Killing was Purposeful /// Part 1 /// 841 | Forensic Files

The psychological thriller Criminal Minds: Evolution is back, and the hunt is on. This season, the criminal
profilers from the behavioral analysis unit are tracking a network of serial killers connected by something far more
dangerous than anyone expected. It's the kind of highstakes investigation that will keep you guessing and make you
question who's really pulling the strings. With Edgeofyour Seeat storytelling, this is the season to
watch. Catch the new season of Criminal Minds Evolution, now streaming exclusively on Paramount
Plus. In 1932, one man opened a two- room business school above a nondescript storefront in downtown Manchester, New
Hampshire. How did it become one of the largest universities in the country? Okay, this case isn't exactly a mystery.
Southern New Hampshire University offers over 200 degrees you can earn from your
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Find your degree at snhu.edu/g. That's snhu.edu/g. [Music] Welcome to True Crime. garage, wherever
you are, whatever you're doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is a man who at the
end of today's show will be performing a tick tock dance. Here is the captain. And it's going to blow your freaking
mind. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling, friend.
[Music] This week we are delighted to be featuring Lawn Mower Yard Logger by the
fine folks at Church Hill Brewing Company. This is an American light beer by style, but it's made up in Canada, so
it has a little extra oomph to it. It's crisp and not watered down like some light beers. ABV 4.3% garage grade,
three and a half bottle caps out of five. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends for helping
us fill up the old garage fridge. First up, a big shout out to Melissa from White House, Tennessee. And a big we
like your jib goes out to Nikki from Rockton, Illinois. Here's a cheers to Ally in Sumpter, South Carolina. And a
big tall cans in the air to Christine and Indianapolis. And last, but certainly not least, Captain, we have a
double fisted cheers that goes out to Shannon and her sister Kelly from West Sacramento, California. Everyone, we
just mentioned they helped us out with this week's beer run. And for that, we thank you. Yeah, BW, are you in beer
run? I'm adding old off therecords to YouTube. So, make sure you go to our YouTube channel, True Crime Garage TV,
and subscribe. And that's enough of the business. All right, everybody. Gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's
talk some true crime. It defies belief. Yet, it seems to happen time and time again. In a state of despair, a
vulnerable victim just happens to come across someone. Someone who pretends to come to
her aid, to help her out, to be a friend. But that good Samaritan is far from that. He is a monster.
What are the chances that as 14-year-old Lorie Anne Hill was walking home alone,
crying on a cool night in a small town, someone unknown to her abducted her, savaged her, and then left her body to
be found by hunters. The chances are slim, but it does happen. Instead, police suspected that the
killer was someone Lori knew, a statistically sound theory, and eventually someone she knew well was
arrested, charged, and tried for her murder. But that is not where Lor's tragic story
ends. And it may be just the beginning. This is the case of Lorie Anne Hill. And this is True Crime
[Music] [Music] Garage. Laurianne Hill was born on November 9th, 1970 in Miami, Florida.
Her parents are Roger and Die Hill. The family moved from Florida to a home on Berky Southern Road located in Swanton,
Ohio. Now, Swanton is a small town in northwest Ohio. Back then, when they moved here, it was about 3,500 people
and small in size as well. It's only 3 and a half square miles. This is where our story starts. This is 1985.
Lori is the youngest of four kids. And by this time, Lori has an older sister, Joy, who is living in Dallas, and an
older brother, Sergeant Chris Hill, in the Marines at Camp Lugene. She has one sister, Rachel, who
is still living at home. But again, Rachel is older than Lori, who is the youngest. Lori is a sophomore at Swanton
High School and was described as friendly and popular. Her school principal described Lori as an average
student with lots of friends, adding that Lori was a wonderful person and had a very sunny personality and strong
family bonds. Lori was a horse person. We love horse people. Lori was often seen outside of her home working with
her horse. She was in many ways a typical teen with big 80s hair and a mouthful of braces. She also had some
drama going on in her love life, which was quite active considering she was only 14 years old with some facets of
her dating life being kept from her parents. However, 14-year-old Lorianne Hill will go missing sometime during a
night out with friends. Lor's parents reported her missing to Fulton County authorities around 2:00 a.m. on the
morning of October 26th, 1985. Her sister Rachel got home while her parents were on the phone with the sheriff's
office. She said her heart sank when she heard that Lori had not come home and was missing because, as a rule, her
younger sister did not come home past her curfew. She never broke curfew. The whole family was very scared. Her mom
started calling everyone she could think of. And Rachel and her father, they jump
in the car and they start driving around looking for Lori. Rachel knew Lori had gone to a party earlier that evening.
