Alex Murdaugh court clerk accused of jury tampering now also accused of plagiarism
The South Carolina law clerk who co-authored a book about the Alex Murdaugh murder trial is accused of plagiarizing a BBC news writer.
Colleton County clerk Rebecca Hill, who’s also accused of jury tampering in Murdaugh’s high-profile double-murder case, allegedly lifted material from a report that hadn’t yet been published for her book “Behind the Doors of Justice,” according to South Carolina paper The State.
The claim against Hill was made by her co-author Neil Gordon Tuesday. Gordon reportedly said he was “blindsided” by an email exchange unearthed last week between his and a BBC reporter that included a long excerpt from an article the journalist was writing. Some of the passages from the BBC article were changed before it was published.
According to Gordon, his collaborator admitted she stole material from another writer to meet deadlines. Hill hasn’t commented publicly on the matter. Gordon and Hill reportedly agreed to cease sales of the book published in July.
“I can’t be associated with anything like plagiarism and will no longer partner with Becky Hill on any projects,” Gordon wrote in an apology to readers.
In one book excerpt cited by The State, the BBC’s reporter reportedly wrote the Murdaugh family’s “influence was not wide — it did not even span the width of the state — but it was deep. In the small, insular community where they lived, residents said, the Murdaugh family ruled.”
A nearly verbatim version of that quote appears in the book; the only change is the omission of the last comma.
NBC News also published almost identical excerpts from “Behind the Doors of Justice” and the BBC article it appears to have copied. In a February 20 exchange, the BBC scribe emailed Hill: “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 wrote in her book that “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.”
A South Carolina judge gave Murdaugh permission to request a new trial after the convicted killer’s team claimed Hill had improper dealings with jurors that included advising them “not to be fooled” by Murdaugh’s testimony.”