Joan Robinson Hill and Dr. John Hill - Part 3 of 3

0:00 Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage. Some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and. Some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill. Hi, Tina, Hey Rich, how are you today? Do you want me to give you my podcast answer or my real answer? I think I think we want your real answer. How do we know there's a real answer. I'm really cold. It's been so cold here this week.

0:41 Yeah, well it is, you know, late January. But it's unusually cold, like the school was canceled two days this week? Here was it really? Oh? Yeah, I didn't know that. I've been jetting off to Europe and you know, having having fun in Paris. Yeah, I don't think you had that much fun of hers much. What was the weather like in Paris? It will a little warmer than here. It was probably like forty degrees give her takes, but it was super rainy the one day. Just I'm so sorry. Well, in Paris you have to walk everywhere, like you know, it's not easy to get around. So uh your hate mail walking Mary. Killed five ten minutes and mail dot. Com attention, Rich, You know, poor me, poor rich. I have one word for you.

1:25 Okay, jackimchick, k oh is that the that's the coroner's name? What is it? Chickimchick, jackkimchick. How did you find that out? Well? I felt like I definitely took the easy way out last time by saying doctor J. But sometimes when we're reading the script like to stop and every time you have to see it like it, it screws me up. So I reached out to our friend Asha, who happens to be Polish, and she helped me out there. I probably still said it wrong. That sounded good, kimchick. Yeah, I mean I get to say it again today. I think there is maybe one mention of doctor J. Yeah. I just wanted to rid myself because we do really try it. We say things wrong, but we try our best to get things right. So I apologize to the Chikimchik family for copping out and not saying their name the right excellent.

2:17 Well, thank you for doing that research for helping us. So I don't have another Texas snack for part three, but I am very. Excited you brought something back to Paris. I didn't bring anything back from Paris. I don't have another Texas snack. Well, I get home, lest like, I had lunch with my friend and you were home when I got home, and I was like, what'd you pray? Oh? Nothing, Yeah, you brought me nothing. This was one of those trips that was like the only thing I could have brought was from the airport. And I'm like, I've brought you macarones from the airport too many times. And there's not a floorist between Detroit and Dexter that you could have stopped at. No, there isn't. Right, In fact, yes there is. I'll send you like a nice little Google map for like with all the floorist between our.

3:01 House and Well, I apologize for not bringing you anything back. I am going to be making you macaroons soon though. So my company is offering a virtual macaron baking class. And it's the week before Valentine's Day, so you got that to look forward to. Do you know what flavor you're making? I have no idea. I have never made them before. It seems like too much trouble for one bite. Yeah, yeah kind of, but I really do like them. Well, what I do have for you today is a snack that our listener and friend Sarah sent us from Arizona. So I'm actually very excited about We've had them for a long time and we were kind of waiting to have a case from Arizona, but we just haven't had one in a long time. So we thought, let's let's have these snacks because they've been sitting there and they look really good. So do you want to try those?

3:44 Thank you so much, Sarah? Is it? I believe an OG listener, so we appreciate it so much. Sarah. So what she sent us our chia cookies, lemon chia cookies from made by Audrey's and also some Prickly Pear candy and some Prickly Pear marmalade. Me of one of our favorite favorite restaurants and ann arbor that closed a few years ago. Called The Prickly Parent was great place. But should we give these a try? Absolutely? Well, what did you think of those Arizona snacks? They're really yummy. I like them a lot too. I love the chia cookies. Cheese cookies are so good and I'm you know, I like a homemade cookie. If you want to order them, go to Audrey's Chia dot com. I would give these a ten out of ten.

4:31 Great. I'm just going to read you the back really quick and just noticed it. Hi. I'm Audrey. Some have called me the chia Queen, but in reality, I'm a wife, mom, and runner. While training for my first marathon at age fifty, I discovered the mighty chitah seed and became determined to see this superfood incorporated into the lifestyle of everyone I know. By adding chia seeds to our crisp crunchy cookies, we created a snack that fuels the body while satisfying the cravings for a sweet, indulgent treat. I hope my story and these delicious cookies energize you and encourage you to treat yourself and everyone you love better. That's awesome. Nice Gea seeds are amazing. I love gia seeds. Yeah, and it's always like a kind of a nice challenge because you have the chia seeds and your teeth.

5:13 Then I was trying to like crack the later. The candy was really it was really unique. Yeah, it was interesting. Yeah, I think I would give that a nine out of ten. And the marmalade was really interesting too, I would I think I would give that a nine out of ten. I'm going to go with the same ratings for all of you are Oh, I agree, Okay, they were all they're all really good. Well, thank you so much, Sarah. We really appreciate it. Should we finish off the Joan Robinson Hill and John Hill case? Yes, it's been a long road. How about a quick recap? In part two? Joan passed away very quickly, within two or three days after getting sick. Everyone was pointing to her husband, John Hill as responsible, but after multiple autopsies and many doctors involved, her cause of death was still a mystery. Joan's dad, Ash firmly believe that John killed her and he was out for revenge. He's spent a huge amount of money trying to influence the justice system.

6:07 He finally succeeded in getting John indicted for murder biomission, essentially failing to provide adequate medical care for his wife. But during his trial, his now ex wife, Anne Kirth, gave some outrageous and prejudicial testimony, causing the judges to disclare a mistrial. In the meantime, John finally met a woman, Connie, who seemed like the perfect match for him. He and Connie married and were building a new life together when John was shot and killed in nineteen seventy two, just a few weeks before he was set to stand trial again. So in part one, you know, we kind of talked about Joan and John's relationship. Part two was about the search for justice for jones death. Now we're going to delve into the search for justice for John's death, and we're going to meet a new cast of characters as well.

6:53 Oh really, wow, when you were reading the book and you got to John's death, were you shocked? I was. Ye. Yeah, I was not expecting it at all. And you had said the book was a very good read. Really good called Blood and Money by Thomas Thompson, and it is I think one of the best true crime books ever, really kind of really classic. Yeah. John's mom, Myra Hill, had now endured the unimaginable pain of losing both of her sons. Speaking with the police, she recounted the chilling events leading up to John's murder. On Saturday, the day before the shooting, the phone rang at the Hill home. Myra answered, and a man's voice on the line asked for doctor Hill. She told him that John was out of town and wouldn't return until the next evening. If you recall, John and Connie were both at a plastic surgery convention in Las Vegas.

7:40 John's younger brother, Julian, had died by suicide at least ten years previously. Yes, exactly the following day, on Sunday, around six thirty pm, the same man called again. Myra told him that John should be home by seven thirty or eight. Shortly before seven thirty, the doorbell rang. Myra opened it to find a man standing there, wearing some kind of a wig and holding a gun. He pointed it directly at Robert, John and Jones's son, who was standing nearby, formerly. Known as Boot. Correct. Was she staying at the mansion? Yes, she was staying there watching Robert while Connie and John were out of town. So I've seen pictures of the mansion and there's gates. Do you think that they weren't there at the time.

8:20 I don't know if they weren't there, if they were unlocked open. Yeah. At first, Myra thought the intruder might be a disturbed patient of her son's, but the man quickly dispelled any doubt, ordering both Myra and Robert to stay quiet. This is a robbery. He said, no one will get hurt if you cooperate. He forced them to sit on the floor. Then he pulled out a roll of adhesive tape. Calmly and methodically, he bound Robert's hands and feet and taped his mouth shut. Myra pleated with her eyes, but the man ignored her, moving on to bind and gag her in the same way. When the doorbell rang moments later, Myra knew it was John. She desperately tried to warn him, struggling against her gag, but the man silenced her with a brute kick to her throat.

