Hilley v. State

• Decision Date: 23 April 1985
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 191
• Citation: 484 So.2d 476
• Parties: Audrey Marie HILLEY v. STATE.
• Court: Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 476

484 So.2d 476

Audrey Marie HILLEY v. STATE.

7 Div. 191.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama.

April 23, 1985.

Rehearing Denied June 11, 1985.

Certiorari Granted Dec. 20, 1985

Alabama Supreme Court 84-987.

Wilford J. Lane and Thomas W. Harmon, Anniston, for appellant.

Charles A. Graddick, Atty. Gen., and Richard L. Owens, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Joseph D. Hubbard, Asst. Dist. Atty., for appellee.

TAYLOR, Judge.

Audrey Marie Hilley was indicted by the grand jury of Calhoun County in October of 1979 for the attempted murder by poisoning of her daughter, Carol Hilley. In January of 1980, the grand jury returned an indictment against Hilley for the murder of her husband, Frank Hilley. These two indictments were consolidated for trial. The jury returned a guilty verdict on each charge. Subsequently appellant was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment for the murder of Frank Hilley and to a term of 20 years' imprisonment for the attempted murder of Carol Hilley.

This case involves a tragic and bizarre sequence of events. The evidence reveals that Frank Hilley, the husband of the appellant, consulted Dr. Earl Jones on May 19, 1975, complaining of nausea and tenderness of the abdomen. Dr. Jones diagnosed his condition as a viral stomach ache. When the condition persisted, he was admitted to the hospital on May 23, 1975. Based on laboratory studies indicating acute liver malfunction, Dr. Jones diagnosed Mr. Hilley's condition as infectious hepatitis. Frank Hilley died in the early morning hours of May 25, 1975, and because of the suddenness of his death, Dr. Jones requested that the appellant allow him to perform an autopsy. The autopsy revealed hepatitis, swelling of the kidneys and lungs, bilateral pnuemonia, and an inflammation of the stomach and duodena. The cause of death was determined to be infectious hepatitis; however, no test for arsenic poisoning was conducted. Later testimony revealed that the effects of arsenic poisoning and the symptoms of infectious hepatitis are in many ways alike.

Frank Hilley maintained a life insurance policy with Provident Life and Accident Insurance Company of which the appellant was the named beneficiary. Subsequent to Frank Hilley's death, the appellant received a total of $31,140 in payments on this policy.

On July 27, 1978, appellant made an application with Liberty National Life Insurance Company for coverage on Carol Hilley, her daughter. A policy for $25,000 face value and $25,000 accidental death coverage became effective in August 1978, with appellant named as beneficiary.

In April of 1979, Carol began to experience trouble with severe nausea. Between April 1979 and August 1979, she had to be taken to the emergency room and admitted for treatment a number of times. In August 1979, appellant gave Carol an injection in her hip which she claimed would alleviate Carol's nausea. After this injection, Carol, for the first time, began experiencing numbness of fingers and weakness of legs in addition to nausea, and she had to be admitted on August 22, 1979, to the Anniston hospital, by Dr. Warren Sarrell. Unable to formulate a diagnosis, Dr. Sarrell on August 29, 1979, sent Carol to see Dr. John Elmore at Carraway Methodist Hospital in Birmingham for a psychiatric evaluation. While at Carraway Methodist Hospital, Carol was administered two additional injections by the appellant, this time being told that they would improve her weak legs. Appellant also told Carol that no one was to know of these injections because the source was Doris Ford, a registered nurse, and she might lose her job if anyone were to find out. Doris Ford subsequently testified that she never gave the appellant any drugs or medicine of any kind.

On September 18, 1979, the appellant asked Dr. Elmore what was wrong with Carol. He told her she suffered from malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies and that lead or other metal poisonings might be the cause. Against Dr. Elmore's recommendation, the appellant had Carol discharged the afternoon of September 18, 1979. Dr. Elmore stated that in his opinion Carol was in a worse condition than when she had been admitted.

