00:00:03
[mysterious music] [suspenseful music] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): A desperate text sent by a
couple of young children.
00:00:27
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Days later, the kids'
mom, Tiffany Hill, is at a school
event when she gets
00:00:32
a phone call about her
estranged husband, Keland. She looked like a ghost. She said, I have to go
meet my social worker.
00:00:41
He tried to buy a gun. [gun cocking] He went to Walmart
and tried to purchase a bolt action rifle to take care
of a varmint inside his home.
00:00:52
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): For weeks, Keland
Hill stalks his wife. We were pressing the
officer to check the car.
00:01:00
There's-- there's no way that
he would have known she was here unless he was tracking her.
00:01:05
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Keland Hill was a Marine trained to be a killer. And the target ended
up being his wife.
00:01:11
What were her chances of
her surviving the marriage? Tiffany always said, the
only way I'm going to get
00:01:17
out of this is if he kills me. He was a terrorist. He terrorized her. Nearly half of the
women who are murdered
00:01:24
are killed by their partners. But the men are
also increasingly victims of domestic homicide.
00:01:31
Are you sure the person
lying next to you in bed would never hurt you? If not, you might
want to pay attention.
00:01:39
I'm Michelle Trachtenberg,
and it's time for another tale of Meet, Marry, Murder.
00:01:46
[theme music] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): 2016. After moving to the city of
Vancouver in Washington state,
00:02:08
the Hill family
largely kept to itself. Both ex Marines, Tiffany and
Keland were professionally
00:02:15
trained to fight. Which they tended to do in
their marriage, as well-- a lot. Once his rage
with the marriage
00:02:23
started kind of, like,
getting out of hand-- that's when he started
becoming more physical.
00:02:28
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Tiffany and Keland had moved
to Sifton, just northwest
00:02:32
of Vancouver. A quiet neighborhood where
they could get a fresh start from their troubled past.
00:02:38
Tiffany was very closed off. She didn't share
herself with anybody. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:02:47
But when Tiffany strikes up
a friendship with fellow mom Karina Knight, she
starts to open up
00:02:52
about her eight-year marriage. Before they really
knew each other, she didn't like him at all.
00:02:57
She thought he was cocky. He was always flirting
with everybody, and, you know, she's--
00:03:03
she's a New Yorker, you know. She's from Brooklyn. She doesn't-- she didn't do
that, and she's very smart.
00:03:09
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Back when they'd been
deployed to Iraq, Tiffany had been Keland's
commanding officer.
00:03:15
They would work, like, 24-hour
shifts, and it just blossomed. It was very short, you
know, that it happened.
00:03:22
Then all of a sudden,
they started dating. And I think it was-- they
couldn't live together
00:03:27
when they were going to be
coming back over here, so they kind of rushed to get married.
00:03:30
That way they could live
together right away. In 2008, she
sustains an injury and is forced to retire
from the military.
00:03:40
She retires as a sergeant. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): As Tiffany's new friends
learn more about her marriage
00:03:45
to Keland, they start
becoming concerned. I had asked her, at any
point in your marriage,
00:03:53
were you happy? And she said at the
very beginning, but-- you know, we met
in the military.
00:03:58
And I didn't really want to
date him, and he wore me down. And that was another
huge red flag, to me.
00:04:05
I went through
Tiffany's house and went through all of her things. And I was able to find
all of their love letters
00:04:13
from the very beginning. Um-- and I only read one or two. It was an intense love
from the very beginning.
00:04:22
Very co-dependent. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): But what began as
an intense affair
00:04:26
lost its spark when Tiffany
and Keland started a family. She had just said that
things seemed different when
00:04:35
she'd had their oldest child. He did not like the attention
that she and the baby got.
00:04:42
He wanted 1,000% of her. All the time. He'd even tell
her-- like, there'd be emails that she'd show me.
00:04:50
I mean, he's even saying,
like, if I can't have you, I don't want the kids. The kids-- that
didn't matter to him.
