Killer on the Run: The Many Lies of Audrey Marie Hilley

Some real life stories don't follow the rules of reality. They follow the rules of soap opera. In a soap opera, intimacy replaces plausibility. If someone is close enough, a spouse, a parent, a twin sister, their explanations don't need proof. No proximity does the work logic usually does. Illness doesn't have to make medical sense. It just has to linger long enough to keep the story going. Explanations are flexible. Backstories can be revised. Identities are negotiable. People can become new versions of themselves without explanation. Most importantly, the truth doesn't matter until someone questions the premise. The collapse only comes when someone refuses the setup. The story doesn't end because it's immoral or wrong. It ends when it becomes unbelievable. Which apparently is a lot easier to spot on TV than in real life. I'm Harvigian and this is Killer Stories. It's the 1960s. Aniston, Alabama, a medium-sized town with small town appeal. Inside the local Elk's club, a woman clicks her high heels across the parking lot, dragging her young son along. This is Audrey Marie Hilly, or just Smurry, if you don't mind. It's Friday night, the only night women are allowed inside the club, so Marie is there to see her loving husband, Frank. The two of them have been together for about 15 years at this point. They met back in high school when Frank was 18 and Marie was 14. And the age difference seemed normal to everybody back then at that time, so we're moving along, I guess. A few years after that, they got married. And for the most part, they're happy together. That is, when Marie gets everything she wants. She has an appreciation for the finer things in life, or maybe it's more like an obsession. So Marie asks Frank for a lot. The newest cars? She wants to drive them. The most expensive clothing she wants to wear it. After the couple buys a tiny starter home, Marie hires a decorator to redo the entire place. And Frank indulges her. Even when she racks up debts all over town. If Marie has one gripe about Frank, it's that he spends too much time drinking with his buddies after work. Most of his friends say he doesn't take his alcohol used too far, except for this one night, when Marie brings their young son, Mike, to the Elk's club for dinner. Marie walks in to find Frank at the bar, drunk as a skunk. And she's filming. They sit down to eat, and even poor little Mike can tell this dinner is going badly. While they're leaving, things take a sharp turn for the worse. Frank and Mike wait on the sidewalk while Marie picks up the car. Obviously she'll have to drive them all home. As she pulls the car around, she watches as Frank turns and vomits into the bushes. She slams on the brakes. She's just staring him down over the steering wheel. Furious. Frank knows better than anybody what's going through Marie's head. How is this going to look to everyone else? What will people say? So what Frank does next is he lies down in the street in front of Marie's car, and he yells at her to just run him over. One of Frank's buddies hoist him up and over to the curb, but just before that happens. Little Mike Hilly is pretty sure he sees his mom step on the gas pedal. This for a split second. Other than that incident at dinner though, the Hilly seemed perfectly normal. On the outside at least, and the outside is what's most important to Marie. She sticks by Frank and raises their two kids, Mike and Carol. Sometimes she helps support her expensive lifestyle with administrative work. She's a gift to typus, but her greatest power is knowing how to talk to people. How to be what they need her to be at any given moment, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry out. That's how she gets close to people. Couple with the fact that she always looks so put together, Marie never has trouble landing a job. Only none of her gigs last very long. She complains that her co-workers don't like her, but the problem might be also that her boss is really like her. When Marie enjoys the attention, she gets from the richest and most powerful men in town. Some of them are just good friends. Others are something more. By the time Marie enters her forties, she's spending a lot of time with the man named Walter. He's her boss, and she's his mistress. One day, Frank comes home early from work. He's been feeling sick lately, and he needs to lie down. When he opens the door to his bedroom, he finds Marie in bed with Walter. He stares at them for a second, trying to comprehend what he's actually seeing, and then looks the other way. He turns and walks out. Now Frank doesn't divorce Marie, doesn't even seem like they fight over this indiscretion because Frank would rather not talk about it at all, but he knows his marriage is going south. And what's worse, he doesn't have the strength to fight for Marie. By late 1974, he has spent months dealing with a mysterious illness. He keeps getting sidelined by splitting headaches, nausea, and a fever. Sometimes his stomach is painful to the touch. Then he has no idea why this is happening to him or why the illness seems to come and go at random. He thinks maybe it has to do with the factory where he works, maybe the water there is contaminated, except none of his co-workers are sick. To Frank, it's a frustrating mystery. To Marie, it's all part of her secret plan to slowly kill her husband with arsenic. Based on the lap test that will come much later, we can assume Marie's hiding