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With less than three weeks to go before a pivotal evidentiary hearing that will determine whether convicted killer Alex Murdaugh receives a new trial, the elected official at the heart of alleged jury tampering at Murdaugh’s first trial is officially the focus of not one – but two – criminal investigations by the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
That’s right: Becky Hill is under criminal investigation.
“SLED currently has two open investigations into Colleton County clerk of court Becky Hill,” Renée Wunderlich, the agency’s public information director, told us on Tuesday afternoon.
According to Wunderlich, the first open investigation into Hill is a familiar one – SLED’s ongoing probe into jury tampering allegations during Murdaugh’s double homicide trial in Walterboro, S.C. from January 23 to March 3, 2023. However, the agency is now on the record saying its inquiry into those allegations is focused on Hill – whose office administered what has been referred to as the Palmetto State’s ‘Trial of the Century.’
The second criminal investigation into Hill is much broader, Wunderlich said, and revolves around “allegations she used her elected position for personal gain.”
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Sources familiar with the second SLED inquiry said it encompasses a host of areas – including a pair of complaints filed against Hill for allegedly abusing her office which were submitted to the S.C. State Ethics Commission (SCSEC) last year.
It could also encompass the criminal investigation into her son, former Colleton County technology director Jeffrey “Colt” Hill – who was arrested in November on one count of wiretapping for having “willfully and feloniously intercept(ed) electronic phone communication.”
Jeffrey Hill is accused of tapping the phone of Colleton County deputy administrator Meagan Utsey – purportedly as “part of an effort to keep Becky Hill abreast of the investigations into her conduct.”
The investigation into the wiretapping allegations has recently raised the specter of obstruction of justice by both Hills.
It’s not immediately clear whether the SCSEC has concluded its investigations into Hill, which were detailed on this media outlet last month (here and here). By statute, the agency does not comment on complaints it receives unless it determines there is probable cause to launch a formal inquiry. Also, the ethics commission would not refer a matter to another agency for criminal prosecution until its own investigation had been completed – a process which requires a vote from SCSEC commissioners.
Sources familiar with the broader web of scrutiny descending upon Hill say it has been difficult for ethics investigators – and SLED agents – to reach a stopping point on any of the inquiries because new allegations keep cropping up.
This is a developing story … please check back for updates.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven (soon to be eight) children.
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13 comments
FITS, do the public and Science a service and start a poll using simple questions: Did Alex Murdaugh shoot Maggie? Did Alex Murdaugh shoot Paul?
And let’s seen if the percentages change with incoming news about Becky Hill.
It will be a self-selected group of responders; but, if you repeat the same poll every week for example and the same people respond, we can see if there is a trend.
No rationalizations, no explanations, just a simple poll every, say, Wednesday.
Would you please?
Question: Did Alex Murdaugh shoot (EXECUTE/ASSASSINATE/ANNIHILATE) Maggie?
Answer: YES! The EVIDENCE proved it.
Quentuon: Did Alex Murdaugh shoot (EXECUTE/ASSASSINATE/ANNIHILATE) Paul? YES! The EVIDENCE proved it.
Go away, you annoying psycho gnat.
A sample of one means nothing.
The evidence, if you read my brilliant analysis on other posts, is that Alex Murdaugh’s (“AM”) white T-shirt had microscopic non-human tiny blood spatter around the front collar and shoulders. That means it was the shirt AM was wearing when he extracted the chicken or the guinea fowl from Bubba’s jaws. Since it does not have human blood spatter on it, AM could not have been the shooter.
Can you respond to that with science and logic instead of insults?
Your “brilliant analysis” is sub-par, SubZero. Try again. Maybe resurrect your two 5’2″ female assassins – experienced hunters but not experienced in shooting non-moving human targets.
First, I never wrote that the two female shooters were NECESSARILY 5’2″ OR that the “human targets” were “non-moving.”
TO THE CONTRARY, my conclusion is based IN PART on BOTH targets moving the way attacked humans move NOT the way hunted animals move.
No shooter with ANY military or law-enforcement experience would have needed five shots at Maggie. Even a middling sniper needs only one shot.
Remember the JFK shot from a great distance? That is what militarily-trained people (unless total morones like some who shall remain nameless) can do.
Second, there was only ONE white T-shirt. Since it is UNCONTESTED that it had ONLY non-human blood spatter, it must the one Alex Murdaugh (“AM”) wore to the kennels when he extracted the bird from Bubba’s jaws and some of that bird’s blood spattered on AM’s T-shirt. Since that shirt had NO DNA from Paul, then AM could not possibly have shot Paul or else THE T-shirt AM wore to the kennels would have been “spattered” with Paul’s blood and brain.