00:04:55
It was her. It was having her. That's what he wanted. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:05:00
As Tiffany popped out two more
kids, Keland's jealousy grew. He wanted her all to himself,
and moving to Vancouver
00:05:07
had mainly been because of that. She did mention that they'd
moved a couple of times
00:05:13
to get away from family. And that this was the biggest
move, to Washington state.
00:05:18
She said it was to purposely
get away from her family-- to kind of isolate her from
her family and friends.
00:05:23
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Moving 2,000 miles from
Michigan to Washington state
00:05:28
was a problem right
from the start. Keland took the job, told
them they were moving out here,
00:05:35
and then left her there to pack. What Tiffany
said was-- he moved her out here to get her
away from the support
00:05:43
network that she had. But for him, it was all
sunshine and daisies, you know. He moved out here to make a
better life for the family.
00:05:50
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Keland apparently didn't
anticipate that Tiffany would
00:05:53
immediately start making
friends and building a life in their new hometown. She was new, and it was
like an instant thing.
00:06:01
She kind of just started
sidling up to me, and we just got to talking. And from that moment
on, it was like we'd
00:06:07
always known each other. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): At first, they seemed
to fit in just fine.
00:06:12
Turns out, I did actually
like her husband quite a bit. Him and I got along instantly.
00:06:18
And we just became friends
over that, you know. Everybody loved Keland. Everybody that
knew him liked him.
00:06:26
He was vivacious,
he was fun, he was-- you know, he was handsome. He could woo you in a minute.
00:06:35
Like, he was just funny. You wanted to be around him. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:06:40
Tiffany joined the local PTA,
quickly getting a reputation among other moms at
her kids' new school
00:06:45
as a generous, hardworking
member of the team. She would do, like, a staff
breakfast to where she's
00:06:52
up all night the night before,
or she's up early that morning getting things ready
and bringing things in.
00:06:59
And they were super
yummy (LAUGHS). And the staff just gobbled
it all up, quickly.
00:07:05
At one point, during
her really rough patch, she was up until 2:00 AM
making food for our staff.
00:07:17
And she was crying because
she said it's not enough. I didn't do enough. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:07:23
For all that her friends
appreciated her hard work and generosity, it
seemed that for Keland,
00:07:28
Tiffany could never do enough. The marriage wasn't the
way he wanted it to be. He-- he wanted, like, you
know, a 50s-style marriage,
00:07:37
where the woman stayed home, and
cooked, and did what he said. But Tiffany was an
independent spirit.
00:07:44
And she was extremely active
in her children's education, and was volunteering all
the time for everything.
00:07:51
And she just gave of
herself constantly. And so he would be
upset that she wasn't--
00:07:56
she wasn't at home doing the
dishes or cleaning the house, or have dinner ready
because she was so
00:08:01
busy volunteering all the time. You could tell there
wasn't a closeness that you
00:08:07
can see in a lot of marriages. There weren't, like, the little
touches, the hand holdings.
00:08:13
There weren't things like that. And I always saw that,
from the very beginning. Whenever he'd enter
a room, any time,
00:08:21
she would automatically,
like, stiffen. Like, her shoulders would
kind of go up a little bit.
00:08:26
She was no longer
that relaxed, talking. He'd come in the room,
and she automatically
00:08:30
would start tending to him. Like, what he needed, what
he needed to do, and like--
00:08:35
take orders from him. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
From the way they saw how Keland treated
her, Tiffany's new friends
00:08:41
got the sense that her
marriage was far from perfect. But they had no idea just how
bad it was behind closed doors.
00:08:49
He was a terrorist. He terrorized her. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): But the worst part?
00:08:55
Keland routinely terrorized
her in front of the kids. He didn't think they'd
notice, but they did.
00:09:06
[dramatic music] [theme music] [theme music] When Keland Hill made
his wife, Tiffany, move
00:09:28
to a new town where
they didn't know anyone, it was just another example
of the emotional abuse she had
00:09:35
suffered since marrying him. I never saw any
physical behavior. But the way he talked to her--
00:09:42
you know, once he got really
comfortable around us-- that wasn't behavior
of a good spouse.
00:09:49
Kind of degrading things. Like, if she, you know, wore
a nice outfit or something,
00:09:54
he would just say-- talk down to her. Oh, what do you think,
you're so hot you can wear stuff like that?