But a visit to that house, the home of the party, showed that the place was quiet and no one had seen Lori in
several hours. Rachel called all of the local radio stations and alerted them to Lori being
missing, saying, "Lori, if you are hearing this, please come home." Now, we need to point out here, Captain, that
Lori had just started dating a guy named Craig Rup, who at age 18, of course, he's a lot older than Lori. The timeline
for the evening of October 25th, the evening in question, is as follows. At 6:30 p.m., Craig picked up Lori at her
home. They go to McDonald's for dinner. They went to an area pond for some, air quotes private time, but according to
Craig, they never had sex, and that night was no exception. Then they went to a Halloween party on South Mson Road
around 8:00 p.m. So, this would be the house where later her older sister and father would drop by, check to see if
Lori was still there. The party's over by that time, and Lori, of course, not there. Now, when she was at the party
here, Captain Lori was drinking and the reports are that she was drinking to the
point where she appeared to be drunk to other attendees of this party. And it's noted by Craig and several other people
that were there that she and Craig got into an argument. It was a very obvious argument. This was apparently about the
fact that she was wearing Craig's class ring as well as a ring from a previous boyfriend. So that's that's typically a
big no no. You're if you're going to wear the ring of a boyfriend, uh it should just be the one. According to
partygoers, Lori left the party upset at 9:30 and was given a ride downtown by a
friend. So this is downtown Swanton. The friend is Steve Wakowski. Craig says he never saw Lori
again. So she leaves Craig at the party, ditches him after this argument, hops in
a car with this Steve guy, and Steve drives her. And according to Steve, on the night that Lori
disappeared, he says, "Look, I was at the same party. I left without Lori, but later saw Lori walking this." She she
hadn't made it very far. And so he stops to talk to her. He wanted to find out what was going on, make sure she was
okay. He offers to give her a ride home. She accepts, but she's very angry and upset at this time about this argument
with Craig. Right. So, she gets in the vehicle, accepts the ride home. However, Steve says, quote, "She was very
distraught, crying. She had been crying very, very hard. Her face was red. She just wasn't herself. The whole thing was
over a ring. She was very upset about the fight. You couldn't reason with her." end quote. Right. Steve said Lori
had that argument with Craig about the ring thing. Steve said Lori got out of his car at some point. He says they just
drove a block and a half or so when she saw some headlights behind them and seemed to think that it was the
headlights of her boyfriend, which I I want to circle that word boyfriend because that could mean multiple things
here. But according to the guy that gives her the ride, Steve, he says, quote, "She just went crazy after that.
Wanted out of the car. She was going to get out of the car whether I stopped or not." So, yeah. But we've all been
there. I mean, when you're young and you're drinking, uh, you're inexperienced, so sometimes
you drink too much too quickly and get angry about stuff that maybe wouldn't bother you or or a disagreement gets
blown way out of proportion, right? So, he stops. He lets her out. Steve says that the last he saw of Lori, she was
walking toward a place called Mr. G's Pizza. This definitely holds up his statement
here because this Mr. G's Pizza, as I understand it, was a popular hangout at the time for teens. He goes on to say
that I proceeded to go home. I didn't think anything of it at the time. We can confirm his statement because Lori is
later seen by several people at this Mr. G's Pizza without Steve. All right. So,
at Mr. G's, Lori was seen making a phone call. But the question mark here, Captain, is to this very day, the
identity of the person she spoke with has never been established, never definitively been established. And it's
a question mark to me as well if police even know this because there's a chance that maybe they have an idea of who she
spoke with. I would have to believe that this is a pay phone call and that maybe they are just not
saying who who she spoke with. Yeah. Because you could assume that maybe she's calling the guy she got in a fight
with or she's calling the guy the other guy that she was wearing a ring from or maybe she was calling a parent or
somebody to come pick her up or maybe she's calling a friend to either come pick her up or uh to discuss, hey, this
this went down at this party and I I need to discuss it with somebody. So many possibilities. Many possibilities.
That's right. Outside of Mr. 's Lorie's friend Rhonda Whitman says that she spoke with
Lori briefly. So, this would have been just before 1000 p.m. and she asked Lori if she wanted a ride. I like something
you said there in the possibilities of who this phone call was for. I believe after reviewing all of the
information here that that the most probable scenarios of this phone call was either a she's calling somebody for
a ride or b she's calling to meet up with somebody that that may also involve a ride somewhere. And I say that because
what we're going to see here by the following statements that as the night progresses after she's at Mr. G's.
