Co-author of Becky Hill’s plagiarized book says he will donate some profits to charity

The co-author of Colleton County Clerk of Court Becky Hill’s plagiarized insider book on the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial says he will give some profits to charity.

Neil Gordon, co-author of Hill’s “Behind the Doors of Justice,” announced in a press release Monday that he erroneously believed that the book would cease publication “immediately” on Dec. 22 after he discovered, and Hill admitted, that Hill had plagiarized a key section of the book.

But then he learned sales were continuing.

“Removing a book from Amazon wasn’t a simple process,” Gordon said in the press release.

“We examined our publishing agreement, and discovered it takes more time to remove a book from circulation,” he said.

Gordon said the sales agreement between him; his wife, Melissa; Hill and Hill’s husband, Tommy, and Amazon as saying books may be by following the then current Program procedures for Book withdrawal or unpublishing.

“We (Amazon) may fulfill any customer orders completed through the date the Books are available for sale and we may continue to sell any inventory we have of Print Books. All withdrawals of Books will apply prospectively only and not with respect to any customers who purchased the Books prior to the date of removal,” the agreement said.

Since Gordon went public with his now-proven allegations of Hill’s plagiarism, nearly 900 copies of the book have been sold, Gordon said.

His share of the royalties comes to $2.50 per book, but he won’t receive that money until February or March, Gordon said.

All of that money will go charities. He and his wife are determining which charities to donate the money to, he said.

“We want this money that came out of a bad choice to be used for good,” Gordon said.

Hill’s plagiarism was discovered around Christmas after a release of 2,100 pages of emails from her official Colleton County email account. The emails had been released following FOI requests to county government by The State Media Co., FITSNews, The Post and Courier of Charleston, and WCIV.

Among the emails were several to and from a BBC reporter, Holly Honderich, who had visited Colleton County during Murdaugh’s six-week trial and written a draft of a detailed overview of the affair.

Like most reporters covering the trial, Honderich got to know Hill, who enjoyed helping the media with seating and answering questions about various legal and social matters.

Back at her office, on Feb. 20, Honderich accidentally emailed a draft of her story to Hill. About three hours after sending the email to Hill, 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!!”

But instead, Hill kept Honderich’s article and used key portions of it in an 11-page preface to her and Gordon’s book.

Honderich’s BBC article was published Feb. 23.

Since August, and up until the plagiarism was discovered, almost 15,000 total books had been sold in various forms, including paperback, hardcover and e-editions, Gordon said.

Gordon said he and Melissa had spent that earlier money “on living expenses” but once the plagiarism was discovered, they came to a quick decision it would no longer be right to keep any book sales money going forward, he said.

The matter has proved embarrassing for Hill, a one-time favorite of court officials, the media and the public at the Murdaugh murder trial. Murdaugh was found guilty of killing of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul and is now serving two life sentences without parole in state prison.

Hill has also been accused by Murdaugh defense lawyers of tampering with various jurors during the trial to hype sales for her book, then in the planning stages. She may be a key witness at a hearing in late January to air those jury tampering allegations.