the arsenic in Frank's food and that she's giving him bigger and bigger doses as time goes on. And of course Marie keeps up appearances, as always. If you're on the outside of the hilly family looking in, Marie looks like a beautiful wife. She drives Frank to doctor's appointments and demands to know what's wrong with him. So the health experts think Frank has indigestion or perhaps an ulcer. But his symptoms worsen. He grows physically weaker and moves like he's in slow motion. And Marie tells the family that Frank's mind is wandering. Once she finds him outside in his underwear, in the middle of the night searching for his car, and Marie does what any good wife would do. She brings him to the hospital. That's where a doctor announces to the hilly's. He's finally solved the mystery of Frank's illness. It's infectious hepatitis, also known as hepatitis A. It can get serious, but Frank's an otherwise healthy middle-aged man. His body should clear the infection on its own and he'll be good as new. Of course, Frank does not have hepatitis. After Frank's family is relieved by the news, by this point, his kids are older. Mike is grown and living on his own. Carol's a teenager and they all gather around Frank happy to finally have an answer. As for Marie, she's happy to have a cover story. Because a few days later, on May 25, 1975, less than one week after his diagnosis, Frank Hilly dies at the age of 45, and his death is chalked up to hepatitis. The only person with him in the room at the time is Marie. She said she nodded off and when she woke up, he was gone. So why would Marie do such a thing? She's not with her old boss Walter anymore. They broke things off, but four days after Frank's death, she files a life insurance claim with a payout of over $31,000. She pays off her house, which actually seems like a responsible thing to do. But the rest of Marie's purchases are extravagant, clothes, jewelry, a new old mobile When Carol Hilly is about 16, Marie buys her a new car. Ahanda, which Carol wrecks in an accident. So Marie drives in both to a remote mountain where she sets the car on fire. She claims it was stolen, collects the insurance money and gets some mother-daughter bonding time in as a bonus. Hmm. Ever since Frank died, Marie has been tightening her grip on her teenage daughter. With both of her kids getting older, they don't need Marie as much anymore. And she responds by acting more controlling. At one point, Mike and his new wife move in with Marie to help around the house and save money. But Marie has a very specific idea of how things should go in her house. She's in their business all the time. It only takes a few days for Mike to realize he and his wife would be a lot happier in their own apartment. So he finds one nearby, where they can still help out when needed. The night before they're supposed to move out of Marie's house, a fire mysteriously starts in her home, while Marie happens to be out on a random drive. The house doesn't burn down, but it does need repairs. And while that happens, Marie needs a place to live. She temporarily moves in with Mike and his wife. Now, they're sharing an even smaller space with his overbearing mom, just what every newlywed couple dreams of. Eventually, Mike moves to Florida and Carol graduates high school. She takes college courses, but lives at home. So Marie notices when Carol sneaks a little pot here and there, or hangs out with friends Marie doesn't approve of. These days, the two of them pick her all the time. It probably doesn't help matters that Marie is stressing about money again. It's now 1979, over three years since Frank died, and the insurance money is gone. She's even had to sell the family home, and that money is gone too. Once again, Marie isn't dead. She starts writing bad checks, opening a bunch of different bank accounts to try to confuse the people she owes money to, robbing Peter to pay Paul kind of scheme. It's only going to last for so long. So you might find the timing here a little suspicious when I say Carol starts coming down with a strange illness. Right around the time that Marie is desperate for money. It begins with nausea and stomach pains. In fact, most of Carol's symptoms mirror her dads. She grows too weak to go out with her friends or take her college courses. She even starts questioning her own sanity. Sometimes she sees things she isn't sure are real. Like when she sees Marie standing over her motionless in the middle of the night. When Carol's admitted to the hospital, it's the same story. There's a string of doctors, a battery of tests, and none of them can figure out what's happening to her. But you can probably guess Marie is poisoning her 19 year old daughter who happens to have a sizable life insurance policy. And we're not the only ones who see the similarities between what Carol's going through and what her dad experienced. Frank's mom is suspicious too. She's never felt right about how quickly her son died after a hepatitis diagnosis. She even calls Mike her grandson to voice her concern. She tells him Marie was giving Frank some kind of injections before he died. And isn't that weird? And Mike admits it is. But he's not worried. Well, not until he hears that Marie's also been giving Carol some kind of shots. I mean, Carol's already in the hospital. She has a whole staff of people taking care of her. So why would Marie need to administer any medicine? Much less a shot. I mean, who picks up a syringe and is like, I'm sure I can