Erika Antoinette Hill (1992 - c. February 25, 2007) was a teenager who was found murdered in Gary, Indiana, on February 26, 2007. She was identified in 2015.
Background[]
Erika Hill was born in Joliet, Illinois, in 1992 to a mother who struggled with drug abuse, and she had a brother 19 years her senior. Her biological mother gave her up at birth, so she was raised by her great-aunt.
Her great-aunt died in 2001, so her brother offered to take custody. However, Erika stated her preference for living with her mother's cousin, Taylin Hill, rather than moving to South Carolina, where her brother lived. Erika's brother trusted Taylin with the responsibility of caring for his sister. She would eventually be adopted by Taylin and removed from public schooling; contact with her brother then ceased.
Case[]
Hill suffered severe abuse at the hands of her adoptive mother. Her body, having been transported from her Wisconsin residence, was found in an abandoned garage in Gary, Indiana, in early 2007. She had been suffocated, stabbed, beaten to death and then burned, which left her remains in an unrecognizable state. An identifying attribute of the female is that she had many scars on her face, in various stages of healing, that had occurred before she was murdered.
Her adoptive mother pleaded guilty to reduced charges in July 2016 and was sentenced to 20 years in November of that same year.
Gallery[]
Sources[]
- Erika Hill on Wikipedia
- Patch
- Chicago Tribune
- Newsbreak
- ABC 7 Chicago
- Erika Hill at Find a Grave
Notes[]
- ↑ Two sources of unknown credibility have stated this photograph is of Erika Hill, which did not appear in the media until 2023. Reliable sources have yet to use this image.