9:01 The impact left her unable to move or make a sound. As she lay there helpless, she heard three gunshots echo through the house. Myra's heart sank. She knew what they meant. Robert managed to wriggle free from his bindings and ran to his father's side, but it was too late. Meanwhile, in Austin and Kirth, John's ex wife was settling in after her move. That evening, she received a phone call from Ash Robinson. His tone was as cold as his words. Did you hear about old John Hill? He went and got himself shot to death? Why would he call her? Well, it's a good question. But when Anne hung up the phone, she almost felt like it sounded like he was gloating. Detectives Joe Gamino and Jerry Carpenter were the first to take the call about John Hill's murder. As they come through the crime scene, they quickly came to the conclusion that this wasn't a robbery gone wrong. It bore all the hallmarks of a professional hit. The adhesive tape covering John's nose, mouth, and eyes were a signature method used in underworld killings in Texas during that era.

10:03 The detectives began by interviewing Myra, Robert, and Connie. Despite his age, twelve year old Robert was remarkably composed, offering a detailed description of the killer. He even speculated that the man might be from Dallas. When Carpenter asked why Robert thought that, the boy replied confidently, he talks like Don Meredith, referring to the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and broadcaster and Lipton T lover. I forgot about that, poor Robert. Now he's lost both his mom and now his dad. The autopsy revealed that John had been shot three times. The first bullet struck his wrist, the second hit his right shoulder. Neither wound would have been fatal, but the third shot was deadly, piercing his stomach and tearing through his aorta. Before you ask, the aorta does go all the way down to your stomach, because when I first read that, like the aorta, that's the neck.

10:56 But sure enough, you mean you talk to a cardiac special list, Yes, yes, so you did just google it. Yes, I talked to him cardiac specialist j Google. So John bled to death internally, likely within three to five minutes. Although the killer had taken John's wallet and briefcase, nothing else in the mansion appeared disturbed. However, he left behind a couple of clues, a green pillow case with crude eye holes cut out, which he had used as a mask for part of the time that he was there, and a single brown work glove. Witness accounts from Myra, Robert, and Connie described the assailant as a white man between thirty and forty years old, with long, dark hair, a droopy mustache, and a vaguely hippyish appearance. With these details, an FBI artists created a composite sketch. Unfortunately, when Carpenter and Gomino canvassed the neighborhood. They turned up no new leads.

11:49 No one had noticed anything suspicious. Then a few days later a breakthrough came. A tip led them to a group of neighborhood kids who had found a briefcase hidden in a patch of shrubs. Gamino and Carpenter rushed to the scene and confirmed that it was John Hill's missing briefcase. While searching the area, Carpenter noticed something odd beneath another bush, a small metal pipe sticking out of the ground. He pulled it free and discovered a thirty eight caliber snubnosed revolver, its surface rusted from the rain. Ballistics tests later confirmed the grim finding this was the weapon used to kill John Hill. In nineteen sixty eight, after a string of political assassinations shook the nation, Congress passed a Firearms Act designed to tighten restrictions unconcealable weapons. The law required anyone purchasing a gun less than eighteen inches long to fill out a registration form at the store. These forms were sent to the Department of Justice and entered into a central database.

12:46 While the system wasn't as helpful in cases involving stolen or privately sold guns. It could be a useful tool for police trying to trace weapons used in crimes. Detective Joe Gamino decided to give it a try. He entered the serial number of the thirty eight revolver used in John's murder into the teletype and sent it to Washington, d C. What's a teletype? We don't have those anymore, Dewey, No, certainly get what it is. I don't know exactly. I mean, it's sort of like a telegraph, I guess, like you type something in and it transmits across the country. Within an hour, he received a response the gun had been purchased in nineteen sixty nine at a store in Longview, Texas, by doctor William Mitchell. This lead was intriguing.

13:31 It was intriguing just because this was another doctor, and of course John Hill was also a doctor, and. So is doctor damn it, Jack Kimchick. There you go. Gamino and his partner Jerry Carpenter wasted no time visiting doctor Mitchell. When they showed him the gun, he immediately recognized it and confirmed it was his. Then he shared a crazy story about how he lost it. Doctor Mitchell exclaimed that in early nineteen seventy two, two women from the Dallas Fort Worth area prostitutes he admitted, had visited his home. After spending the evening with them, he fell asleep. When he woke up, they were long gone, along with his El Dorado and a briefcase containing twenty one hundred dollars in cash. Angry and determined to recover his property, Mitchell grabbed his revolver and called a private air charter service to fly to Fort Worth, as one does. His plan was to track down the women himself and get his stolen goods back. But before he could leave, another woman he knew, a prostitute who went by the name Dusty, called him. She said she was in town and wanted to visit Mitchell. Apparently having a weakness for prostitutes, He changed his plans and decided to stay and fighting Dusty over.

14:42 When Dusty arrived, she suggested that he relax with a bath. Mitchell agreed. While he was soaking in the tub, Dusty grabbed his gun and disappeared. The sky got robbed by two different sets of prostitutes, both in the same day. I hope he learned a lesson. I hope he did too. As far fetched as the story sounded the detectives believed him. Mitchell didn't just stop there. He also provided a crucial piece of information. He said he believed that Dusty's real name was Marcia mc kittrick, or something close to that. This revelation gave the detectives a new name to investigate and moved the case one step closer to uncovering the truth behind John Hill's murder. Detectives Gamino and Carpenter threw themselves into the search for Marcia mc kittrick. They worked their way through the underbelly of the city, talking to Madam's pimps and night porters, anyone who might have informations on her whereabouts. Their persistence paid off when they found her name and police records. Marcia had been arrested the year before at the age of twenty two. The report described her as a suspected drug addict, but there was no indication of where she might be now. Camino and Carpenter next tracked down her parents. They confirmed Marcia was working as a prostitute, but admitted they hadn't seen her in some time and had no idea where she was living.

16:00 The detectives continued digging and learned that Marcia had once worked for a pimp named Cleat. However, their lead hit a dead end when they discovered Cleed had been in federal prison since well before John Hill's murder. A new tip suggested that Marcia was now working for a man out of Dallas, someone named Bobby. The informant couldn't recall his last name exactly, but it sounded like Vandergriff or Vander Slice. It started with a V. He was sure of that. Armed with this fragment of a lead, Gamino and Carpenter issued a statewide bulletin notifying law law enforcement agencies across Texas that they were looking for Marcia mc kittrick and her possible associate, Bobby. They believed it was only a matter of time before the pair turned up, but time dragged on, weeks became months, and the case stalled.

16:48 Despite their efforts, six months passed with no sign of Marcia or Bobby. The investigation, for the moment had reached a frustrating standstill. Marcia mc kittrick was the sixth of nine nine children. She grew up in a conservative Baptist family in the suburbs of Dallas. She was an all a student until her family moved from the suburbs into the city. There, she fell in with a wrong crowd and started skipping school and smoking. Remember when smoking was the worst thing you could possibly do in high school? Oh, those are the smokers. At fifteen, Marcia ran away from home. She longed for freedom and adventure. Within a few weeks, she was dancing at a burlesque house, passing for twenty one.

17:30 She was making good money, but an older friend said she could do even better if she made the occasional appointment for sex. Initially reluctant, she tried it and decided it wasn't so bad. At seventeen, she became pregnant. She was already six months long before she realized it. She gave birth to a son and moved in with the likely father, a man named Lee who she had been seeing on and off. She and Lee tried to make it work as a family, but money was tight and Marcia sunk into depression. Then Marcia she discovered barbituates and they helped her cope, but she became hooked and went back to turning tricks. She moved to Tampa, Florida for a while, headed north, then ended up back in Texas, she made attempts to try and get straight and make family life work, while she kept falling back into old habits.

18:18 In nineteen seventy one, she and Lee got arrested for trying to pass bad checks. After that, Lee urged Marcia to get married and go straight, but she couldn't do it. She ended up with a pimped name Cleat, who suggested she become a traveling prostitute. You would go stay in a city for a couple of weeks at a hotel that tolerated discreet prostitution. The night clerk or bellman would take a cut, Cleete would take another cut, and Marcia would keep the rest. At one point, Marcia told Cleete she needed a break. He said, no problem, I'm actually going to Houston to see a friend. You could come along and stay at her house. And that's how Marcia came to meet Lilla Paulis. Lilla was older, in her early fifties. Her recently deceased husband, Claude, had been a prominent bookie and operated a club with gambling in the back room. While Claude was alive, Lilla became acquainted with a variety of shady characters and liked to have these people over so she wasn't lonely. Being at her house was fun, like a NonStop party. Lilla seemed more like a cool mom or grandma than a shady underworld character.

