A former South Carolina court clerk who played a central role in Alex Murdaugh’s double murder trial pleaded guilty Monday to criminal charges after admitting she showed sealed court exhibits to a photographer and then lied about it under oath.
Rebecca “Becky” Hill, the former Colleton County clerk of court, pleaded guilty in Colleton County Circuit Court to obstruction of justice and perjury for exposing sealed crime scene photographs to a reporter and giving false testimony about it.
She also admitted to two counts of misconduct in office for taking bonuses and promoting a book she wrote about the trial through her public position.
Judge Heath Taylor sentenced Hill to three years of probation. He told her the punishment would have been far more severe had prosecutors determined she tampered with the jury during Murdaugh’s trial.
“There is no excuse for the mistakes I made. I’m ashamed of them,” Hill said in a brief statement to the court, asking for a chance to do better.
Hill was responsible for overseeing the jury, managing exhibits and assisting the judge during Murdaugh’s six-week trial, which ended in his conviction in 2023 for the June 2021 murders of his wife Maggie and son Paul.
The case drew international attention and centered on power, wealth and a once-dominant legal dynasty in a small South Carolina county.
On Monday, solicitor Rick Hubbard told the court that investigators were alerted after a journalist reported that Hill had shown graphic crime scene photos to members of the media. He did not name the journalist.
The images later appeared online, and metadata matched a time when Hill’s courthouse key card records showed she was inside the secured exhibit room.
A second warrant said Hill lied to now-retired Justice Jean 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.
Murdaugh’s lawyers have been trying to appeal his sentence of life without parole, claiming that Hill tried to influence jurors to vote guilty and that she was biased against Murdaugh for her book.
An initial appeal of his murder convictions was denied, but retired Justice Jean Toal later said she questioned Hill’s credibility, describing her as being “attracted by the siren call of celebrity.”
Prosecutors said they investigated those claims and found no jury tampering. While three jurors or alternates reported concerns about Hill’s behavior, 11 others said she did nothing improper.
“SLED interviewed the remaining 11 jurors – none of them corroborated the testimony of the three jurors who claim Hill inappropriately attempted to influence Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial,” Hubbard told the court on Monday.
Meanwhile, Murdaugh is also serving a separate sentence of decades in prison after admitting to stealing millions of dollars from clients and his family’s law firm.
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.
