Becky Hill admits plagiarism from BBC reporter in Murdaugh trial book. Sales halted

Becky Hill, the Colleton County clerk of court accused of jury tampering in the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial, has a new controversy on her hands: She’s facing allegations of stealing from a draft of a BBC news article for her book.

The allegations of plagiarism against Hill were made in an early Tuesday morning news release by Neil Gordon, a Georgia journalist who co-authored with Hill a book called “Behind the Doors of Justice,” which purported to be Hill’s insider account of behind-the-scenes actions in the six-week Murdaugh murder trial last winter. As clerk of court, Hill oversaw various aspects of the trial and had access to information the public didn’t.

Gordon said he — together with Hill — have decided to “cease sales” of the book immediately. The book was published by Wind River Media LLC, according to Hill’s and Gordon’s book. Wind River Media is a Georgia domestic limited liability company whose registered agent is Gordon.

“This has blindsided me,” Gordon said in a news release early Tuesday. “Journalism has been my life’s work; my credibility and integrity are paramount to everything I do. I can’t be associated with anything like plagiarism and will no longer partner with Becky Hill on any projects. I’d like to apologize to our readers, and publicly to the BBC and the reporter.”

Hill’s attorneys, Will Lewis and Justin Bamberg, released a statement Tuesday afternoon that said in part, “Becky Hill is deeply remorseful regarding an allegation of plagiarism that has recently surfaced from her new book, Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders.

“The pressures of developing additional content under tight time deadlines resulted in Ms. Hill taking material written by BBC reporter Holly Honderich and submitting it to her co-author Neil Gordon as if it were her own words.

“Ms. Hill accepts full responsibility for this unfortunate lapse in judgment and has personally reached out to (BBC reporter) Ms. Honderich to express her sincere apologies.

“Ms. Hill has great respect for the tireless work journalists do every day and sincerely regrets using Ms. Honderich’s words as her own.”

BBC stands for British Broadcasting Company, a decades-old news organization known for the quality of its reports.

In his news release, Gordon said he had been reading through a trove of hundreds of Hill’s official emails last week when he came across an email exchange between Hill and a BBC reporter in which the reporter shared a long excerpt from an upcoming article about the Alex Murdaugh trial. As he read, it became clear that Hill had lifted passages from the BBC reporter’s unpublished article and inserted them into an 11-page preface Hill wrote for the book, Gordon said.

Gordon said in his news release that he has talked with Hill about the issue. “When I confronted Becky about this, she admitted she plagiarized the passage due to deadline pressures,” Gordon said. “As a veteran journalist myself, I cannot excuse her behavior, nor can I condone it.”

More than 2,000 pages of emails dating from early January of this year to early December were released last week by Colleton County officials after FOIA requests from The State, FitsNews, The Post & Courier of Charleston, and WCIV-TV in Charleston. The emails were released without attachments and were subject to some redactions.

Plagiarism is defined as a “literary theft” — when one writer steals passages and ideas from another writer and passes them off as their own, according to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.

Writers found to have plagiarized the work of others can have sales of their books halted by publishing houses. Journalists who plagiarize can be fired or disciplined, depending on the severity of the offense. The president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, is now enmeshed in a highly public plagiarism controversy and people are calling for her resignation.

A comparison of passages in the preface of the Hill-Gordon book with a Feb. 20, 2023, email from BBC journalist Holly Honderich reveals nearly identical language in various places. Honderich’s article had not yet been published and was published on March 3, according to the BBC.

BBC reporter Honderich did not respond to an email query from The State asking her about Hill’s admitted plagiarism.

However, the Feb. 20, 2023, email from Honderich to Hill was apparently sent by mistake by Honderich.

About three hours later on Feb. 20, Honderich realized her mistake and wrote Hill, “Please disregard and delete the last email I sent you – I have an editor named Rebecca and I confused the addresses when I sent it.”

Hill replied, “I will do that, but what a well written article. Really good!!”

▪ In her unpublished article emailed to Hill, Honderich wrote: “Two rows behind him (Murdaugh) in the courtroom sat his other son, 25-year-old Buster, the only surviving member of Mr Murdaugh’s immediate family. Amid all the spectacle of the trial — the out of town license plates, food trucks and media vans crowding this small city — Buster sat quietly every day in support of his father. Behind him, on the rear wall of the courtroom, there was a rectangular-shaped sun stain where a painting used to be — a portrait of his namesake, his great-grandfather Rudolph “Buster” Murdaugh, which had been taken down for the trial.”

