Original subtitles

I arrived and all I could see was a male with his back to us and a female facing

us. There was blood spatter.

There's bullet.

It's absolute chaos.

I didn't know who the victims were and who the suspects were.

They found a backpack strategically placed to go grab.

You could definitely call it a murder kit.

A hostage kit.

We open the door of the shed and we can see a human foot.

Our hearts drop.

When it comes to people getting divorced or child custody issues, people lose

their mind.

She actually called his work and said he issued threats and they wouldn't let

him in the building.

There was one note that I recall that said crime equals desire, ability, and

opportunity. The callousness behind this plan was something that I've never seen

in my now 30 -year career.

The city of Dublin sits about 20 miles from the city of Oakland.

There's a growing community that has incorporated a lot of Silicon Valley

of folks. We didn't have a whole lot of murders that take place. I'm guessing we

probably had maybe one every other year at the time.

About 5 .50 p .m., a call for service came out through dispatch. Gunshots were

fired at a residence on the west end of town.

I arrive, and I see my partner, who happened to get there before I did, and

was out front talking with some of the neighbors.

What we learned was that...

Sally, who lived at the residence, had a boyfriend, Lester.

She's 91 years old.

Les is also in his 90s, and he calls her every day at 4 o 'clock.

And Lester had repeatedly tried to get a hold of Sally that day, and she wasn't

answering, and he became concerned. So he asked his son, Jeff, to respond to

house.

When the son got to the residence, the son...

heard what he thought was a gunshot.

At that point, the son went to the neighbor's house, and we received a 911

So my partner and I entered.

I could hear a huge commotion, yelling, screaming.

You can kind of hear thumping.

We can tell it was upstairs.

We get to the top of the stairs.

All I could see was a male facing away from us, laying in the hallway with his

back to us, and a female standing in the hallway facing us.

The female is covered in blood.

There's an expandable baton on the ground that's bent. It looks like it's

used to hit either the female or the male. We don't know.

There was blood spattered. There's a stun gun.

There's bullets on the floor.

Absolute chaos.

We started giving commands as we normally would, you know, show us your

After telling everyone to stop, the male made a kind of this abrupt move.

And although we didn't know who the suspect was, the male tends to be the

aggressor in domestic violence. And given the fact that he's maybe trying to

flee, try to get out of there. My partner deployed his taser to subdue

And I can hear the male yelling out about his child, asking, where is my

daughter, type of verbiage. And the female who's standing in front of me

towards a bathroom. It's kind of eerie because there is a full -length mirror

that bathroom door.

In the reflection, what I saw was another woman dressed in all black who

appeared to be hiding in the bedroom.

Now I've got an additional person.

And at that point, I had the rest of that hallway to search. I still had a

to locate. Maybe more victims, maybe more suspects.

I ordered her out of the bedroom.

That same moment, I can hear other officers coming in and coming up the

to assist.

The male was handcuffed and escorted out of the house.

They escort him to a patrol car, and they do a path search of him.

He didn't have any weapons.

The women are escorted out of the house as well.

One female, she appears calm.

The other woman, she's got some visible injuries to her.

The male who has injuries, he's got redness all over his face, his head.

swollen or starting to swell.

He's been in a fight of some sort.

My partner and I continued the search of the upstairs, and in the bathroom we

located the daughter, a two -year -old girl. She was handed over to one of the

other responding officers who escorted her or took her outside away from the

residence.

We didn't find anyone else in the house.

We're trying to sort out who everybody is on scene.

In talking to the two females on the curb line, we learned that one of them

Rosa Hill.

The other female we identified as May Lee, Rosa's mom.

We found out that Rosa was married to Eric Hill, who was the individual

handcuffed in the police car.

They were estranged at that point, but they were married, and we found out that

they did have, at the time, a two -year -old child in common.

Eric lives here with his daughter.

The two -year -old ultimately went into the care of Child Protective Services

for that night.

It appeared to me that we potentially have one or two female victims of

domestic violence and this male suspect who has gotten into some sort of

physical altercation with his wife.

But we've got to figure out what the facts are.

