ST. MATTHEWS, S.C. — Rebecca “Becky” Hill, whose career as Colleton County clerk of court began in obscurity, rose to stardom and finished in disgrace, capped a bizarre subplot in the Alex Murdaugh murder saga Monday by pleading guilty to state charges of misconduct, perjury and obstruction of justice.

In a brief 35-minute hearing, Hill — accompanied by her lawyer Will Lewis of Columbia — pleaded guilty before Circuit Judge Heath Taylor in the main courtroom of the 112-year-old Calhoun County courthouse, a stately two-story red brick structure with tall white columns in front and an octagonal cupola topping the roof.

Taylor then sentenced Hill, 58, to probation. Sitting at the defense table with Hill was her longtime husband, Tommy Hill.

“You have been humiliated throughout the whole ordeal, but of your own doing,” the judge told Hill, referring to the Murdaugh murder trial. “A lot of folks got swept up in the hoopla of that whole trial. A lot of folks probably made a lot of money, but you didn’t.”

But, said the judge, “I don’t think this conduct warrants an incarcerated sentence.”

Before the judge pronounced sentence, he had listened to an impassioned plea for mercy and a noncustodial sentence by defense attorney Lewis.

“Mrs. Hill has accepted responsibility from Day 1,” Lewis told the judge, adding that because of her crimes, the once-respected Hill had lost her reputation and the respect of others. “She has lost her life. She’s given up her position. She faces shame every day. She’s on home detention right now in her home community.”

There is no risk that Hill, who had no prior criminal record, will ever commit another crime, Lewis said. Hill is a good person, a grandmother who taught herself American Sign Language to help her goddaughter, he said.

Special prosecutor Rick Hubbard did not make a sentencing recommendation.

Charges against Hill

Hill, who resigned her $101,256-a-year clerk of court job In March 2024, had been charged with obstruction of justice in the leaking of confidential court information to a reporter, as well as perjury for allegedly lying in a public hearing to Judge Jean Toal, a former South Carolina Supreme Court chief justice, about the leak and giving other media people access to confidential court documents during Murdaugh’s 2023 trial. The media people who received the leaks were not identified.

Hill was also charged with misconduct in office for allegedly giving herself nearly $12,000 in unauthorized bonuses in public money and using her public office to promote a book she wrote.

As part of the deal that led to Monday’s hearing, Hill brought a check for $11,880 as restitution for the bonuses in state and federal money she had given herself.

Hill will also have to serve 100 hours of community service, the judge said.

“Good luck to you, ma’am,” the judge said the hearing’s end.

All charges were misdemeanors except for perjury, which is a felony.

In a statement she read to the court, Hill said she knew she had let down the court, the community and people who trusted her.

“There is no excuse for my mistakes. I am ashamed of them, and I will carry that shame with me for the rest of my life,” Hill said.

Hill had been a popular media star at the 2023 six-week murder trial of Murdaugh, helping reporters and prosecutors, orchestrating juror and witness movements and finally reading the jury’s verdict of “guilty” as a television audience estimated in the millions watched. State Attorney General Alan Wilson was so taken by Hill, who has been described as being “full of a lot of Southern grace,” that he publicly called her “Becky Boo” and thanked her for her help.

Perhaps because of his closeness with Hill, Wilson selected Hubbard to be an independent special prosecutor in the case and work with investigators from the State Law Enforcement Division and the South Carolina Ethics Commission to look into Hill’s conduct to see if criminal charges were warranted. Hubbard is the elected Solicitor for the 11th Judicial Circuit, based in Lexington.

After the trial, Hill wrote and had published a book, “Behind the Doors of Justice,” about the Murdaugh murder trial from an insider’s point of view. Published in midsummer of 2023, just five months after the trial, it was the first of more than 20 nonfiction books — some top quality and others of uneven quality — to be published about South Carolina’s most sensational murder trial in years.

But within weeks, Hill ran into trouble.

Murdaugh’s defense attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, accused her of tampering with the Murdaugh jury in an effort to get guilty verdicts — Murdaugh was accused of the double murder of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul — in order to hype sales of her book. Hill denied the allegation.

Then, in late December, it was revealed Hill had plagiarized a section of her book from a veteran BBC reporter who had mistakenly emailed Hill a draft of her Murdaugh story. Hill admitted the literary theft. The book was withdrawn from publication after selling about 14,500 copies, and embarrassing her co-author, Neil Gordon, who had nothing to do with the plagiarism.

After a hearing in January 2024 presided over by Toal, Hill resigned her post.

Toal ruled that any questionable contact by Hill with jurors in the Murdaugh case was not enough to overturn the verdict.

Murdaugh’s case is now on appeal in the South Carolina Supreme Court with arguments before the justices scheduled for February.

Toal’s decision is one of the centerpieces of the attack on the verdict levied by Murdaugh’s attorneys. Murdaugh, who is serving two life sentences in state prison, contends he is innocent.

Hubbard speaks on jury tampering

In his recitation of the charges against Hill, Hubbbard told the judge his team of SLED investigators had also looked at jury tampering as a possible criminal charge.

Of the 12 jurors and two alternates that were questioned by investigators, only three described questionable contacts by Hill — and they gave multiple statements that contained various inconsistencies, Hubbard said.

“Our standard of review is very different from the one the (Supreme) court will take,” Hubbad told the judge. “For us, it was did action take place that rose to the level of crime, and if there was, could be prove it beyond a reasonable doubt?”

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