Remember, she hops out of the car, Steve's car, goes to Mr. G's. Now, we're going to see her continually turning
down rides, which is suggestive to me that she's meeting someone. She doesn't want to go home, and that she's either
meeting someone or she's waiting on a ride from from someone else. So, this Rhonda Whitman friend asks Lori if she
wants a ride. Her response, someone was going to be picking her up. She doesn't say who. Rhonda did say Lori at this
time was acting normal even though she knew that Lori had been crying previous to this time. Now, the next witness to
see Lori was a neighbor of hers. I I like these witnesses because many times we're reviewing cases and it's people
that don't know the person in question. These are all people that have previous histories with Lori. They went to school
with her. They were friends with her. This person is a neighbor. So, her neighbor, Deborah
Ronin, says that she saw Lori walking toward her home. This is after 10 p.m., so it falls right into the timeline
perfectly. Deborah stops asking Lori if she wanted a ride, but Lori says no. And
then we get this information as well. This is uh again neighbors of the Hill family, of Lorie's family. and it's a
married couple, the Bettingers. They're driving home from that night's football game. They says this, they say this
would be around 10:30 p.m. They say that they came across three teenagers who were walking northbound on State Route
295. This would be rather close to Lori Anne Hills home. And the Bettingers say that they remember this specifically
because the teens were walking into the middle of the road, so they had to slow down and kind of idle past them. And
shortly after Lorie Hills disappearance, Mr. Bettinger called the Swanton Police Department reporting this
incident. He stated that the individual in the center was a tall girl with blonde hair. He said to her right was a
boy who was taller than the girl who had dark shoulderlength hair. To the left of
the girl was a shorter heavy set person who Bettinger said he could have been a boy or a girl. He didn't
know. And he says that as they came upon the teens, the boy to the right of the girl stepped further into the road and
turned around to face their car. The girl in the middle turned partially around and then the teen stepped to the
side. The beddingers went past them. He told the police chief that that when the
report came over the evening news that Lorianne Hill was missing, he and his wife realized that the girl that they
had seen walking in the road was in fact Lorie Anne Hill. He he said that he could back this up and he was pretty
positive about this identification because Laurian Hill had been to their house a few times. She was friends or
acquaintances with their son. Well, let's back up for just a minute. With any of these eyewitness reports,
especially the ones that see her at the pizza shop, do we have any clue of what her state is? Because like we said,
Steve, the guy that gives her a ride, is like, "Well, she's clearly intoxicated and then clearly upset." But
do these people see her as being upset or see her her as being intoxicated? Cuz like I said, it's just, and I'm not
blaming her here. We've all been there. I could tell you some crazy stories of my inexperienced drinking
days, but you'd think maybe within this time frame that she, you know, she's not
continuing to drink. So, you would think she would start sobering up and obviously start making more sense to
these eyewitnesses. I think you're spot on there because I I don't think that none of the other people that interact
with her after the party mention anything about her being drunk or intoxicated. They do
reference several of them other than the Bettingers because they just had this brief moment in time where they passed
somebody that they believed was Lorian Hill. But the only people to report that she was drunk or intoxicated were people
that were in attendance at the party with her. To what state of intoxic intoxication? It's difficult for anyone
to say. Your body's going to if she only consumed a beer, beer and a half or whatever, wine coolers, who knows? I I
don't have a great description of of the goings on at the party outside of the argument, right? Everybody knows that
there was the argument. People report afterwards they knew that she had been upset. She continued to be upset for a
period of time, but nobody else reports this her being intoxicated. Now, the last sighting of her, let's say
potential sighting, because I want to throw this one in the questionable basket for a couple reasons. This one's
really difficult for me to sort out because I don't know how much credence the police gave to this last tip. the
the Bettingers out of all the people that night, they're the only ones to say that they saw Lori in a group of people
with two other people. If she was in fact with two other people, those persons have not been identified.
However, I will say this. When Mr. Bettinger spoke with the police chief, he did give a description of what he
thought that the girl was wearing or what he recalled her to be wearing when when he spotted her. And he says that
the girl in the middle middle of the pack who he thought was Lori was wearing a blue jean jacket and blue jeans and a
white shirt. Now this is consistent with what she was wearing that night. So that last tip, that last bit of
information is difficult to sort out because that information puts her one much much closer to her home than any of
the other sightings that that all the other sightings seem very credible. It puts her with two people that have not
been identified. Right. The Swanton police and the Lucas County Sheriff's Office categorized the case as a missing
runaway, but then they did do immediately a largecale search for Lori. They didn't they didn't wait and rather
quickly they are interviewing her friends, family, her new boyfriend Craig, who she had the argument with,
and the kids at the party. Now, I had mentioned earlier to circle that word boyfriend, right? Because Steve's
statement to police is, well, she was going to get out of the car no matter what. And she seemed to get more upset
when there were headlights behind us and she said something to the effect that it
might be her boyfriend's car. So that could mean Craig, who she was at the party with that she had just gotten in
the argument with, but it alos also could mean a guy that she had recently broke up with. Remember, she's wearing
two class rings from two different guys at that party. So, when she says boyfriend, does she mean boyfriend or
ex-boyfriend? Let's also not dismiss the the option that it could just have been
a car that didn't belong to either of them. That she's just in the moment. She's upset. She might be still
intoxicated at this time and just being irrational and saying, "You know what? I
I got to get out of the car." I think she was going to get out of the car no matter what, just like Steve said,
regardless of who was in the vehicle behind them. And I'm not not trying to throw shade at Steve, but if you're a
little intoxicated and haven't been before, is he saying anything to her that's creeping her out and she wants to
get out of the vehicle? Yeah. I I mean, I don't know. I He There's There's reports of her being drinking to the
point of drunkenness. There's no reports of of Steve, you know, that we do know.
