2 weeks ago
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Becky Hill, the former Colleton County Clerk of Court who handled Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial and was later accused of tampering with the jury to secure a guilty verdict, has been arrested and slammed with three felony charges.
Hill, 57, was arraigned Wednesday morning in Colleton County, South Carolina on two counts of misconduct in office, one count of obstruction of justice, and perjury, according to The State.
The misconduct charge alleges that Hill used her former clerk of court’s office for personal gain and the second misconduct charge alleges she misused about $10,000 in S.C. Department of Social Services funds. The obstruction charge alleges Hill shared information under court seal with a reporter.
Following the hearing, Hill was transported to Richland County, where she was set to be arraigned at 2 p.m. on a perjury charge.
The former clerk became a controversial figure at the center of Murdaugh’s high-profile murder trial in 2023 when she was accused of tampering with the jury.
After six weeks of harrowing testimony in March 2023, the jury took just three hours to convict Murdaugh in the June 2021 murders of his wife Maggie and 22-year-old son Paul. It was Hill who read the verdict.
Hill later came under fire after Murdaugh’s defense team made a series of bombshell accusations about her alleged conduct.
Defense attorneys Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian filed a motion requesting a new trial for Murdaugh while accusing Hill of tampering with the jury in order to secure a guilty verdict.
The motion was filed a month after her memoir of the trial, Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders, was published, further escalating accusations that she was driven by fame and a desire to secure a book deal.
At a January 2024 hearing, jurors from Murdaugh’s trial testified about her alleged conduct, but Judge Jean Toal ruled that no jury tampering serious enough to affect the jury verdict had taken place. The defense motion for a new trial for Murdaugh was denied.
Later that same year, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) opened two separate investigations into Hill, filing 76 counts of ethics violations against her.
The 25 pages of allegations accuse the former clerk of allowing a photo of Murdaugh in a holding cell to be taken to promote her book on the trial, giving herself bonuses, and using county money to buy dozens of lunches for her staff, prosecutors and a vendor.
Hill had also struck a deal with a documentary maker to use the county courtroom in exchange for promoting her book on the trial, which later she admitted had plagiarized passages, according to the South Carolina Ethics Commission complaint.
The disgraced clerk resigned her position in March 2024.
On Wednesday, Murdaugh’s attorneys provided a statement to FITSNews following the news of Hill’s arrest.
“We are aware of the charges filed against Becky Hill and while these developments are serious, they are not surprising. We have long raised our concerns about her conduct during and after the trial and this arrest further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the judicial process. Every defendant is entitled to a fair and impartial trial and we look forward to Alex Murdaugh finally getting that fair treatment.”
