Another Woe for Clerk in Alex Murdaugh Trial

Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders is plugged as a way to get inside the Alex Murdaugh trial "through the eyes" of someone who was on its sidelines. But maybe not entirely through that person's pen. NBC News reports the book by Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill allegedly lifted heavily from a lengthy BBC News article on the trial. Co-author and journalist Neil Gordon said in a Tuesday statement that he was "blindsided" by the development and that the book—which was published in July—would be unpublished and sales would cease.

Hill has been accused of jury-tampering, and WCIV reports more than 2,100 of her emails were released last week under the Freedom of Information Act. Gordon writes that while reviewing those released emails, he came across an email between Hill and a BBC reporter who shared a version of a then-unpublished article. NBC News quotes these lines of the BBC draft, sent in a Feb 20 email:

• "To know South Carolina's Lowcountry is to know the Murdaugh family name. For 86 unbroken years, 1920 to 2006, a Murdaugh presided as the chief prosecutor for South Carolina's Fourteenth Judicial Circuit. It was the longest such stretch of family control in United States history."

Hill's book contains these lines in its preface: "To know South Carolina's Lowcountry is to know the Murdaugh family name. For eighty-six unbroken years, from 1920 to 2006, a Murdaugh presided as the chief prosecutor for South Carolina's Fourteenth Judicial Circuit. It was the longest such stretch of family control in United States history."

Gordon says that when he confronted Hill, she admitted to the plagiarism and blamed deadline pressures. Hill had this to say in a statement released by her lawyers: "The pressures of developing additional content under tight time deadlines resulted in Ms. Hill taking material written by BBC reporter Holly Honderich and submitting it to her co-author Neil Gordon as if it were her own words. Ms. Hill accepts full responsibility for this unfortunate lapse in judgment and has personally reached out to Ms. Honderich to express her sincere apologies." (Murdaugh's legal team is seeking a new trial based on allegations that Hill improperly advised jurors.)