But what we do know is police spoke with the partygoers very quickly in the heat of the moment here.
And as said, we we have searchers going door to door. We have people looking at this Swanton Memorial Park trying to
witness trying to locate witnesses or Lori. They searched fields, vacant buildings. A dive team was brought in
rather quickly. Even the Air National Guard assisted in some of the the searches. So they moved into action
rather quickly and they were they were searching for her high and low. Now they also investigated a college party that
was somewhat in the area that night. A female employee of a place called El Matador. This is a
restaurant. This employee attended the University of Toledo. So Swanton is west of Toledo. I think
it's about a 35 45minut drive. So this is a Halloween party and investigators considered that the party may have
brought outsiders to town. But the thing is they couldn't find anybody to say that Lori ever ended up at that party
that night. Nor would there be a whole lot of reason to think that she did unless it was random. But we should
point out she's 14, but often in the company of high school students, but they're they're technically men. I mean,
they're 18-year-old boys. On October 30th, there was news, and it's not the good kind. This is around 3:30 p.m., so
this is Tuesday afternoon. A deer hunter in northwest Pike Township found a body
off of Fulton County Road M, the letter M, halfway between State Routes 12 and 13. This is 10 mi northeast of Wassion
and 10 miles west of Toledo. This was 13 miles from Lor's home. So again, if that
last if the bed hanging sighting of the person they thought was Lori is correct,
this is 13 miles from where she was last seen. This got the L the Lucas County Sheriff's Office involved in the case as
well as Fulton County officials because she was found in Lucas County from Fulton, but it's not clear where she had
been killed. Now, we have to say it it's unclear to me exactly where they found her body because some reports say she
was found in a wooded area and some say she was found in a corn field. Yeah. I actually think what it is
is, you know, anytime you're driving on these rural routes that you'll have, you
know, soy bean fields or corn fields or whatever, but they're kind of outlined by little patches of woods. So, I'm
guessing it's kind of both. You know, she's found maybe in a small patch of woods that was connected to a cornfield.
Looking at Google Maps, it appears that County Road M has a lot more corn fields
than wooded areas. And then, of course, the family receives this the horrible news. Roger Hill, her father, Lorie's
father, had to walk into his house and tell his wife Die and his daughter Rachel that Lori was dead. Doy started
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[Music] medications. All right, we are back. Cheers, mates, to the windows, to the
walls. Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. And cheers to the people in the back. Yeah. I mean, this is a a
tough case. Like you said, just a few days after, you know, she went missing. Nobody's heard from her. They find her
naked body and she's badly beaten and obviously deceased. And they only find what? Her jean jacket in a in a sock.
Yeah, that's correct. And then it makes you wonder, did whoever did this to her,
did they keep items or did they drop these items off and these were somehow um whether whether it was because of the
weather or animals or whatever. Is there a reason why the other clothes are missing? Well, initial reports about
Lor's cause of death and as I had referenced before the break, the crime scene were misleading. Now, we do know
it was a homicide. That was obvious from the beginning. In fact, the Fulton County Medical Examiner reported as
such, ruled it as such. Initial reports by Fulton County officials were that Lori had been shot at least once in the
head. This was assumed by the deputies who found her after the the hunter notified them of the body. This is
because she had a hole in the middle of her forehead. But October 31st, the Fulton County Coroner stated that this
was inaccurate. She wasn't shot at all. Lauria died from, like the captain said,
blunt force trauma to the head inflicted by multiple blows. From the record, the
cause of death was multiple blunt force and sharp injuries. In particular, her skull was fractured and she had numerous
bruises, abrasions, and lacerations over her body. The coroner opined that the skull fractures were likely caused by an
iron instrument such as a pryar, crowbar or pipe. But that so that information while we know
it today, the pryar, crowbar, pipe speculation, that information wasn't made public at the time. All the
authorities would say was that they were following up on several clues and they did say that at that time
they did not have a suspect. It was difficult really for anybody to say 100% how long Lori had been lying out there
before she was found. We do have Dr. Reed, who goes on the record saying that that it's believed that Lori was killed
late Friday night or or early Saturday morning. So, in other words, this would have been within hours of her going
missing. Yeah. Obviously, if you're in law enforcement, you're going to look into this fight with her quote unquote
boyfriend, but he remains at the party, so you'd think there was enough eyewitnesses there that would give him a
pretty solid alibi. Officials clarified later that Lori was found lying 67 ft from the road and she had been left in
plain sight with no attempt to obscure the body. She was nude but for one sock. Her other sock and jean jacket lay
nearby but no none of her other items of clothing were found. This next bit was not released at the time either. But
what we do know today is Seaman was identified on vaginal swabs taken at the autopsy. The pathologist did not make a
ruling as to whether the victim had been raped. Uh there was no evidence of trauma to the genital area. There's also
no reference or report of had she possibly engaged in consensual sex, which of course at the age of 14, she
can't really consent anyway by per the law. The the town was shaken up, needless to say, by the murder. It was I
mean technically she could consent with another minor, right? I don't I don't I not a lawyer. Um but I don't know how I
don't know how this works. But what we do know is she was at a party. We have nobody saying that she was sneaking off
into the room with anybody. She leaves the party. This guy Steve, there's no physical or intimate connection there.
