John Hill

Generally my blogs are titled with the perpetrators name, or in cases in which there are multiple perpetrators I will title it “The Murder of” or “The Death of....” This case is a bit different. Most people believe that John Hill was the perpetrator in the death of his wife (and some say there were others). He was also the victim of murder himself. Although I suppose to be fair I should tell you there is a conspiracy theory that he faked his death.

This case is full of interesting characters. There is the millionaire oilman who is hellbent on exacting revenge against the son in law he is convinced murdered his daughter; there is the prominent plastic surgeon who most would say had an affair with the wrong woman; and then there is the lawyer who would defend him. I spoke of Richard “Racehorse” Haynes some time ago in my blog about T. Cullen Davis. I looked back to see what it was I may have said about him at the time, and I have to say my opinion of the man has changed. When I wrote about the Davis case I basically expressed what a slime ball I thought Haynes was. After reading about this case, I have decided he is much more of a slime ball than I had thought before. He represented first John Hill when he faced trial relating to the death of his wife and later he represented Hill's mother, new wife and son in a civil suit against Davis Ashton “Ash” Robinson, John Hill's former father in law. However, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind no matter how many bad things he had to say about Ash Robinson over the years that had Ash needed him first, he would have represented him with the same lying gusto he seems with everyone. Racehorse Haynes is the type of attorney that convinced me for a long time that there was no way I could be a defense attorney.

When I described Racehorse Haynes to my husband he commented that it sounded like he was a good defense attorney. Well yes, I suppose you could say that if you do not care how an attorney does their job and will do whatever it takes to get their client off charges, no matter how serious they are, nor how guilty the client really is. Racehorse was once asked if he was the best attorney in Texas and while he answered that he was, he was quick to ask why it should be limited to Texas.

Joan Robinson-Hill was the daughter of oil millionaire, Ash Robinson. It seems that even her earliest years are shrouded in mystery and drama. The official story is that Ash and his wife, Rhea, adopted Joan when she was just a month old in March of 1931. There was a home in Fort Worth Texas at the time that was basically for unwed mothers who were looking put their children up for adoption, all while hiding the pregnancy in the first place. But, Thomas Thompson, who wrote the book, Blood and Money, about this case claims that the official story just does not seem to add up. Rhea had told him how they had come about adopting Joan but his research on the home and the case did not seem to be possible. There are rumors that Joan was actually the biological child of Ash Robinson and an unknown woman he paid to have a child for him when the couple found that Rhea could not get pregnant.

One thing that no one seems to dispute in this whole story is that Ash Robinson doted on his daughter. In an era in which it was not common for men, Ash was preparing formula, washing out diapers and getting up in the middle of the night to care for the infant. He toted the little girl around with him to oil field to oil field. By the age of four Joan not only had her own horse, she was learning quickly to ride. This would lead to a life-long love of horses and a “career” in breeding and riding that would fill a home with trophies.

With that all being said, I have to wonder if all of the attention and doting did not take a toll on Joan. When she went off to college Ash rented a home so that Rhea could be with her at all times and it was said that Ash visited often. Before she was twenty Joan had married twice, both to men that her father disapproved of and the marriages each lasted less than six months.

To be fair I am in the middle of reading Thomas Thompson's book, something that has been called “required reading” about the case. I did my research as I normally would do for a case here, obviously not relying on one source. I have found nothing yet to determine what Ash Robinson thought of John Hill when he began dating his daughter. By the time the couple married in September of 1957 it was said that John Hill was a prominent plastic surgeon in Texas. But, I have also read a lot of information that has indicated that this may have been his specialty because he was not a very good general doctor or surgeon. He nearly lost his license to practice medicine once when a patient had died and during the autopsy it was discovered that he had nicked the bowel of the man during surgery and had not properly fixed it, causing the man's death. It was said that he was severely reprimanded but was able to keep his license. There also seemed to be at least a few other issues with his work that caused issues between him and at least one other professional doctor. It is the issue of the man who died that I find most interesting to this case however. It is my opinion that the discovery that was made during the autopsy may have shaped how he later behaved in the death of his wife.

In 1960 John and Joan had a son they named Robert Ashton, apparently named after both of his grandfathers, Robert Raymond Hill and Davis Ashton Robinson. By the end of the 1960's it was said that although the couple remained married and living together, they led separate lives except when it came to some of the local social scenes. John had his work, his interest in music and his extreme interest in women it seemed. For her part, Joan was still into her horses. It does not seem that she rode professionally anymore but she did have show horses and went to several events involving them. It also appears that the couple lived on property owned by the Robinson's in River Oaks Texas for the first several years of their marriage. Then it seems they bought a very prestigious home, described as a mansion, near the same area, which was about four hours north of Houston.

