in the Satterfield case [29:46]
Kathleen Savio, Shele Danishefsky Covlin, and other high-profile exhumation cases in the US [32:36]

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