She's seen at the pizza shop, so she's not obviously having sex with anybody at the pizza shop. And then she's last seen
walking down a road. So I, you know, I would I would assume um we could almost assume that this is
not consensual, right? Well, no. I I mean, in what terms? I I mean, then the legal term, I I went out of my way to
say it that way because of of a few different things. if if the individual I I don't want to I don't want to try to
uh dance through the the raindrops of you know if if if she was 14 and with another 14year-old what's the what's the
law there but what I'm pointing out here is if if she were picked up by somebody
uh if it was a person who a male who was 16 18 19 what have you the the look there's information in and throughout
this story that she was very likely sexually active at the age of 14. And there's also the statement by her
current boyfriend, Craig Rup. His statement to police is that they went to a pond area to quote spend some time
together. But he says that in their relationship they had never had sex and that that evening was no exception. We
we gloss over some of the information here purposely because it it it I don't know that it furthers the investigation
to go into how potentially violent this murder was. To say that the town was shaken up would be an understatement.
The the students at Lor's high school were incredibly disturbed by the news. And remember the principal said this was
a girl that had a lot of friends and we can see by her activities that night she
had a lot of friends. A lot of people liked her. People stopping to offer her a ride. Many sought counseling. Some of
the students had to go to counseling or started going to church after this event. Now the community did pull
together to raise some money for a Crimestoppers reward. It wasn't until November 15th. Uh, but this is the first
time we see a local paper advertising a $1,000 reward for information in the case. That reward very quickly doubled.
Meanwhile, area law enforcement authorities wanted to solve this murder very quickly. The Fulton County
Sheriff's Office made sure that all items of physical evidence, which was not a list was not provided to the
public. But what we do know is Fulton County Sheriff's Office is stating, "We sent the physical evidence immediately
to the FBI labs for analysis." Later, what we would learn here, Captain, in some reports is that blue paint chips
were recovered from Lor's jean jacket. Now, this was an all hands on deck case. We have Fulton County Sheriff's Office,
Lucas County Sheriff's Office, and Swanton Police Department all hands on deck to solve this very quickly. The
Swanton police chief, Tom Bates, who was also a reverend, he led the funeral service for Lori on November 2nd at
Woodlon Cemetery in Swan, Ohio. On November 7th, the public received word that the authorities uh they were they
were seeking the public's help for locating the potential murder weapon in the case. It was obvious and also
pointed out that that they they had no reason to believe that Lori was killed where she was found. It was simply a a a
dumping ground. She had been killed elsewhere and they were telling the public this would be a location that we
would expect to find a lot of blood. Wherever she was killed, we expect to find a lot of blood. Well, yeah, because
there's blunt force trauma to the head and the head is an area that likes to bleed out. They also went out of their
way to say that they don't think that there is a mass murderer running loose in the county. They don't think that
there is some maniac out there that would, you know, no evidence to suggest that there's a maniac out there seeking
to murder young people. They did say that it was their belief that whoever was responsible for this very likely was
someone who knew Lori. It was a person therefore that that was not considered to be a danger to others. It was Lori
that this individual wanted to kill whether it be premeditated or in the moment. Yeah. To me that seems I mean
you have the argument, you have the current boyfriend, you have the ex-boyfriend.
So, I guess you would have some people that have motive, but because her whereabouts changed. She was initially
at a party. I don't know if it if do we have any information that she was supposed to stay at the party or was she
supposed to go back home? But either way, her movements changed throughout the day. So, to me, if I'm law
enforcement, I'm going I think this is more random. See, that's where my I'm with you because no, the way the night
was supposed to go is go to McDonald's. Of course, she's not going to tell her parents that she's going to a pond for a
for a brief stop off with her boyfriend, but it's the plan was go to McDonald's,
go to this Halloween party where there's a bunch of friends her age, uh, a bunch
of high school kids, and then go home. her her her boyfriend Craig Rep would be dropping her off at home. And we do have
her sister saying, "Look, she never broke curfew." Now, of course, she's 14 and sometimes those teenage years get
weird and the older you get, you might start breaking rules all of a sudden. But it it appears to me that her being
out past curfew, her being out on her own is just as you said, it's a matter of what was going on in the moment. She
was she she was distraught. She decided to stomp off and leave the party. And that was never the plan for that night.