19:22 When Cleete came to Houston on that trip, he brought a friend, a guy that made his living as a burglar. Cleete told Marcia, if anything happens to me, this guy can take care of you. His name Bobby van Derver. Marsha liked him. He was funny and his voice sounded a lot like Don Meredith. So when Clete ended up in prison, Marcia started hanging out with Bobby y. So, I know, we've introduced a lot of new names and characters, but let me kind of break it down and give you kind of the important ones to keep in mind. So he traced the gun back to this doctor Mitchell. He's not really important in this story, but it was from doctor Mitchell that Marcia got the guns. So Marsha stole the gun from doctor Mitchell. She knew Bobby, she knew Lilla. So Bobby, Lilla, and Marsha are all pretty important going forward in the story. Gotcha, Bobby van Derver grew up in Venus, Texas, a quiet farming community south of Dallas. In high school, he was a standout vice president of his class, a star athlete, a good student, and popular with the girls, but the promise of his youth quickly gave way to poor decisions. After high school, Bobby fell in love with a woman named Maudine, and together they dabbled in small time check forgery. It didn't last long. Both were arrested and given probation, but when Maudeine violated her terms, she went to prison. The experience pushed Bobby to shift his focus to burglary, believing it to be a better way to make a quick buck.

20:47 His first attempt at burglary ended in embarrassment. Bobby stole a safe from a doctor's office, but dropped it while loading it into his car, smashing his finger in the process. The police later found a thin slice of his fingertip at the scene, making it, as they joked, the easiest fingerprint match they had ever Enkillner. Despite the setback, Bobby was undeterred. He refined his methods, adopting brown work gloves and a ski mask as his trademark. How original, By nineteen seventy. At thirty one years old, Bobby had already served a couple of short prison stints. He fell in love with Vicki, a woman with two children from a previous marriage, and tried to go straight to support his new family, But honest work didn't pay enough, especially as Vicky faced a complicated pregnancy that required medical care. Desperate, Bobby returned to burglary and even dabbled in pimping to make ends meet. Around this time, Marcia McKittrick, who Bobby had met earlier, gave him a call. She told him about a potential job from Lila Paulis, the woman in whose home they had hung out together in Houston. Bobby traveled to Houston to hear the details. At first, Bobby flatly refused this wasn't a burglary, it was something far riskier.

22:00 He wasn't an assassin, and he knew the job had already been turned down by two others for being too dangerous. But that night, when Bobby came home, he learned that Vicki's pregnancy had taken a turn for the worse and the baby might not survive. Faced with mounting desperation, he reconsidered Returning to Marcia, Bobby said, I'll do the job. After Bobby killed John Hill, he fled in a panic, tossing the briefcase and gun induced some nearby shrubbery. Marcia, who had dropped him off at the mansion, waited for him down the road. Once they reunited, the pair drove back to Lilla Paulus's house in Houston, where Bobby collected five thousand dollars for the job, but Lilla took a fifteen hundred dollars cut for expenses and her finder's fee, leaving Bobby with just thirty five hundred dollars, a meager payoff for a high profile assassination. That same night, Bobby and Marsha drove back to Dallas. Bobby immediately shaved his mustache and bleached his hair. When they heard the news that the murder weapon had been found, they panicked. Bobby used some of his earnings to buy a car, and the pair fled to California. In California, their relationship quickly fell apart. Bobby returned to burglary to make money, while Marcia descended into heroin addiction. Eventually, she left Bobby and headed for Las Vegas. Returning to prostitution, her addiction deepened, and so did her despair. Overwhelmed by paranoia and depression, Marcia attempted suicide at the Desert Inn, swallowing seventy two barbiturates and injecting heroin. As she started losing consciousness, she

23:31 stumbled into the hotel lobby and collapsed. Marcia woke up in a hospital bed to find Bobby standing over her. Are you ready to come home, he asked, but of course they didn't have a home. The pair hit the road again, this time to lay low in Palm Springs. The news about John Hill's murder in Texas had begun to fade, and Bobby hatched a plan to make some money, secure fake passports, and flee the country, but their volatile relationship was doomed. Bobby's temper and Marcia's addiction fueled constant conflict. Marcia eventually left again, returning to Las Vegas, where she contracted hepatitis from a dirty needle. Afterwards, she decided to visit her mother and her son in Texas, cleaning up briefly, but before long, Marcia was back on the road, falling into old habits. Meanwhile, detectives Gamino and Carpenter had begun closing in. They arrived at Marcia's mother's house not long after she left again. They warned her mother that Marcia was in danger her life might be at risk. To insure her silence, her mother begged her to turn herself in, but Marcia kept running, always one step ahead. As for Bobby, he returned to Texas and hid out at his sister's house.

24:39 Realizing the police were closing in on him as well, he called a trusted friend who offered him a secluded cabin near a lake outside the city. With no better options, Bobby decided to go into hiding there, hoping to stay ahead of the law. It turns out trust isn't exactly a strong currency among criminals. The friend who had generously offered Bobby the use of that remote cabin, he went straight to the Dallas police and ratted him out. Dallas authorities tipped off their counterparts in Houston, and the very next day, three cars carrying eight officers surrounded the secluded hideout and arrested Bobby. This would be Bobby's fourth felony, which meant he was staring down an automatic life sentence. Under Texas law. The next step was a lineup for the three eye witnesses, Myra, Connie, and Robert. Connie went first, but she couldn't make a positive ID.

25:28 To remind everyone, there's been a lot of names. Connie is John Hill's third or third wife, Yes, that's witness correct. And Robert his son, and Myra his mother correct. I was just getting a little confused. I don't know if anyone else is confused out there. So yeah, there's a lot of names. So yes, it's great, great call up. After Connie wasn't able to make an ID, Robert followed. He managed to narrow it down to Bobby or one other man in the lineup, but he couldn't be sure. Then it was Myra's turn. She didn't hesitate. She pointed at Bobby without a sh shred of doubt. This was the man that she had seen. Despite the mounting evidence, Bobby insisted he was innocent. Detective Carpenter decided to take a gamble. He casually dropped the name Lilla Paulus during questioning. It wasn't a sure thing. Carpenter didn't know for certain if Bobby and Lilla were connected, but Bobby's reaction gave him away. His eyes widened and he said, oh wow, you know her name. That was all that Carpenter needed. Sometimes a little instinct and a well placed punch can go a long way. Bobby sat in his cell thinking it over. He knew that he was in deep, but he still had some cards to play. Eventually, he asked to talk about cutting a deal enter Bob Bennett, a young assistant DA. When Bennett met with them, detectives Gamino and Carpenter made their position clear. They were confident Bobby had pulled the trigger, but there were bigger fish to fry, especially whoever had ordered the hit. They needed Bobby's help to unravel the whole web. Bennett didn't sugarcoat it.

26:58 He told Bobby there was no escaping prison in time. But he also knew that Bobby wasn't the mastermind. He was just a pawn in a much larger game. So Bennett made a surprisingly generous offer. Twelve years behind bars in exchange for full cooperation with good behavior, Bobby could be out in five. Bobby wrestled with the decision. He called his sister, who urged him to lawyer up, but Bobby waved her off. The real battle was internal. On one hand, there was the street code no snitching. On the other, refusing to cooperate could mean dying in prison, or worse, maybe someone on the outside would decide to tie up loose ends and get rid of Bobby. The risks were enormous either way. Finally, after hours of agonizing over what to do, Bobby made up his mind. He was ready to talk, and we'll be back after a break before we go on. Do you want to have a little halftime snack?

