COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina court clerk who oversaw the trial of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh denied in testimony Monday that she tampered with the jury, in part by suggesting his guilt for financial gain to sell a book she planned to write.
“I did not have a conversation with any juror about any topic related to this case,” Rebecca Hill, the Colleton County clerk of court, testified as part of a key evidentiary hearing that could pave the way for a new trial for Murdaugh if her actions are found to have tainted the process.
In an exchange with Judge Jean Toal, in which Hill was questioned about the “literary license” she took in her book about the trial, which was released about four months after it ended, Hill said, “It didn’t matter to me if it was guilty, not guilty or mistrial.”
Hill said she made only about $100,000 from sales of her self-published book, which she shared with a co-author, and that “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders” is no longer being sold after it was revealed last month that she plagiarized a passage in it from a BBC News article.
Following Hill’s testimony, Rhonda McElveen, the court clerk of Barnwell County who assisted her during Murdaugh’s trial, gave testimony that conflicted with Hill’s, including that Hill “made a comment that a guilty verdict would be better to sell books.”
Murdaugh, 55, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit and flanked by his attorneys, was among the spectators in the packed courtroom in the Richland County Judicial Center in Columbia, bringing renewed attention to the high-profile case.
As part of the evidentiary hearing, Toal focused on Hill’s and former jurors’ testimonies to determine whether Murdaugh’s appeal for a new trial should be granted based on jury tampering allegations raised by his defense.
Murdaugh, a once-prominent personal injury lawyer, was found guilty in the 2021 fatal shootings of his wife and son at their Colleton County estate.
Toal, a former South Carolina Supreme…
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