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The Murder Of Joan Robinson Hill


Vertigo58

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  • 9 months later...

I am very interested in the land and property records for 1561 Kirby.  I too, am fascinated by this story that has so many elements, only one of which shows Houston during its crazy hey day, which is quite a contrast to the current Houston that appears to have changed into the International, cross-cultural city that I believe it is today.

 

i understand that the house recently changed hands and that a family that had a house closer to downtown on the same street bought it.

 

Tommy Thompson's book was scholarly and really well-written.  What fascinates me is that many of the "characters" in "B&M" are alive and still present.

 

I do want to keep this thread alive because with a city that is considered so relatively new, it is up to us to find those nuggets of history that bring our city alive.

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Keeping this thread "alive". Ha!

I was watching the old Hitchcock movie Vertigo the other night and there was a scene where Jimmy Stewart asks Barbara BelGeddes where you could find someone that knows the gritty history of the city, like "who killed who on the Embarcdero in 1887?". If they had only had HAIF back then!

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  • 1 month later...

i remember seeing joan when i was a little girl, my dad took us to her horse shows. the saddest day for me was march 19,1969. the day she died was also my 13th birthday.i think about her every year and wonder what houston would be like if she still ran river oaks. whatever happened to her things( trophies, pictures)? one thing that i always thought about was if she was ashs real daughter and some woman, did her birth mother ever have any more children? did joan have some brothers and sisters out there? i havent been able to watch behind mansion walls cause i dont have cable and you tube or id website just wont let you watch it. i hope robert hill is happy and doing good in life. he has been put thru so much. read both books and tommys was the best. anns was a total joke. she did a good job of playing a innocent victum. shes probaly in hell with john hill now.

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i remember seeing joan when i was a little girl, my dad took us to her horse shows. the saddest day for me was march 19,1969. the day she died was also my 13th birthday.i think about her every year and wonder what houston would be like if she still ran river oaks. whatever happened to her things( trophies, pictures)? one thing that i always thought about was if she was ashs real daughter and some woman, did her birth mother ever have any more children? did joan have some brothers and sisters out there? i havent been able to watch behind mansion walls cause i dont have cable and you tube or id website just wont let you watch it. i hope robert hill is happy and doing good in life. he has been put thru so much. read both books and tommys was the best. anns was a total joke. she did a good job of playing a innocent victum. shes probaly in hell with john hill now.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I have always been fascinated with the Hill murder saga. I read the book for the first time in middle school and retread it several times since. I have updated info on the grave marker for Joan Robinson Hill. My husband works for Dignity, the company that owns Forest Park Westhiemer. He works at a different site, but has sent an email to inquire about the bush that is sprouting out of her marker. He seems to think it was intentionally planted, however that is not allowed. I feel that it is not not an insult to such a well poised and locally important woman, but an eyesore for the facility. Hopefully some action will be taken.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

I am the great niece of Marcia mckittrick and I remember my mother telling me this story as a child. She has since passed away and Ive been doing a lot of digging on this. I would love to know more about the murder of Dr Hill and the circumstances surrounding it. I would love for someone to contact me if at all possible. my email address is davidamckeehan4@gmail.com I would be forever in your debt.

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I am the great niece of Marcia McKittrick and I remember my mother telling me the story as a child. My mother has since passed away.  Ive read all of the posts so far but I still have questions and would like to get facts if at all possible. There seems to be a few versions of the story and I would love to know what the real one is. Please if you have information send me an email. davidamckeehan4@gmail.com thanks

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Get your hands on the book Blood and Money by the late Tommy Thompson. He was a very fine Houston newspaper reporter who turned to writing very good true crime books. Blood and Money is the most detailed and truthful telling of the John Hill saga yet written. You can buy it on Amazon.

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Interesting to note that on the "find a grave" site for Joan, (linked above from Dec '13)  there are several photos of her tombstone.  One, posted in 2002 clearly shows the cedar beside the stone.  Another photo, posted in 2011 shows no sign of the cedar at all. 

 

 

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Get your hands on the book Blood and Money by the late Tommy Thompson. He was a very fine Houston newspaper reporter who turned to writing very good true crime books. Blood and Money is the most detailed and truthful telling of the John Hill saga yet written. You can buy it on Amazon.

 

From what I have been told by people who knew Joan Robinson I have to agree with Filio.