handle this. So Mike calls up the coroner in his hometown, the one who performed his dad's autopsy years ago. And he asks, could there be some other explanation? Something else that would look just like hepatitis, something like poison. And the coroner says, yeah, the poisoning case could look a lot like hepatitis. Mike can't prove anything yet, but he's getting really worried about his little sister, Carol. At least she's in a hospital, he thinks that's probably the safest place she can be for now. But he also knows he's got to act fast. Do you often find yourself listening to things that are dark, eerie or macabre in order to relax? Then join me over on the As The Raven Dreams podcast. New episodes several times a week, all of them chock full of the true, strange, and scary stories certain to help you sleep well. Available on Spotify or anywhere else you choose to listen to your podcasts. In September 1979, Carol Hilly gets admitted to yet another hospital. She's probably thinking it's a waste of time. None of the doctors her mom takes her to really listen. That's why they can't diagnose her. But it's not her regular doctor's visit at all. First off, Marie gets arrested. All of those bad checks have finally caught up to her. The police show up and take her right out of Carol's hospital room. And Carol is devastated. She's so tired of being in the hospital, she doesn't want to be alone. But Marie's arrests probably ends up saving Carol's life. This time, Carol meets a doctor who sits down and listens to the whole story. By now, she's suffering from extreme nerve damage. The doctor thinks there's got to be a logical explanation. Only a few conditions could have caused this and all those test carols already been through have ruled most of them out. But they didn't rule out arsenic poisoning. Now, some of the arsenic would leave Carol's system naturally over time. Just not all of it. Some of it would build up and leave clues behind. That's when the doctor notices them. Little white lines on Carol's fingernails, a tell-tell sign of long-term arsenic poisoning. Carol calls Mike to tell him the news. But she's shocked and confused. She generally has no idea who could have done this to her. When they hang up, Mike immediately calls the Aniston Police Department. He tells him his theory that his mother, Marie Hilly, has been poisoning Carol. And she may have killed his father too. Marie's still in custody awaiting charges for check fraud when a homicide detective sits down to question her. He wants to know what was in the injection she gave Carol in the hospital recently. Well, first Marie lies, she says she isn't giving Carol a shot in months. But he keeps pushing. After all, Carol is still alive. She remembers it happening. So Marie admits, yes, she gave her one shot. And here's the story she relates to the detective. Carol was feeling sick to her stomach. And Marie didn't want her to have to be admitted for another night just for a little vomiting. And lo and behold, Marie met this woman in the hospital lobby who could help her out. Mrs. Hill, apparently Mrs. Hill had a son-in-law or daughter-in-law who worked as a nurse at this same hospital. All Marie knows is that the nurse's name was Tuts. And she says Tuts got her this medicine, which Marie then gave to Carol. So whatever she gave her daughter, she didn't think it was arsenic. It was only meant to suppress her nausea. The detective isn't buying the Tuts story. Sorry Tuts. I mean, it sounds made up. Not to mention Marie never says anything like, you have to find out who poisoned my daughter. You know, like a normal response from a victim's parent? Instead, Marie's reaction is more along the lines of, sure, sure, sure my daughter was nearly poisoned today. I get it. But it wasn't me. A few days later, samples are gathered and sent off to the lab. Some are taken from Carol's hair. Investigators also find some half-empty vials in Marie's purse and in her home. Those get sent off for testing too. The rest of the samples are taken from the body of Frank Hilly. He's exhumed on October 3rd. A crowd actually comes. gathers to watch, even though they can't really see anything from where they stand. Marie hasn't been charged with murder or attempted murder yet, not until those lap tests come back positive, which might take a while, but the press and the public have gone wind of the story already, and the people are convinced of her guilt. Not only that, some accuse Marie of being a full-blown serial killer. They say maybe she killed her mom, her mother-in-law, and old-classmate, if anybody died within a few square miles of Marie, the rumor mill considers them a possible victim. Still, she's only being held for Czech fraud at the moment, so Marie doesn't stay in custody for long. One of her rich fanboys bills her out. Because of all the gossip flying around Marie claims her life is in danger. She persuades her defensive journey to put her up in a motel. It's probably not the five star resort she would have liked to stay at, though Marie seems grateful. And, I guess in a way, she is. He's just given her an opportunity to escape. When he returns to the motel for their next meeting, Marie is gone. She tries to make you look like a kidnapping. The room is tossed. Most of her stuff is still there. There's a note left on the desk that reads, "You let me straight to her. You will hear from me." But investigators aren't fooled. The only thing missing from the room is Marie's wallet, which is convenient, and