27:55 No, I don't, but I want you to. Okay, Well, why don't tell people what we have here? This has been kicking around our house for a while. It's some special oreos that I got for you and also used as a torture device. I think they are or Coca Cola with popping candy flavor oreos, which sounds terrible to me. Yeah, well, you love oreos, so I thought maybe you'd like them. Maybe I'll give I think I. Bought them like at Christmas for you to try, and I didn't want it to vote a whole snack segment to them. So do you want to just give them a quick try? Yep? They smell like coke. Well that was even worse than I thought.

28:38 Your sister sent us a package too for Christmas. We actually have two packages of these. They're really not. Oreo and Coca Cola flavors do not go together. The coke flavor is somewhat subdued, but it's still there. It's just no awful. So you were laughing at me when I was eating my oreo? How do you eat an oreo? Just like a normal person. You take a bite out of it and then another bite. I like to take mine apart. Yeah, so I don't know if that makes me weird or you're the weird one. Only time I take an oreo apart is what I'm making my own double stuff or quadruple stuff. I tink two oreos and put.

29:20 I don't believe I've seen you do that. No, well, okay, so you just take them apart, like scrape the frost, get. Rid of a couple of the chocolate parts, and. What do you would throw them away? No? I would eat them, but I wouldn't enjoy that part of it. Okay, very interesting. We should probably get back to our story. Well, wait, what would you rate the oreo from one to ten? One? One? Yeah? I would I would also rate it one. For six long days, Bobby van der Wert spilled everything he knew to Carpenter and Gamino. He detailed his rocky relationship with Marcia, their time at Lila Paulus's house, and when he first heard about a contract to kill John Hill back in August nineteen seventy two. Bobby revealed that the original plan was to take John out in Las Vegas, where he was supposed to attend a plastic surgery convention, but John and Connie's last minute detour to San Francisco threw a wrench in the works. Bobby and Marsha spent two days in Vegas trying to track him down before realizing they needed a new plan, and they headed back to Houston. Lilla had told Bobby the target was quote a doctor who had killed his wife and guess who she said had ordered the hit. That's right, Ash Robinson, Well sort of. She never named him directly, referring to him only as the wife's father or the old man.

30:39 Lilla handed Bobby a photo of John that the old Man had provided. It wasn't just any picture, it had been cut into the shape of a coffin. Lilla reportedly pointed to it and said, you think this motherfucker doesn't want him dead, just look at how he cut the picture. Everything Bobby shared, including all of the details of the hit itself, checked out with what the detective already knew about the case. He was telling the truth. But Bobby's testimony alone wouldn't be enough to take down Lilla and Ash. They needed concrete evidence to back up his claims. That's when Bob Bennett decided to lay a trap for Ash Robinson. He had Bobby call him up while they were recording. When Ash answered, Bobby said, mister Robinson, this is Bobby van Derver. I did a job for you. There was a long, tense pause. Finally Ash responded, oh yes, But it wasn't the admission they were hoping for. It sounded more like Ash was saying, get to the point. Bobby continued, I need to get a hold of Lilla real bad.

31:40 I can't find her. Do you know where she is? Another long pause. Then Ash replied, no, I haven't seen Lilla in six months and don't know how to get in touch with her. Click. He hung up. Ash Robinson didn't bite. The bait was set, but the old man wasn't falling for it, at least not yet. On April twenty five, fifth, nineteen seventy five, the case took a dramatic turn. A grand jury handed down secret indictments for our first degree murder against Bobby van Derver thirty three and Marcia McKittrick twenty three. They also hit Lilla Paulas fifty four with an accomplice to murder charge, but they still didn't have anything solid on Ash Robinson. The case against Lilla was shaky at best. Investigators knew it hinged on tracking down Marsha, who remained elusive. Meanwhile, they arrested Lilla without incident and searched her home. The hall not much, just a few scraps of paper with cryptic notes. One had a phone number scrawled next to the name Dusty.

32:39 And Dusty was the name that Marcia used as a prostitute, okay. Another listed a Houston hotel where Marcia had worked, and the third a phone number that led to a private line Ash Robinson had briefly used around the time of John's murder. Coincidence maybe, but the pieces were starting to line up. Detectives Carpenter and Camino, along with assistant DA Bob Bennett, decided it was time to rattle Ash's cage. Late one night, just shy of midnight, they showed up at his door step. Ash, wearing his pajamas, opened the door and cordially invited them in. The tree wasted no time. They told Ash about Lilla's arrest and casually mentioned that they suspected he might be involved in John's murder. Ash didn't flinch. Instead, he smiled and said, well, boys, I wouldn't know anything about that. They pressed him for more, but ashe stood up gesturing towards the door, I don't believe I should talk to you, gentlemen further, unless it is in the presence of my lawyer, and I might remind you, gentlemen, and I stressed this strongly, you should be very careful what you say about me. With that, he slammed the door shut behind them. Walking away from the house, Jerry Carpenter couldn't help but remark quote, that's one cool old son of a bitch. He wasn't wrong.

33:58 Marcia was out of the loop when it came to the Houston arrests. It wasn't until she called her mom that she got the wake up call of her life. Her mom told her, you'd better pick up a newspaper. You and Bobby are all over it. She also gave Marcia some solid advice. Call a lawyer she knew, a good one by the name of Charles Caperton. At first, Marcia's gut reaction was to bolt again. What reality started to set in. She knew it was only a matter of time before the authorities caught up with her, so she took her mother's advice and reached out to Caperton. The seasoned lawyer didn't waste any time. He flew to Houston, met up with Marcia, and personally escorted her to the Harris County court House, where she turned herself in. But here's the kicker. Capertin was one step ahead of everyone.

34:44 He'd already arranged her bond, so the moment she surrendered, he whisked her right back to Dallas. By the time detectives Carpenter and Gamino got wind of it, Marcia was already long gone. They were none too pleased at having missed the opportunity to question her. Capertin gave Marsha clear instructions keep a low profile, stay out of trouble, and most importantly, don't talk to anyone, especially the police. Your only job is to talk to me, he told her, and with that, Marsha's legal strategy was in motion. With investigators clearly targeting him, Ash decided to take a private polygraph exam. He went to New York for it, and no law enforcement representatives were there. He emerged with a signed letter saying that he had answered all the questions truthfully and that he had no involvement in the murder of John Hill.

35:35 That was so nice of him to go take care of that, helping with the investigation. I'm sure the police just took it and said thank you so much. Ash Well. In fact, when word of the polygraph reached Bob Bennett, he laughed and said, if he's all that innocent, then why does old Ash have to run all the way off to New York and get one done secretly. We'll be happy to interrogate him here. We'll even send a car. Because they were co indicted, Bobby and Lilla were to stand trial together, Bob Bennett had one priority keeping his star witness, Bobby Vanderver, safe and out of trouble before the trial. To make that happen, he pulled some strings. He set Bobby up with a small efficiency apartment in Houston and brought in Bobby's girlfriend, Vicky, knowing that she was his best shot at keeping him grounded.