Third, who was it who pushed the FALSE blood spatter story? Exactly: Malicious Mandi Matney (“MMM”), who had equally maliciously AND FALSELY pushed the OBVIOUSLY-STUPID idea that Stephen Smith had been killed somewhere else and his body carried three miles from his car (where not a single drop of blood was found) to be staged, and near Moselle at that!
Come to think of it, the stupidity of the fabricators and those who parrot them! If Paul and/or Buster Mrudaugh had somehow abducted Stephen Smith from his car and killed him there, why would then carry his body TOWARDS Moselle as opposed to AWAY from it?
Before you call my brilliant analysis “sub-par,” critically examine some of the stuff you have been parroting.
You are f- – – k – g psycho. Griff, Harpo, that you? Brilliant is hardly descriptive of your s – – t analysis that two females executed Maggie and Paul. Shut the f – – k up.
Veritas if you can’t have a decent conversation with SubZero without attacking them then just stop responding. I think Will should do a article on the bullying that has occured to people because of this trial. There are so many of us who have been attacked on a person level it’s unreal. Facebook is absolutely saturated with people who bully others just be they have opinions that don’t align with their own. it’s sad that full grown adults are because you are. Do better!
Thank you so much, Kidd, and God bless.
I am beginning to think that Becky “Boo” Hill knew who THE REAL KILLERS ARE, which is why she destroyed her phones and got her son to spy on others.
And I think the attacks on ME are because I am getting too close to guessing correctly who the real killers are.
But, thank God, I woke up (from a literal nightmare as more often than not happens to me since a very unfair event in June 2022) this morning and found at least one other decent and intelligent person had read, and commented on, my comment on Kenny Kinsey, Ph.D.’s presentation in CrimeCon-2023 in Orlando, Florida.
Because I follow Jesus Christ’s parable on the seed-sower, I paste hereunder my reply to that other decent and intelligent person, praying the seeds hit less stones and less arid land.
? @alonawhalen , first, thank you so much for your open-mindedness, civility, and scholarship.
Second, my theory was NEVER that the real killers (and there is no doubt in my mind that they were at least two) were RANDOM and arrived UNARMED hoping to find one or more Murdaugh family gun to use.
I came to this case knowing NOTHING about the Murdaughs other than what I OCCASIONALLY read on FITSNews (before they limited the articles to non-subscribers to 5/month but I refuse to subscribe to FITSNews in protest over Will Folks’ racist bend and old lies against Nikki Haley), which turned out to have been propaganda probably pushed by Eric Bland before Eric and Will had a falling out, probably LITERALLY “haggling over price.”
What I DID know BEFORE the Murdaugh cases even arose is that the prosecution system in South Carolina is often used to extort one party or another IN CIVIL LITIGATION to cave to the other side who has the local prosecutor in their pocket. And if that local prosecutor cannot find a real crime you committed, (s)he will manufacture one for you.
Third, the very people who prosecuted Alex Murdaugh (“AM”) were (with the exception of only Savannah Goode and Mr. Conner) directly involved in trying to frame ME for harassment and later contempt-of-court AND/OR in covering up for those who tried to frame me, knowing that I was the victim, not the perpetrator of harassment. I had a jury trial with none other than Judge Clifton Newman presiding. I defended myself WITHOUT A LAWYER and, thank God, ULTIMATELY FULLY exonerated myself. But, to this day NO ONE IN SOUTH CAROLINA’S SYSTEM is willing to hold those who tried to frame me with false evidence accountable.
So, if I get accused of using AM’s case to get SOUTH CAROLINA’S system to look at prosecutorial misconduct, my answer would be: What is wrong with that purpose, even if it were my only purpose, which it is not?
Fourth and foremost, the Prosecution’s OWN early evidence in the trial is that Paul had at least TWO expensive guns lost/stolen months before the murders. My theory is that the real killers were the ones who had earlier stolen/found/bought Paul’s stolen/lost guns and later arrived at Moselle armed with those VERY EXPENSIVE guns.
Who could those killers be? I shall, God willing, give you some theories in another reply because I do not want this one to get too long for Google to make visible.
But PLEASE indicate that you read this reply so I could, God willing, continue to communicate with you.
Thanks again and God bless.
And I found something else which strengthens my solving the shirt case and ultimately proving Alex Murdaugh’s (“AM”) innocence of the murders.
I, while multi-tasking, reran Creighton Water’s cross-examination of AM.
Guess what? Creighton asks AM, “was that chicken bleeding?” “did you wash your hands after that?”
To me, that proves Creighton knew the “spatter” was chicken blood and wanted to foreclose the Defense’s proof of it. Sadly for AM, his defense team were not quick enough on their feet to come to the chicken-blood-spatter conclusion.