And in talking to Eric while he's in the back of a troll vehicle, he is frantic.

He was concerned about his grandmother, Sally, and where she was.

She's 91 years old.

This was Sally's house, and she wasn't in the house.

You can hear him talk about how she doesn't go anywhere, she doesn't drive.

He's pretty much homebound, so she has to be somewhere in the residence.

So our group of folks searched through the residence again, tried to find

but we didn't find her. Very quickly, we looked in the backyard, but once again,

we did not see her.

And we're starting to get concerned about where she might be.

At that point, we basically sealed the house off and made sure that there was

entry into that location.

When walking through the hallway upstairs, there was blood strewn

walls. There was a stun gun up there. There was bullets on the ground. It

like two different calibers of bullets that were on the ground.

Why is there all these weapons? This isn't just a domestic, regular domestic

violence incident that occurred.

There's something else that went down.

And now add in the fact that Sally is missing.

The hair on the back of my neck is starting to stand up.

When the officers conducted a search of the backyard, they found a backpack.

And this backpack looked almost as if it was strategically placed underneath a

wheelbarrow as to hide it or to set it up to go grab when needed.

In that backpack were a set of handcuffs, a three -blade throwing star,

saw, goggles, duct tape, rope, arrows for a crossbow gun.

Why are these things here, and how do they fit into the puzzle of this

investigation? How were they either used in this crime already, or how were they

potentially staged at this location to be used at a later time?

We asked Eric if the backpack belonged to him.

We asked Rosa and May about the backpack, and nobody involved in this is

to claim that the backpack belongs to them.

And at that point in time, they do a path search of Rosa and May.

And when they encounter Rosa, she happens to have a firearm in her pant

Rosa said during the altercation that Eric produced a gun and threatened her.

She said during the struggle that Eric dropped the gun and that she had picked

it up.

She said that she came to see.

her two -year -old baby, and to talk about custody issues with Eric.

When Rosa got there, the front door was left ajar.

She goes in the house, saw that nobody was home, and waits for Eric.

Her mother met her there because she was afraid of Eric.

He had rage, and she said that Eric attacked her and her mother.

And she was able to acquire the firearm because he pointed at her.

Also, Rosa and May never encountered Sally while in the house.

But Eric was blaming both May and Rosa that they had come and they were

attacking him.

We know that Eric has injuries. We know that May has injuries.

Rosa really didn't have any injuries at all, but...

All three individuals were taken and assessed medically, and then we're going

be on route to the station.

We really started wondering what was going on here, and we knew we needed to

keep digging deeper.

We're getting two different stories and trying to navigate who are real

suspects. At the same time, finding Sally is extremely important, and we

determine if...

She is related to the assault investigation that's going on at this

This case was crazy, like nothing that I'd ever seen in my law enforcement

career.

We want to know if there was previous violence involved with Eric and Rosa.

We all went to a lawyer to see about getting some visitation rights.

I tell mom, no matter what, no matter what, don't open the door.

There was a Google search of how to murder.

This was not a spur of the moment crime. This was really planned out.

At this point in the investigation, multiple things are happening. There are

several people doing several different things.

We're searching that residence to try to find Sally. The property is rather

large. I think it's about a half an acre.

And I assigned officers to do a canvas of the area as well.

At the same time, Rosa Hill, May Lee, and Eric Hill are being taken to the

hospital to be treated for the injuries.

While Rosa, May, and Eric were assessed medically, we want to know if there was

previous violence involved with Eric and Rosa.

And if there's anything that recently occurred that might have triggered this

type of response.

Eric's father, Greg, who was the son of Sally, lived out of state at the time.

We called and we had a conversation with Greg Hill.

And in talking to him, we found out that he already knew what was going on.

I live out of state. And earlier that day, I got a call from Les, Mom's

boyfriend of many years.

And he was just frantic.

They always spoke on the phone on the days that they weren't together.

That day, he was calling her and calling her, and he couldn't get her. And he

called me to say, you better come out here. Something's happened to Sally.

He wasn't sure what. They couldn't find her.

So I had to fly to California.