36:18 Bennett even found Vicky a waitress job and slipped Bobby a bit of pocket money to keep things running smoothly. But life in hiding wasn't exactly thrilling for Bobby. He couldn't step outside unless someone from the DA's office was with him. Most days he just sat around watching TV bore it out of his mind. In June nineteen seventy three, Bobby came to Bennett with a request. Vicky was locked in a custody battle with her first husband over her two kids, and she needed to be in Dallas for a court hearing. Bobby asked if he could tag along. Bennett hesitated. He had grown to trust Bobby, but he wasn't entirely sure about letting him leave. After some thought, though, he agreed. What was supposed to be a quick trip stretched into something longer. The custody hearing got delayed, and then the court ordered Vicky to establish a proper home in Dallas if she wanted to win custody Bobby asked for more time, and Bennett, wanting to support his key witness, granted permission for Bobby to stay a couple more months until the trial got underway. In the meantime, detectives Carpenter and Gamino were desperate to get Marcia McKittrick into an interrogation room. They believed that she held the key to strengthening their case against Lillapoulus and possibly tying Ash Robinson directly to the murder plot. They suspected that Marcia had overheard conversations between Lilla and Ash, maybe even witnessed them exchanging money. If they had to bust her for jaywalking to make it happen, they would, but Marcia, sticking to her lawyer's advice, refused to say a word. Her heroin addiction, though, had other plans. Desperate for cash, Marcia headed to Lubbock

37:52 and turned to prostitution to fund her habit. An informant tipped off the local police and she was arrested. When Carpenter and Gamino got the call, they were thrilled this was their shot. The Lublic police arranged to put Marcia on a plane to Houston, where the detectives were waiting to pounce, but Marcia had other ideas. The plane made a stop in Austin, and she vanished once again. Carpenter, waiting at the Houston airport, was furious when Marcia didn't show. From Austin, Marcia made her way back to Dallas and ended up at the home of a drug dealer named Claude. By late June nineteen seventy three, her heroin use had spiraled out of control. On September twenty first, after a blowout fight with Claude, Marcia stole his Chrysler, a diamond ring, and a book of payroll checks from his company. She tried to cash a forged check in Dallas, but got caught again. This time, Carpenter and Gamino weren't leaving it to chance. They drove the two hundred and sixty miles to Dallas to pick her up themselves. It was their first face to face meeting with Marcia, and she was in bad shape, deep in withdrawal, and furious with her lawyer for not returning her calls. Marcia finally broke She gave the de actives a detailed confession. Her story lined up with Bobby Vandiver's but offered even more damning details.

39:07 Marcia claimed that in early summer nineteen seventy two, while she was staying at Lilla's house, Ash Robinson had come by. She overheard him saying that he couldn't get custody of his grandson unless John Hill was either dead or convicted of his daughter's murder. Even more explosive, Marcia said that she had seen Ash give Lilla a total of twenty five thousand dollars money that she believed was for the hit. Wasn't Bobby paid five thousand dollars? Yeah, he really got ripped off, I would say. After her confession, the detectives arranged for Marcia to receive treatment for her heroine withdrawal, but once the worst of it was over, her story changed. She demanded to see her lawyer and claimed that the confession had been coerced, insisting that she had only spoken under pressure to get medical help.

39:53 Bobby Vandever, who had been living in Dallas with Bob Bennett's permission, kept his word and showed up for his trial in September as promised, But when he arrived, Bennett had some bad news. The trial had been delayed for seven months. Rescheduled for April nineteen seventy four. Bobby was crushed. He pleaded with Bennett to let him return to Dallas so that he could spend the remaining months of his freedom with Vicki, her children, and his sister. At first, Bennett refused, it was too risky to let Bobby out of his sight, but Bobby's desperation and the trust that Bennett had developed in him wore him down. Bennett reluctantly agreed on one condition. Bobby had to call and check in every week, and Bobby did like clockwork. He called Bennett assuring him that he would show up for the rescheduled trial in April. The week before the big day, Bobby called again to confirm he would be there Monday morning, no problem. But when Monday came, Bobby was a no show.

40:50 Bennett sat in court alone, dreading the moment that he'd have to admit to the judge that his star witness had disappeared. Just as things were about to go sideways, Bennett caught a lucky briin Lilla. Paulis's attorney requested a delay, citing her recent cancer diagnosis. The judge granted it, pushing the trial back to the fall. Bennett wasted no time. He had Bobby's fifteen thousand dollars bond revoked and the hunt for his missing witness began. The clock was ticking, and Bennett knew that without Bobby, the case against Lilla and the others could crumble. A long View, Texas police officer named John Reimer worked the midnight patrol shift. Long View is a quiet town about one hundred twenty miles east of Dallas and two hundred miles north of Houston. During his shifts, Raymer often stopped by the Continental Cafe, an all night diner where locals and night owls gathered. As a cop, Raymer had a sharp eye for anything out of place, and one thing kept catching his attention. An old yellow ford parked outside the cafe, sometimes for days at a time. Curiosity got the better of him, and one night he decided to stick around and see who the owner was. Eventually, the driver walked in. He was a skinny white guy, probably in his early thirties, a bit rough looking with a troopy mustache. One of the cafe employees called him Jac and it was clear he had taken a liking to a new waitress named Vicki. Raymer's instincts told him something was off. Was this JC in town to sell drugs?

42:22 Was he a pimp? Or maybe he was just laying low. Whatever it was, Raymer decided to let it rest for the moment. That changed when Raymer overheard some chatter. The man's real name wasn't JC, it was Bobby. He was in serious trouble, he carried a gun, and he might even be dangerous. Raymer sent Bobby's name a description out to nearby police departments. Soon he got a hit. This was likely Bobby van Derver, wanted in Houston for skipping bail in connection with the murder case. What Raymer didn't know was that Bobby wasn't just wanted, he was a key witness in a high profile case. Raymer decided it was to act. One night, he brought back up and headed to the cafe. Bobby was playing pool when Ramer quietly approached him, gun drawn, Raymer called out Bobby. Bobby looked up and froze for a second, and then went for the gun he was carrying. At the same time, he grabbed the barrel of Raymer's weapon, trying to rustle it away. Raymer didn't wait. He fired, but the shot went into the floor, deflected by Bobby's grip. The second shot, though, hit Bobby's square in the chest. As he collapsed, the cafe erupted into chaos. Vicky, who had been in the bathroom, ran out, screaming, you've killed Bobby. Indeed, Bobby van Derver was dead. When Assistant DA Bob Bennett got the call, he was devastated. Bobby's death was a disaster for the case against Lilla Paulus. Bobby had been the cornerstone of the prosecution's strategy, and without him everything was in jeopardy.

43:55 At first, rumors swirled. Did Raymer kill Bobby intentionally? Was he paid off by someone trying to protect Lilla or Ash Robinson. An investigation cleared Ramer of any wrongdoing. Witnesses at the cafe confirmed that Bobby had reached for his gun, and the fact that Raymer had called in back up ahead of time further supported his story. It seemed clear Bobby's death was a tragic result of his own split second decision to fight back for Bennett and the prosecution. Though it didn't matter why Bobby died, what mattered was that he was gone, and so was their strongest chance at justice. Bob Bennett was in a bind and the case was slipping through his fingers. The triggerman and key witness was dead. Marsha McKittrick, his other start witness, had turned on him, claiming her confession was coursed. Now she wasn't cooperating either. Bennett still believed Ash was behind the contract killing, with Lilla acting as the go between, but he started to doubt either one of them would ever face justice, and time wasn't on his side. Ash was pushing eighty and Lilla had just been dying, diagnosed with cancer.

45:01 Even if he managed to secure a conviction, that was looking less and less likely that either of them would serve any meaningful prison time. His strongest case, ironically, it was against Marsha, the least culpable of the trio. Bennett had his investigators dig intot Ash's finances, hoping to find a smoking gun proof that Ash had paid Lila, but they came up empty. The only real evidence Bennett had against Dash was the confessions, one from Bobby, now dead, and the other from Marsha, who had completely flipped on him. It has to be so frustrating as a prosecutor, like, you know who is behind this, but you just can't prove it, and you just lost your star witness.

45:42 Yeah. By late October nineteen seventy four, the trial date was set. Marcia was just charged with murder and Lilla as an accomplice. But then blow after blow hit the prosecution. First, the judge granted a pre trial motion from Lilla's defense team to exclude Bobby's confession, the reasoning, the sixth Amendment gives you the right to confront your accuser, and you can't exactly cross examine a dead man. Then another got punched. The judge ruled that Marsha's confession could only be used against her, not against Lila. Lila's lawyer was ecstatic. His whole strategy was to keep his client as far away from Marcia as possible. He asked for a delay until February nineteen seventy five, and the judge granted it. Suddenly there was no longer a trial for both women. Marcia was going it alone. Marsha's lawyer, meanwhile, saw the writing on the wall. He believed an appeals court would eventually agree that her confession should have been tossed out, but he didn't want to risk a drawn out trial. Instead, he took an unusual approach. He stipulated to the evidence, objected to the confession, and let the judge sentence her.