But, thank God, I am. Hopefully it is not too late for AM for that brilliant conclusion of mine to be introduced, if only his defense team would show more humility and not be stuck in their own ways.
Charge this fame-seeker with whatever she’s guilty of but Murdaugh is still a double-murderer who killed his wife and child.
Now that Jean Toal protected Becky Hill, both Jean and Becky need to stay away from Alex Murdaugh’s (“AM”) case for the public to have any confidence in South Carolina’s (“SC”) courts.
?And it bears reminding that people do NOT always know exactly why they did what they did or how they arrived at decisions.
Please read the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Caperton v. Massey.
The majority wrote that even judges cannot always say exactly what affected them and what did not. So, how can lay jurors know it?
To combat the stupidity epidemic blowing over South Carolina (“SC”), I have to post my brilliant thoughts everywhere I can.
Here we go again.
We also now know, thanks to Becky “Boo” Hill’s book pages 58-60, that a white male guilty-voting, New-York-interview-giving, juror has a “baby mama” with whom he was have a troubled relationship.
Jean Toal’s exclusion of the wrongful removal of the “egg juror” is EXTREME LEGAL ERROR which she should reconsider on her own motion or on motion of Alex Murdaugh’s (“AM”) defense team which, despite their great efforts on behalf of their client, is IMPROPERLY too submissive to Toal.
At the very least, “Dick and Jim” should point out to Jean Toal what SC’s Supreme Court (“S Ct”) reiterated just yesterday in SC Advance Sheets (“SCAS”) Number 2 of 2024 at pages 26-27, which I paste herunder for everyone’s benefit:
The only quibble we have with the court of appeals’ double jeopardy analysis is its discussion that Benton suffered no prejudice from the mistrial because he was allowed to present his alibi witnesses at his retrial. The constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy protects defendants from the dread, anxiety, and financial cost of enduring the gauntlet of criminal prosecution and punishment more than once for the same offense. See Arizona, 434 U.S. at 503–05 (explaining the double jeopardy clause protects “the defendant’s ‘valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal'” and this right is valued because “a second prosecution . . . increases the financial and emotional burden on the accused, prolongs the period in which he is stigmatized by an unresolved accusation of wrongdoing, and may even enhance the risk that an innocent defendant may be convicted” (citations removed)).
The defendant’s interest in having his fate determined by the first impaneled jury is therefore “a weighty one.” Somerville, 410 U.S. at 471. As such, “the lack of apparent harm to the defendant from the declaration of a mistrial [does] not itself justify the mistrial[.]” Id. at 469. Further, in Jorn, a plurality of the Supreme Court noted inquiries into who benefits from a mistrial are “pure speculation.” 400 U.S. at 483. Therefore, the Jorn plurality concluded that to allow a retrial “based on an appellate court’s assessment of which side benefited from the mistrial ruling does not adequately satisfy the policies underpinning the double jeopardy provision.” Id.
Here, the trial court focused, as it should have, on whether, given all the circumstances, a mistrial was necessary to further the ends of public justice. See
United States v. Perez, 22 U.S. 579, 580 (1824) (stating a mistrial may be granted without violating double jeopardy when, in the sound discretion of the court, “taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated”); Gori v. United States, 367 U.S. 364, 368 (1961) (“Where, for reasons deemed compelling by the trial judge, who is best situated intelligently to make such a decision, the ends of substantial justice cannot be attained without discontinuing the trial, a mistrial may be declared without the defendant’s consent and even over his objection . . . .”). The trial court wisely understood that not granting a mistrial under the circumstances could undermine public confidence in the outcome. See Wade v. Hunter, 336 U.S. 684, 689 (1949) (“[A] defendant’s valued right to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal must in some instances be subordinated to the public’s interest in fair trials designed to end in just judgements.”). We therefore vacate the court of appeals’ prejudice discussion but otherwise affirm its double jeopardy ruling.
Again, I do not think AM should be granted a new trial, I think (based on double jeopardy) he should be acquitted OF THE MURDERS out-right because STATE ACTORS wrongfully interfered with his right to have his case decided by the chosen panel, including the “egg juror.”
I also think “Dick and Jim” are being ineffective already for not pressing this point.
Yes, I know better than they do.
After all, I, thank God and WITHOUT A LAWYER, avoided getting myself wrongfully convicted by a jury presided over by none other than Judge Clifton Newman. “Dick and Jim” FAILED to get for their client what I got for myself.
Now, unless they listen to me, their client is at risk of getting his wrongful convictions cemented because “Dick and Jim” do not know the law as well as I do and are too arrogant to listen to me and give me credit for directing them to the more principled and fruitful paths.