Clarence Hill

Case record: Clarence Hill

Status and sentence

Clarence Hill was sentenced to life in prison on December 29, 1944. He was released in 1964. Hill died of natural causes on July 9, 1973.

Background

Duck Island, in the years surrounding World War II, consisted of a dreary landfill on the Delaware River, in Hamilton Township, near Trenton, New Jersey. It became a "lover's lane," where trysting couples came by night to grapple in the dark.

In the period from 1938 to 1942, the lovers did not have Duck Island to themselves.

The offences

The first attack took place on November 8, 1938, when 20-year-old Vincent Tonzello pulled his car off the Duck Island road to spend time with Mary Mytovich, 16. The next morning, when patrolmen reached the scene, Tonzello lay dead in the car, riddled with buckshot. Mary was found nearby gravely wounded. Before she died in a Trenton hospital, Mary described the attack. She said a black man had approached the car, shooting Tonzello when Vincent rejected a demand for money. The assailant dragged Mary from the car, raped her, shot her, and left her for dead.

Eleven months later, on October 3, 1939, Frank Casper and Katherine Werner were killed near the same spot in almost identical fashion. A junk dealer found Casper dead in his car; Werner's body lay nearby, partially buried in garbage. One arm was severed by a shotgun blast that had cut her down as she ran from the car.

For the third attack, in 1940, Ludovicum Kovacs, 25, and Carolina Maroconi, 24, were parked off Cypress Lane, several miles from Duck Island, when close-range shotgun blasts killed them.

Police documented three more attacks in 1941 and 1942, but the killer lost his touch in those incidents and all six victims survived.

On November 2, 1940 outside Morrisville, Pennsylvania, Hill wounded a man but allowed him to survive.

On April 7, 1942, Hill’s targets were a newly inducted soldier, John Testa, and his girlfriend, Antoinette Marcantonio, parked on a road in Tullytown, Pennsylvania. Testa lost his right arm to a blast of pellets. Marcantonio was clubbed over the head with the gun stock. The couple survived. Cops had a better description of the gunman because they obtained the wooden forearm of the 20-gauge shotgun which fell off when Marcantonio had been clubbed. On the wooden stock, the serial number was "A-639".

Investigation

A piece of the murder weapon, carelessly dropped at the scene of a shooting in 1942, eventually led detectives to question Clarence Hill in January 1944. Hill had been drafted into the army eighteen months before and was stationed at Fort Dix in New Jersey.

After laborious records-checking that took more than a year, Hamilton cops and state troopers discovered the shotgun forearm serial number "A-639" had been pawned and redeemed at Krueger's Pawn Shop on South Broad Street. The man who had the ticket told detectives he had given it to someone else: a medium-sized black man from Hamilton named Clarence Hill.

Arrest and questioning

In December 1943, the Army arranged for the murder suspect to be transferred to Fort Dix, where Mercer County authorities questioned him. Clarence Hill told them: "I did those murders." They asked: "What murders?" He replied: "Duck Island."

Hill confessed to the series of murders and assaults on January 28, 1944 after being detained there for questioning by military authorities.

Trial

Hill was brought to trial for killing Mary Mytovich. He was convicted on December 29, 1944. It took a jury five hours to find Clarence Hill guilty.

The prosecution said he should die; the jury recommended mercy.

Sentencing

On December 29, 1944, Clarence Hill was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment.

Aftermath

Hill served fewer than 20 years. When he was paroled in 1964, he disappeared quietly into civilian life.

Other details

Clarence Hill was described as a father of two. He was married, worked as a laborer, and taught Sunday school at the Mount Olivet Baptist Church near his home on Wilfred Avenue.

In late 1942, Hill had been drafted into the Army and stationed in Georgia. A friend told police: "When he could have intercourse with them, he would have it."

The confession included an explanation of his motive for stalking lover's lanes. Hill said: "I just went there to see if I could see any parked cars there with girls and fellows in them screwing and to see if I could get a chance to bother around with a ... girl."

Hill described the killing of Kasper and Werner in 1939 in his calm description:

"I took a peep inside the car to see what was going on in there. I saw a fellow and a woman. They were on the back seat. To me, it appeared that they was having a screwing party. "I jerked the door open and they both jumped up and I shot the fellow and the girl ran out the other side screaming ... I shot her, I hit her in the arm, and she went down ..."

William "Bud" Glover, a teenager in Hamilton in the '30s, recalled: "It's spooky enough just to drive through Duck Island at night and see the woods," and added, "But to know there was a madman with a shotgun out there, it sent chills through you."

Prosecutor Andrew Duch said: "We are up against a lunatic, a man obsessed with a sex mania, probably a religious fanatic," and also described that he had already discarded his theory of a jealous spouse as the culprit.

A Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders reward of $1,000 was posted, and the Hamilton police warned everyone from using their township as a ground for trysts while patrolling Duck Island.

Five homeless black men who camped in the shanties of Duck Island were rounded up for questioning. One was brought before Mary. She said: "He's too big." Mary Myatovich died on Nov. 10.

For the Casper and Werner incident, Frank Casper’s age was given as 28, and Katherine Werner’s age was given as 36. For the Tonzello and Mary Mytovich incident, Tonzello’s age was given as 20, and Mytovich’s age was given as 15 in one account. For the Kovacs and Maroconi incident, Kovacs’s age was given as 25, and Maroconi’s age was given as 27 in one account.

Clarence Hill’s dispostion was described as "Life sentence on one count, 1944".