How Could You? Hall of Shame- Erika Hill case-Child Death UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Fitchburg, Wisconsin, 15-year old adopted niece Erika Hill was abused in 2007  and burned and then “ultimately dumped it in a garage in Gary, Indiana.”

“Taylin Hill [age 50, also goes by Minnie and Marie Hill]the Madison woman [her aunt]charged in the death of her adopted, teenage daughter [niece] eight years ago – says she only saw Hill treat children with great care.

“Very loving,” Canary Davis says of her friend of more than twenty years.

Hill appeared in Dane County court Tuesday for a scheduled preliminary hearing.  A judge delayed the hearing after Hill’s attorney asked for more time to prepare a defense.”

“Court records state Indiana authorities found the corpse and treated it as a “Jane Doe” case as they tried to identify it, until one of Hill’s other children came forward this year and told investigators she believed the body was that of her sibling.

Davis says she took Hill at her word in 2007, when Hill told her Erika Hill had moved to Joliet, Illinois to be with other family members.

Hill is also charged with several counts of child abuse involving Erika Hill and her other children.  A criminal complaint states jealously drove Taylin Hill to heap more abuse on her adopted daughter [niece].  The complaint states the other children were frightened to reveal the teenager’s death and the disposal of her body because of possible retribution from their mother.

Davis says she met Hill at a Madison church in 1992.  She says Hill supported her through difficult periods in Davis’ life, and provided child care for a time for her granddaughter.  Davis says she refuses to believe the accusations, and will attend court hearings to support her friend.

“I can’t believe it,”  Davis says of the charge Hill recklessly killed the teenager.  “I can’t forget it.”

A Madison Metropolitan School District official says Hill has been placed on leave from her position as a substitute special education assistant.”

Friend baffled by child death accusations against Taylin Hill [Wkow 9/22/15 by Tony Galli]

“Eight years after a body was found in Gary, police said they have solved a murder that that stretched over two state lines.

The body was found in Gary, but police said Tuesday night that the murder was committed in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Gary’s serial killer prompted police to take another look at all their unsolved female homicides. It generated a new lead for in an 8-year-old case and led to the arrest of a woman who investigators said had been terrorizing her family for years.

Erica [sic]Hill had been Jane Doe since her body was found in 2007, stashed in a Gary garage, beaten, strangled and burned.

“It pretty much bothered all the detectives and we went above and beyond. From here to Michigan, you name it. We did everything in the Midwest to get her identified,” said Det. Lorenzo Davis, Gary Police Dept.

Det. Davis worked the case from the beginning, reaching out to the Lake County coroner’s office to make an image reconstructing her partially burned face and putting it on the website for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. But time kept passing without leads.

“I mean, you never give up. You always figure that eventually one day something will happen,” Det. Davis said.

Gary police re-released the sketch recently. It was seen by a relative of the victim who identified Erica [sic]Hill, and also detailed her sad life filled with abuse at the hands of her aunt.

Hill was 15, living with Taylin Hill, age 50, in Madison, Wisconsin. Investigators said she killed the teenager and dumped her body in Gary.

The new details led investigators to charge Hill with multiple counts of abuse and first degree murder.

They also hope other family members who may have been abused by Hill can start to heal.

“It was a sign of relief. It was also a sign that we can bring the family closure,” Det. Davis said.

The family member who identified Erica [sic]Hill had been holding on to a terrible secret: Taylin Hill forced her to help dispose of the teenager’s body.

Investigators said the relative, who does not face charges, had been fearful all these years of retaliation if she told, but decided she wanted to end the pattern of abuse.”

WISCONSIN WOMAN CHARGED IN 2007 GARY COLD CASE [ABC 7 9/15/15 by Karen Jordan]

“When Erika’s body was found in Gary, it had burns and more than 150 healing scars and injuries, and a cloth stuffed in the mouth, which had broken teeth.

The victim remained a Jane Doe in Gary until last month, when one of Hill’s daughters, now 25, told police there that she and two sisters helped her mother move and then hide Erika’s body, and was able to lead police to the garage where the body was discovered eight years earlier.

She said her mother broke Erika’s teeth to prevent her identification through dental records.