Sometime in 1968 John began having an affair with a woman named Ann Kurth. She was the ex-wife of a prominent area attorney. It appears that John moved out of the home he shared with Joan and their son and rented his own apartment. He also filed for divorce. But, just before Christmas that year he withdrew his petition for divorce and moved back into the home on the premises that the couple planned to reconcile. However, it was said, and apparently proven, that this did not end the affair with Ann.

On March 18, 1969 Joan Robinson-Hill became violently ill. It was said that she suffered from flu like symptoms with a fever, vomiting, and diarrhea. Late that night John Hill would take her to the hospital but much would be said about where and how he had done that. It was alleged that he had taken her to a substandard hospital that not only was nearly an hour from their home, but one who did not have an emergency room. Some say he took Joan to that hospital because he was associated with the hospital and there is a debate on if his motives for doing so were innocent or deceptive. It has also been alleged that not only did he pass several different medical facilities on the way to the hospital, he had in essence taken his own sweet time on the way. In the very early morning of March 19^th Joan Robinson-Hill would die at the hospital.

Texas state law at the time required that anyone who died in a hospital within twenty-four hours of admittance were required to have an autopsy performed. The medical examiner entered his office around 10:00 in the morning expecting to perform an autopsy on Joan's body but found that John Hill had contacted a funeral home how had picked up her body within four hours of her death and by the time the medical examiner discovered this the body had been embalmed. It was this action that would prevent there from ever fully being a cause of death known there could not be testing done on the blood, or even many of the organs. The body was taken back to the morgue but a full and complete autopsy was not possible. Over time there would seemingly be three autopsies done but again nothing could be fully determined. Some have thought her cause of death could have been pancreatitis, others have claimed hepatitis but much much of those assumptions were made based on descriptions of her symptoms. Some have argued that while some symptoms may fit one prognosis others did not.

It is not completely clear exactly when Ash Robinson decided that his son in law had killed his daughter. It may have happened when in June of 1969 John Hill would marry his mistress, Ann Kurth. Ash Robinson began pressuring, and some say bribing, law officials to have John Hill charged with murder. It was said that Ash hired a private detective to do their own investigation when local law enforcement and prosecutors simply claimed there was not enough evidence to prove anything and to charge John Hill.

Prosecutors would allegedly scour the law to see if there was anything they could charge John Hill with and it seemed there was no secret that an investigation was underway. In the meantime John and Ann's marriage was already on the rocks and after nine months of “wedded bliss” it was official dissolved through divorce. It was said that attorney's representing John had discouraged him in getting the divorce as it seemed that an indictment was imminent and if the couple remained married then Ann could not testify against her husband. But, it seems that John did not care, or thought he was above the law in that matter and divorced her anyway. Finally prosecutors decided to charge John with something that had never been used in Texas before..... murder by omission. Basically what this charge indicated was that he had failed to get adequate medical care to Joan and in a timely manner.

His trial, where he was represented by Racehorse Haynes, was conducted in 1971. By now John was married a third time to a woman named Connie. The couple, along with John and Joan's son, Robert, apparently still lived in the River Oaks mansion he once shared with Joan. The trial would end in a mistrial, but not in the way that hear about most. A mistrial would be granted, when Ann Kurth-Hill, now the ex-wife of John, testified on the stand. It was said that throughout her grand jury testimony and her trial testimony she was very animated. Her bitterness and anger apparently shined through greatly. At some point in her trial testimony she blurted out that John had allegedly attempted to choke her at some point and that he had admitting to murdering Joan. This was something that she had never shared with either the grand jury or the prosecutors and was just now revealing this. Of course the defense attorney rose to his feet and asked for a mistrial. The judge had little choice but to grant that request.

Despite the fiasco that Ann Kurth caused it does seem that not all of her testimony was “out there.” She had claimed on the stand, and a good thing she had done so prior, that she had seen petri dishes in the bathroom of the apartment that John had rented for himself and he was very stern about not wanting questions about their purpose. She would claim that he had injected pastries with a bacteria, which caused his wife's death. There were friends and family who testified upon his return to the home that not only was he uncharacteristically bringing pastries to Joan on a regular basis but at at least one dinner gathering he had seemed odd about them. They testified that John had passed the pastries out to the guests himself, and insisted that Joan take an eclair. Even when she had indicated that she wanted a different pastry he had insisted on the eclair. It was not completely clear but it seems that it was either that day or the next in which she became very ill.

Regardless what ever evidence the prosecution had to prove anything, it no longer mattered at the time of the mistrial. There seemed to be several delays in scheduling the retrial but it was finally decided that it would proceed in November of 1972. In the meantime John Hill went on with life as normal.