the kidnapping note looks an awful lot like Marie's handwriting. As they follow her trail, detectives find a local couple whose car was stolen. The thief left a note behind claiming they would drop off the car somewhere. That note matches Marie's writing, too. So it doesn't take long for everyone to realize Marie is on the run. And when that couple's stolen car turns up in Georgia, the FBI gets involved, too. Since she crossed state lines, Marie's now a federal fugitive. She still wanted two months later. When all those lab tests come back, it's confirmed. Frank died of arsenic poisoning. His toenails contain 100 times the normal level. Carol's hair shows similar amounts of poison. Marie is indicted for murder and attempted murder. Even though she's still on the lamb, investigators seem confident they'll find her. She's a grandma for crying out loud. The prosecution even starts putting a case together so they'll be ready when Marie's caught. And try as they might, they never track down any nurse named Toots. Turns out it's a lot harder to find Marie than anybody could have imagined. The trail goes cold in Georgia, where she left that stolen car. But we know that Marie heads for Florida and she finds a job and settles into a new life with a new name, Robbie Hannon. And it's while passing herself off as Robbie that Marie meets a new man, John. Remember Marie's brand of manipulation is being whoever somebody needs her to be. That's how she wins people over. So when she sits down next to John, at a bar, and he confides in her about his difficult childhood, she becomes the great listener he never had. And then she one-ups his sad but true tale with her own fabricated sob story. She tells him she moved to Florida from Texas after her husband and children died. She has money coming to her, but until then she's barely scraping by. Tonight she claims was going to be the first night as sex worker, a job she doesn't want. Now that she's found John, well, maybe she doesn't have to go through with it. Oh, and also she has a brain tumor and wants to make the most of whatever time she has left. She's once again using every line that this man wants to hear. She's basically Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman, except she's dying and she's about to be rich. So, John gets some much-needed empathy and he feels like Marie's night in shining armor. From that night on, they're mostly inseparable. And while Marie's definitely toned down her extravagant lifestyle, John does take care of her. She moves into his nice apartment. A few months later, they decided to relocate to a small town in New Hampshire. Now, John has no idea who Marie really is. She thinks the move is a chance to start over together. He doesn't know Marie is worried about evading the FBI and how could he? Marie commits to the bit. In 1981, she and John are married. The honeymoon period is short. It's not totally clear why, although John does start to notice some erratic behavior. Like random bouts of sobbing and she starts to alienate some of their friends too. Maybe she's haunted by her past deeds or maybe she's bored. Either could explain why Marie starts turning her life into a living soap opera. In 1982, just a few months after her wedding, Marie starts plotting her next escape. The story she concocks is so ludicrous that she knows if she's gonna pull it off, she has to drop a few breadcrumbs first. So, Marie invents a sister, Terry, who lives in Florida. Now Marie's never mentioned Terry before and now all of a sudden, she talks about Terry nonstop, these breadcrumbs are more like giant, obvious loaves of bread. But John buys it. Even after Marie explains that the reason she never told him about Terry is that she'd blocked out her painful past. She claims she simply forgot about Terry, who happens to be her identical twin. See what I mean about soap opera, right? So to be super duper clear, Marie, Robbie and Terry are all the same person. Terry the twin doesn't exist, but in a way, she's about to come to life. Remember Marie's made up story about having a brain tumor? Well, that comes back into play in September 1982, although she can't always keep her terminal illness rate, sometimes it's a rare blood disorder, whatever. To Marie, the point is she has a reason to leave New Hampshire. She tells John she has to see a specialist in Texas, secretly she hits back to Florida. And for a little while, Marie's back to her old pre-murderous self. She finds a new job, be friends a new rich boss, buys expensive clothes and gets herself a new look. Marie dies her poof of 1980s hair, bleach blonde. She hides out in Florida long enough to lose a noticeable amount of weight. That's when she starts passing herself off as the fake twin sister, Terry Martin. While posing as Terry, Marie calls her husband John a New Hampshire. A few months have passed since they've seen each other. He tells him it's Terry, Robbie's twin, and Robbie is dead. There's no funeral she says. The body was donated to the Texas Medical Research Institute, I guess so they could study a made-up disease that is sometimes a brain tumor and sometimes a blood disorder. And here's the kicker. Terry says Robbie's last wish was for the two of them, John and Terry, to spend time together to console each other. Marie returns to New Hampshire, posing as Terry. I have no idea what John makes of all of this or if he knows he's being Duke, but if he does have any inkling of what his wife is up to, he never shows