Frank Hilley

Case background and investigation

Frank Hilley married Audrey Marie Frazier in 1951, and the couple lived in the Anniston, Alabama, area. In the spring of 1975 he became ill with nausea and abdominal pain. According to the Wikipedia article on Marie Hilley, he was first thought to have a stomach virus, was later admitted to hospital, and died on May 25, 1975. EBSCO's research summary states that doctors attributed the death to infectious hepatitis and kidney failure. His wife collected on a life insurance policy worth about $31,000, according to Oxygen.

The death was not treated as suspicious for more than four years. In 1979 the couple's daughter, Carol, became seriously ill with nausea and numbness in her limbs. Testing found high levels of arsenic in her system, and Oxygen reported that her mother had taken out a life insurance policy on her. Marie Hilley was arrested in October 1979 on a charge of attempting to murder her daughter.

Carol's poisoning led authorities to exhume Frank Hilley's body on October 3, 1979. According to the Wikipedia article, tests found arsenic at between ten and 100 times the normal level, and investigators concluded that he had died of arsenic poisoning. Marie Hilley was released on bond in November 1979 and disappeared. EBSCO and Wikipedia both state that she was indicted for her husband's murder on January 11, 1980, while she was a fugitive.

She remained at large for more than three years, living under assumed names. UPI reported that she had married in Florida under one name and later posed as that woman's sister. Authorities found her in New England in January 1983; Oxygen reported that she was located in Keene, New Hampshire, and acknowledged her identity under questioning. She was returned to Alabama for trial.

At a trial in 1983, a jury found her guilty of the murder of Frank Hilley and the attempted murder of Carol. She was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder plus 20 years for the attempted murder, according to UPI, Oxygen and EBSCO.

In February 1987 she was granted a three-day furlough from Tutwiler Prison, her first since sentencing, and did not return. UPI reported that Anniston police found her four days later, on February 26, 1987, unconscious on the back porch of a house, and that she died that afternoon at a hospital. A hospital official attributed her death to hypothermia and exposure.