Michael M. DeWitt Jr.

Hampton County native Michael M. DeWitt Jr. is a multiple-award-winning journalist, longtime editor of the 143-year-old The Hampton County Guardian, and author of Wicked Hampton County and Fall of the House of Murdaugh. DeWitt’s boots-on-the-ground coverage of the Murdaugh crime saga has been published in print and online around Gannett’s nationwide USA TODAY Network, and he has appeared on ABC’s 20/20, CBS’s 48 Hours, Dateline NBC, and Netflix documentaries to discuss the case. As a humorist, DeWitt’s award-winning Southern humor newspaper column, “Southern Voices, Southern Stories,” was published in newspapers from Cape Cod to northern California, and he has been a regular contributor for South Carolina Wildlife magazine, Sporting Classics magazine, and its online counterpart, Sporting Classics Daily. For four years, DeWitt served as volunteer historian, storyteller, and playwright for the five-county “Salkehatchie Stew” oral history and community theater project sponsored by the University of South Carolina. In 2014, he was named the Hampton County Chamber of Commerce’s Person of the Year for his service to the community. DeWitt is also the author of Images of America – Hampton County (Arcadia Publishing/The History Press, May 2015), a photo history of the place his family has called home for close to three hundred years.