New murder trial of Alex Murdaugh? A judge will decide soon.

At the height of one of the most watched trials in South Carolina history, the packed courtroom was silent except for one woman: the clerk, who in March 2023 read aloud the guilty verdicts that put Alex Murdaugh, a prominent attorney, in ended up in prison. life sentence for the murder of his wife and son.

Now a new hearing begins Monday to determine whether the clerk, Rebecca Hill, improperly influenced the jurors who voted to convict the 55-year-old Murdaugh and whether Mr. Murdaugh should get a new trial.

A state law enforcement agency is investigating allegations by Mr. Murdaugh's lawyers that Ms. Hill made comments during the trial that could have swayed jurors' votes. The allegations include that Ms. Hill told jurors not to be “fooled” by Mr. Murdaugh's defense, that she had private conversations with a juror, and that she told jurors before they began deliberating that “this wouldn't last long. ”

Ms Hill has not been charged and she has denied many of the most serious allegations. She and the jurors are expected to testify Monday at a hearing in Columbia, S.C., that is part of Mr. Murdaugh's appeal on his convictions.

Judge Jean Toal, a former chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, will determine what Ms. Hill did, whether her actions could have changed the outcome of the trial and whether Mr. Murdaugh should get a new trial. It is not yet known whether she will rule from the bench on Monday or will issue advice later.

The allegations against Ms. Hill, which Mr. Murdaugh's lawyers first raised in September, are a new twist in the tragic story of the Murdaugh killings, a crime that has horrified and fascinated observers across the country since June 2021, when Mr. Murdaugh's wife, Maggie, and their youngest son, Paul, were shot dead.

Mr. Murdaugh has always maintained his innocence. But a key video shown at his trial showed him at the family dog ​​kennels with his wife and son shortly before they were killed, contradicting his claim that he was not with them at the time been. Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before delivering the guilty verdicts read out by Ms. Hill.

Mr. Murdaugh had stolen millions of dollars from clients and law partners for years before the murders. Prosecutors said in the murder case that he committed the killings in a bizarre, failed attempt to gain sympathy and keep his law firm from scrutinizing his finances.

Although he disputes his murder convictions, Mr. Murdaugh has admitted to stealing large sums of money over the years. He pleaded guilty to a series of financial crimes in November and was sentenced to a further 27 years in prison.

Ms. Hill was a fixture in the Walterboro, S.C., courtroom during Mr. Murdaugh's murder trial. She later wrote a book about the process, for which she wrote the foreword recently admitted to plagiarism from a draft of a BBC article.

Since the allegations against Ms. Hill came to light, several jurors have said in written statements to police that they heard no inappropriate comments from Ms. Hill and felt no pressure to convict Mr. Murdaugh.

Lawyers for the South Carolina attorney general who prosecuted the case have argued in court filings that the claims about Ms. Hill are “baseless and not credible.” They have argued that a juror's memories of inappropriate comments made by Ms. Hill could be the result of the juror misremembering things prosecutors said during the trial.

Even if Ms. Hill made inappropriate comments, the state's attorneys argued, the comments were not enough to influence the jurors' decision.

The hearing begins at 9:30 a.m. Monday at the Richland County Courthouse in Columbia.

Mr. Murdaugh, who has been disbarred, is a fourth-generation lawyer whose family had enormous influence in the legal world of South Carolina's Lowcountry region. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had each run a prosecutor's office in the area – a total of more than 80 years – and the family ran a law firm in the small town of Hampton for even longer.