And this had called his son to go over and check on my mom.

And they had come to the house, and they couldn't tell what was happening.

And so they called the police.

And then Les had called and said that Eric had been handcuffed and put in a

patrol car.

And I'm like, what?

They couldn't tell by the way things were going down, whether Eric was the

aggressor or what was happening.

I was shocked.

But not really. I mean, by that time, trouble was well afoot.

In 2002, Eric was working for the Alameda County Social Services.

That's where he met May, and May introduced him ultimately to Rosa, who

daughter. Rosa had worked in Silicon Valley as an information technician.

When Eric first mentioned meeting Rosa, he talked about how much fun they had,

how smart Rosa was.

They seemed to like some of the same things.

Eric was very, very happy when he met Rosa.

We learned that Eric Hill and Rosa Hill had been married since 2005.

Eric did tell me that as soon as the wedding was over, everything changed.

It was no longer the sweet woman that he'd fallen in love with.

But Eric was extremely happy one year later when he found out that they were

going to have a baby.

He just couldn't wait.

But when the baby was born, that's when trouble really became evident.

Rosa was no longer working, so he took on a second job working nights at

Walgreens.

But it never seemed to be enough.

Rosa was never happy.

And then very soon after the baby was born, Rosa kicked Eric out.

And he went out to Dublin and told my mother, who was his grandmother.

And that was the beginning of his living with her.

So at that point, Rosa wouldn't let him see the baby, and we all went to a

lawyer with Eric to see about getting some visitation rights anyway.

During the custody hearings, there were many things that each of them had to do,

and part of it was to see a family mediator, and I know she didn't follow

through with that.

Rosa was told to get a job. She didn't get a job.

She didn't do any of the things the judge told her. Over time, Eric was

more and more time with Elizabeth.

That's when it got ugly.

Rosa started making up stories around Eric molesting the baby.

It was quite an ordeal for Eric to go through this, but he was cleared of all

those allegations.

And then Rosa...

called his work and said he issued threats and they wouldn't let him in the

building. They did have to put him on suspension, but then after they

investigated everything, he got his job back.

At that point, Eric was given 85 % physical custody and 100 % legal

I was concerned for both Eric and my mother because Rosa was intent on making

Eric's life hell.

And I tell mom, no matter what, no matter what, don't open the door to

There's something wrong. Rosa and Eric are estranged. They have separated, and

Eric has received primary custody of their two -year -old.

Why are these two females inside this house?

We know that Sally Hill lives in this house.

We know that there was an altercation upstairs, but we don't know where Sally

is, and we don't know what happened to her.

We continue to look for Sally, and kind of the last place that we hadn't

searched yet was a shed that was on the side yard of the house, and it had a

padlock, so it wasn't easily accessible.

We went and got a bolt cutter, and as we cut the padlock and opened it, Our

worst nightmares occurred.

We continue to look for Sally, Eric's grandmother. She's 91 years old, lives

this house, and we can't find her.

We open the door to the shed in the backyard, and we see a

garbage can.

And we can see a human foot.

And we all know that's Sally in the garbage can.

And our hearts dropped.

She was found with a plastic bag over her head, wrapped in sheets, wrapped in

rope. There had been no respect for her whatsoever.

The coroner's office was summoned and they came out and removed her body.

And we now know that we have a homicide investigation.

After finding Sally, we know that there's no reason for Eric to harm his

grandmother. So at this point, he was considered to be a victim in this

incident. And Rosa and May had no reason to go in that house without anybody's

permission.

We believe they are involved with Sally's murder, but we're still trying

figure things out.

And at the same time, when one of the officers was doing a canvas of the

neighborhood, he located a vehicle that was occupied by an Asian male.

He was about a block away from the crime scene.

He had...

Moved his feet back and was slouched down in the vehicle, almost like he

want to be seen.

He was identified as Ping Lee, the husband of May Lee and the father of

He tells us that his wife, May, had asked him to take her to the residence

Dublin, had asked him to drop her off about a block away.

He knew that Sally lived there. He knew that his son -in -law was living there.

