A horrendous story of child rape was closed after a decades-long mystery when police concluded that a convicted child rapist had been murdered by the brother of one his victims.
Grand Rapids Police Department Chief Eric Winstrom outlined the details of the murder of Tommie Lee Hill, who died after escaping police twice, at a media briefing on Monday at the Grand Rapids police headquarters.
‘If it wasn’t 12-year-old Erma being a brave, amazing 12-year-old, there’s an excellent chance we could be talking double or triple the number of victims.’
Hill raped numerous children in the 1960s, according to U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force Officer Joe Garrett.
He was sentenced to prison in Terra Haute, Indiana, but that didn’t stop his heinous child abuse because his wife would bring his stepdaughters to visit in him in prison, and he would rape them both in the prison yard in 1976 and 1977.
Hill was convicted of the horrendous crimes after his stepdaughter Erma Shaw testified against him at the age of 12 years in 1978. She said he had raped her and impregnated her. Although Hill was convicted on Jan. 31, 1979, he was able to escape captivity and flee from justice.