00:10:01
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): And that was just Keland's
behavior in public.
00:10:04
In private, it was even worse. She was tired. Because he also was
sleep depriving her.
00:10:11
When she would sleep,
he would turn on the TV as loud in their bedroom. He put water all over
her side of the bed.
00:10:17
So when she'd get into bed,
it would be soaking wet. She told me that he would
keep her awake for hours,
00:10:26
if not days at a time. Just to kind of play with
the mental side of it. And kind of slapped her around
several times, sometimes
00:10:39
in front of the kids. Keland was good. He would never show anything
in front of anybody.
00:10:44
That's why you
could never believe that this was happening. Once he got
comfortable with me,
00:10:49
he started speaking more freely. Of course, it was his
version of the story, so--
00:10:58
my wife, you know, we tell
each other everything. And so she would tell me
things about the relationship
00:11:05
that Tiffany had told her. And-- and then I would
hear his side of the story, but I wouldn't tell him
that I knew those things.
00:11:15
I'd keep that to myself. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): The problem was that Tiffany's
version of the things that she
00:11:20
was telling to her
friend Karina didn't match up with what Keland was
telling to Karina's husband.
00:11:25
In my own opinion,
I had to be careful. Because I knew all of
their deep, dark secrets--
00:11:31
everything terrible
that he was doing to her, and the torment that
was going on in their marriage.
00:11:39
But I knew that
if I let on to him that I knew what was going on,
he would take it out on her.
00:11:46
I have to present, you know-- a false persona,
basically, to him. I have to pretend like
I'm still his brother,
00:11:55
I'm still his friend. To protect Tiffany. As soon as, I
think, he realized that Tiffany was
confiding in me,
00:12:03
is when he started
changing with me. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): For Tiffany, it was part of
an all too familiar pattern.
00:12:11
Every time Tiffany found
a friend to confide in, Keland would try to
break them apart.
00:12:16
She's like, he's starting. I was like, what do you mean? She's like, he's starting.
00:12:21
He's starting to try to make me
doubt my friendship with you. I call it schmoozing.
00:12:26
Kind of schmoozing over
and making sure everyone is on his side,
and that she seems
00:12:32
crazy to think about these
different things that are going on. That it's all in her head.
00:12:39
It's nothing-- it's nothing
big, it's nothing real. Of course. I wanted her to leave
the very first time
00:12:44
she told me this was going on. But he'd find her. No matter what she did or where
she went, that was her thing.
00:12:51
She's like, he'll find me. He will find a way to me. He will break apart
every friendship
00:12:56
and relationship
that I have, and I will have to go back to him. Because she'd
always forgiven him.
00:13:01
She'd always let him come
back, accepted his apologies, and he always went
back to doing the same.
00:13:06
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): In late summer 2019,
Keland finally did something Tiffany couldn't hide
from her friends and neighbors.
00:13:14
We were supposed to have
our first official PTA meeting at the school. And she had texted
me and said, I don't
00:13:21
know if I'll be there tonight. I have a concussion. All I could think
of was, she must
00:13:26
have got in a car accident. Because, for me, in my life,
I had never been around--
00:13:33
at least knowingly-- someone
who was in a domestic violence situation. September 11, 2019.
00:13:39
Keland gets angry and
goes after Tiffany. He throws her into
a wall, he chases her down a flight of stairs.
00:13:47
She tries to call 911. She's terrified. He slaps the phone
out of her hand. One of their children
asked Google or whatever--
00:14:01
Amazon Echo-- that they
had to call someone. They told her
what was happening, and she called 911
from a different state.
00:14:23
Because he had taken her phone,
so she couldn't call 911. Tiffany was injured
so badly in this assault
00:14:36
that she had gotten
whiplash and a concussion and had to be seen
by neurologists.
00:14:41
The police came,
and he was arrested. And that night, she
came to the meeting. And after the meeting, Karina--
00:14:48
who was her best friend-- came in with her,
and she was crying. And I said, are you OK?
