The South Carolina court clerk who penned a memoir about Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial has been accused by the book’s co-author of plagiarism.
“This has blindsided me,” co-author Neil Gordon said in a statement announcing that all sales of Behind the Doors of Justice have been stopped.
Gordon said he discovered the “ethical gaffe” while reviewing e-mails between Colleton County clerk Becky Hill and a BBC reporter who “shared a long excerpt from an upcoming article.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“When Gordon compared the article’s text to a 12-page book passage in the Preface—supposedly written by Hill, he realized she’d lifted the article’s text and made it her own,” a press release read.
Gordon said he confronted Hill, who admitted she’d cribbed from the BBC report “due to deadline pressure.” The BBC has been notified and is investigating.
“Journalism has been my life’s work; my credibility and integrity are paramount to everything I do,” Gordon said. “I can’t be associated with anything like plagiarism and will not 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 released a statement after the accusations, saying, “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 Ms. Honderich to express her sincere apologies. The self-published book is only available online through Amazon and Audible and the decision has been made to unpublish the book for the foreseeable future until next steps for the book have been identified. Ms. Hill has great respect for the tireless work journalists do every day and sincerely regrets using Ms. Honderich's words as her own.”
Hill was accused by Murdaugh’s legal team of jury tampering in an effort to get the disgraced South Carolina lawyer—who was convicted of murdering his wife and son—a new trial. She’s vehemently denied the allegations.
“I did not tell the jury ‘not to be fooled’ by evidence presented by Mr. Murdaugh’s attorneys,” Hill wrote in an affidavit last month. “I did not instruct the jury to ‘watch him closely.’ I did not instruct the jury to ‘look at his actions.’ I did not instruct the jury to ‘look at his movements.’”