And he also knew that May was going there to help out Rosa in some way. He

denied knowing anything else. But we found it very strange that he would drop

her off a block away, not in front of the house.

From where we find him, we know that he was able to see everything that

happened, and still at no time does he exit his vehicle or come and contact the

police to see what's going on. He has now potentially brought the suspect to

this crime, and he's taken back to the station for interviewing.

Detectives return to the station to start conducting interviews of everybody

involved.

They had just gotten out of the hospital. Rosa really didn't have any

at all.

And Mae suffered a small laceration on her head requiring a couple stitches or

more. Eric had laceration to his head, multiple taser probes.

Eric had taser marks on the front of his body.

Yes, Eric had been tased by our deputies, however he was tased in the

So it was definitely evident that he had also been tased by either Rosa or May.

He had an injury to his throat. There was definitely some pressure that had

applied. You could see that there was redness and some swelling there as well.

He basically was beaten all over the place.

But going into Eric's interview, what I'm trying to find out is, step by step,

how did this evolve to what it became?

I really didn't think Rosa and May would do something like that.

I thought things were finally getting normal until the very moment of the

attack.

I told the police when I first met Rosa. She was kind of shy.

But once we started talking, I got to really see how smart she was.

I got to become fascinated by her.

But after we got married, Rosa started picking fights over everything.

At a certain point, Rosa basically told me never to come back.

And for about a year, she did not let me see my daughter. That was devastating.

And that's why I had to start court proceedings. And I sued for 50

-50 custody.

Once I was granted some custody of my daughter, Rosa started getting really

and vindictive.

And when she made these accusations that I was abusing and molesting my

daughter, I was dumbstruck. She did that, not because they were

true, but because they would hurt me. And it worked.

But by January of 2009, I had 85 % fiscal custody and 100

% legal custody.

We kind of developed a routine.

With the custody, doing our handoffs and trades, and May was always the one that

did the talking.

Rosa just stood in the background.

I thought they came to accept what was going on.

And then the police let me know that they had found that my grandmother was

dead.

I broke down and cried.

I definitely feel lucky to be alive.

In talking to Eric, he was very emotional.

And he had just gotten out of the hospital. He just got beat.

And he was very much upset about his grandmother.

She was always...

big on family, and she loved being a grandmother.

I never dreamed that Rosa and Mae would do something like that.

You can see his physical reaction recalling the events.

In the morning, like any other day, I went to work.

I got off at 5.

And I went down to the daycare center and picked up my daughter and drove

straight home the way I normally did.

But when I got there, Les' son Jeff and his wife

Uta were up by the front door.

Les was the guy my grandmother was dating, and he had called multiple

she never answered the phone.

He was really worried about my grandmother's welfare.

Les, also in his 90s, sent his son, Jeff, to go and check on her.

They stayed by the front door.

I went upstairs and I was carrying my daughter with me.

By the time I got to my grandmother's room, I didn't see her.

I heard a noise behind me.

And I turned around and I saw...

May in the hallway, and I was like, why are you here?

And she said that my grandmother had called her because she needed help,

made no sense because my grandmother would have called a bunch of other

first.

May said that my grandmother was down in the garage.

I asked May to watch my daughter. I put her down, but as I was running out

of the room, Rosa...

stepped out, and hit me with a stun gun.

Apparently it made a loud noise because it scared Jeff and Uta, and they ran out

and went over to the neighbor's house to call the police.

May started hitting me with the baton, and Rosa was

kicking me.

When I started seeing blood dripping down my face, that's when I realized

is definitely a...

A live or die moment.

I started fighting back.

But then they knocked me over onto my back.

May was choking me with the baton.

And at this moment, Rosa came out of the room with the gun.

And pointed it at my chest.

And told me to stop fighting.

At this point...

I gave up.

And, you know, they said, will you give up custody?

And I said yes.

About this time is when I heard a siren outside.

They would have killed me definitely if the cops hadn't shown up.

In talking to Eric, Everything was consistent, but it was very sad to have

individual recall these events.

Of course, Eric was no longer being considered a suspect.

So after his interview, we allowed him to leave.