00:14:53
And Karina said, you tell
her and you tell her now. She needs to know. And so Tiffany had said,
my husband pushed me.
00:15:01
My head hit the wall. I have a concussion. He's abusive. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:15:06
Injured and in pain, and, more
importantly, with the knowledge that her children were
now witness to her abuse,
00:15:12
Tiffany was finally
forced to confront the fact that her
marriage wasn't healthy.
00:15:18
KARINA KNIGHT: Her kids
were getting older, and she was seeing, like-- this is what they're going to
think is acceptable for them,
00:15:26
you know. That this is how people
get to treat them. This time, she goes to
police and she files on him.
00:15:33
This time, Tiffany is
not going to back down. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:15:38
Detective Tanya Wollstein
was waiting for Tiffany at the Vancouver
Domestic Violence
00:15:42
Prosecution Center when she came
in to document the full history of Keland's abuse against her.
00:15:49
80% or so of domestic
violence victims recant. They don't want to cooperate
with investigations.
00:15:55
They are in such a state
of being manipulated, and gaslighted, and
financially dependent--
00:16:00
a number of other things. Tiffany had made that
decision to break away. She was reporting.
00:16:05
She was-- she was
asking for help. Tiffany explained that
this is all a game to Keland.
00:16:10
And he's threatened to kill
her before, and to kill her or hurt her would
mean nothing to him.
00:16:16
It's all a game to
him, and she felt like she'd be the one to lose. What Tiffany
and I talked about
00:16:25
was a brief history
of their relationship and then focused on what had
been going on more recently.
00:16:33
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): After hearing Tiffany's
story, authorities decide to take immediate
action against Keland Hill.
00:16:39
CAROLYN CANVILLE: The
day after the attack, Clark County officials
issue a no contact
00:16:43
order against Keland Hill. In the paperwork that
Tiffany fills out supporting this
no contact order,
00:16:50
she has written that if he were
angry enough, and drunk enough, and he had a gun, he
would use it on me.
00:16:57
And he would kill me. Some victims, we do have great
concerns about their safety.
00:17:06
And Tiffany would be one. So I would say I
have more contact with Tiffany than the average
domestic violence victim.
00:17:12
More along the lines of
domestic violence victims who I am seriously concerned
will be seriously harmed
00:17:19
or murdered by their abuser. Keland was served with the
protection order and arrested.
00:17:26
He was arrested for
interfering with the report of domestic violence and assault.
00:17:32
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Keland was released on bail and issued a restraining
order, barring him
00:17:36
from getting within
250 feet of Tiffany or making any kind
of contact by phone. He was also banned from buying
or possessing any firearms.
00:17:47
But would that be enough
to protect Tiffany's life? Especially after he had
the restraining orders,
00:17:54
and after he had
been out of jail, he was showing me the dark side. He had a seriously
bad evil in him.
00:18:02
By September 2019,
after some 10 years of marriage to Tiffany,
and three children later,
00:18:09
Keland Hill seemed to
have only one thing in mind for his estranged wife. Murder.
00:18:15
[dramatic note] [theme music] [theme music] A court might have ordered
Keland Hill to stay away
00:18:36
from his estranged
wife, Tiffany, but this was one time
the former Marine was not about to obey orders.
00:18:43
RENE SUNDBY: We have an
assembly at the school. She gets a phone call. She comes back out of the
room that she was in--
00:18:50
she looked like a ghost. And I said, what's going on? And she said, I have to
go meet my social worker.
00:18:57
He tried to buy a gun. [gun cocking] He went to Walmart
and tried to purchase a bolt action rifle to take care
of a varmint inside his home.
00:19:09
That is the day that
I think her soul died. She was just a shell of a human. She was so devastated that
he had tried to buy a gun,
00:19:19
and what that was
going to mean to her. As he tried to
purchase this weapon, the background
check was completed.
00:19:25
And it showed up
that he had been charged with domestic
abuse and had a protective order against him.
00:19:32
Background checks are
linked through all law enforcement systems. It's almost real time.
00:19:38
So if someone's attempting
to buy a weapon, and they have a protection
from abuse order or something
00:19:42
like that, the
jurisdiction that issued it is almost
immediately notified. The theory behind it is to
catch someone in the act.