Hill wrote in the book’s preface: “Two rows behind Alex in the courtroom sat his other son, twenty-five-year-old Buster, the only surviving member of Alex’s immediate family. Amid all the spectacle of the trial — the out-of-town license plates, food trucks and media vans crowding this small city — Buster sat quietly every day in support of his father.

“Behind him, on the rear wall of the courtroom, there was a rectangle-shaped sun stain where a painting used to be — a portrait of Buster’s namesake, his great-grandfather Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh, which had been taken down for the trial.”

▪ In another passage in the unpublished article emailed to Hill, Honderich had written about the Murdaugh family’s power: “...as both public prosecutors and private attorneys, the Murdaughs established themselves as a de facto authority of the Lowcountry. Their 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.”

From Hill’s preface: “From these two offices, as both public prosecutors and private attorneys, the Murdaughs established themselves as a de facto authority of the Lowcountry. Their 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.”

▪ Elsewhere in the unpublished article, Honderich wrote, “For nearly a century, the Murdaugh family dominated this rural pocket of South Carolina — a flat expanse of marshlands, palm trees, white clapboard churches and porch-ringed houses. Three generations of Murdaugh men had served as chief prosecutor of the local judicial circuit, a 3,200 square mile stretch in the state’s south, while running a private litigation firm that made them rich.”

From Hill’s preface: “For nearly a century, the Murdaugh family dominated this small pocket of South Carolina — a flat expanse of marshlands, palm trees, white clapboard churches, and porch-ringed homes. Three generations of Murdaugh men had served as chief prosecutor of the local judicial circuit, a 3,200-square-mile stretch in the state’s south, while running a private litigation firm that made them rich.”

Several of Honderich’s passages were edited before the BBC posted the article online. For example, in the reference to Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh’s portrait, the subject was apparently changed from Alex Murdaugh’s son Buster to Alex himself.

“Directly ahead of him, on the rear wall of the courtroom, there was a rectangular-shaped sun stain where a painting used to be — a portrait of his namesake, his great-grandfather Randolph “Buster” Murdaugh, which had been taken down for the trial.”

In another section, the online article merged parts of two passages:

“For nearly a century, the Murdaugh family reigned in this southern corner of South Carolina — a flat expanse of marshlands, palm trees and porch-ringed houses — presiding over the local prosecutor’s office and the private law firm that made them rich.”

Hill’s son, Jeff Hill, the former Colleton County technology director, is also caught in a controversy. In November, he was arrested by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and charged with wiretapping.

In her preface, Hill also apparently lifted out parts of an interview that Honderich, the BBC reporter, had with former U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, Bill Nettles.

Hill quoted Nettles about Murdaugh’s crimes and the unraveling of his family dynasty: “This is what happens when average people have no checks and balances, said Bill Nettles, former U.S. Attorney for South Carolina. “And there were no checks and balances on him.”

In her BBC draft, Honderich had quoted Nettles as saying, ““This is what happens when average people have no checks and balances,” said Bill Nettles, former U.S. Attorney for South Carolina. “And there were no checks and balances on him.”

In an interview Tuesday, Nettles recalled talking with the BBC reporter earlier this year.

And Nettles said he did not give Hill an interview on any subject. “Let me be clear — I have never communicated with Becky Hill in any way, shape or form.”

During Murdaugh’s trial, Hill quickly gained a reputation for being friendly, competent and helpful to the public, media and court officials.

After the trial’s verdict was announced on the evening of March 2, State Attorney General Alan Wilson publicly praised Hill at a press conference in front of the Colleton County courthouse, calling her by her nickname, “Becky Boo,” before using her formal title.

“I want to thank you, Madame Clerk, for you, the entire team, the bailiffs, the court security, the staff here, there was no role that was too small they weren’t willing to do for us,” said a jubilant Wilson, whose team of prosecutors had just convinced the Murdaugh jury to return guilty verdicts in less than three hours.

Until Gordon issued his press release, he had been an enthusiastic supporter of Hill.

In an interview with CNN after Murdaugh’s lawyers, Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian, made allegations of jury tampering in early September, Gordon said he didn’t believe Hill would do anything like try to influence a jury.

Hill is a potential key witness for upcoming hearings in January about the jury tampering for both the attorney general’s prosecution team and Murdaugh’s defense lawyers. Prosecutors have said in court filings they have found no evidence of jury tampering. It remains to be seen how much, if any, the plagiarism allegations will tarnish Hill’s reputation and credibility if she is a witness.

Gordon, however, said although Hill committed plagiarism, he doesn’t believe she tampered with the Murdaugh jury.

“I don’t think it’s in her DNA,” Gordon said in the interview.