Aimee Yee

Daily Star Staff Writer

City police who worked the Sadie Henderson case are disgusted that the prime suspect's past crimes can't be used against him, but they are even more frustrated because witnesses in the case who've run afoul of the law actually helped Jerry Hills walk out of the parish jail a free man, detectives said.

Since 50-year-old Hill's release last week, detectives and officers have been busy discussing the elements of the 9-year-old murder case. The evidence they say shows Hills was the perpetrator and how the investigation will continue to be conducted.

Problems with the evidence in the case against Hills led 21st Judicial District Attorney Scott Perrilloux to go before another grand jury earlier this month. He presented the jury with evidence of a hair, which doesn't belong to Hills, that was found on the victim after the 5-year-old kindergartner's body was pulled from a pond on Yokum Road nine days after she went missing from her grandmother's front yard.

The original grand jury that indicted Hills in 1996 wasn't presented with the hair and passed a true bill agreeing there was enough evidence to prosecute the man police believe killed the girl.

Hills spent the past nine years awaiting trial in the parish jail while his attorney, Martin Regan of New Orleans, worked to free his client. Hills was facing the death penalty for the first-degree murder and rape of the child until last week's grand jury returned a no true bill.

All of the other evidentiary problems in the case revolved around the credibility of witnesses who allegedly place Hills with the victim on the night of her death, Perrilloux outlined during a recent interview. Most of those witnesses have since been arrested for felony charges or have such charges pending in the 21st Judicial District Court.

For officers who worked the case and remember dragging ponds for the victim's body, the fact that Hills' past crimes aren't admissible anger them, especially when they learned key witnesses are no longer credible. Their crimes spoil their testimony in the capital murder case, detectives said.

Police say Hills' previous crimes -- DWIs, simple battery charges, a manslaughter conviction, three alleged rapes and one alleged attempted rape -- all show his violence against women is extreme.

Assistant Chief Kenneth Corkern referred to the May 14, 1975, murder of Hammond resident Sue "Cat" Lewis of which Hills was arrested, indicted and set for trial by Sept. 22, 1975. During his arraignment, Hills pleaded not guilty, and by the time the trial date rolled around, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter, according to records in the criminal division at the 21st Judicial District Court.

A sanity report commission from Sept. 18, 1975, from the Southeast Louisiana State Hospital, showed Hills was insane.

He was sentenced to five years in the Department of Corrections for the stabbing death of Lewis but released on April 3, 1978, after serving just three years. He received an automatic first offender pardon, according to a verification release for a first offender pardon.

He was also given credit for time served in the parish jail, from May 14 to Sept. 4, 1975, records show.

A 15-year-old girl who was driven to a remote location and allegedly raped by Hills on Jan. 3, 1994, refused to testify against him. Although a warrant was issued in the girl's rape, it wasn't executed until two years later after he was in custody for the first-degree murder charge of Henderson, court records show.

Another woman, who also alleged she was picked up by Hills, driven to a remote area where he attempted to rape her at knifepoint on April 15, 1992, testified that Hills' mother allegedly paid her $100 to drop the charges, so she did, court records show.

Hills' mother has refused to cooperate with the district attorney's office, and Perrilloux said she is the only living witness who can place Hills at Sadie's home at the time of the child's disappearance.

Another victim of Hills was allegedly struck in the head with a claw hammer on Dec. 10, 1990, after he offered her a ride. He allegedly took her to a remote location and raped her, but he was never arrested on the charge, court records show. A warrant was issued, but Hills was never arrested for the crime.

Prosecutors said the crimes -- three alleged rapes and one attempted rape -- showed evidence of Hills' method and system of attacking women. However, the Supreme Court ruled twice that his criminal record could not be allowed as evidence in the murder trial.

If the Supreme Court said Hills' past crimes couldn't be used against him, why then, Corkern asked, are the witnesses' crimes being used against Sadie Henderson?