46:50 His thinking, if they were going to lose any way, better to cut their losses and start working on the appeal. The result, Marcia was sentenced to ten years in prison. A little confused by all the legal leese stuff in here, but essentially Marsha's lawyer just said, we're going to bypass a trial. We're going to go to like a bench trial. We're going to agree to let the evidence in except for Marsha's confession. We're going to say we object to that. Judge just go ahead and sentence her, and then he would just start working on the appeal. After the sentencing, Bennett caught up with her as she was being let out of the courtroom. He asked if she might reconsider testifying against Lilla at her upcoming trial, hinting that he could improve her situation if she cooperated.

47:33 Marsha's response a defeated strug. I don't know, she said, I'm so confused, and I don't feel very good. Marcia began her sentence in the downtown Harris County Jail. On paper, this was for her own safety, but it was also because Bob Bennett wanted easy access to her, and the county jail was a lot more convenient than heading up to the state prison. He visited Marcia often, trying to build a connection, hoping he would convince her to cooperate, but Marcia wasn't budging. Every time Bennett pushed her, she shut him down. She believed that testifying against Lilla would be a death sentence. She knew Lilla had ties to dangerous people, and Marcia wasn't about to take that risk.

48:15 Think about it, she was just twenty five years old facing a ten year sentence. With good behaviors, she could be out by age thirty, and if her appeal worked, maybe even sooner. Cooperating felt like signing her own death warrant. By mid February, Bennett had been working on Marsha for four months. Lila's trial was looming, and he decided to make one last attempt. He visited Marsha in jail, hoping this time would be different, and it was sort of For the first time. Marcia didn't immediately shut him down. Instead, she gave him a strange little smile and said, almost teasingly, well, who knows what I might do? Yeah, who knows what I might do if you put me up on the witness stand and I see that old bitch sitting there in the courtroom. Bennett jumped in, Marcia, would you testify against her? She just strugged and said, I told you, Bob, who knows.

49:07 Pretty cryptic of her like on the eve of this murder trial. She's like, I might testify, might not. Can't tell you, Bob. Sorry. We haven't talked too much about Lilla Paulis's background, other than to say her husband, who had died not long before, John Hill, had been a bookie with strong connections to the underworld. Lilla was a gray haired older lady, but she was scary to a lot of people, including her own daughter. In preparing for Lilla's trial, prosecutor Bob Bennett interviewed her daughter, Mary Joe, who told him a chilling tale. At a very young age, she claimed that her own mother forced her into prostitution, and this continued all through Mary Joe's teenage years. When Mary Joe was just eighteen, she fell for Larry Wood, an older man who made a living as a pimp.

49:51 Lilla didn't approve, but Mary Joe didn't care. She was in love and she saw Larry as a means of escape from her mom. Lilla, however, wasn't one to say sit idly by. She went to drastic lengths having marry Joe committed to a psychiatric institution, accusing her of drug use and erratic behavior. It didn't work. After just three weeks, Mary Joe slipped out of the institution and wasted no time marrying Larry. But their honeymoon phase didn't last long. Not long after the wedding, their apartment was riddled with gunfire. Fifty seven bullets tore through the walls and the windows. Thankfully, neither of them was at home at the time. Mary Joe was convinced that this was Lilla's doing. It was enough to make the newly weds pack up and leave, disappearing to start over in a new state, keeping their location a secret from Lilla. But Lilla wasn't done. She tried to block Mary Joe from claiming a substantial inheritance from her paternal grandmother. Mary Joe's grandmother had left behind an a state worth over four million dollars. While she excluded Mary Joe's father, claud from the will, she didn't approve of his work as a bookie. She did leave a quarter of the estate over ami million dollars to Claude's legitimate issue and guess who that was, Mary Joe, his only child. When Mary Joe filed for the inheritance, Lilla stepped in to block it. Her reasoning. She went to court and testified that Mary Joe wasn't legitimate, that she had conceived Mary Joe before she married Claude. The judge sided with Lilla, effectively cutting Mary Joe off from

51:23 her inheritance. So Mary Joe's own mother first of all forces her daughter into prostitution at a really, really young age, and then she stops her from inheriting money basically on a technicality. And the kicker is like, like, Lilla didn't have anything to gain by this, She wasn't going to get the money. She just did it out of spite. Essentially, so she probably didn't get a lot of Mother's Day cards. No, I'm guessing that Mary Joe told Bob Bennett about when she testified in that court case about the inheritance. She said quote, I saw her sitting out there patting her handbag. I knew she had her gun in it. Blood ran cold with every word I spoke. Lilla's trial kicked off in February nineteen seventy five. The first day of testimony was powerful. Fourteen year old Robert Hill took the stand and recounted the events of the day his father was shot and killed.

52:15 NICKA is kind of a little hero, isn't he? He really is? Despite his age, Robert was an exceptional witness, calm, composed and convincing. Other witnesses followed. Connie testified along with the coroner, doctor Jaikimchik to Kimchick, and doctor Mitchell, the original owner of the gun stolen by Marcia. Together they painted a clear picture of how John Hill had been murdered, but there was one glaring issue. None of them could directly tie Lilla Paulus to the crime. Meanwhile, Bob Bennett was still holding out hope that Marcia McKittrick would come through. She hadn't made her decision yet and the trial was moving forward without her testimony. Then, near the end of the first day, a note was passed to Bennett. Marcia had sent word from the jail downstairs she wanted to see him pronto. As soon as court adjourned for the day.

53:04 Bennett rushed downstairs. There Marcia told him that she had made up her mind. She had seen young Robert Hill waiting to testify, and it had broken her heart. She decided she would take the stand against Lilla. Now, Marcia wasn't exactly the most upstanding citizen. Her background was far from spotless, but during her two days on the stand, she came across as honest and believable. She talked openly about her relationship with Bobby Van Derver, her time staying at Lilla's house whenever she was in Houston, and the chilling details of the contract that Lilla had been shopping around. Marcia described seeing Ash hand money to Lilla and watching Lilla pay Bobby a cut of that money. Her testimony brought the jury closer to understanding how deep Lilla's involvement really went. Although Ash Robinson wasn't the one on trial, the prosecution worked hard to connect the dots between him and Lilla. They wanted to show that she wasn't just a passive player. She was the middlewoman in a calculated murder for higher scheme. One piece of evidence stood out.

54:05 A telephone company representative testified that ashe had installed a new private phone line right around the time of John Hill's death, and the number for that private line it was scribbled on a slip of paper found in Lilla's purse. Then came a surprise twist. Lilla decided to testify in her own defense. Her lawyers must have thought that she would come across as a sweet, gray haired grandmother, the kind who had been a girl scout mom and sent her daughter to Catholic school. It started off smoothly enough. Her lawyers asked if she knew ash Robinson. Lilla downplayed it, claiming that she had heard of him and maybe crossed paths with him a couple of times. But she insisted that she wasn't an acquaintance, and she added a bold claim ashe had absolutely never been in her home. Then its eyebrows went up at that one. If he could find someone to prove otherwise, it would expose her as a liar, and that could be a game changer. When it came to Marcia, li admitted that she knew her, but claimed that she had just been trying to help her out, offering her a place to stay when she needed it. Then, in a moment that might have been meant to make her look charitable, Lilla couldn't help herself.