 

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And you should NOT under any circumstances read the trash version of the story written by John Hill's second wife Ann Kurth Hill. Murder in Texas is the book that became the TV movie, and it's mostly cheap and tawdry fiction. That's why Hollywood TV moguls just fell all over themselves turning it into a a prime time movie.

 

The late and lamented Thomas "Tommy" Thompson was a very good and prolific Houston newspaper reporter who poured his journalistic talents into writing very erudite and readable non-fiction true-crime stories. Blood and Money is his best, and it is the best and most accurate telling of this crazy and sordid story. Sadly, Thompson left us far too soon. He died of a liver infection in 1982, just weeks after his 49th birthday.

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And you should NOT under any circumstances read the trash version of the story written by John Hill's second wife Ann Kurth Hill. Murder in Texas is the book that became the TV movie, and it's mostly cheap and tawdry fiction. That's why Hollywood TV moguls just fell all over themselves turning it into a a prime time movie.

 

The late and lamented Thomas "Tommy" Thompson was a very good and prolific Houston newspaper reporter who poured his journalistic talents into writing very erudite and readable non-fiction true-crime stories. Blood and Money is his best, and it is the best and most accurate telling of this crazy and sordid story. Sadly, Thompson left us far too soon. He died of a liver infection in 1982, just weeks after his 49th birthday.

 

I took our our copy of Blood and Money off the bookshelf and found that that it was published in 1976, the first year it came out.  It is well worn from being passed around to friends and relatves.  That speaks for its popularity.  My wife commented that she went to high school (San Jacinto) with Thompson's wife, Joyce.

 

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  • 8 months later...

Plastic surgeon Dr. John Hill's wife Joan was big in the local "horsey set". She died suddenly in 1969, and her father, oilman Ash Robinson, was convinced that Hill killed her by poisoning her. Robinson pressured prosecutors to indict him, but there was no evidence of murder. They finally indicted Hill on the rarely used charge of "murder by omission"; which meant he was accused of killing her by not getting treatment in time to save her.

By the time the trial began two years later, Hill had remarried and divorced Ann Kurth, the exwife of a well known lawyer whose name still adorns a well known local law firm. She also thought Hill killed Joan, so she agreed to testify against him.

She was also a drama queen who went out of control on the witness stand. Prosecutors wanted to establish that Hill was prone to violence, and Kurth was testifying about their frequent fights. When she suddenly blurted out that Hill tried to choke her one night, and told her that he killed Joan, the defense called for a mistrial and got it. It seems that she'd never thought to mention that incident in any of her pretrial testimony to the grand jury or in her meetings with prosecutors.

The retrial was set for the next year, during which time Hill married again. One night in 1972 he answered the door at his house in River Oaks and was shot dead. Police suspected Ash Robinson was behind it but they could never find enough evidence to take to a grand jury.

They tracked down two women, Marcia McKittrick, a prostitute who drove the getaway car, and Lilla Paulus, an acquaintance of Ash Robinson, and even proved that Paulus hired the gunman. But they could never connect the dots and connect Robinson to the shooting. Old Ash covered his tracks very very well.

Just about everybody connected with this case is dead now, including the shooter, Bobby Vandiver. He was caught in east Texas, but shot and killed by police before he could be brought to trial.

Ash Robinson died in Florida in 1987. Here's a link to a longer and well written backgrounder on this story from the Laredo Times in 1999. http://lmtonline.com/news/archive/0319/pagea6.pdf

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I know Ann Kurth lived here in Austin in the mid 90's because a good friend of mine owned a landscaping company and she hired his company to do a ton of work for her and she continuously made changes at the last minute right before the job was complete. She claimed to be "elated with their work" but she had paid half up front with a check and he made the mistake of holding onto it at her request for a few days and then he just decided to deposit both of the checks together. Right before he and his workers left she told him how pleased she was and gave him the other half also in the form of a check which was common in the 90's, he then deposited them that afternoon and within a few days he received notice from his bank she had put stop payment on both of the checks but the first one she had put the stop on it the very day she handed it to him and let them do two weeks of work knowing the entire time that she had no intention of paying. I've seen his work and its beautiful and he is hired by many people who live in the nicest neighborhoods in Austin and surrounding areas so it wasnt his work she didnt like it was actually being an honest decent person she seems to have an aversion to.

