Taylin Hill

On February 26, 2007 two men saw what they believed to be charred legs of a body at the entrance of a vacant building in Gary Indiana. Law enforcement commenced on the area and began the investigation. If this case proves anything it is that experts are not always correct.

The body that was found was only identified as a female between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. Many of the teeth had been broken out and the body had been burned so identification was not completely possible. However, it was thought that the female had likely died just the day before the body was found and it appeared that the body had been burned in the location in which it was found. More than eight years later investigators would learn that basically none of this was accurate.

It appears that the body, while burned, was not complete as it was reported that there were over 170 distinct scars found on the body in different stages of healing which indicated that the victim had been abused or tortured at some point. Sketches were made of the victim's face to release to the public but an identification never came. The victim was buried and later known as “Lake County Jane Doe.”

On August 7, 2015 a woman named Kiara Hill contacted the Gary police department and told them she could identify the Lake County Jane Doe from 2007. Kiara had been in therapy and had confessed to her therapist the knowledge she had of a murder. The therapist urged Kiara to go to the police. She would later say she wanted to “end the pattern of abuse.”

The story Kiara told investigators sounded similar to a case from the 1960's in Indianapolis Indiana, that of Sylvia Likens. (You can find that story herehttps://truecrimediscussions.blogspot.com/2012/04/sylvia-likens-story.html ) The now twenty-five year old Kiara told investigators that the Lake County Jane Doe was actually Erika Hill, her adopted sister. Kiara's mother, Taylin Hill, had at least three children of her own and sometime after 2001 Taylin had adopted Erika, the daughter of a relative. Kiara told investigators of the abuse that all of the children suffered, but particularly Erika but, most importantly she told how Erika had died and how her body had ended up in the abandoned building in Gary.

Erika had been born in 1992. Some reports say that her biological mother was Taylin Hill's cousin, while others say her biological mother was Taylin's niece. Erika's mother had issues with substance abuse, could not care for her and relinquished custody of her. Until 2001 Erika lived in Joliet Illinois with a relative. Again, these reports are unclear. Some reports say the relative was a great aunt but at least one stated that it was a grandmother that Erika lived with until the relative died. Taylin lived in Wisconsin and there was other family members who lived in South Carolina. Within days Taylin had gone to Illinois and taken custody of Erika unofficially. Family from South Carolina drove to Wisconsin to take custody of her but according to them Erika claimed she wanted to remain with Taylin and her family. Over the next several years there was little or no contact it seems between the two families. So Erika lived with at least Taylin and her three children, Kiara, Joshua and Ciara in Fitchburg Wisconsin. There seemed to be some indication that there may have been more children than this in the home but these are the only ones that I can really confirm.

Kiara would tell authorities that while all of the children in Taylin's care were abused to the point that they would have to miss school from time to time so that questions were not asked by authorities, that Erika had been abused the most. She was often denied food. The children could all be beaten for the smallest of things according to Kiara.

I could not find the exact day in which Erika was murdered but it was sometime in February of 2007. Kiara stated that Taylin had called her and her (Taylin's) sister at their jobs and have them come home. When they got there Taylin showed them Erika's body in the bathroom. It was unclear if Taylin told a “story” of what had happened but a cloth was found in her mouth when she was found indicating she was asphyxiated. Some reports that said that the following day Taylin coerced her children to moving the body into the basement and placed in a freezer but others stated they placed her body in trash bags and put in the garage. Before this was done however many of Erika's teeth were broken so that it would hinder identification. Her body was also redressed in what was described as “cheap clothing”. Later the body was taken and placed in the trunk of a vehicle.

Taylin and her children drove to Chicago from their Fitchburg Wisconsin home, a little over two hours away and removed Erika's body from the trunk and set her on fire under an overpass. The family then drove home but once there Taylin decided that leaving the body there was not a good idea. The family drove back to Chicago and drove less than an hours southeast to Gary Indiana where they once again dumped Erika's body.

When people began asking about Erika, Taylin would tell them that she had returned to Joliet where she had lived previously. In the same respect, many could no longer contact her at all it seems. Taylin has been born with the name Minnie. She sometimes went by that name or the name “Marie” but at some point she had legally changed her name to Taylin and cut particular people, including her brother, out of her life.

Years later Kiara was seeing a counselor. At some point Kiara had gone to the website ran by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and saw a sketch and a description of what she knew was to be Erika. She then told her counselor who encouraged her to contact authorities. Until that time Kiara was unaware that Erika had been found.

Authorities worked on officially identifying Erika's body and on September 14, 2015 Taylin was arrested and charged with first degree reckless homicide and six charges of child abuse. Residents of Fitchburg were surprised to hear of the charges considering the fact that Taylin had been a special education teacher's aide from 1998 until 2004 and then from 2013 until her arrest she was a substitute aide in the local school system. It seems that family members were much less surprised. Her brother was quoted as saying they had always known “'something was wrong' with her character.”

In July of 2016 Taylin Hill pleaded guilty to three reduced charges. They were the neglect of a child and causing death, causing mental harm to a child and child abuse, intentionally causing harm. On November 7, 2016 Taylin was sentenced twenty years in prison. It appears that none of Taylin's children were charged for being involved in the disposal of Erika's body. In fact, Ciara and Joshua, although admitted apparently what had happened to Erika, “remained loyal” to Taylin claiming she was “nurturing and supportive” of them. According to the Wisconsin Department of Corrections website Taylin will likely be released in 2035.