My phone rings, and it's Eric telling me they had found Sally's body.

I could hardly take it in that this could actually happen.

It was just a nightmare, a traumatic nightmare.

And I had to take him over to the Division of Family Services so he could

the baby.

It was a huge relief to finally see her again and be able to pick her up and

hold her.

At this point, Rosa and May are our prime suspects in this crime.

Now what we want to know is...

Why did they do this?

Why did they have to kill Sally?

Did she just get in the way? Was it on purpose?

We need to continue to dig and find more evidence to tell what was really going

on. At this point in the investigation, multiple things are happening.

Detectives are interviewing Rosa, May, and Ping.

Investigators are at the house conducting further analysis of the

And while doing another canvas of the area around Sally's residence, looking

anything or any evidence that may help in our case, we found an Acura Integra a

block and a half away from our crime scene.

A registration check of that vehicle came back to May Lee, and the keys to

Acura were found in Rose's possession.

That was definitely a vehicle of interest that we wanted to search

Inside the Acura Integra, we found a hackthaw, we found a samurai sword, we

found a crossbow, we found handcuffs, we found .22 caliber bullets.

Finding all these just crazy pieces of evidence in vehicles and backpacks at

scene, this was not a spur -of -the -moment crime. This was really planned

Also, the coroner's office did an autopsy of Sally.

Her cause of death was found to be strangulation.

She was also found to have lacerations to the head and to the hand, consistent

with being struck with a metal object. We believe metal, police, baton, as well

as puncture wounds, which were able to associate to a taser.

When we interview May, she immediately invoked her right to an attorney, so we

don't question her any further.

Ping just... basically says that he had driven May to the scene and was waiting

for May to resurface.

Rosa still claimed that she was there with her mother, May, to confront him

about child custody, have a conversation.

Eric attacks her and her mother, and she is just merely trying to defend

herself.

But we share with Rosa that we're taking her into custody, that we're going to

be taking her clothing, we're going to be taking her DNA, and no emotional

response.

May was also arrested for murder, and Ping Lee is arrested for accessory

to murder.

Based on the evidence that we have found throughout our investigation, this

wasn't just a crime that just popped up and happened.

This crime was...

planned out. But now we need to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to

prove this case and tell the story of why it happened.

We identify that Rosa lived at a residence in Fremont and that May and

lived at a residence in Antioch. So we authored search warrants for all of the

residents that they were associated with.

But nothing...

Significant is located at either location.

The residence in Antioch, it was weird because it didn't look like anybody had

lived in there. So we were a little puzzled by that.

And I'm like, I'm going to check one of our databases to see if they have any

previous residences that they might be staying at still.

So I learned that there was a Brentwood address that we had no prior knowledge

of. And I reached out to the U .S. Postal Inspector, and all three of them,

Rosa, May, and Ping, were receiving mail at the Brentwood location.

Get a search warrant for the Brentwood house, and that's where we just discover

just a plethora of evidence.

It was like a goldmine.

We served the search warrant at the Brentwood residence, and as soon as we

breached that door, it was a goldmine full of evidence.

We found the boxes from the tasers. There were receipts to items that were

at the crime scene.

There was a computer, and the computer was collected and taken to a forensic

to see what kind of searches were done.

directly linked to Eric and to Sally.

Some were up in the master bedroom, some were down in common areas like the

kitchen. There was a list of troublemakers where Sally's name was

with Eric.

There was one note, revenge for Rosa, which to me meant that revenge was

going to be against Eric, the one that was taking custody away from Rosa.

Another note that we found said crime equals desire, ability, and opportunity.

We found notes where they were stalking Eric.

What time he got home, what time he left, when he went somewhere.

So they knew that they would encounter Sally.

So they had to have a plan on how that was going to occur before they took out

Eric.

So after we conclude collecting all the evidence at the Brentwood address, we

wanted more evidence to help bolster our case.

We want to know where these weapons were obtained, who made those purchases, and

when they were purchased.