00:19:51
Because it is illegal
to attempt to purchase a weapon knowing that you
have a protection from abuse
00:19:56
order against you. A sheriff's deputy shows up at
the scene and talks to Keland.
00:20:02
And Keland's real calm. That-- that deputy then
reports it to the Clark County officials in Washington state.
00:20:10
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): The next day, a
warrant is issued for Keland Hill's arrest.
00:20:15
But since he's no longer
living in the family home, deputies can't find
him to serve it.
00:20:21
He said he stayed
at a friend's house-- his other friend,
who lived half hour, 45 minutes from their house.
00:20:31
And he would also say things
like, he's living in his car, you know, by the river.
00:20:37
But he would just say things. I don't know if it had any
truth to them whatsoever.
00:20:41
He was-- he had so much
untruthfulness about him. He would just say
whatever he had to.
00:20:48
So he's not arrested,
nothing happens. And he's still out there. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:20:53
It takes five more
weeks before police can take Keland into custody. In the meantime, Tiffany's
friends are doing
00:21:00
all they can to keep her safe. And we did plan on-- here
are the things that we need
00:21:05
to do to try to keep you safe. Because we know
that he's out there trying to purchase a firearm.
00:21:11
We talked about calling
911 immediately, and leaving the
area immediately, and many other things.
00:21:17
KARINA KNIGHT: We'd
been practicing lock downs at the school. They were prepared.
00:21:22
There were security guards
at the school every day. I believe they
sent his picture
00:21:27
to all the staff members. And, you know, this person is-- because there's a
restraining order--
00:21:34
he could have came
and got the kids out of school, because
the restraining order
00:21:37
wasn't based at the children. It was on her. But she was always there. KARINA KNIGHT: If Keland
showed up, doors locked.
00:21:45
They hit the button. Classrooms lock. Everything locks. Whenever we'd go to somewhere,
I would go somewhere first,
00:21:51
take a look around, make
sure he wasn't there. And then she'd come behind me. You know, if we went out
to lunch, I'd go in first.
00:21:59
Let her know, OK, you're good. And then she could come in. And can you imagine? Like, what a way to live.
00:22:05
I think the hardest part,
for me, was being at the school and walking out to my car
with Tiffany and the kids.
00:22:11
I never tried to let
her walk out by herself. But having to tell
my 10-year-old if you see the kids' dad,
and I tell you to run--
00:22:23
I want you to run, and
I want you to hide. And I don't want
you to come find me.
00:22:27
I don't want you to look back. I don't want you to come for me. I want you to find a safe place.
00:22:32
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): A few days after Keland's first
failed attempt to buy a gun,
00:22:36
he breaks his restraining
order once again. On October 10,
2019, Keland shows up
00:22:44
at the Peach Tree Restaurant
where, coincidentally, Tiffany Hill is there. We have-- just a board
meeting at a restaurant
00:22:52
here in Vancouver. And we're all leaving. And I see this man walking
up, and he smiles at me.
00:22:58
And I think to myself, well,
that looks like Keland. And I said, all right, he's
not supposed to be here.
00:23:04
He can't be here. And I hear Tiffany
say, oh my god. And she starts
running for the car.
00:23:11
Keland's yelling at her-- I just want to see my kids-- and then realizes, you know,
we're all coming towards him.
00:23:18
Like, this is going to be us
forming a circle around her. And he runs. Sheriff deputies were called
to the Peach Tree Restaurant.
00:23:26
And when they arrived,
he had already left. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Keland Hill remains free
to continue terrorizing
00:23:32
Tiffany for another four weeks. He pops up at the grocery
store, at restaurants, school.
00:23:39
It seems like he's everywhere. But how? On November 7, Tiffany and her
friends begin to figure it out.
00:23:47
I tell her, the only way for
him to know that you're here-- because we're parked in the
very back-- is he has to be
00:23:54
following you or tracking you. That is the only way. The parking lot was all
the way in the back.
00:23:59
I mean, you would have never
seen someone pull in and park. We knew that he was
somehow tracking her.