On September 19, 1979, Carol was admitted to the University of Alabama Hospital in Birmingham. Also on that date, appellant was arrested on bad check charges. Dr. Brian Thompson, on initial examination, discovered that Carol's hands were numb, her feet were numb, she had nerve palsy causing foot drop, and she had lost most of her deep tendon reflexes. Ultimately he discovered that Aldridge Mee's Lines were present in Carol's toenails and fingernails. He testified that this was a symptom of arsenic poisoning. He conducted tests on samples of Carol's hair and discovered that it had about 50 times the normal arsenic level in human hair. He then diagnosed her condition as due to arsenic poisoning. Detailed tests on Carol's hair conducted October 3, 1979, by John Case of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, revealed arsenic levels ranging from over 100 times the normal level close to the scalp to zero times the normal level at the end of the hair shaft. This indicated to him that Carol had been given increasingly larger doses of arsenic over a period of 4 to 8 months. Dr. Thompson testified that Carol's condition improved steadily while she was at U.A.B.

On October 3, 1979, the body of Frank Hilley was exhumed. H. Chip Walls of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences performed tests on samples taken from Frank Hilley's body. The analysis revealed abnormally high levels of arsenic, ranging from 10 times the normal level in hair samples to 100 times the normal level in toenail samples. As a result of these tests, Dr. Joseph Embry of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences concluded that the cause of Frank Hilley's death was acute arsenic poisoning. He noted that Frank Hilley suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning, meaning that he had been given arsenic for months prior to his death.

On October 6, 1979, Freida Adcock, Frank Hilley's sister, found a medicine vial in an open cosmetic case at Freida's mother's home in the back room in which appellant had kept her belongings during the period she had lived in the home. Mrs. Adcock turned this vial over to the Anniston Police for analysis. Analysis of the contents of this bottle by John Case of the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences revealed the presence of arsenic.

On October 9, 1979, appellant, still being held in the Anniston City Jail on check charges, was arrested for the attempted murder by poisoning of Carol Hilley. A medicine vial in her purse, which was already in the possession of the Anniston Police, was removed for testing, and washings from the bottle revealed the presence of arsenic. On October 21, 1979, Freida Adcock removed a bottle of Cowley's rat and mouse poison from appellant's belongings stored in Freida's basement. Freida testified that the bottle was in a box of appellant's belongings stored in the basement during one of the appellant's many moves. Analysis of this bottle revealed the presence of a 1.4 to 1.5 percent arsenic solution.

On October 25, 1979, appellant was indicted for the attempted murder by poisoning of Carol Hilley. On November 9, 1979, bond was approved for appellant and she was released from jail. Less than a week after her release, appellant checked into the Birmingham Roadway Inn under the name of Emily Stephens. She made arrangements to meet with her attorney there on November 18, 1979. When he arrived she was gone. Some of her belongings were still in the room and a note indicating that she may have been kidnapped was found. She was reported missing, but evidence tended to indicate that this kidnapping was probably fabricated by the appellant.

On January 4, 1983, Detective Barry Hunter of the New Hampshire State Police began an investigation into the death of Robbi L. Homan, whose obituary had appeared in the Keene Sentinel newspaper on November 13, 1982. Unable to verify any of the information in the obituary, Detective Hunter came to believe that the alleged surviving sister of Robbi L. Homan, Teri Martin, who worked at the Book Press in Battleboro, Vermont, might be a federal fugitive.

On January 12, 1983, Detective Hunter and Special Agent David Steele of the Federal Bureau of Investigation approached the suspect known to them as Teri Martin and informed her that they had reason to believe that she was someone other than who she claimed to be. She then agreed to accompany them to the police station. At the station, after being advised of her constitutional rights, she admitted that her real name was Audrey Marie Hilley and that she was wanted in Alabama on check charges and in connection with charges that she attempted to poison her daughter.

In explaining her false identity she told the officers that in late 1979, she had traveled to Florida, where she met John Homan. Eventually she began living with him and in September of 1980, they moved to New Hampshire, where she assumed the false identity of Robbi Hannon. In May of 1981, she returned to Florida with John Homan, they were married, and she began using the name Robbi Homan. They then returned to New Hampshire. Sometime late in the summer of 1982, she left New Hampshire, telling her husband that she needed to attend to family business and to see some doctors about an illness she had. During this time she travelled to Texas and Florida, using the alias Teri Martin. Before leaving on the trip, she had mentioned to John Homan that she had an identical twin sister named Teri Martin. Using the alias, Teri Martin, she called John Homan and informed him that Robbi Homan, his wife, had passed away in Texas but there was no need for him to come to Texas because the body had been donated to medical science.

Subsequently, on November 12 or 13, after changing her hair color and losing weight, she returned to New Hampshire and met John Homan, posing as Teri Martin, his "decea...