Alex Murdaugh is denied new double-murder trial after judge hears jury tampering allegations

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina judge denied Alex Murdaugh’s bid for a new double-murder trial on Monday after his defense team accused a clerk of court with tampering with a jury.

Judge Jean Toal ruled that even if Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill did tell jurors to watch Murdaugh’s actions and body language on the stand, the defense failed to prove that such comments directly influenced their decision to find him guilty.

Toal said after reviewing the full transcript of the six-week trial, she couldn’t overturn the verdict based “on the strength of some fleeting and foolish comments by a publicity-seeking clerk of court.”

One member of the jury that convicted Murdaugh of murdering his wife and son testified that Hill made the comments and it indicated to her she thought Murdaugh was guilty. But the 11 other jurors said they based their guilty verdicts only on the testimony, evidence and law presented at trial, and just one of them mentioned hearing anything similar.

“I find that the clerk of court was not completely credible as a witness. Miss Hill was attracted by the siren call of celebrity,” Toal said, issuing her decision at the end of a daylong hearing. But she said that Hill’s comments did not by themselves merit a new trial, because they didn’t actively change the jurors’ minds.

All 12 jurors answered mostly yes-or-no questions from the judge’s script. Murdaugh, now a convicted killer, disbarred attorney and admitted thief serving a life sentence, wore an orange prison jumpsuit as he watched with his lawyers.

Hill also testified, denying she ever spoke about the case or Murdaugh at all with jurors.

“I never talked to any jurors about anything like that,” Hill said.

But Judge Jean Toal questioned her truthfulness after Hill said she used “literary license” for some things she wrote about in her book on the trial, including whether she feared as she read the verdict that the jury might end up finding him not guilty.

“I did have a certain way I felt,” Hill said.

Murdaugh’s defense later called Barnwell County Clerk Rhonda McElveen, who helped Hill during the trial. McElveen said that Hill suggested before the trial that they should write a book on the case together, “because she wanted a lake house and I wanted to retire,” and that a guilty verdict would sell more books.

But under cross examination, McElveen said she didn’t reach out to the trial judge because she didn’t think any of Hill’s comments or behaviors rose to the level of misconduct.

Hill was also questioned about why she was telling people hours before the jury received the case that she expected deliberations to be short. The clerk said it was a gut feeling after years in a courtroom.

The unusual hearing was prompted in part by a sworn statement from the first juror called to the stand Monday.

She affirmed what she said last August, repeating Monday that Hill told jurors to note Murdaugh’s actions and “watch him closely” when he testified in his own defense.

“She made it seem like he was already guilty,” said the woman, identified only as Juror Z. Asked whether this influenced her vote to find him guilty, she said “Yes ma’am.”