00:24:05
We didn't know how. We didn't know if
it was by her phone, or there was something
on her car, but we just--
00:24:10
we knew that there was some
way of him tracking her. We were pressing the
officer to check the car.
00:24:19
Eventually, they
searched Tiffany's vehicle. And beneath the wheel
well of the vehicle
00:24:25
was a small black box that was
used as a GPS tracking device. At that point, Keland
was arrested taken,
00:24:33
into custody for stalking and
violating his protective order. His vehicle and his cell
phones were taken as evidence.
00:24:41
On November 8,
2019, Tiffany Hill goes back to the
prosecution center to report yet more violations
of the domestic violence
00:24:50
no contact order. And the Vancouver police
decide, you know, they want to do a risk assessment.
00:24:58
Tiffany was very
concerned that Keland was going to murder her. We use a danger
assessment that's
00:25:02
essentially a lethality
predictor for our victim. She scored very high
on that, 31 out of 41.
00:25:08
Which is an extreme
risk category for us. We were all very concerned
about Tiffany's safety.
00:25:12
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): For a minute, Tiffany's able to
breathe a sigh of relief,
00:25:16
knowing Keland is behind bars. But her reprieve only
lasts until Keland's bail hearing on November 21, 2019.
00:25:25
The state believes that if
the defendant is released, he will kill the victim. The prosecutors argue to the
judge, this man is dangerous.
00:25:32
If he gets out,
he will kill her. So they argue for
Keland's bail to be raised from $75,000 to $2 million.
00:25:41
She had hired a
lawyer to advocate for her, who told the judge-- he will kill her.
00:25:48
Tiffany is begging you. He will kill her. She had done all these things
to help protect herself
00:25:54
and to work within the system. I've stopped reporting
because he's made aware of it
00:25:59
if I report, and I'm scared
of his anger and retaliation. Despite my non-report,
he continued
00:26:04
to escalate because he feels
he's smarter than everybody else and he's untouchable.
00:26:08
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): In a court statement,
Tiffany desperately tries to explain just how
afraid she is of her husband.
00:26:15
He is here now
because he placed a tracking device on my vehicle
and tried to possess a weapon.
00:26:21
Those two things are major
indicators of what I've known all along, deep down. That he's going to kill me if
he's given the opportunity.
00:26:28
I beg you to not allow him
to get to me and my children. We have no family here.
00:26:33
Nowhere to go. We have no money and
nowhere to hide from him. He's made sure of that.
00:26:37
Thank you. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Unfortunately for
Tiffany, the law
00:26:41
didn't quite see it her way. The judge looks
at the records, and he says, well, I don't know.
00:26:47
I mean, this guy-- you know, he doesn't
have a criminal history. Because, of course,
he has forced
00:26:55
Tiffany to drop all the charges,
including attempted murder. He has a job. He's gainfully employed.
00:27:01
He's not a flight risk. He has served in the
military, honorably. And then the prosecutor
argues, well,
00:27:09
if you're going to
not raise the bail, then at least put an
electronic tracker on him.
00:27:15
And the judge says
no, I don't think so. For a period of a
month, he had violated
00:27:21
the domestic violence order-- the protection order-- 64 times. That we know of. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER):
00:27:29
According to Washington state
senator, Lynda Wilson, who actually fought for a law
to monitor people accused
00:27:34
of domestic violence, tracking
abusers like Keland Hill is the key to stopping them.
00:27:41
The gist of it is-- for victims of
domestic violence that can get electronic
monitoring on their abuser,
00:27:49
this bill will create a
real time notification of this electronic monitoring. So 24/7.
00:27:57
And then, if the
abuser gets too close, then they will get an alert
on their phone through an app.
00:28:04
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): But for Tiffany Hill, there
was no such protection.
00:28:09
Keland Hill is
released on bail. $250,000 bail, meaning he
only had to post $2,500.
00:28:18
Would putting Keland
Hill back on the streets end up being a big mistake? I think we all know the
answer to that question.