it. His relationship with Terry is platonic at first, but in just a few weeks, they're sharing a bed. I have to admit, I don't know what Marie's plan is here. Maybe she just craves trauma, but it seems like she's there to stay again. One day she visits her old workplace. You think maybe she would want to lay low, want a fugitive, unbelievable story, but it seems like she delights in seeing the shock on people's faces when she walks in a room. She relishes the moment when she introduces herself as a dead woman's twin sister. The problem is she's not that convincing, no Julia Roberts, am I right? She still acts exactly the same. Few of her old co-workers take one look at Terry and know instantly, it's the person they know as Robbie, and because this is a small town, people talk. The Terry versus Robbie issue become this rate of eight. Are they twins or did Robbie fake her death for some reason? Two of her friends are so convinced that Terry's lying that they start doing some digging. They learn there's no such place as the Texas Medical Research Institute where Terry said she donated her sister's body. There's actually no record of Robbie's death or the deaths of her family back in Texas. These revelations find their way to the state troopers and their investigation confirms that Terry Martin isn't who she claims to be. They even figure out that she's a fugitive from the law. They just think she's a different fugitive. They fake her as a drug dealer whose name also happens to be Terry. At any rate, they show up at Marie/Terry's work one day and arrest her. They tell her they know her name isn't really Terry Martin. Of course, she probably thinks they know her true identity, Audrey Marie Hilly, so that's the name she gives them. But she brushes it off, like I'm only wanted for Czech fraud, what's the big deal? When they run her name through their database, they realize they've just caught a murderer. Marie's extradited to Alabama, where she's charged with murder and attempted murder. It seems like the entire town and every press outlet for miles comes to witness her trial. Mike and Carol are both there and convinced of their mother's guilt. But the whole time Marie maintains her innocence. There is one moment in the trial I want to mention, and that's when the prosecution calls a surprise witness. Her name is Lily Boyd, but her family calls her "toots". That's right folks, "toots" is a real person. I repeat, "toots" is real. But the "toots" story that Marie told was still a lie. Yes, "toots" works at the hospital, but she's not a nurse. She's a clerk. She is related to Mrs. Hill, who met Marie at the hospital, but neither of them procured any mystery shots for Marie to give to her daughter, Carol. It was all yet another strange tale that came back to bite Marie in the ass. Seeing as how the lab test on Frank and Carol prove they were poison with arsenic and Marie had arsenic in her possession, and seeing as how one of her victims, Carol, lived to tell the tale, Marie is swiftly convicted. She sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years. There's only one person who stands by her side through all of this. Her husband, John. Even after she lies to him about practically everything, even after she pulls the weird twin switcheroo on him for no clear reason. I mean, honestly, what was gained by faking her death and pretending to be Terry? It's not like she was going to get life insurance out of it. This time, she never explains why she pulled this bizarre twin scout. In the end, it's what got her caught. If she hadn't shown up back in her hometown trying to freak people out, nobody would have looked into her past and figured out she was lying. Maybe Marie lived for the thrill. Well, she also died for it. By 1987, Marie is still in prison when she's been a model prisoner, more or less, and that has come with special privileges. That February, she's granted a three-day furlough unsupervised, which means she gets to go out and live a normal life for 72 hours, as long as she follows some rules. Long we all know Marie is a big time rule follower, right? Well, most of her furlough is typical. She spends it with John in his motel room, since her arrest, he's been living in Marie's hometown in Alabama, so he can be close to her and visit every other week. Right before John has to bring Marie back to prison, she asks if she can visit her parents' graves alone. Since the last time, John sees her alive. Marie disappears and leaves John a note. She apologizes for leaving him and begs for a head start, but John alerts the authorities. Nobody wants to spend several more years looking for Marie. This time, she doesn't get far. Four days later, she turns up one town over on a woman's back porch, shaking in the cold and rain. Shortly after Marie's taken to the hospital, she dies of exposure at the age of 53. For her children, Mike and Carol, time have brought some level of understanding of what their mother did to their family to them and of who she really was. As Mike put it, she had the ability to make you believe what she was saying, even if you knew that it was an outright lie. Turns out, real life will tolerate a lot of soap opera logic, just not forever. Thanks for tuning in to Killer Stories, a Spotify podcast, new episodes release on Mondays, and if you like today's story and want to learn more, we've dropped some of our favorite sources in the episode description. Until next time, I'm Harvey Gien, stay safe out there. [BLANK_AUDIO]