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Rosa Hill killed her husband’s 91-year-old grandmother two-and-a-half years ago but did so in the heat of passion, not as part of an elaborate plan to kidnap the couple’s daughter, her attorney told jurors yesterday.
In her closing argument in the trial of Rosa Hill, 36, and her mother, 57-year-old Mei Li, of Antioch, Hill’s lawyer, Bonnie Narby, said Hill went to the home of Selma Hill in the 7700 block of Peppertree Lane in Dublin on Jan. 7, 2009, to check on her daughter, who was 2 years old at the time, and “had no plan to kill anyone.”
Narby said Rosa Hill was concerned about her daughter because she thought her husband, Eric Hill, was molesting the young girl and that he also suffered from psychological problems.
Narby said Rosa Hill also was frustrated that the family court system had ignored her suspicions and instead had awarded her husband sole legal custody and 85 percent physical custody of their daughter.
Eric Hill, who was wounded in the Jan. 7, 2009, incident in which his grandmother was killed, survived and testified in the two-month-long trial and has denied that he ever molested his daughter. He and his daughter lived with his grandmother.
Prosecutor Casey Bates told jurors last Thursday that Rosa Hill and Li meticulously planned for nine months to kill Eric Hill and Selma Hill and kidnap the 2-year-old girl, who was the subject of a bitter custody battle.
Bates said notes later recovered by police showed that Rosa Hill and Li called their plan “Operation Custody” and purchased a cache of weapons worthy of a small army, including guns, stun guns, a sword, a hammer tool, a crossbow, a throat cutter, a knife and a baton.
In addition, Bates said that when police investigated a computer that Rosa Hill and her mother used, they discovered that the two women had conducted Internet searches on how to get away with murder and how to strangle someone, as well as on using deadly substances such as arsenic, cyanide, strychnine, mustard gas and ammonia.
He urged jurors to convict Rosa Hill and Li of murder for the death of Selma Hill and attempted murder for an attack on Eric Hill.
But Narby said today that if Rosa Hill really had a carefully constructed plan to kill Selma Hill and Eric Hill that she would not have left any evidence behind.
Referring to Rosa Hill and Li, Narby asked, “If this was a planned murder, why would they leave a mountain of evidence to let them be easily prosecuted?”
Narby said the fact that Selma Hill suffered 23 wounds, including injuries inflicted by a Taser, indicates that Rosa Hill killed the 91-year-old woman “in a sudden quarrel and the heat of passion,” not as part of a calculated plan.
Narby said Rosa Hill “snapped and lost all control” when she tried to talk to Selma Hill about her concerns that day and the elderly woman told her that she would try to stop her from seeing her daughter anymore.
The defense lawyer said Rosa Hill should only be convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the death of Selma Hill and should be acquitted or only convicted of attempted involuntary manslaughter for the attack on Eric Hill.
Li’s attorney, Barbara Thomas, admitted that Li came to Selma Hill’s house on Jan. 7, 2009, but said there was no plan to kill anyone, that Li only came there because her daughter asked for help, and that Selma Hill was already dead by the time she arrived.
Thomas told jurors that Li should be found not guilty of all the charges against her.
“She’s suffered a lot already, so send her home,” Thomas said.
On Tuesday, Bates will give his rebuttal closing argument and then Alameda County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Burr will give legal instructions to the jury.
It is expected that jurors will begin deliberating on Wednesday.
Rosa Hill faces a term of 44 years to life in state prison if she is convicted of all the charges against her, and Li faces 38 years to life.
Logically, the data on the computer, while questionable, would not be considered evidence of any planned and executed murder simply because all the materials, or data, or internet discussions were NOT found in evidence at the site to show any referenceable connection, nor did these folks have any priors. So it will come down to a heat of passion event that will take whatever direction the Judge sees fit. Sadly this was just another senseless loss of life.