And I'm with you. Who's to say that she wasn't out walking a county road by herself and and exactly what the police
and prosecutors said to not be worried about? Maybe there was somebody out there seeking to snatch a woman or a
young lady and and sexually assault them. And if it leads to death, it leads to death. So I I I look, I think that
maybe what they were seeing and who they were talking to, maybe that is suggestive to them that that wasn't the
case that it was some the statistics would say that it that it would likely be somebody that knew her. But I I
wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the idea that this was somebody that saw an opportunity, saw a person who was
vulnerable and took advantage of that situation. And and she again, if that were the case, she didn't have to
willingly get into a vehicle for for this to be the result. Unfortunately, her meaning that she was forced in,
right? Well, yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, her case goes cold rather quickly. We do
know that Crimestoppers continued to run ads in newspapers with reward information throughout 1986, the
following year. No answers or tips forthcoming. In June of 86, uh, her parents, tired of the of the
quiet surrounding the case, offered up their own reward of $10,000 leading for information to the that would lead to
the identity of her killer. Lor's father, Roger, goes on record saying that he wanted his daughter's killer to
face the death penalty. Quote, "There is definitely a revenge factor." He said, "I want an eye for an eye." In November
of 1986, a Fulton County grand jury was convened to consider Lorie's case. Now, we got to clarify for some of the
listeners out there why and what this scenario actually entails. So, sometimes investigators do this, prosecutors do
this to employ the subpoena power and sworn testimony of that investigative body, right? to force people to testify
telling the truth. The proceedings are typically secret. All we know about this one is that teenagers and police
officers testified during this grand jury. The grand jury failed to hand down an indictment, although it is unknown
whether one was sought. They may have convened, they may have brought this to a grand jury without actually seeking an
indictment. Sometimes it's just to further the investigation when you have the subpoena power and testimony power.
We do know that one angle that was explored by the grand jury was three guys, three individuals. This
is James and William Little and Richard Najacowski. So, a witness claimed to have seen James
Little in the possession of a gold watch, which was believed to belong to Lori. This witness testified to the
grand jury, but admitted later that she lied because she was influenced by others to try to connect this watch to
the the James and William Little brothers. Now, other witnesses also tried to tie the Littles to the crime,
but were revealed to have ulterior motives to see the Littles in prison and imprisoned. And the physical evidence
did not support these stories either. So, no indictment comes down and certainly no indictment came down
against either James or William Little. We're going to peel back the curtain here a little bit and look at something
that was known behind the scenes for a long period of time, but but not known to the public for for many years. So
many years later, the public would learn what happened. Remember, we talked about
the sheriff's office sending off the physical evidence to the FBI laboratories for testing.
And years later, we will learn that, quote, "In 1985, the items of evidence collected from the victim's body
included oral, rectal, and vaginal smears and swabs that were placed on slides and in separate vials. On October
31st, 1985, the Fulton County Sheriff's Department submitted those items to the FBI laboratory in Washington, DC for
analysis. On February 14th of 1986, the FBI laboratory submitted its report to the sheriff's
office regarding the results of the evidence subi was submitted. They did say blood was found on the oral smear
and swab. Semen was found only on the vaginal swab. In addition, no spermic cells were found on any of the samples.
The testing that was conducted, however, required the consumption of the entire sample. The testing found semen on the
swab but failed to detect sperm and the vaginal swab sample was used up. It wasn't clear if there were other
samples, right? It wasn't clear if the sheriff's office was holding on to additional evidence that wasn't sent off
for testing that could that could be used later, right? So look, that's bad news in the moment.
That's bad news in 1985. And actually, well, when they received the results in February of 86,
look at look how long it took to receive the the the results back then. I mean, it's 4 months. But it's also bad news
for the case at large where it's we're seeing time and time again cases being solved 10 20 30 40 years
later because this kind of evidence still this physical evidence still exists. Nothing seems
to have really nothing of consequence happened in the case until 1988. So that year, that same evidence, right? The the
same swabs and slides that we've already discussed, right? These items, you know,
you talk about the the further of of technology there, these swabs and slides were submitted to the Ohio Bureau of
Criminal Investigation and identification for potential DNA testing. Now upon examination of of these samples uh what
the forensic scientists came back with was that there was not sufficient quality or quantity of material to
undergo the DNA testing. So they didn't actually get to the point of testing it because of the poor quality and lack of
quantity of the samples submitted. So then BCI, Ohio BCI then returns the physical evidence, those swabs and
slides back to the Fulton County Sheriff's Department. Over the next two decades, Captain Lor's family pushed
hard for the case to receive attention. They made the rounds of talk shows and whatnot and even raised
[Music] $50,000 toward reward money. But it wouldn't be until 2008 until this case would take a
turn. So, let's fast forward here. Zoom forward. We're now 2008. We have more than two decades have
gone by since the the brutal murder of Lorian Anne Hill in Northwest Ohio. In 2008, there was a renewed
push to finally solve the case. Rachel Hill, Lor's sister, now well into adulthood herself, demanded an
accounting of the status of the case. And the answer was it was pretty much dead in the water. But then the sheriff
learned that the Toledo Police Department had funding for a cold case unit via a National Institute of Justice
grant that the police department had received. They had in fact successfully resolved some cold cases because of that
grant and because investigators, cold case investigators were active on these old
investigations. Now, Lorie's case was the only unsolved murder on the books for the Fulton County Sheriff's Office
during that sheriff's 25 years in office. The sheriff requested the help of this cold case unit and the cold case
investigators. The Fulton County Sheriff's Office and the Fulton County Prosecutor's Office started quickly and
quietly working together on the 20 plus year old case. This would lead to about 8 months of hardcore investigating on
the old case, which definitely unearthed some information in the form of tips. This is enough for the Fulton County
Grand Jury to act on. So in July, now we move to July of 2009. So this is the following year after the the cold case
detectives take over the case. There's news coming out that the grand jury had indicted a man for for two counts, one
of aggravated murder and one of murder. So, the grand jury indicted 42year-old Walter E.
