JAYBIRD

She is dead. Don't know the year but she died of cancer in prison. Here's a full summary of the Hill/Robinson saga KHOU did three years ago.

"Dr. John Hill, a Houston plastic surgeon, married Ann Fairchild Kurth in 1969, less than three months after his first wife, socialite Joan Robinson Hill, died of a mysterious, massive infection.

Hill was charged with killing her by intentionally failing to give her proper medical care. He was gunned down at his River Oaks home after his first trial ended in a mistrial as a result of Kurth's testimony. In his book, "Blood and Money ," the late Tommy Thompson, a former Houston newspaper reporter, implied that Joan Hill's father, wealthy oilman Ash Robinson, hired the gunman who killed Dr. Hill.

Kurth, whose marriage to Hill lasted less than a year, testified in his 1971 trial that he had confessed to her he had killed Joan Hill "with a needle.' Kurth said Hill tried to kill her three weeks after their marriage. Kurth theorized Hill probably caused Joan Hill's death by feeding her pastries contaminated with human fecal bacteria and also maintained that John Hill could still be alive and living in Mexico.

Hill, she said, could have used plastic surgery to create a double who was the man killed outside of Hill's River Oaks home Sept. 24, 1972. However, Dr. Joseph Jachimczyk, the Harris County medical examiner, has repeatedly said the man on whom he performed an autopsy was Hill.

Dr. Hill was slain after he and his third wife, Connie, returned from a medical convention to find his mother and son bound and gagged in the hallway.

In 1975, a jury convicted Lilla Paulus of arranging the contract killing, allegedly acting for Robinson, who was said to be bent on revenge. Robinson, however, was never charged.

Paulus died in prison of cancer. The reputed triggerman, ex-convict Bobby Wayne Vandiver, was shot to death by a Longview officer before he could be tried.

Robinson and his wife eventually moved to Pensacola, Fla., and he died in 1985."

Now we know. No info available on Mrs. Ash Robinson, but it's probable that she's also dead by now. If so, then Robert Ashton Hill, the son of Dr. Hill and his first wife Joan, is almost the only person in that saga who is still alive. As has already been mentioned, he lives somewhere on the east coast where he lives a quiet life as a prosecuting attorney and refuses to talk about that part of his life.

The only other person involved in Hill's murder who may still be living is Marcia McKittrick, who drove the getaway car for Bobby Vandiver, the convicted triggerman. McKittrick got a short prison sentence for her involvement, did her time, and has apparently disappeared from the pages of history. I've heard nothing about her since the 70s.

Just a little note about the Marcia Mckittrick. In 2005 I was living in Nashville Tn. I am originally from East Texas. I had gotten my hometown paper of Malakoff Texas and was reading thru it. There had been a woman who had tried to pass some counterfit bills at a local gas station. The woman had given a fake name when arrested. It turned out to be the same Marcia Mckittrick. The last I knew she was back in prison. It was quite a shock to see her name in my little hometown paper.