Murdaugh Feud: Why does Becky Hill’s co-author want a TikTok lawyer sanctioned?

A feud on the edges of the Murdaugh saga that has played out on social media and CourtTV has led to a complaint being filed against a lawyer turned TikTok star.

Neil Gordon, who co-authored Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca “Becky” Hill’s book “Behind the Doors of Justice,” has filed a complaint with the state Office of Disciplinary Counsel against Columbia-area defense attorney and popular TikToker Lori Murray, better known online as LawyerLori.

Gordon’s complaint focuses on a nearly 5-minute video that Murray posted to her TikTok account on Friday, Dec. 1. In the video, Murray, talking directly to the camera, describes allegations she said are contained in a confidential ethics complaint filed against Hill with the South Carolina State Ethics Commission. The video features her trademark blend of legal knowledge, irreverence and profanity.

“She (Hill) has apparently been treating this courthouse and this county as if it were her own f-----g playground,” Murray said in the video, which has been viewed more that 240,000 times.

In the four years since the Murdaugh tragedy surfaced, the saga has launched careers and spawned podcasts, books and countless news articles. Media coverage of the investigation and trial has become a sprawling industry with merchandise, subscriptions and other sales. It is an industry just as full of characters and feuds as the legal cases themselves.

Complaints to the bar are confidential and only become public 30 days after a lawyer files an answer to the charges, but Gordon said in a statement: “I believe Murray has violated the state bar code of conduct; an officer of the court should never divulge delicate information during an on-going investigation. It’s behavior unbecoming of her esteemed profession.”

Gordon also took issue with Murray’s swearing, and said she “defamed” his wife, photographer Melissa Gordon, when Murray repeated what he said were inaccuracies about her and Hill’s relationship contained in the ethics complaint.

He announced the complaint against Murray during a contentious appearance on CourtTV, where he repeatedly sparred with her.

In a conversation with The State, Murray fired back, accusing Gordon of “hypocrisy” for filing a complaint against her for discussing a leaked document while sending out a press release about filing a confidential complaint.

Murray declined to say who gave her the document, but said both the anonymous person who wrote it and Becky Hill had copies.

Whether the complaint is confidential is “irrelevant” to it being a public document that can be reported on, said Jay Bender, a Columbia-based attorney who has represented multiple news organizations and taught media law at the University of South Carolina. The media has broad permission to report on a public record so long as the reporting is accurate, Bender said.

Bender added that while there is “less of a limit on what lawyers can say when they’re not involved in the case, there still seems to be this notion that lawyers should speak truthfully and preserve the integrity of the judicial system.”

For her part, Murray says that she is unconcerned by Gordon’s complaint. “My TikTok account is not me practicing the law. This has nothing to do with my practice.”

Murray also described her TikTok account, which has over 590,000 subscribers, as her way to fulfill the state of South Carolina’s expectation that lawyers cultivate knowledge of the law in order to strengthen the legal profession. By talking about Hill’s case, Murray said, she hopes to educate the public about the case and the law.

Colorful language is part of her online persona and just who she is, Murray said, but it isn’t who she is in court. She also maintains that her speech is protected by the First Amendment because she clearly told her audience that she was repeating allegations contained in a document.

“I spoke about the allegations included in the ethics complaint against Becky Hill and labeled them as such and that is where the focus needs to be,” Murray said. “Honestly, I don’t have a problem with Ms. Hill. But like it or not, the allegations against her are news and go directly to her credibility to testify at Murdaugh’s hearing on whether he gets a new trial.“

But Gordon, a self-described “old school” broadcast journalist by training, said he did not believe Murray had done her due diligence in repeating allegations from the anonymous ethics complaint.

“Even though she may have thrown in the word ‘allegedly’ throughout you can tell from the comments that it was really taken as fact,” Gordon told The State.

240,000 views and a world of trouble

Near the beginning of the TikTok video that sparked the latest skirmish, Murray looks directly into the camera. “Let’s talk about all the ways that Becky Hill, clerk of court of Colleton County has, allegedly, f----d up,” Murray says.

Hill, who gained minor celebrity status during the Murdaugh trial for her humor and southern charm, was thrust into the center of the Murdaugh case when a filing by his attorneys accused her of manipulating the jury to secure a guilty verdict.

Her goal was to drive sales of the book she was writing with Gordon about the trial, according to the motion. A book that Murray repeatedly calls “sh---y” throughout the video.

Gordon and Hill have both strongly denied any effort to tamper with the jury. While Hill has said that she thought about writing a book on the Murdaugh trial before it began, both authors said that they only decided to collaborate on the book several weeks after the trial.

But Murdaugh’s attorneys say it was the book that prompted jurors to come forward with allegations of jury tampering. Since then, Hill’s woes have continued to mount. She is facing an ethics complaint and an investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. Shortly before Thanksgiving, her son, former Colleton County Technology Director Jeffrey Hill, was arrested and charged by SLED with wiretapping.

