Jackie Hill, David Mark Hill's wife, describes how Mr. Hill withdrew from her before he killed three people. RON COCKERILLE/STAFF

Wife takes stand in Hill case

Jacqueline Hill testifies to jurors about life prior to her husband's killing of three DSS caseworkers

Web posted February 12, 2000

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 Read previously published stories about the 1996 shootings and trial of Mark David Hill.

By Greg Rickabaugh
South Carolina Bureau

AIKEN -- After suffering years from her husband's depressing moods, withdrawal from the family and multiple suicide attempts, Jacqueline Hill called her husband and asked for a divorce.

The day was Sept. 16, 1996. A few hours later her husband walked into a Department of Social Services office in North Augusta and shot and killed three caseworkers.

More than three years later, still seeking the divorce, Mrs. Hill took the witness stand at her husband's capital murder trial and told a 12-member jury the details of his life before Sept. 16, 1996.

After the couple's daughter was paralyzed in a 1995 accident, the couple's relationship fell apart, Mrs. Hill said Friday.

``He got worse and stayed in his room,'' she said. ``He got to where he wouldn't come out at all. He wouldn't wash himself, and he wouldn't come out to see the kids.''

Defense attorneys used testimony Friday from Mrs. Hill and two psychiatrists to show their client's downward spiral and explain why he might have snapped on a rainy day in 1996. They also called on jail officials to describe his good behavior since his arrest and a former co-worker who credits Mr. Hill with saving his life after a chemical plant explosion in 1993.

Defense attorneys are asking jurors who convicted Mr. Hill in the triple murder to sentence him to life imprisonment instead of death.

In her afternoon testimony, Mrs. Hill told jurors she met David Hill in 1991 while working with him at Amoco chemical plant, describing him as a fun, outgoing and romantic man. After three months, they married and soon had a daughter, Rebecca, and later twin sons.

It was an explosion at UCB Radcure chemical plant in 1993 that shattered Mr. Hill's world, Mrs. Hill said. The traumatic event reminded him of a 1979 accident in which Mr. Hill wrecked a car and killed his sister.

``He started having nightmares,'' Mrs. Hill said. ``That was the beginning of it. He started staying in his room. ... He lost his job.''

Mr. Hill began suffering from depression and started taking medication, which would become an addiction. He could not care for the children.

In 1995, Mrs. Hill caused a car accident that paralyzed Rebecca. Mr. Hill blamed her for months.

By 1996, DSS caseworkers began investigating complaints of abuse and neglect in the Hill home, which Mrs. Hill claims were not true. Also, the caseworkers learned of Mr. Hill's suicide attempts -- a February overdose of muscle relaxers and a July incident when he put a shotgun under his chin and threatened to kill himself.

Later, DSS officials ordered Rebecca into the hospital and the twin boys to a foster home. Mrs. Hill entered rehabilitation for a personal addiction to prescription medicine.

She called her husband from the hospital and asked for the divorce. The same day, caseworker Jimmy Riddle called and accused him of abusing their child.

Defense attorneys say that put him over the edge.

Mr. Hill, 39, was convicted Tuesday of barging into the North Augusta office of the Department of Social Services, firing a semi-automatic handgun at three caseworkers and killing each with a bullet to the head. Michael Gregory, 30, of Belvedere; and Josie Curry, 33, and Jimmy Riddle, 52, both of North Augusta, were killed in the shootings.

The defense may wrap up their case today, opening the door for Solicitor Barbara Morgan to call a ``reply'' witness before the jury is asked to decide life or death.

Reach Greg Rickabaugh at (803) 279-6895 or scbureau@augustachronicle.com.