55:11 She said, quote even though you could gather from her conversation that her life was just a little bit different from mine. End quote. That little comment gave Bennett an opening on cross examination. He ran with it, using it to shine a spotlight on Lilla's own less than clean history. He wanted the jury to see that Lilla and Marcia weren't so different after all. Bennett landed a few solid blows during cross but overall, Lilla's lawyer felt pretty good when she stepped down from the stand. When it came time for rebuttal witnesses, Bob Bennett didn't waste the opportunity to chip away at the wholesome image that Lilla had tried to sell to the jury. First, he called a vice cop to the stand. The officer testified about Lilla's connections to a seed er underworld, revealing her past as a sometimes madam, and her association with thieves, prostitutes, gamblers, and pimps. Then came Joan Jaworski Warrel, Joan Hill's childhood best friend. Fun fact, Joan was the daughter of Leon Jaworski, the famed Watergate prosecutor. That little detail probably gave her testimony some extra weight. Name recognition has a way of doing that. She testified that she knew both Ash Robinson and Lilla and had seen them together three times. But the real drama came when Bennett called Lilla's own daughter, Mary Joe, to testify. Mary Joe was terrified of her mother and needed serious convincing to even show up in court.

56:35 Part of the deal, armed guards would escort her the entire time she was in town. When Mary Joe took the stand, Bennett started with a simple question, where do you live? Her answer was just as simple and cautious another state. She said she wasn't about to reveal her location, and that was part of the agreement for her testimony. Mary Joe then described her connection to Ash Robinson. She said that she had first met him at her mother's house, directly contradicting Lilla's earlier testimony. She also shared that she and her mother had visited Joan Hill's house multiple times and that Ash had been there too. But the most jaw dropping part of Mary Joe's testimony came when she recalled a moment around Christmas of nineteen seventy. She said that she was at her mother's house when she overheard Lilla say Diane's Setagas called and said, Ash Robinson is looking for somebody to kill John Hill. That line alone was explosive. Unfortunately, there was one limitation to Mary Joe's testimony.

57:34 The judge ruled that she could only impeach specific parts of Lilla's earlier testimony. That meant she couldn't delve into Lilla's shady past or the chilling fact that her own mother had once forced her into prostitution. Lila's lawyer had a surprise of his own. He called Diane Setagas to the stand. Now, it's been a while since we talked about her, but you might remember Diane. She was Joan Hill's friend, the one staying at the mansion with her companion Eunice when Joan fell ill. Diane's name had come up a few times through the trial. Joan Juworski warrel As I just mentioned testified about seeing Diane with both Lilla and Ash Robinson and Mary Joe, Lilla's daughter, claimed that it was Diane's name Lilla mentioned when talking about how she learned of Ash's shopping around for a hit man.

58:21 When Diane took the stand, she flat out denied everything. She insisted she had never been with Lilla and Ash at the same time and was certain that the two didn't even know each other. And as for ashe looking to have someone kill John Hill, no way, she said. At this point, Lilla's lawyer should have called it a day and moved on, but he decided to press just a little further, and that decision really spelled disaster for his client. He asked, Diane, when was the last time you saw Mary Joe? Would Diane didn't hesitate her answer, just before she decided to take up the practice of prostitution. Bennett, watching from his seat, perked up immediately. He almost felt bad for opposing counsel. That one careless question had just opened the gates of hell for Lilla. The court took a break after Diane's testimony, and Bennett ran to the phone and called the hotel where Mary Joe and her husband had been staying. He was worried that he might be too late, but he caught her just in time.

59:16 He said, we need you back. It's important. Mary Joe said, I've already been through hell once. I suppose the second time around can't be so bad. Now that Diane's setagast had brought up the fact that Mary Joe had been a prostitute, the judge allowed her to tell the jury her whole story, how her mom had her committed to a psychiatric hospital and once threatened her with a gun while she was there, and the most terrific part, how her mom had taken money from men and allowed them to molest her daughter. And this is so disgusting to even say. Starting at the age of four, Audible gasps rippled through the courtroom when Mary Joe said that. Mary continued talking about how her mom continued to force her into prostitution until she finally escaped at age eighteen after meeting Larry Wood. After her testimony, Mary Joe sobbed uncontrollably in Bennett's office for fifteen minutes. After she composed herself, she said to him, I'm sorry. Is there a word for when you've just exercised your own mother?

1:00:14 That is truly, truly horrible? It's evil. Yeah, I don't. I can't think of anything much more evil than that. After nearly five hours of deliberation, the jury found Lilla Paulis guilty of being an accomplice to murder. She was sentenced to thirty five years in the state penitentiary. It's been a long road, I know. And Joan Robinson Hill is dead, John Hill is dead, Bobby Van Derver is dead. The only person convicted is Lilla Paulis. Let's wrap this up by just talking about what happened to. Let to know what happened to Ash Robinson. So Lilla Paulis, first of all, did indeed die in prison, but she at least got to serve eleven years before she did. She died in nineteen eighty six at the age of sixty six. Marcia McKittrick served five years in prison before being parole in nineteen seventy eight. I don't know a lot about her life after that, other than finding one report of her arrest on charges of public intoxication in nineteen eighty six. She died in twenty ten at the age of sixty Following her husband's death, Connie Hill petitioned the court for custody of Robert. She was joined in the petition by John's mother and sister, and she was awarded custody. Surprisingly, Connie and Robert continued to live at the mansion on Kirby Drive for several more years.

1:01:28 In nineteen seventy seven, Robert, Kannie, and Meyra brought a seven point six million dollar wrongful death lawsuit against Ash, Lila and Marcia, alleging that the three conspired to kill John Hill. Both Marsha and Ashe testified during the civil trial. During his testimony, Ash addressed his grandson, who was in the courtroom, saying, quote, Boot, I had no more to do with your father's death than you did. Death. Murder does not solve any problem on the face of the earth. After deliberating for fifteen hours, a jury did not find enough evidence of a conspiracy linking Ash to Hill's death, so they lost the suit. Surprisingly, Robert eventually reconciled with his grandparents Ash and Rhea and went to live in Pensacola near them. He finally sold the mansion on Kirby Drive in nineteen eighty one, and Connie remarried around that same time. Ash Robinson was never brought to justice for ordering the hit on doctor John Hill. In nineteen seventy nine, he and Rhea moved from Houston to Pensacola, Florida. Ash died there in February nineteen eighty five, and Rhea died two years later in nineteen eighty seven. Ash maintained his innocence to the end. The mansion is still there, complete with John's spectacular music room maintained just as it was the time of his death. We'll post pictures that I know you mentioned you looked it up on Zillo and.

1:02:46 Yeah, post the link in our show notes. Connie married a Texas oil man named Jim Calloway. Calloway died in twenty eighteen. Last I heard, Connie was still alive and living in Colorado. After Joan and John died, US prize show horse beloved Belinda also met a tragic end. During a thunderstorm one night, she bolted out of her barn, ran into a field, reared up on her hind legs, and was struck down by a bolt of lightning. We've talked about already, but Thomas Thompson's nineteen seventy six book Blood and Money became a bestseller and a true crime classic. He became interested in the story while he was in Houston shadowing doctors for research on a book called Hearts, about the world of cardiac surgery. An Kirth sued Thompson for three million dollars over the way he depicted her in the book. She was especially offended by the description of her as a quote provocatively dressed, heavily made up woman unquote. Her suit was dismissed by a jury. In nineteen eighty one, Thompson was also sued by John Ramer, the police officer who shot and killed Bobby van Derver.

1:03:49 Raymer sued because Thompson described his round face as looking like a hard boiled egg. Wow, those people are a little sensitive. Ash Robinson also sued Thompson because, well, of course he did. As far as I know, none of those lawsuits were successful. Thompson sadly died in nineteen eighty two at age forty nine of liver disease, apparently contracted while he was in Asia researching the story of serial killer Charles Sobrage for his book Serpentine. Whatever our listeners just requested that story? Oh really interesting. Ann Kirth published her own account of the case called prescription Murder. In the book, she repeated her claims that John had tried to kill her and that he poisoned Joan with bacteria laced pastries. She also suggests that John may not have actually been killed, but instead faked his own death and moved to Mexico, and Kirth lived in Austin with her three sons until her death in nineteen ninety at age fifty nine. Anne was not the only one to believe that John faked his own death. Conspiracy theories point to the fact that the face of the victim was battered and there were allegedly contradictions in the autopsy reports about John's eye color, height, and other physical characteristics. Plus he had a motive to disappear, seeing as he was set to go on trial again in six weeks and he was heavily in debt. There have been unconfirmed reports of John Hill's sightings in Mexico.