I saw the movie and I noticed so many odd facts that just didnt make any sense such as John Hill staying in the car while Joan went to find the boy and Ann just so happened to be that close to the parking lot where he drove straight up to, running into him at the pool that night while her sons who probably werent even really there at the camp, just her waiting to meet up with John, because why would anybody leave their kids in a hotel room alone at a kids camp and go out to the pool? They should have paid Sam Elliot and the woman who played Ann shock her and after the wreck while she's sitting on the exam table when she says "John you said you killed Joan, say it isnt true, they should have told Sam Elliot to say "well of course I did honey at your insistence, dont you remember hiding the syringe for me at your place where we grew the cultures". I firmly believe they started the affair while she was married and worked at the clinic and then John read in the papers that poor Joan was divorcing for the second time and he saw an opportunity and he took it. I believe Ann got mad and that's why she left that job and when Joan and John started having problems he called Ann again and they met somewhere and started the affair again. He clearly was not a one woman man but nobody ever died until she came into the picture, she taught her lap dog to kill and when he wanted a new master she came up with a story to protect herself because this time it was her head on the chopping block and I'm sure she was trying to prevent prosecution for being an accessory to murder because nobody can possibly be that dumb. If she expects people to believe she didnt know what the cultures that he or they grew in her home were for than shes crazier than I originally thought. Every aspect of Joan's life made the papers and then Ann married him just a few weeks after poor Joan dies, that's just tacky to say the least. I don't know what to believe regarding Ash being blamed for the well deserved murder of John Hill because its obvious Ann knew he was going to kill Joan and possibly at Ann's direction so I half to wonder if either Ash is really innocent or if he did have it done why would he spare Ann? If it weren't for Ann constantly nagging I firmly believe John would have just kept Ann, literally kept her as a kept woman as she had been for a long time. So what suddenly changed that was so drastic that made John kill poor Joan, Ann told him get rid of her or Ill get rid of you once and for all, I can hear that poor excuse for a woman telling him she didnt care how he got Joan out of the picture but to get it done or they were done. That woman is the biggest drama queen Ive ever seen, she's worse than all of the Kardashians combined. The one photo that sticks with me is her sitting on the bench waiting to testify smiling for the cameras as if to say "look at me a man murdered the beautiful and perfect Joan Robinson to be with me". She looked as if she was proud of it!! I also believe she actually thought she would step into Joan's shoes, probably literally tried to wear a few pair that may have been packed away, and be a socialite in Joan's world, as if they would accept someone like her. I'm not a person who judges people by the size of their bank balance and the fact she wasn't wealthy and in the limelight all of the time like Joan was is not why I cant stomach the woman, her lack of morals, lack of judgement, deceitful dishonest nature and I could go on for hours is why I'd love to see her move out of Texas or just as far away from Texas and me as she can get. I've been told she owns a boutique of some kind in downtown Austin which was probably purchased, like everything else she owns, with the money she received in the divorce from John which is ultimately Joan's money no doubt.

Another irritating part of the movie was Ann picking up the phone after John was murdered and hearing classical music, she tried everything possible to keep the story alive. Writing a book, going into a storage facility she claimed John owned about ten years after his murder and trying to publish private documents, it wouldn't surprise me if she was disappointed when he was murdered because then she wouldn't be able to call the police every other day with a new story of how John was supposedly threatening her. Ive often wondered if John had not of been murdered and actually been convicted in the second trial if Ann would have ultimately been convicted once John testified against her. Racehorse Haynes would have brought details to light that turned her "babe in the woods" routine upside down. If he truly did try to kill her which she claims and we all know how credible that it lol lol, well when two people murder someone together the bond will either grow stronger but if the relationship goes south one will try or will succeed in killing the other because then there is no witness/coconspirator to testify against the other. There is a photo of the car she claims he tried to kill her in by wrecking it and chocking her but how often does a person die when the side of the car is crashing along side a guardrail and he wasn't a modest man, remember he handled that poisoned pastry to Joan in front of an entire room of Houston socialites, I believe he would have been bold enough to attempt or succeed in an organized manner. If the facts and accounts of his character, with the exception of Ann's, that have been released to the public are accurate he doesnt seem to be the kind of man to lose control easily or if at all. I'm in law enforcement and a poisoner doesnt deviate from that form of murder. I've learned people will use a gun, knife, axe or anything they can get their hands on but a poisoner does not deviate from their method except possibly the type of poison. I am not a know it all and that is a definite fact but I have been in law enforcement long enough to have learned quite a bit and one thing I am absolutely positive of is Ann Kruth or Nolan, whichever she uses, I can only assume it depends on who and what lie she is telling at that moment, is as guilty as John Hill.

