Audrey Marie Hilley

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Audrey Marie Hilley (née Frazier, later Homan; June 4, 1933 – February 26, 1987), also known by the aliases Robbi Hannon and Teri Martin, was an American murderer and suspected serial killer. She was suspected in the death by poisoning of her husband and the attempted murder of her daughter, and spent three years as a fugitive from justice. Her life and crime spree are the subjects of the 1991 telefilm Wife, Mother, Murderer.

Early life and first crimes

Audrey Marie Hilley was born Audrey Marie Frazier in the Blue Mountain neighborhood of

stomach flu
–abruptly stopped when he moved away to attend a seminary.

In 1975, after returning home early due to his illness, Frank found Marie in bed with her boss. He turned to Mike, then an ordained minister living in Atlanta, for advice. In May 1975, shortly after a visit from Mike, Frank visited his doctor complaining of nausea and tenderness in his abdomen, being diagnosed with a viral stomach ache. The condition persisted and he was admitted to a hospital, where tests indicated a malfunction of the liver; doctors diagnosed infectious hepatitis. Frank Hilley died early in the morning of May 25, 1975.

Frank's

bilateral pneumonia, and inflammation of the stomach. Because the symptoms closely resembled those of hepatitis, that was listed as his cause of death and no further tests were conducted. Frank had maintained a moderate life insurance
policy, secretly taken out by Marie at the time of his initial illness, that she redeemed for $31,140.

Three years later, Marie took out a $25,000 life insurance policy on her daughter Carol; a $25,000 accidental death

psychosomatic, had her undergo psychiatric testing at Carraway Methodist Hospital in Birmingham
. There, Carol secretly received two more injections from her mother, who warned her not to tell others about the shots.

A month after Carol was admitted to the hospital, her physician reported she was suffering from

deep tendon reflexes
.

Arrest

Physicians noticed

exhumed
, and upon examination, showed between ten and 100 times the normal level of arsenic. It was concluded that both Frank and Carol had suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning, with Frank's poisoning being fatal.

Marie was incarcerated on her check kiting charges when she was arrested on October 9 for the attempted murder of her daughter. Anniston police found a vial in her purse, tests of which revealed the presence of arsenic. Two weeks later, Frank's sister found a jar of rat poison which contained 1.4–1.5% arsenic. On November 9, Marie was released on bail, after which she registered at a local motel under an assumed name and disappeared. While a note was left behind indicating that she "might have been kidnapped," Marie was listed as a fugitive.

Escape

On November 19, a burglary occurred at the home of Marie's aunt. The occupant's car was stolen as well as some clothes and an overnight bag. Investigators found a note in the house reading, "Do not call police. We will burn you out if you do. We found what we wanted and will not bother you again."

Two months later, on January 11, 1980, Marie was indicted

FBI
launched a massive manhunt, Marie Hilley remained a fugitive for a little more than three years.

New identities

Under the alias "Robbi Hannon", Marie travelled to Florida and met a man named John Greenleaf Homan III. They lived together for more than a year before marrying on May 29, 1981, at which point she took his last name. The couple moved to New Hampshire. Late in the summer of 1982, she left New Hampshire, telling her husband that she needed to attend to family business and to see some doctors about an illness. During this time, she travelled to Florida and Texas using the alias "Teri Martin", an imaginary twin sister.

During the trip, Marie called Homan as "Teri" and informed him that Robbi had died in Texas, saying there was no need for him to claim the body because it had been donated to medical science. After getting to know "Teri" over the phone, Homan expressed interest in meeting her. She agreed, saying he needed to put "Robbi's" death behind them. In November 1982, after changing her hair color and losing weight, Marie returned to New Hampshire and reunited with Homan, posing as his "deceased" wife's sister.

An obituary for Robbi Homan appeared in a New Hampshire newspaper, but aroused suspicion when police were unable to verify any of the information it contained. Homan's coworkers also had suspicions about his new "sister-in-law" and were concerned defalcation may have been at play. A detective with the New Hampshire State Police surmised that the woman living as Teri and Robbi were one and the same. Homan's concerned co-workers discovered that the Medical Research Institute of Texas, where "Robbi's" body was supposedly handed over for study, was nonexistent, as was the church that eulogized her death.

While Homan's workplace was

life in prison
for her husband's murder and 20 years for attempting to kill her daughter.

Incarceration and death

Marie began serving her sentence in 1983 at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama, a maximum security prison. Due to her clerical career, she was often assigned to perform paperwork and was considered a quiet model prisoner. This good behavior earned her several one-day passes from prison, from which she returned as scheduled.

In February 1987, Marie was given a three-day pass to visit Homan, who had moved to Anniston to be closer to his wife. They spent a day at an Anniston motel, and when Homan left for a few hours, she disappeared, leaving behind a note asking for his forgiveness. Homan promptly alerted police. Her escape prompted an inquiry into Alabama's furlough policy.

Four days after she vanished from the motel, Marie was found delirious on the back porch of a house in Anniston. The woman who found Marie described her appearance as scary, stating she was dirty with mud on her face and long fingernails. She alerted police, who then summoned

heart attack. Doctors attempted to revive her but were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead 3+1⁄2 hours after being found. The coroner believed she had been crawling around in the woods, drenched by four days of frequent rain and exposed to temperatures that dropped to around freezing. Her final cause of death was attributed to hypothermia
and exposure.

See also

References

  1. ^ McDonald, Robin (14 June 1983). "Order widens in Hilley probe". The Anniston Star. United States.
  2. ISBN 9781559500265
    .

Further reading
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