David Mark Hill sits in Aiken County Court on Thursday. Jury selection is set to begin Monday. RON COCKERILLESTAFF

Sanity defense key to Hill trial

Web posted October 10, 1999

 High-profile murder cases

By Greg Rickabaugh
South Carolina Bureau

AIKEN -- In South Carolina, there are 66 people waiting on death row. Beginning Monday, attorneys for a former church missionary and chemical plant worker will launch a desperate fight to convince a jury that David Mark Hill doesn't deserve to join them.

Mr. Hill, 39, will be tried on a capital murder charge, accused of barging into the North Augusta office of the Department of Social Services in the fall of 1996 and firing a semiautomatic handgun at three caseworkers, killing each with a bullet to the head. Police say he was upset because the agency planned to place his paraplegic 4-year-old daughter and twin sons into foster care.

Mr. Hill's trial is expected to stretch through the end of October, and the state is armed with nearly 30 witnesses to the shootings. Defense attorneys Robert Harte and Regina Poteat have filed motions making it clear they plan to seek one of two verdicts: not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty but mentally ill.

The question is: Did Mr. Hill have the capacity to distinguish right from wrong? And, if he could distinguish that the act was wrong, did mental disease or defect make him unable to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law?

Soon after Mr. Hill was captured on a railroad track near the DSS office -- where he was bleeding from an apparent suicide attempt with a handgun -- 2nd Circuit Solicitor Barbara Morgan announced she would seek the death penalty in the case. Ms. Morgan wouldn't talk specifically about Mr. Hill's case because of a gag order, but she said the law allows her to ask for the death penalty when a crime involves sufficient aggravating factors.

``I met with the families and got reports from law enforcement, and based on that made the decision with them,'' she said in 1997. ``We knew it had all the elements. We wanted to be sure we followed all the proper procedures.''

An Aiken County grand jury on April 3, 1997, indicted Mr. Hill on three counts of murder in the deaths of caseworkers Michael Gregory, 30, of Belvedere, Josie Curry, 33, and Jimmy Riddle, 52, both of North Augusta. He also was indicted on three counts of possessing a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, and one count each of assault with intent to kill, kidnapping, burglary first-degree and illegally carrying a pistol.

It has been a long road to the trial -- three years. But there are no assurances the case will even make it to trial this month. There are two potential roadblocks:

If attorneys find this week that too many of the jurors are familiar with the case because of pretrial publicity, Judge Marc Westbrook could order a change of venue. The trial would be postponed until an unbiased jury could be found from another county. Then the judge either would transport the jury to Aiken County for trial or hold the trial in that county.

A competency hearing for Mr. Hill is set for Oct. 18, a week after jury selection starts. If the judge decides evidence exists that Mr. Hill is not competent to understand the charges against him and assist in his defense, Mr. Hill could be held until he is ruled competent. The trial would be on hold indefinitely.

When opening statements eventually get under way, Ms. Morgan is expected to lay out the case as gathered by investigators and police:

Police say Mr. Hill was angry because DSS had stepped in and taken into custody the Hills' three children. That action came after his wife, Jacqueline Hill, got into an accident while riding with two of them and an officer charged her with driving under the influence and child endangerment.

On Sept. 16, 1996, police say, Mr. Hill barged into the DSS office, grabbed Mrs. Curry, the first person he saw, and forced her to take him to Mr. Riddle, the caseworker handling his family's case. Mr. Hill shot both, police say, then shot Mr. Gregory when the caseworker walked into a nearby bathroom as Mr. Hill was washing up. Police say he also assaulted Annette Michael by shooting at her.

After the shooting rampage, police say, Mr. Hill disappeared. They used his smiling image from a DSS office surveillance camera to publicize Mr. Hill's features in the news media.

Police stopped searching for Mr. Hill at 2 the next morning, hindered by darkness and thick woods. But soon after daybreak Sept. 17, authorities found him about a quarter-mile from the DSS building. He was sprawled across railroad tracks, suffering from a gunshot wound. Police say it was his fourth suicide attempt that year.

Mr. Hill, the man who had once been a missionary with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and met his future wife working at Amoco Oil Co. in North Augusta, underwent surgery.

The killings were the first in the line of duty for South Carolina DSS workers. It was a devastating setback for an agency that had worked so hard to assist families, state officials said. Immediately after, security was tightened and the agency changed its unspoken policy of ignoring clients' threats.

Three years later, the building is open to serve the community, with tighter security measures in place. Whenever the trial begins, it is likely to spark strong emotions inside and outside of the courtroom, Aiken County Coroner Sue Townsend said.

``There'll be no winning in this trial. Everybody's a loser,'' she said. ``My hope is that we can only grow from it and learn from it. Surely, we can try to make something better from what happened.''

High-profile murder cases

The David Mark Hill trial joins a list of Augusta-area murder cases involving multiple killings. Here's a look at some of the high-profile ones:

Willie Palmer was twice sentenced to death for killing his estranged wife, Brenda Jenkins Palmer, and his 15-year-old daughter, Christine Jenkins. Police said that on Sept. 10, 1995, Mr. Palmer barged into a rural Burke County home and shot them both, leaving the couple's 15-month-old daughter alone in the house with two bodies.

Marcus Hull and Lavergerae Lambert each received two consecutive life sentences for the Nov. 20, 1992, slayings of Ethel Bush Scott and Johnny Fluellen in Richmond County. The co-workers were gunned down in Ms. Scott's Cornell Drive home after Ms. Scott took out an eviction notice against Ms. Lambert, police said.

Dewayne McCord and Eric Kelly are serving consecutive life sentences for the Dec. 8, 1992, pawnshop killings of Marie and Floyd Thigpen. The pair walked into the Gordon Highway gun and pawnshop in broad daylight and fired, police said. Mr. Kelly claimed his accomplice was the shooter.

Luke A. Williams III was twice sentenced to death by an Edgefield County jury for the 1991 deaths of his wife, Linda, and their 12-year-old son, Shaun. He had insured his wife and son for more than $500,000 before Mrs. Williams was beaten to death and Shaun was strangled, investigators said. The bodies were set afire in their van.

David McClure Jr. is on death row, scheduled to die for the stabbing deaths of his father, David McClure Sr., and his father's girlfriend, Donna Fitzpatrick, in Barnwell County in January 1996. The young man claimed Satan appeared to him and ordered the killings, so he stabbed his father and girlfriend more than 30 times each, police said.

Roosevelt Bryant, Robert Hightower and Michael Wood were acquitted of slayings at a Zippy Mart in Aiken County. Separate juries found the men not guilty of killing Charles and Mary Elizabeth Holoway on the Jan. 4, 1979, execution style at the store on South Carolina Highway 19. Mr. Bryant got a 25-year sentence for armed robbery.

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