It wouldn't surprise me if a journal surfaced someday written by John Hill himself expressing his regrets for murdering Joan to be with that sorry excuse for a woman. One aspect of this case that has bothered me for many years is I am 100% positive she went by the last name of Nolan at one point and oddly enough there is another movie on Lifetime called "The Girl Next Door" where a young girl named Ann Nolan meets a police officer and they start an affair and he convinces her to murder his wife. It too is based on a true story but the true story is about a liquor story owner and he did have an affair with a younger woman but left her and reconciled with his wife. The young and former mistress was unbalanced to say the least and took it upon herself to kill the wife out of spite and jealousy, it's been proven by diaries and journals that the man and his wife were the happiest they had been in years after the reconciliation but the writers of the movie are known to do their homework and the use of the name Ann Nolan is believed to be a backhanded slap in the face to Ann "Kurth". Two sources confirmed Kurth is actually Nolan.

I will say this much about Ann Nolan/Kurth, she really gets around and seems to cause trouble and stir up drama everywhere this unbalanced, dishonest deprived poor excuse for a woman lands. If I should find this boutique I guarantee all of you Ill come back here and give you all of the details. I would be very curious to see what she looks like in this day and age. She must have been delusional to believe she could actually even begin to compete with the beautiful and truly wonderful woman Joan Olive Robinson was. I despise adding the name "Hill" to her name, my heart just breaks for her when I think about how she must have felt when John left her shortly before Christmas to be with Ann and how scared and confused she must have felt. I think we can all take some comfort in knowing how much she loved her parents and how much they treasured her and knowing they lived right around the corner from her in her time of need when he moved out. I must have a small vindictive streak in me because I can only smile when I think of how horrible Ann felt when he moved out soon after to spend Christmas alone, I can only hope her boys were spending the holidays with their father and sadly I find some peace out of knowing how jealous she must have been lol. I guess I am a bit mean and I say sadly because I'm referring to what kind of person I must be but when my husband left me for another woman for a short time it was the worst time of my life and thats another reason I take this case so personal.

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I hate to break this to you Faith2, but the woman you write about is not the woman who married and divorced Dr. John Hill, and later testified against him in his murder trial. I have no idea who the woman in your posting is, but she's not Ann Kurth Hill. 

 

Dr. Hill's lover and ex-wife was Ann Fairchild Kurth Hill, and she died in Austin in 1990 at the age of 59. She's buried in the small town of Taylor. Here's a link to a photo of her grave, and her obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle.

 

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=18763073

 

And by the way, you shouldn't believe a word of what Ann Kurth wrote in that trashy and self-serving Prescription Murder. The late journalist Tommy Thompson, who wrote Blood and Money, the best history of the Hill murder case, said Kurth's book is mostly fiction. Thompson said Kurth had her eyes fixed on the money, not the truth. 

 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

I tend to agree. Blood and Money is the only book really worth reading about the story.

I never liked the movie, nor the other book too much at all. But also Blood and Money is a good

book as far as getting an image as to what Houston was like in those days. Pretty accurately

descriptive in many ways.

I even went as far as to purchase a second original hard cover version off fleabay a year or

two ago. The only let down was there are no pictures in it, like there is in the paperback version.

But I have both versions, so I guess I can live with it.

I used to have an autographed copy, as my mother knew Thompson, but it runnoft somewhere

over the years..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 1 year later...

This thread brings a flood of memories, particularly of dead friends lost to the Aids epidemic who I would have called to say "Remember the Dr John Hill scandal? I just read a post about it and do you remember. . ."

 

I worked at Houston Grand Opera around 1976.  My husband worked at the Ballet.  I remember Connie Hill from that time.  Whoever said nobody talked about the Hill murder got it right.  People whispered about it, but nobody ever said anything out loud.  They had too much respect for Connie.  This is my memory.  What I write may not be facts, so please correct me if I'm wrong.   At that time Connie was a plain, even mousy woman.  But she loved music, and she worked tirelessly in the Houston music world.  I remember her visits to the Opera office.  Only after she would leave, would people fill me in about who she was. My dealings with her were always professional, and she struck me as a kind, genuine woman.  Not the Houston society type of that period.  When I read what I could about the murder, including Tommy Thompson's book,  I thought--  if John Hill was such a jerk, then why did he marry Connie?    That seemed a mystery to me.  As if after the misguided avenues of Hill's life, he finally went straight.  What I remember is that Connie lived in the murder house with the boy!  I mean, how bizarre.  (please correct me if I'm wrong.)  But my memory is this:  she was the kind of woman who acted on principal.  We did nothing wrong.  We will live that way.  This is our home.  I never was in the home, but my dear deceased friends were.  And that is why I would be on the phone to them this very minute.