Zic on those two counts of murder. So, who is this guy? Ex-boyfriend. The captain's been talking a lot for an
hour. I've been listening quietly. Who is this guy? You've not told us about Walter Zimpic yet. So, Walter Zimpic was
Lor's boyfriend prior. So, this is the the boyfriend before she started dating Craig Rup,
right? Lory's boyfriend for a period of time before her death. And see, here's here's what I wonder, though,
because he's Walter is not at the party. No eyewitnesses put Walter at the pizza
shop. Correct. So, is it possible that this is the individual that Lori called at the pizza shop? I think it's highly
likely that either she called him or was attempting to get in touch with. Right.
So, we need to point out obviously since she's she had moved on to Craig Rup that
she was not dating this guy Walter at the time that she was killed. The mo most of the reports state that they
dated for several months, some saying that it was like 18 months. Yeah. But a couple months when
you're 14, one is is a decent percentage of your life. But that's a that could be
a big deal when you're 14. A lot of the reports are that they started dating at near the end of her eighth grade year
and continued dating until the summer before her sophomore year, sounds like, or just when school was starting up her
sophomore year. So, this would be lengthy for for her age and even for Walter's age at the time. But what we do
know is she moves on to this Craig Rup guy. Her and Craig get in an argument at that party. She's still wearing Walter
Zimpik's ring, class ring. When she's at that party, she's got two class rings on. That was the genesis of that
argument, that disagreement. It was noted that at the time of the murder, Walter Zmpic lived not very far from
the where Lorie's body was found. Right. And so there's a possibility or at least
law enforcement is thinking there's either a possibility that Walter picked her up, took her back to his his house,
or did she make it all the way to his house? And then some kind of confrontation happens and then her, like
you said, her body is discovered not far from where he lived. Well, and and as we
said earlier, this was all hands on deck. This was big news when she went missing and there was a large search for
her while she was still missing. And in fact, Walter Zmpic was interviewed, right? He's on camera. He spoke to
WNW News cameras during a search for Laurianne Hill and his he says on camera, quote, "I am very worried this
isn't something that she wouldn't do at all. I just don't know what to say." When the Fulton County Sheriff's Office
and the Toledo Police Department started investigating this case, a new right in
2008, we have Toledo Police Sergeant Steve Forester. He said his department received close to 100 tips after the
public push for information. He told the Fulton County Expositor, "Some of the calls have
proven to be very helpful. I am very happy with the information we have gotten so far. He said they were looking
to build a case, but they were still looking for the name of the person Lori called from Mr. G's. Quote, "She
definitely talked to someone in there and we'd like to know who." End quote. They were working on building a case
just like he said. Part of that too that was helpful part one of the things that
was helpful was a tip that came in from Zmpik's aranged wife there in the middle. Walter Zmpic and his his wife
were involved in this custody battle around the same time. It's it's weird, man, how these things like line up and
almost a coincidence, right? There's all of a sudden there's this cold case investigation that kicks off because the
sister, you know, gets angry and reminds the sheriff's office that that her sister's murder is still unsolved and
and the cold case unit recently kicked into gear about a year or two before. And then all at the same time, this
separation with a custody battle and then Zmpik's strange arange wife calls in a tip with his name and says, you
know, he he dated her back then. you might want to take a look at him. He was from the area. So, the cold case unit,
they go and they review Zimpik was interviewed a couple of times back in 1985 and they were aware, law
enforcement was aware that there was a a previous relationship between the two and that it may have been extensive. So,
they wanted to talk to this guy quite a bit. They talked to Craig a lot. They talked to Steve a lot. Now, we're going
to talk to this Walter Zimpic. When they go back and they review the interviews from 1985, the cold case unit finds that
Zmpic had given conflicting information during the course of several interviews. And part of this was is
difficult, right? Because we said all hands on deck. Sometimes you have what we say in the captain intro last week,
too many cooks spoil the soup. Well, it's unclear to me if they were aware in 1985 that he had gi given conflicting
information because on some of these occasions he's being interviewed by the Fulton County
Sheriff's Office and on other occasions he's being interviewed by the Lucas County Sheriff's Office. according to
his alibi or whatever you want to call it, his activities or his whereabouts for the night in question were
conflicting in those those different statements. So here here's what we do know though. So according to the record,
Lori dated Walter Zimpik from the time she was in 8th grade for about 18 months. And like Craig Rup, Zimick was
significantly older than Lori. He was like Craig, 18 at the time that Lori was killed. We have Lucas County