1:05:16 What do you think of that? I think it's both. It sounds pretty far betched. Yeah, sounds very far fetched. In nineteen eighty one, a made for TV movie called Murder in Texas was produced based on the case. The movie starred Farah Fawcett as Joan Robinson Hill, Sam Elliott as doctor John Hill. Love Sam Elliott, he was so young in this too, Catherine Ross as Anne Kirth, and Andy Griffith as Ash Robinson. The movie perpetuates the theory that Hill may have faked his death. Here's a little montage of clips from the film. John Hill and a people are important to the doctor as long as he can use him to get what he wants, and Honnie what he wants.

1:06:01 He guess I've been waiting. For it. Week you practice tomorrow? Am I boring you? I like being kissed? But oh I'm interrupting. I'm always interrupting. Maybe you should call your office and make an appointment. Got your way to the horse show. I had to talk to you everything. What the hell am I doing? Why am I going off to a horse show? When things are the way they are between John and me. I'm gonna make you smile, okay, I'm gonna cut down on the horse shows.

1:06:49 I'm gonna stop smoking cigarettes. I'm gonna learn a lot. More about your music. What do I do? You just be here? Well, I know what we're doing this weekend. It's a long movie. It's like three and a half hours. The actual cause of Joan Robinson Hill's death remains a mystery. In nineteen eighty, a CBS true crime show had doctors re examined the medical evidence. They speculated that Joan may have died as a result of toxic shock syndrome. Toxic shock syndrome is a rare but life threatening bacterial infection that causes a rapid onset of fever, rash, and low blood pressure. It can affect anyone, but is most often associated with tampon use. Toxic shock syndrome was first given a name in nineteen seventy eight, but cases had likely been occurring for many years before that. Houston medical examiner Joseph J. Chimchick to Kimchick. Jackimchick disagreed with the conclusion, saying that while it matched some of Joan's symptoms, it didn't match with others. Deep breath. That is the end of the story. Wow, to have two questions for you, Okay, do you think that Ash was behind the plot to kill John? Well?

1:08:06 Is John even dead? He just told me he might not be dead, So that's kind of confused. Pretty sure John was killed? That that seems so far fetched to me, Like who like he found some other guy to stand in for him and get shot and killed. Like that doesn't doesn't make any sense. Good point back to the original question, do you think that Ash was the one behind John's murder? This might not be the right answer, not that there's a right answer, but I have an affection for like a really good dad, and I feel like Ash probably controlling, but he was a really good dad, So I have some maybe in parts one in too, like some affection for him. I liked that he was always there for his daughter and he seemed to like he would do anything to make her happy, right, But yeah, I do kind of think that he was behind us.

1:08:52 I don't know who else would have been behind it, really. I mean, Lila wouldn't have done it on her own. I didn't talk about it in the case, but there was a connection between between Lilla and Joan. Lilla took her daughter Mary Joe when she was young, to the horse ranch that Joan had bought, and she had thought that Joan was nice to her daughter, and so she had like a fondness for Joan. But I don't think that would be enough for Lilla to act on her own right to hire someone to kill John. So yeah, I think it had to have been ash. But I agree with you Lilla took her daughter to a horse camp between she. I mean, she was a girl scout mom. She did send her to like Catholic school, so she she did some things that looked like she was a nice mom on the surface, but obviously she was a monster. Ow that.

1:09:36 My other question for you is do you have any sympathy for Bobby or Marcia? Like Bobby pulled the trigger, there's no doubt about that he killed John. Marcia got the gun for him. She was the one who connected him to the contract, she drove him to the mansion. But I have like a little sympathy for both of them. No, No, not at all. Okay, may maybe at Marcia because she was so young and she'd had a hard life, but wh you don't shoot an innocent man. You just know it's hard to have sympathy for someone who took someone else's life. Okay, that's a very good point. Fair enough. What happened to Robert I wish I knew. I couldn't really find any information about him. I want to say I saw somewhere that he became a lawyer, but I wasn't able to verify that, and he had such a common name, Robert Hill, that yeah, trying to find him on the internet is next to impossible. So unfortunately I didn't have any more information about him.

1:10:29 Did ashe leave his fortune to Robert? Do you know? I don't know, but I suspect that he did, because Robert would have been Ash and Rhea's only heir, and Robert did reconcile with them after his dad's death a few years afterwards, so he probably did. Yeah. I just want to let the listeners know that we had a little squabble during the episode on how to pronounce Lilah or Lilla's name. Clear you insisted that it was Lilla and it is spelled l I l La. I never heard that name, so I was like, Oh, it's Lilah. So if any listeners were like, oh, what's Lilla like it was, of course it was Lilah. I don't know why any listeners would, but.

1:11:10 You apparently are the authority on how to pronounce every name and the whole entire world exceptor except for doctor Jakim. Check. Yes, you brought in that pronunciation, and I appreciate that. But I can only imagine l I l l A is Lila. It might be, but you know, people spell names differently all the time. I've just never heard that name before. I know, maybe maybe I'm wrong. Maybe maybe is ever wrong. One last thing, Thank you again to Elizabeth for the case recommendation. It was really really great case. I'd never heard of it, which is shocking. But probably not shocking. I think it's pretty shocking because it's a. Well surprise, how few cases you and I have actually heard of?

1:11:52 It was. I mean, it was made into a movie with Farah Faucet, So how would I've not heard of that before? But thanks Elizabeth, we appreciate the recommendation. Is the movie available. It is on YouTube for free. Oh okay, and you only watched like a few minutes. Yeah, I just kind of skipped around in the movie just to see different parts of it. So you mentioned during the episode that there was a police lineup, and police life ups just are really interesting to me, Like, obviously they have, you know, a suspect, but who are the other guys? I know, how do they get those people in there during a police life.

1:12:32 I don't want to be in a police lineup. That would be fun. Oh, you probably will be some day the way you're life so fast. There one of the innocent guys, not as the guilty guys. Maybe you apply, Maybe there's an application online. I bet it's mostly other cops. Like I think it's usually probably a couple of cops, but there's probably a couple of you know, guys that. People they drag in off the street, or somebody who's refracted in the waiting room, like waiting to bail out there the sister. Yeah, maybe I don't know. So our weekend is freed up a little bit. Now, Yeah, we're not going to talk about why. So what do you want to do? Do you want to do like like a Costco Target home depot run? Wait, we're not. Oh, I didn't really understand why you said we're not going to talk about why, and then it just hit me and now I'm savvy.

1:13:18 Oh sorry, But thank you to the listeners that have checked in on right. He really took it like he took it like a. Cham Yeah, I took it pretty well. But would you care about what happens with the rest of football season. Or not that much? But I'll I mean, I may check out a game here or there. But no, I don't really care. But no, we could do all those things. Really, what did you think Costco? I was just kidding Costco, Target, Home Depot, run every Man's Stream. It all sounds so great. I have a gift certificate for a bookstore that I need to use at some point so we can go to the bookstore too. Well, our life is so exciting. You just wouldn't believe all the shenanigans we get up to.

1:13:59 It's pretty pretty well, well, it's so cold. Like even if you are like a skier, which we're not really like, it's just too cold really to do any of that right now. It's like, yeah, twenty degrees are colder. Staying inside, reading a book, watching a movie, or a show. That sounds good to me. Before we go, I wanted to mention that we like to think that our podcast brings people together in this time of social change. We feel that it's important to share that equality, inclusion, and empathy are our core values. We stand with marginalized communities, our LGBTQIA plus friends, and all those who have faced injustice, believing that compassion and empathy make us stronger and safer as a society. Thank you for being part of this community as we continue to grow together.

1:14:44 Thank you all so much for listening. We appreciate each and every one of you. Until next time, don't cure a husband and don't kill your wife. Then to the Big to