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I've always thought it was an ego thing and - as we all know - doctors are famous for their world-class egos. John Hill married Connie because she was almost the exact opposite of his first wife, the hard-partying Society Beauty Queen of the Horsey Set Joan Robinson Hill. Joan was always the center of attention in the society pages, with John in the background. With the quiet and reserved Connie he could be the center of attention. It's also probable that Connie shared his love of great music. Just theories, but they're mine, and I'm sticking to them.

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  • 1 year later...

I actually have Dr. Hill’s Yamaha piano on sell on offer up. It’s actually very interesting  and well taken care of . All these stories make me weary of the Piano. No reason to be but I’m barely learning about all this .

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19 hours ago, ABee said:

I actually have Dr. Hill’s Yamaha piano on sell on offer up. It’s actually very interesting  and well taken care of . All these stories make me weary of the Piano. No reason to be but I’m barely learning about all this .

 

I was going to ask if you had a link, but I found it:

 

https://offerup.com/item/detail/405793849/?ref=Search

 

Do you have documentation of its provenance? Not sure there are many Houston history buffs (as opposed to pianists) who have the means to drop ten grand on a piano, but such documentation certainly couldn't hurt its sales prospects.

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5 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

 

I was going to ask if you had a link, but I found it:

 

https://offerup.com/item/detail/405793849/?ref=Search

 

Do you have documentation of its provenance? Not sure there are many Houston history buffs (as opposed to pianists) who have the means to drop ten grand on a piano, but such documentation certainly couldn't hurt its sales prospects.

I have the serial number. I have to find a way to look for the actual first purchaser. But so far from what I read on Wikipedia . This Yamaha is actually Miss Joan’s . And Dr. Hill actually purchased 2 more pianos with it to put in a music room that actually seems to have started this whole mess .. Anyway, My brother in law’s mother was a musician her self and had many accomplishments during those times . And after the events I was told that she actually had  purchased it from the estate. She has passed it down to her son who really just has it like an antique. Well kept and clean. 

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22 hours ago, ABee said:

I have the serial number. I have to find a way to look for the actual first purchaser. 

 

I'm not sure who may have been a Yamaha dealer here back in the 60s, but my guess would be H&H Music - as far as well-known piano dealers, I don't think Holcombe-Lindquist or Brook Mays were around until the 1970s, although I may be wrong about that. H&H is still around but I don't believe they sell pianos anymore (they are now the same company as Brook Mays, with Brook Mays operating under that name in Dallas and under the H&H banner here in Houston), so it's anyone's guess if they have sales records dating back fifty years. Since you have the serial number, it might be worth reaching out to Brook Mays/H&H corporate to see if anyone there is able to help. 

 

My second suggestion would be the US Yamaha importer/distributor, but I'm not sure who that is/was. I would expect someone at Yamaha corporate to be able to provide further information about where a piano was originally shipped from the factory, given a serial number. 

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  • 1 year later...

Hi y’all! Someone once again sent me this thread about my old house. I’m an historian by nature and a Houstonian by heart, so I’ll chime in. I bought the house at 1561 Kirby Drive in 2006 and sold it in 2013.  I have read a lot about my old home both before, during and after I lived there.
 

I bought it because it was a great home for two very active young children with room to grow for when they matured and needed their own space. It was a good house for entertaining and we did a lot of that, both informally and for charity. We had fun celebrating holidays and birthdays here, game nights, swim parties, Halloween parties, end-of-school parties, movie nights and on, on and on!
 

That was the upside.

 

 

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1 hour ago, FilioScotia said:

And the downside was?????

I'm guessing knowing that a person, maybe two, was murdered there. More likely it could be the asinine questions some people would inevitably ask the current owner about events that happened +/- 35 years before. It may also be the number of gawkers who slowed down or stopped to stare at the house - were they just curious or casing the place?

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  • The title was changed to The Murder Of Joan Robinson Hill
  • The title was changed to Murder In Texas Where Is Boot Hill
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