00:28:24
We heard the tones. It initially sounded like,
perhaps, a school shooting. It came out rather
quickly that this
00:28:29
wasn't like an active
shooter situation. [intense music] [theme music] [theme music]
00:28:51
Vancouver, Washington. November 26, 2019. After losing the court
battle to keep her husband,
00:28:57
Keland, behind
bars, Tiffany Hill has her mother come from New
York to give her some support.
00:29:03
That afternoon, Keland
Hill drives to Sarah J. Anderson Elementary School. The school where he
knows that his wife
00:29:14
will soon be arriving to
pick up their three children. He must have been
parked in such a way
00:29:18
that he could see
Tiffany's car, so he could see when she came out. He was there, in the lot,
for approximately 20 minutes
00:29:24
talking on the phone
with his mother. After the 20 minutes, he
pulled out of his parking spot,
00:29:32
pulled up in front
of Tiffany's vehicle so he was parked kind of
perpendicular to her vehicle,
00:29:37
got out of the vehicle, stood
in front of the driver's side, and shot several times through
the driver's side window.
00:29:43
[gun shots] And then had some kind of a
malfunction with this firearm, it appears.
00:29:52
Went back to his car
trunk and appeared to kind of reload or
clear his malfunction.
00:29:56
Came to the side of
the driver's side and fired a couple
additional rounds. Then got into his car and fled.
00:30:07
The fact that he would
fire inside a vehicle-- there-- there are
all sorts of dangers.
00:30:14
Ricochet, pass
through-- oh, god. It's just-- it's numerous. Firing a firearm
in any small space
00:30:23
is a dangerous undertaking. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Also in the car with Tiffany is her mother.
00:30:29
Tiffany's mom was shot
trying to protect her. Tiffany's mom leaned over and
did the thing that they-- you
00:30:35
know, just the
instinctual reaching out to try to protect her daughter. And she was shot in her
arms, in her hands--
00:30:44
several times. Clark County deputies were
actually executing a warrant just a few blocks away.
00:30:51
So when the call came out, they
left the scene of the warrant. And I believe he probably
heard the sirens.
00:30:59
So they were right on
him as he was leaving. Keland's first objective,
and his primary objective,
00:31:05
was to kill Tiffany. And then secondarily, he perhaps
would have focused on others.
00:31:09
And perhaps, if Clark
County hadn't been so close, and he had more time-- we don't know what
he would have done.
00:31:16
So I'm certainly
grateful that they were there, because
I believe they saved those children's lives.
00:31:21
Once the first
responders get to a school and there's been a
shooting like that,
00:31:25
immediately the school is
going to be on lockdown. There's going to be a perimeter
set around the school.
00:31:30
And a search is going to begin. I just heard part of
the lockdown procedure go into place, and
I wasn't quite sure.
00:31:41
Like, is this real or not real? So I was at work
at the Domestic Violence Prosecution Center.
00:31:47
So we heard the tones. It initially sounded like,
perhaps, a school shooting. So we all began gearing up
and getting ready to leave.
00:31:54
It came out rather
quickly that this wasn't like an active
shooter situation. And then they mentioned
Tiffany's name on the air,
00:32:01
and that's when I
knew it was Tiffany. It was devastating. I mean, I remember just
yelling to Prosecutor
00:32:11
Boyd across the office. It's Tiffany, it's Tiffany. And just feeling so terrible.
00:32:19
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): While one set of
first responders rushed to help
Tiffany and her mom,
00:32:25
another was hot on Keland
Hill's tail as he fled. Keland was located, and he led
police on a high speed chase.
00:32:34
Speeds up to 75 miles
per hour on busy streets. In a situation, such
as a fleeing person
00:32:43
at a very populated
area or dangerous area, one has to decide
which one would cause
00:32:51
the less amount of damage. Letting this person run
free, or pursuing them? But if the police
officers pursued,
00:33:01
or the first responders
pursued Keland, it was because they
thought he was a higher
00:33:05
risk by fleeing with a firearm. He was-- he was a danger. He was a danger to
himself, and he was
00:33:13
a clear danger to other people. Deputies actually
attempted to stop his vehicle by ramming it with
theirs and pursued him
00:33:22
until he got caught in traffic. And that's when Keland
exited the vehicle, turned to face the oncoming
officers, and shot himself.