Tasers, they have serial numbers. So in contacting Taser about the one that was

left at the crime scene, they informed us where the tasers were purchased, and

we did some follow -up there with... the individual who sold the taser. He

described selling the two particular tasers to an older Asian

female. The purchase occurred about two weeks or so before Sally's murder and

the violent attack on Eric.

And then in follow -up, we were able to determine that anybody who purchases a

taser has to pay like an activation fee.

So in looking up the associated serial numbers to the two tasers that were

purchased, the credit card that was used belonged to May Lee.

This solidifies that May was involved with this murder plan from the

Next, these firearms, where did they come from?

Looking at the serial numbers, we were able to determine that one of the

firearms was purchased at a gun show in Nevada.

We were able to make contact with the individual that sold it.

And in talking to him, we found out that he remembered quite clearly the

individuals that he sold his firearm to.

And it was to two Asian females who he described as lucky if they were 100

pounds wet.

Rosa and Mae went to the gun show in October, way before the crime actually

occurred. And as we continue to investigate, we learn that Rosa went

to Reno before that.

We were able to identify a co -worker of hers that took a trip with her to Reno

a couple months prior to the homicide. And she made some odd purchases at a

sporting goods store, two samurai swords.

and a bow and arrow set.

And we ended up finding those inside Rose's car that was left unseen.

And then we get the results from the forensic lab on the computer, and the

thing that just jumps off the paper is a Google search of how to murder.

There were several other things that were found on that computer.

Confusion in elderly, medications that are used for the elderly, things that

would really relate or show maybe what was planned to happen to Sally.

Rose had developed a hatred of my grandmother because as I was starting to

in the courts, she assumed that my grandmother was paying for the attorney,

which was not true.

It was clear that they had put all the blame on Eric and Sally for the custody

issues.

And the contents of the backpack, definitely they spoke to what their

was.

You could definitely call it a murder kit, a hostage kit. They

brought that there with full intent to use on Sally and Eric.

So when looking at the evidence recovered from the Brentwood residence,

clear that this murder was premeditated.

There was a letter found which was titled Operation Custody, a plan to

murder Sally and Eric.

to gain full custody of Rosa and Eric's daughter.

The plan began in fall of 2008 when Rosa becomes obsessed with gaining full

custody of her daughter and will do anything to make it happen.

She and her mother, May, named their plot Operation Custody. Over the

month, they look at ways to commit and get away with murder.

First, they researched deadly substances including arsenic, cyanide, strychnine,

mustard gas, and ammonia.

After deciding against poisons or toxins, the pair began amassing an

cache of weapons from guns and tasers to a samurai sword and crossbow.

They then assembled their kill kit and decided to execute their plan.

On the day of the murder, they drive to my house, planning to murder Sally and

me.

Once inside the residence, Rosa may beat and strangle Sally to death, stuff her

body into a garbage can, and lie in wait for Eric to come home.

When Eric arrived at home, they ambush him and begin using the baton and

And after all that, they plan to kill Eric.

Which they thought would result in Rosa being granted full custody.

This plan was so intricate, and it all fell apart because Lester really cared

about my grandmother.

If he wouldn't have called Jeff and Uta, and if they hadn't shown up and called

the cops, May and Rosa would have gotten away with it.

I definitely feel like I've been blessed on that front.

Two years later, in 2011, May and Rosa to trial.

for the murder of Sally Hill and attempted murder of Eric Hill.

They were convicted.

An Antioch woman and her mother were convicted today in the killing of a 91

-year -old great -grandmother. Selma Hill's body was found stuffed into a

garbage...

callousness behind this plan was something that I've never seen in my now

30 -year career.

When it comes to people getting divorced or child custody issues, people lose

their mind.

But for a family to be involved in the actual

execution of a murder plan is unique.

I have to say that as bad as this experience was, my daughter's done well.

Great kid who's been my best friend.

She's been able to have a better relationship with my side of the family,

I don't know if she ever would have had this not happened.

I just try to focus on the good.

I have great memories of my mom, wonderful memories.

I love my mom's smile. I love my mom's heart.

She was always empathizing with me and everybody else.

Pull it all together, she was amazing.

I was lucky.

I was lucky.

Very lucky.