GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A decades-long cold case finally has an answer.
A Grand Rapids man convicted of child sex crimes spanning at least three states had not been located since 1980 after walking out of a federal prison due to a paperwork error. One of his victims vowed to keep the search alive.
Now, for the first time, she said she feels free after discovering her abuser died decades ago.
The Grand Rapids Police Department announced Tommie Lee Hill was shot and killed in 1983 while he was on the run from the U.S. marshals. Hill was convicted in 1979 for a number of rapes in the Grand Rapids area dating back to the 1960s.
“I looked for him everywhere I was at because he was someone I was familiar with," said Erma Shaw. "He was someone who had a 20- to 40-year sentence with my name on it.”
Shaw had been looking over her shoulder since 1966. At just 12 years old, she was raped by Hill. He was her stepfather.
"Not only was I molested by Mr. Hill, I have to also tell you that I was impregnated by him," she revealed to FOX 17 Monday. "So I have a child that's buried in a cemetery because of him.”
FOX 17 profiled the hunt for Hill in 2017 when Silent Observer and the U.S. marshals renewed a call for tips on where Hill was living.
He lived on Franklin Street with his wife, Connie Hill, and several of her daughters. During that time, officials believed Hill violently raped the girls who were as young as 12 years old. Marshals say Hill would threaten the girls in attempts to keep them silent, and even after one of his stepdaughters underwent a stillborn pregnancy, the interactions went unreported.
In 1978, his victims came forward. Hill was found guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree in January of 1979. The same day, Hill escaped from the old Hall of Justice in Grand Rapids.
A few months later in the summer of 1979, Hill resurfaced after being picked up by local authorities in Waveland, Mississippi, on an assault charge. Hill was brought back to Michigan, where he was finally sentenced to 20–40 years for the rapes, to be served in Terre Haute, Indiana.
One month after arriving at the penitentiary, a suspected paperwork mix-up allowed Hill to walk free without serving a single day of his sentence. Federal and local law enforcement never found Hill again.
As you'll see in the timeline produced by the Grand Rapids Police Department, the case hadn't produced any new discoveries from 1983 until that Silent Observer tip came in 2017. That's when the dominoes of discovery started to fall.
WXMI17_01_10240610 by WXMI on Scribd
“He had four names, four social security numbers, and he varied this last name with the spellings," said Officer Joe Garrett with the U.S. Marshals' Fugitive Task Force. "Abdualla Muhammad is on his death certificate, but he was spelled ... with an ’n,’ sometimes without an ’n.’"
A detailed genealogy report revealed Hill started his new secret life in Pennsylvania. That's where files showed Hill was shot and killed in 1983 by a man named Vernon Phipps, the brother of another one of Hill's victims.
Shaw's 46-year journey can came to an end in April.
“I get to utilize my experience to help other women and other children that have went through that. So you didn't win," Shaw said, speaking to Hill. "You didn't win, and I'm the victor.”
Shaw wrote an entire book detailing her experience. FOX 17 has a short article about the book here. You can find the book on Amazon.
As always, if you'd like to report information about a crime (and do it anonymously, if you prefer), you can reach Silent Observer by calling (616) 774-2345.
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