00:33:30
[gun shot] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Maybe in hindsight,
it's not surprising
00:33:35
that a relationship that
began on the battlefield ended in bloodshed. But at the time, as word of what
happened started to get out,
00:33:44
it still shocked everyone. ISAIAH KNIGHT: I had just
gotten home from work. All of a sudden, her phone
just started blowing up.
00:33:53
You know, Karina,
have you heard? There's a shooting
at the school. It's Tiffany.
00:33:58
I had just turned on my phone
and was already on Facebook, and it said school shooting.
00:34:03
And I knew instantly. I called her phone first. I called the school. And then, about three minutes
later, the school called me.
00:34:13
And they said you
need to get here. The kids are waiting for you. They know you're coming.
00:34:19
Tiffany and her mother were
both taken to the hospital. Tiffany was pronounced
dead on arrival,
00:34:24
and her mother
miraculously survived. We immediately left our
three kids with our neighbor.
00:34:30
We booked it down to the school. We had to be cleared
before we could go in. When we went in
there, the kids
00:34:38
had no idea what was going on. They saw their mother
get shot, but they didn't know she was dead.
00:34:42
We were with the children
when the sheriff told them that their father had
killed their mother
00:34:48
and then killed himself. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): In the aftermath of
Tiffany Hill's murder,
00:34:52
Senator Lynda Wilson
became even more determined to push forward
her bill protecting
00:34:57
victims of domestic abuse. Well, I was
watching television, and I saw the police
report on the news.
00:35:05
And, of course, when I saw
that, it broke my heart, because I witnessed
domestic violence as a child
00:35:14
pretty consistently. Senator Wilson contacted
Karina and had said, you know, I'd really
like to use Tiffany's
00:35:21
name for this act we're trying
to pass to become a law. And then, with our testimony--
you know, our personal
00:35:28
experience and what we knew-- it went from there. And it wasn't, in my mind-- it wasn't gonna stop.
00:35:37
I told them-- this-- that I would
like to honor Tiffany in a way that would help others.
00:35:44
I think it's an important
piece of legislation. And I think that, at the
very best, it can save lives.
00:35:49
And at the very
least, maybe give the victims of domestic
violence control and some feeling of
peace in their lives.
00:35:56
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Senator Wilson still
believes that giving victims
00:36:00
the ability to
track their abusers is the best way to protect them. Had this technology
been around then,
00:36:08
and Tiffany had been
available to it, she would have known more
often when he was lurking.
00:36:16
Because she would be notified
on her phone or her watch. Then they would get a
real time notification.
00:36:21
So as soon as that
happened, then they would be notified
that this person was within their
geoprotection zone.
00:36:29
So many times with
domestic violence victims, these-- they-- it's the element of surprise
that takes them off guard.
00:36:35
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): As a result of
Senator Wilson's work, Washington state
lawmakers passed
00:36:41
the Tiffany Hill Act in 2020. All those in favor of adoption
of the proposed substitute,
00:36:45
please say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say no. The proposed
substitute is adopted.
00:36:50
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG
(VOICEOVER): Tiffany's friends hope
similar laws will protect
00:36:54
more women like Tiffany-- not only in Washington, but
across the entire country.
00:36:59
Which is exactly what
Tiffany would have wanted. She loved God. She loved people.
00:37:09
She would give you the
shirt off of her back. She loved her kids, her
community-- she worked really
00:37:16
hard at building a community. She knew how
important it was, she knew it-- it takes a village.
00:37:24
Tiffany Hill is
gone, but because of her, domestic
violence victims will be safer in our state.
00:37:31
And Tiffany really will continue
to serve in a different way. Tiffany and Keland
Hill got married in 2008.
00:37:39
But by 2019, they
would both be dead. Victims of Keland's
uncontrollable rage. Just another reminder that
the person you meet and marry
00:37:49
could end up being
your murderer. I'm Michelle Trachtenberg, and
this is Meet, Marry, Murder.
00:37:58
[determined music]