Selma Hill Murder Trial: Experts Review Crime Scene Evidence

The in the 2009 death of a 91-year-old Dublin woman began its third week Monday at the Rene C. Davidson courthouse in Oakland with crime lab specialists re-creating the crime scene that authorities found at a Peppertree Road home.

Steve Hayes, director of the crime lab for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office, said he was the first criminalist on scene for what police initially believed was a domestic disturbance.

According to Hayes’ testimony, sheriff’s deputies told him they had gone through the house in a “walkthrough” after finding Rosa Hill, Mei Li and Eric Hill in the upstairs hallway, all with injuries.   from the first responding officer, a collapsible baton was the first weapon in view in the hallway before deputies detained the trio.

Collecting evidence in the hallway was “very intensive,” Hayes said. Michelle Dilbeck, a county crime technician, offered testimony that focused on items found in that hallway where, according to the prosecutor’s , Rosa Hill and Li had attacked Eric Hill. His grandmother Selma Hill was found dead later by investigators, who say a child custody dispute between Eric and Rosa sparked a plan between her and her mother that they called “Operation Custody” in handwritten notes recovered by police.

Dilbeck said weapons and pieces of weapons were scattered among common household items such as baseball caps, dishwashing gloves, a pair of glasses and one child’s toy, a stuffed tarantula. The weapons included a collapsible baton that was bent at its tip, a 700-volt stun gun and a Taser, as well as copper wiring and caps belonging to a Taser. 

Dilbeck said the stun gun was on when she first saw it at the scene and that she did not know if the Taser parts belonged to those found on scene or to the one fired by a deputy as he subdued Eric Hill.

She also said red stains marked the hallway carpet in several areas.

Hayes reviewed a diagram of pieces of evidence found upstairs in the Dublin home and said items were collected from two of the top floor’s four bedrooms.  In one bedroom, another Taser, a ski mask and utility belt were found. In another bedroom, more red spots were found on the wall and a sheathed knife was found under piles of clothing.

Crime scene technicians found nothing unusual downstairs, according to Hayes, except in the dining room, where several small vases were found on the ground below a windowed alcove that displayed similar vases.

Hayes also said his team found no signs of a break-in such as broken glass, pry marks on doors or damaged locks. Investigators say Eric Hill found Li hiding in a bedroom before he was attacked; she also faces burglary charges in the trial.

Lawyers for Hill and Li questioned authorities’ preservation of the crime scene and the thoroughness of criminalists’ initial processing of evidence at the home. 

Public defender Bonnie Narby, representing Rosa Hill, asked Hayes why crime lab technicians hadn’t found a firearm discovered weeks later by a bomb squad that combed through the crime scene with police dogs. Hayes said his team was not looking for a gun because deputies’ initial report to him included apparent Taser use but no evidence of gunfire; a coroner later determined that Selma Hill was strangled to death and her body sustained Taser injuries.

Investigators found bullets at the scene but they were intact and hadn’t been fired, he said.

“The crime scene is very fluid as investigators interview more witnesses and collect more information,” Hayes said. “There was no investigative indication from deputies when we got on scene that told us we needed to go through the attic, tear up the walls or look for a gun, only that there was a domestic dispute where Tasers were deployed.”

Narby also asked Hayes why he was at the crime scene as the crime lab’s director. Hayes said he usually visits crime scenes only about twice a year, but was in Dublin at the time as a part of a crime-lab training program in which employees sign up for rotating shifts and analyze crime scenes alongside supervisors.

“We had a very young staff at the time and we wanted to make sure they were exposed to all kinds of crimes — burglaries, robberies, the occasional homicide — with the aid of supervisors on scene,” Hayes said.

Crime scene processing began at 11:30 p.m. on Jan. 7, 2009, and ended shortly before 6 a.m. the next day, he said.

Testimony will continue at the Rene C. Davidson courthouse this week in Oakland.