Convicted of first-degree attempted murder, Samuel Columbus Hill will have the time tacked onto a 22-year sentence.
By DUANE BOURNE
Published May 6, 2003
BROOKSVILLE - Samuel Columbus Hill, standing between his lawyers, dropped his head and leaned forward, his weight supported by the table. A six-member jury had just found him guilty of first-degree attempted murder on Friday.
Sobbing, Hill apologized to his daughter, sister and ex-wife for the trouble he caused, occasionally dabbing his eyes with a tissue. He shook his head, burying it into his palms as the last of the counts were read: Guilty.
Hours later, Hill wrapped a sheet around his neck and jumped off the second tier of Hernando County Jail's B-Unit, Warden Kevin Watson said on Monday.
"He landed on his feet," said Watson, describing the suicide attempt. Hill was placed on suicide watch until Monday when he was pushed into the courtroom in a wheelchair. His gaze was fixed to the floor.
Yards away stood James McHargue, the man Hill shot with a .25-caliber pistol at point-blank range. McHargue told Judge Richard Tombrink why Hill's sentence should not be lenient.
". . . He might come after me again," said McHargue.
Assistant State Attorney William Catto agreed, and asked Tombrink to impose a 25-year sentence or McHargue would have to constantly "look over his shoulder." Hill faced between 10 and 17 years in state prison for the crime. The request did not sit well with Hill's attorney Mark Rodriguez.
Calling it laughable, Rodriguez argued that Hill has maintained his innocence since he was arrested in October 2001.
On Monday, Hill again denied that he shot McHargue in what prosecutors described as a fit of rage over his belief that McHargue snitched to the federal government that Hill cultivated marijuana in his backyard greenhouse.
Hill also told Tombrink that he was not in Brooksville at the time of the incident, an alibi that was not heard during the weeklong trial.
Rodriguez sought a delay on April 28 after learning that Hill may have been in Alabama on the night of Nov. 1, 1997, but neither Hill nor Tombrink favored postponing a trial nearly three years in the making.
Authorities said that Hill, wearing Groucho Marx glasses, fake nose and moustache, barged into McHargue's Old Crystal River Road home and shot him once in the back. McHargue spent five days recovering from his wounds at Tampa General Hospital. Hill was convicted of a federal drug possession charge and was sentenced to 22 years at Coleman Correctional Facility.
Authorities lacked the evidence to charge him with the shooting until Paul Detwiler, Hill's cellmate at Coleman and the prosecution's key witness, tipped them off that Hill confessed to shooting McHargue three years later.
"Detwiler is a known con-artist," said Hill on Monday. "He would turn over his own mother to get some time off his sentence. I never harmed a soul in my life."
Tombrink agreed that Hill posed a threat to McHargue and sentenced him to 16 years in state prison. The sentence, which Rodriguez alluded to as a death sentence given his client's age, will run consecutive to Hill's 22-year federal drug sentence.