Then came the night of September 24, 1972. Because of the re-telling of this story it seems that some of the fact have gotten lost or confused. Part of that goes into the fact that you cannot tell the story of Joan Robinson-Hill without telling the story of what happened to John Hill in September of 1972 and so sometimes the story gets quite condensed. Most sources indicate that John and Joan's son, Robert, who was now twelve years old (this sometimes changes in versions), was at the home with John's mother, Myra while John and Connie were on their way back from a trip they had taken. It seems that a man entered the house and tied up and bound both Robert and Myra and laid in wait for John and Connie to return. Once they did John was shot inside the door of his home at least three times. It was never made clear in any of my research where Connie was located at the time or if she was injured in any way.

Now, before I go on with what happened next I would be amiss if I did not mention the conspiracy theory that has gone with this. Of course it seems it was started by Ann Kurth, who herself wrote a book not long after Thomas Thompson had his published. In her book she claims that John Hill faked his death by setting up someone else and that he went on to live out his life in Mexico. There does seem to be a journalist who does claim that the autopsy of the person who was shot had their face disfigured and was recorded as having different colored eyes than recorded for John Hill, but personally I found nothing else that would in any way indicate this theory to have any merit. Then again there was a television movie made in 1981 starting Sam Elliott as John and Farrah Fawcett as Joan that did in fact apparently go with this theory. I suspect that was simply done for dramatic purposes and again I have found no credible evidence that this theory is thought of seriously.

It is not completely clear how authorities eventually were led to a man named Bobby Wayne Vandiver and his girlfriend, Marcia McKittrick. But they, along with Lilla Paulus, an alleged madam at a Houston brothel, were indicted for murder on April 25, 1973. It seems that Vandiver and McKittrick would claim that they had been hired by Paulus, at the behest of Ash Robinson to carry out the murder of John Hill. It was never made clear if Paulus ever claimed this herself, although her daughter would claim to have heard her mother discussing the issue and mentioning Ash Robinson. It seems that Vandiver was released on bail and while out he had a run in with law enforcement and he was shot and killed while resisting arrest.

My information indicated that Marcia McKittrick who would claim that Vandiver was the shooter, while she remained in the car at the Hill home, would accept a plea deal that would require her to testify against Paulus and receive a ten year sentence. However, she filed an appeal in 1976 that indicated that she was given a bench trail (meaning only a judge decided her fate, not a jury). The appeal alleged that her confession was coerced and involuntary. The appeal was denied. But, it seems that she continued to state that Paulus not only was involved in the case, but so was Ash Robinson. She would claim that she had seen the two in a meeting in a parking lot of a Houston hospital and while she did not hear the conversation she saw Ash Robinson give Lilla Paulus an envelope that she deducted contained money. She would apparently serve her time and she would die in 2010 at the age of sixty.

Lilla Paulus took her case to trial and was found guilty of being an accomplice to murder “with malice aforethought.” In 1975 she was sentenced to thirty-five years. It was alleged that Paulus had gotten more than $25,000 from Ash Robinson but she had given $5,000 (that is equivalent to $30,000 today) to Vandiver to commit the murder. Her judgment was affirmed in 1982. She died in prison of breast cancer in May of 1986.

As far as Ash Robinson.... he was never brought to trial, at least not criminally, for murder. Prosecutors would say there was never enough evidence to prove his involvement. In 1977 John Hill's mother and wife would sue Ash Robinson in a wrongful death civil suit. Robert Hill, who had remained in the custody of Connie Hill, was also listed in the suit but being that he was only seventeen at the time was not an official petitioner. Marcia McKittrick testified in the case but Lilla Paulus did not. It was said that both Marcia and Ash took lie detector tests and while she claimed Ash was involved in the murder, and Ash said he was not, they both passed. While lie detector tests cannot be entered into criminal courts, they can be entered into civil trials and it appears that these conflicting results played a part in the case being dismissed on the basis that there was not enough evidence against Ash Robinson to prove his involvement. Some say Ash Robinson's money and power caused this while others point out that the threshold of proof is lower in civil court and if they could not get a verdict in a civil court, it would have never happened in criminal court. It was said that around 1980 Robert Hill appealed this decision but the original ruling was upheld.

Sometime during all of this Ash and Rhea Robinson moved out of Texas and went to Florida to live to presumably get away from all of the scrutiny from the cases. I found it quite interesting that information stated that by 1981 Robert Hill had reconciled with his grandparents and was also living in Florida, either with or near them. I had seen previous quotes made by Robert that referred to Ash Robinson by his first name and stated that while Ash believed his father had murdered his mother, he did not believe so. Ash Robinson would die in 1985 at the age of eighty-seven. There seems to be a bit of confusion as many sources list his death year as 1987 but according to his gravestone it was 1985. Rhea would die in 1987.