The group first left the body under an overpass in Chicago, but then returned there and moved the body to the Gary garage. The 25-year-old daughter told police that Hill instructed them to tell anyone who asked about Erika that she had moved back with other family members in Joliet, Ill.”

Madison woman charged with killing daughter in 2007, hiding body [Journal-Sentinel 9/15/15 by  Bruce Vielmetti]

“Her body reportedly bore more than 170 healing injuries and scars.”

“After the story went public, another relative — a Joliet man who said his father and Taylin Hill were fathered by the same man — wanted to know how Erika Hill ended up living in Wisconsin with her allegedly abusive aunt in the first place.”

“The man, who left Joliet nearly 25 years ago and now lives in South Carolina, requested to remain anonymous. He said he was born 19 years before Erika Hill and was long gone when the woman who had taken her in died in 2001. Erika Hill’s mother, who struggled with drug abuse, gave her up, the man said. Her mother died in 2009.

Her adoptive mother had no will, the man said, and within two days of her death, “Taylin took her out of school and brought her north to Wisconsin.”

““She officially stole her, for lack of a better term,” he said.

The man said he packed up his wife and two children and drove to Wisconsin to take custody of his sister. But the 9-year-old girl did not want to live in the south and preferred to stay with Taylin Hill, whom she considered a sister.

Taylin Hill also impressed him as a religious woman with a good job teaching special education. And with her own horrible past as a childhood victim of sexual, emotional and physical abuse, the last thing he expected was for Taylin Hill to mistreat his sister.

“I didn’t have any indication this was remotely possible,” he said.

While the man eventually lost touch with his much-younger sister, he tried to reconnect with her by searching on the Internet for Taylin Hill’s whereabouts. He was unsuccessful and now believes it was because he was looking for a Minnie or Marie Hill — the names Taylin Hill had gone by in Joliet and when she first moved to Wisconsin. She petitioned the Dane County, WI, court to legally change her name to Taylin in 2011.

“It was like she dropped off the face of the Earth or something,” the man said of Taylin Hill, whom he considered a “tormented soul.”

The man is now haunted by his decision to allow his sister to remain with Taylin Hill.

“We didn’t want to put her in an uncomfortable situation,” he said of Erika Hill. “And in hindsight, that would have been the best thing.”

Brother of Teen Slain, Stashed in Garage Says Allegedly Abusive Aunt was a ‘Tormented Soul’ [Joliet Patch 9/19/15 by Joseph Hosey]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update:“A Madison woman who was charged last month with the 2007 death of her adopted daughter was ordered to stand trial Wednesday on homicide and child abuse charges after she waived her right to a preliminary hearing.

Taylin M. Hill, 50, is charged with first-degree reckless homicide for the death of Erika Hill, 15, whose body was found in a garage in Gary, Indiana, but remained unidentified until earlier this year.

That was when Hill’s daughter went to police in Gary and told them that she had helped put Erika’s body in the garage, under her mother’s supervision, a criminal complaint states.

No formal plea was entered Wednesday by Circuit Judge Rhonda Lanford, but will be taken at an arraignment after the case is transferred to the trial judge, David Flanagan.

The complaint states that Hill’s daughter told police that Erika died in February 2007 at the apartment in Fitchburg where the family was living at the time. She said Erika had been badly abused by Hill for years after coming to live with the family following the death of Erika’s great-aunt, who had been caring for her.

After she died, Hill’s daughter said, she and her siblings helped take Erika’s body to Chicago, where it was left under an overpass and set on fire. But later, she said, Hill drove them back to Chicago and they moved the body to the garage in Gary, the complaint states.

The body was later discovered by two brothers, who called Gary police. The daughter said she didn’t report Erika’s death earlier because she was afraid of Hill.

An autopsy in 2007 found that Erika died from suffocation due to a cloth stuffed into her mouth, and had also suffered blunt force injuries and stab wounds.

Hill remains in the Dane County Jail in $500,000 bail.”

Woman accused in 2007 death of adopted daughter to stand trial [Wisconsin State Journal 10/7/15 by Ed Trevelen]

Update 2:“A Madison woman who was charged in September with first-degree reckless homicide for the death of her adopted daughter in 2007 pleaded guilty last week to reduced charges.

Madison woman pleads guilty to causing the death of her adopted daughter[Wisconsin State Journal 7/24/16 by Amanda Finn]