The State contacted but did not receive a response Hill’s attorney, Justin Bamberg.

During Murray’s four-minute and 47-second video, Murray gives a rapid fire breakdown of the ways Hill, in Murray’s words, allegedly “f----d up.”

While some allegations appear to come from public reporting, many are drawn from the ethics complaint, copies of which The State has reviewed. Among them are allegations that Hill allowed Netflix to film in the court and permitted an author to hold a book signing in the courthouse.

Murray also says that Hill allegedly deposited into her own bank account a $100 check intended as a donation to the county by someone who took a tour of the courthouse.

“But here’s my favorite one,” Murray said, as she described how the ethics complaint alleged that Hill saved a seat every day of the six-week trial for Melissa Gordon, who took pictures for Hill and Gordon’s book

Far from being a trivial example of preferential treatment, Murray argued that this spoke to Hill’s intentions during the trial. In their motion for a new trial, Murdaugh’s defense attorneys have argued that Hill pressured the jury to convict Murdaugh in order to benefit her book sales.

“Becky told the ethics commission that she did not plan to write this book until after the trial was over, that’s when the idea came to her. Why is the photographer sitting in the courtroom every single day?” Murray said in her TikTok video.

Gordon has denied this characterization of the relationship between Hill and his wife. In reality, Gordon said, his wife only attended four days of the trial and waited in line with the other spectators. Gordon said that Hill and his wife then became friends and exchanged numbers. While Hill has previously said that she had thought before the trial began that she might write a book, the idea to collaborate on a book came about weeks after the trial.

Murray also said that Melissa Gordon was allowed to take a picture of surveillance video of Alex Murdaugh lying down in his holding cell reading a book while waiting for the verdict. In a statement, Gordon said that his wife had not been allowed to bring her camera into the building or take pictures.

Gordon admitted on CourtTV that he had originally posted online the picture of Murdaugh in his cell, but said that he did not know where it came from.

The whole ordeal has caused his family “trauma,” Gordon said in a statement. “It feels like the wild wild west, and because you do have First Amendment rights to your opinion but... There is a difference between fact and opinion.”

Murray maintains that outside of her colorful language, she was clear to to say that she was discussing allegations, many of which were drawn from the ethics complaint, where Gordon’s wife was a “side note.”

“I’ve never believed that ‘allegedly’ is a magic word that avoids liability when making false statements,” Bender said. However, Bender noted that in South Carolina, the law around reporting on public records does not require someone to verify that what the record says is true.

For Gordon, however, mentioning his wife at all appeared to have struck a nerve. In a fiery exchange between Murray and Gordon on CourtTV Monday night, Gordon said he and his wife were “one” and repeatedly told Murray to “keep my wife’s name out of your mouth,” referencing actor Will Smith’s now indelible line after he slapped Chris Rock during the 2022 Oscars.

“The allegations are against Becky, not against his wife, Melissa,” Murray told The State, saying that Gordon was seizing on an opportunity to retaliate against her for a negative review of his book and to drive sales. “I have told people not to buy it because it is a terrible book,” Murray said.

For his part, Gordon admitted that the negative attention was beneficial to book sales, telling The State, “Whenever there are media spikes... it almost creates a curiosity in people — ‘well if this book is so bad I want to see what’s so bad about it.’”

On Wednesday, Murray debuted a limited edition of T-shirts and hoodies bearing the word “allegedly.”

‘Get out your popcorn’

On CourtTV monday night, Gordon and Murray clashed almost immediately.

“You berated my wife and tied her in,” Gordon said of Murray’s TikTok video.

“You reposted sir, you reposted that video. You can’t come back at me for a video that you reposted and put it out there for everybody for to see. It’s all about publicity for your book,” Murray shot back.

Host Vinnie Politan, a former New Jersey prosecutor, largely stayed above the fray during the 14-minute segment as the two talked over each other while the third guest, Matt Harris, co-host of the popular Murdaugh podcast “Impact of Influence: The Murdaugh Family Murders,” appeared to be an amused spectator.

The two dug into their positions. Murray defended her right to comment on the case, while Gordon accused her of falling short of professional standards.

“You lack standing, sir, to come at me. I was talking about Becky, not about you, but you’ve made this about yourself and that is where we have a problem,” Murray said. “I’m sorry you disagree with my use of words. I have colorful language and I don’t apologize for that... that is who I am.”

As Politan tried to bring the segment to a close, Gordon fired one last shot.

“I’ve sent your little rant on to them at the Supreme Court in South Carolina and I hope you get sanctioned,” Gordon said, pointing his finger at Murray. Gordon filed his complaint with the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, which part of the state judiciary.

“Thank you,” Murray replied calmly. On air, Murray emphasized that she believed Gordon had made the case about himself and his wife, when her video was about Hill.

“I’m just eating popcorn,” said Harris, laughing.