detectives Lor and Damascow last names interviewing Zmpic on November 1st, 1985. So this this
would be after her body was located. It sounds like they're treating him as a possible suspect right away because of
his history with Lori. Zmpic said that Lori had moved on from him to date this Craig Rup, but the two were still
friendly. They spoke on the phone nearly every day. But he said in his statement
that he had actually not seen her in approximately two weeks time leading up to the night that she went missing. at
the time 1985. The investigators asked Walter Zimpik for his alibi. And let's go through let's go through Zimpik's
alibis. Yes, that that wasn't a mistake by the old colonel. That was plural on purpose because these alibis were all
over the place in my humble opinion. One story he told was that he worked as a buser at El Matador. Right. This is the
same restaurant we mentioned earlier where another employee had a party on the night that Lori was believed to have
been killed. But he didn't actually work that night. He was scheduled to work, but he says there was there was a friend
coming into town and there was an offer to go and hang out with some friends and
he he made arrangements to get his shift covered and he didn't have to go in that
night. So, in this version of his alibi, he says that he hung out with his friend
Denny Miller along with some other guys named Mark, Ken, and Denny's brother, who is unnamed in the statement or or at
least as far as what made it made to the public. He says he hung out with these guys until about 7:00 p.m. and then he
went home to so he lives at the Garden Road Apartments in Mommy, Ohio, where he lives with his mom and his
stepdad. And he says he was there for the rest of the night. Didn't see or talk to Lori at all. Walter Zmpic was
interviewed again several days later. This is on November 5th, so four days later, he sits down with Fulton County
Sheriff's Warkey and Albbright. So, please note, he's talking to a different agency and he's talking to two different
detectives 4 days later. This time, he said that he and Lori had been talking about getting back together leading up
to her death and that she planned on dumping Craig to get back with him. Walter Zmpic says in this statement he
met up with his buddies around 400 p.m. But this time he said that he went that they went to the Southwick Mall. There
he ran into another buddy. This is a co-orker of his named Bob. He said he also met a girl at the mall for the
first time. This is the first time he he had met her. Her name was Sandy. He says
that after meeting Sandy that they agreed to go back to Walter's mom's apartment. He snuck her in through the
bedroom window and they quote spent time together until she left around 2:00 a.m.
He says after Sandy left, the phone rang and the caller was Rob. So, this is a a
neighbor who was also a Lucas County deputy telling him that Lori was missing. So, these two investigators
from Fulton County Sheriff's Department in this interview, they specifically asked
Walter Zmpic whether it was he that Lori called from Mr. G's Pizza Place that night. He says no. And remember, he says
he not only did he not see her that night in the statement, he also says he did not speak with her at all that
night. A lot more to get to in this crime story. Join us back here in the garage. Same back time, same back
channel. And until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter. Heat. Heat. [Music]
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Killing was Purposeful /// Part 1 /// 841

Part 1 of 4

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Starting in the 80s and then continuing for two decades, Toledo and northwest Ohio was experiencing an increase in violent crimes. Horrifically, abduction, murder, and rape were on the rise. Some of these cases remain open to this very day. Murder was difficult to investigate. Some cases were traditional homicides - person kills someone they know for reasons specific to their relationship. Others were more random. There were cases that were closed out with someone being held accountable for their actions and then there are cases that have fallen by the wayside. These cases have gone cold. But as we look back we must consider the possibility that one or more serial offenders operated in this area and went undetected. This week we take a look at the still unsolved homicide case of Lori Ann Hill.

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Brief Summary

The episode details Lorie Anne Hill's murder case and the indictment of her ex-boyfriend Walter Zimpic after years of investigation.

Key points

Criminal Minds: Evolution Returns. The new season features a gripping investigation into a network of serial killers.
Lori Anne Hill's Disappearance. 14-year-old Lori goes missing after a night out with friends, sparking a frantic search.
Lori's Body Found. A deer hunter discovers the body of 14-year-old Lori, leading to a murder investigation.
Community's Response. The town is shaken by Lori's murder, prompting students to seek counseling.
Reward for Information. Lori's parents offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to her killer's identity.
Cold Case Renewed Attention. In 2008, a renewed push to solve Lori's case leads to new investigations.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the case of Lorie Anne Hill.

Introduction to the case being discussed.

5:04WatchMay 14, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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