Court clerk who helped with Alex Murdaugh’s trial pleads guilty to showing sealed exhibits

ST. MATTHEWS, S.C. (AP) — The former court clerk in South Carolina who helped out with the murder trial of attorney Alex Murdaugh pleaded guilty Monday to criminal charges for showing sealed court exhibits to a photographer and lying about it in court.

Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca “Becky” Hill, 58, was arrested in May on four charges — obstruction of justice and perjury for showing a reporter graphic crime scene photographs that were sealed court exhibits and then lying about it — as well as two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting through her public office a book she wrote on the trial, authorities said.

Hill was in charge of taking care of the jury, overseeing exhibits and helping the judge during Murdaugh’s six-week trial that ended with murder convictions for killing his wife and son. The case involved power, danger, money and privilege and an attorney whose family had lorded over his small South Carolina county for nearly a century.

Hill has played a prominent part as Murdaugh appeals his convictions and a sentence of life without parole. His lawyers said Hill tried to influence jurors to vote guilty and that she was biased against Murdaugh for her book. Murdaugh is also serving a separate sentence of decades in prison for admitting to stealing millions of dollars from settlements for clients who suffered horrible injuries or deaths — and from his family’s law firm.

An initial appeal by Murdaugh’s lawyers was denied. But Judge Jean Toal said she wasn’t sure Hill told the truth about her dealings with jurors and was “attracted by the siren call of celebrity” status.

Some of Hill’s charges concern Murdaugh’s murder trial. The arrest warrant said Hill violated a judge’s order to keep sealed photographs from the public. A second warrant said Hill lied to Toal during a January 2024 hearing when the judge asked: “Did you allow anyone from the press to view the sealed exhibits?”

One of the charges — misconduct in office — involved money that investigators said Hill took for herself. They said that included nearly $10,000 meant for bonuses from federal money meant to improve child support collection and about $2,000 in money from the Clerk of Court’s office.

The warrant on the other misconduct charge said Hill used her public role as clerk of court to promote her book on the Murdaugh trial on social media.

Hill was also accused last May of 76 counts of ethics violations. Officials said Hill allowed a photo of Murdaugh in a holding cell to be taken to promote her book on the trial and used county money to buy dozens of lunches for her staff, prosecutors and a vendor.

Hill 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.

Hill resigned in March 2024 during the last year of her four-year term, citing the public scrutiny of Murdaugh’s trial and wanting to spend time with her grandchildren.