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- The death of Joan Robinson Hill at 38 years old led to her husband, John Hill, becoming the first person to be indicted by the State of Texas on the charge of murder by omission. The case precipitated a series of events that included the 1972 murder of John Hill and, two years later, the fatal police shooting of the man accused of that murder. She died following a short illness on March 19, 1969. Autopsy examinations failed to determine a cause of death beyond an infection from an unknown source. Her father, Ash Robinson, subsequently accused Hill of poisoning his daughter, and petitioned the district attorney to prosecute her husband for murder. Hill's murder trial was held in February 1971 but ended in a mistrial. As a second trial was approaching, Hill was gunned down by an intruder at his home. A suspect, Bobby Wayne Vandiver, was arrested and indicted for the murder, but was killed in a shootout with police before his trial. Two other suspects, Marcia McKittrick and Lilla Paulus, were convicted as accomplices to Hill's murder and served time in prison. The case was the subject of Thomas Thompson's 1976 book Blood and Money and the 1981 made-for-television film Murder in Texas. (en)
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