There have been questions as to what happened to Robert Hill over the years. It appears that in 2008 he was working as an assistant prosecutor in Maryland. It was also said that he has expressed that he will not speak publicly about the case or his family.

Ann Kurth's book “Prescription for Murder” was published in 1976. I have not read the book and to be fair I am unsure that I will. With that being said, she apparently claims in her book that not only did John admit to murdering Joan Robinson-Hill, she claims he also murdered his father, his brother and a fellow physician. Even the website Murderpedia lists his “classification” as “murderer ??” something I am unsure I have ever noticed in the past. It also lists his victim number as “0-5.” The fifth “victim” is apparently only listed as “first wife” and says his span of murders lasted from the 1950's-1969. All I can tell you about any of these other alleged victims is that John's brother, Julian died in May of 1963 and his father, Robert, in August of 1963. I found nothing pertaining to the death of his father but Julian was said to have died of suicide. I found nothing on a “first wife” or “fellow physician.”

Thomas Thompson did not necessarily come out of this case unscathed himself. First he was sued by Ann Kurth. She claimed that Thompson had basically demeaned her by his description of her in his book. A judge ruled for Thompson, all but saying the description, while not flattering was accurate. He was also allegedly sued by a police officer but I found nothing about what the case involved or any result. And, thirdly he was sued by Ash Robinson. This case was also settled in Thompson's favor apparently partly due to the fact that Robinson had been allowed to read the book before it was published and made no objections. It was said that the book's publisher had withheld any royalties until the cases were settled. It is unclear if they were settled before Thompson's death in 1982.

So, was John Hill a murderer? I do not know that I can say. I am unsure that I find the fact that he took Joan to a hospital he was associated with, although allegedly substandard to some he may have passed on the way, as a clue to his guilt. I find it more interesting that he had her body removed from the hospital before an autopsy could be performed, which was against the law. But, in the same respect it is unclear that he would have known that fact. He was a plastic surgeon who presumably did not deal with the death of patients too often, especially in cases where they died within twenty-four hours of entering the hospital as the law for the autopsy required. I find the fact that her body was taken from the hospital more the responsibility of the hospital itself and the funeral home. Although, I do admit that I find it interesting that in previous years a mistake made by John Hill was found during an autopsy and the lack of one here prevented finding a cause of death.

I do not feel that I can give Ann Kurth a lot of credit in some of the things that she claimed. It is possible that there was something with the pastries but that evidence would have been long gone before the investigation got too far. By all accounts it was John who had ended their relationship and Ann gave her first grand jury just a few days after the divorce was finalized. To add to this, it was her testimony that caused a mistrial in his case because she alleged things in court that she had never mentioned before to the grand jury or to the prosecutor.

I just feel that there likely would have been little or no way not only to prove that John Hill murdered his wife, but that his father in laws interference had not played a part. Right out of the gate the lack of a property autopsy prevented there from being an absolute cause of death. Some could easily argue that this was the plan of John Hill, and they could be correct. Others could just as easily argue that he called the funeral home just as any other individual would have done and it was the hospital and the funeral home who made the mistakes in taking the body and that John had no malice in his actions. But, then you have Ash Robinson. It appears that it was his money, his pushing and his influence that even got John Hill charged in the first place, and even still it was a charge never tried before and seemingly done so to appease him.

Richard “Racehorse” Haynes had represented John Hill in the case that was declared a mistrial, and in the civil case brought against Ash Robinson. He had vowed to appeal the verdict in the civil case, which he apparently did. Throughout the proceedings it appears that he spoke of Ash Robinson in very derogatory terms, accusing him of being behind the murder of John Hill, as well as the reason his client went to trial in the first place. However, I truly and honestly believe that had Haynes not represented John Hill or his family at any point if Ash Robinson would have been charged in the murder of John Hill Haynes would have jumped at the chance to represent him. While some of us could argue that the job of a defense attorney is to give their client the best defense they can and in essence get them out of the charges, I have to disagree to a point. Haynes would have just as vigorously, if not more, argued that Ash Robinson was not responsible for John Hill's death if he was representing him as he had argued that he was responsible in the civil case.


*** I need to note that while reading the book on this story I learned that River Oaks was a community still located in Houston and not as I described here, although there is a town named as such some four hours from Houston.  John Hill and Ash Robinson actually lived in the same community, a very upscale housing area where the richest of the rich resided.