Jury-tampering charges in Murdaugh trial now haunt South Carolina
As if South Carolina’s Lowcountry weren’t haunted enough already, Alex Murdaugh seems to have become a poltergeist who, notwithstanding two murder convictions, can’t be contained by mere prison walls. He’s back.
Just six months after he was convicted of killing his wife and son, allegations of jury tampering in his trial have led his attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, to a request a new trial.
And in a jaw-dropping development, the person accused of trying to nudge jurors toward a conviction is none other than the affable Colleton County clerk of court, Rebecca “Becky” Hill. If the allegations prove to be true, the Murdaugh verdicts could be tossed out.
The news has rocked the small town of Walterboro, where lawyers, media and spectators decamped for the five-week trial earlier this year. Hill, who was Command Central for jurors and the media, was known to everyone as a pillar of calm during the state’s longest, craziest, criminal trial.
Murdaugh, should your memory need jogging, is the disbarred scion of a legal family that controlled a big hunk of this state — and the people who lived there — for 100 years. Their legacy abruptly ended when he was found guilty of murdering wife Maggie, 52, and son Paul, 22, in 2021. The murders took place on the same day that Murdaugh’s law firm had confronted him about missing funds, and about the same time an evidentiary hearing was scheduled about a boating accident in which Paul was the driver and one of his passengers died.
Alex Murdaugh had maintained his innocence throughout the trial, claiming he had a severe opioid addiction that was costing him $50,000 a week. What was clear to anyone following the trial was that Murdaugh was in a panic during the days leading up to the murders as all the pieces of his life were cascading at once toward his destruction.
Either way, Walterboro has come alive again. About a hundred legal observers and hangers-on regathered as if for a reunion this week. Several lawyers who had been hired by news outlets to explain the legal maneuverings are also back, queuing up for new clients and fresh opportunities to grab the spotlight or perhaps a role in another documentary or two.
If true, the allegations involving Hill are consequential. According to Harpootlian and Griffin, at least three jurors told them that Hill had instructed them to ignore Murdaugh’s testimony. We know separately that Hill was convinced of Murdaugh’s guilt, thanks to a book she quickly wrote with help from a professional writer and published in July titled “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders.” She also apparently arranged for the dismissal of Juror 758 just hours before the jury began deliberations because she was allegedly worried that the juror would hang the jury. Hill has been seen around town but, so far as anyone knows, isn’t talking.
The dismissed juror, by the way, was known as the Egg Juror. Why that name? Because: When she was dismissed by Judge Clifton Newman during the trial, he asked her if she had left anything in the jury room. “A dozen eggs,” she replied, which for some reason cracked up the courtroom. When he asked the juror if she wanted those eggs, she said yes. More laughter.
Nothing’s funny now. The Egg Juror has lawyered up. Impartiality is crucial to our trial-by-jury system and any tampering with its integrity can’t be treated lightly. If the charges are true, what could Hill have been thinking?
I don’t know, of course, but if I had to guess, the answer has something to do with the nature of the place. She was likely just chatting with friends who happened to be jurors or friends of jurors. Naive, I know, but small towns in South Carolina, as in other places, are often composed of families that have known each other for generations. Everybody knows everybody — and everybody knows what everybody is thinking.
At the same time, saying what one is thinking is often unnecessary here. Which is why I thought her book, which I haven’t yet read, was a terrible idea. The opinions of clerks of court — even if everyone knows them — are best left unshared.
Could there be a more sinister explanation for the turn of events from this state? Possibly. One thing you learn traipsing around Murdaugh country is that anything can happen. And sometimes the worst things haven’t even happened yet.