PUBLISHED SUNDAY NOVEMBER 18, 1997
Copyright 1997 The Pensacola News Journal. All
rights reserved
Hill's criminal
record
not what he says it is
By John W.
Allman
staff writer
Steve Hill depicts his youth as a
troubled time of drug addiction and crime.
He tells of frequent problems in school,
extended jail stays, random criminal acts and a
never-ending flow of drugs.
In his autobiography, "Stone Cold
Heart," Hill writes of running wild in the
streets of Huntsville, Ala., in the early 1970s,
doing all kinds of drugs and getting arrested
frequently.
Hill claims that he was:
- Expelled from high school.
- Arrested at least 13 times between high
school graduation in 1972 and December
1975.
- Sentenced to short jail terms or
probation by a number of judges.
But much of what Hill describes cannot be
verified.
And his stories differ from what others
recall.
Hill blames the passage of time for that:
Since the events happened more than 20 years ago,
he says, people have forgotten some facts and
specific details.
But even the police, court and school records
differ from his accounts.
Hill wrote in "Stone Cold Heart":
I was constantly being led down the
school corridors to the principal's office.
Expelled from school again!
Hill graduated from Grissom High School in
1972. His senior class, had 547 students.
Few of Hill's teachers are still there. Edna
Keel, who taught economics and psychology, said
she remembers him only because of his hair, which
was longer than most other students.
"He always kept it neat," she said.
In the early 1970s, it was not uncommon for
schools to have an assistant principal assigned
to handle discipline. At Grissom High, that was
Ray Reynolds.
"I never had any serious problems with
Steve," said Reynolds, 60, who now teaches
American history at Sparkman High School in
Huntsville. "He was the usual high school
kid in the '70s."
Reynolds used a paddle to enforce the rules.
He remembers paddling Hill, but only for minor
offenses such as being late for school.
Hill said in a recent interview that Reynolds
paddled him because he had drugs.
Reynolds said he never disciplined Hill for
drugs.
Hill admitted in an interview with the News
Journal that he was never expelled from Grissom.
But he claims he passed out in the school
cafeteria after taking Quaaludes, a depressant,
and school officials had to call his mother to
pick him up.
After the News Journal interview, Hill had his
mother, Ann, call the newspaper to verify that
she picked him up at school.
Hill wrote in "Stone Cold Heart":
The cycle of drugs-crime-jail,
drugs-crime-jail repeated over and over only
to be stopped by death itself.
In the early 1970s, the population of
Huntsville was almost 140,000.
The drug culture of the late 1960s was just
surfacing in the northern Alabama city, nestled
just below the Tennessee state line.
It caught many people, especially local law
enforcement officials, by surprise.
The Huntsville Police Department created a
drug unit in 1969 to battle what it said were the
three most common drugs: marijuana, LSD and
Dilaudid.
The city did not have a significant problem
with what police considered the hard drugs:
heroin and cocaine, Huntsville police officials
said.
Hill, however, has described the city of his
youth as a haven for hard-drug use. His favorite,
he said, was morphine.
In his sermons, he has called himself a
junkie, but now says the truth is that he tried
heroin only a few times.
"I don't ever want to depict myself as
what you would call a mainline heroin
addict," Hill said.
Hill's depictions of his criminal past also
raise questions.
He uses vague terms when he mentions his
arrests. Though he claims police took him to jail
in Colorado, Arizona and California, as well as
in Alabama, he can offer no proof that any arrest
outside Alabama ever happened.
His explanation is that many were for crimes
that were never solved.
Hill's attorney, Walter Chandler, suggests
that some were not actual arrests but were
instances in which Hill was picked up for
questioning.
One story Hill has told on stage numerous
times is that he and some friends were arrested
"for breaking into a drug store" in
Madison, Ala.
That arrest is not on his record.
National law enforcement reports, Huntsville
police records and Madison County Court records
together show four arrests: two on drug charges,
in 1974 and 1975; two on charges of attempting to
break into an automobile, in 1973 and 1975.
Hill's record shows he was convicted of only
one charge: possession and sale of Dilaudid, a
pain-reliever.
Hill wrote in "Stone Cold Heart":
Without any direction, I began to
hitchhike around the country. Wherever I
could find shelter became my home in caves,
under bridges, in the desert, and in street
missions.
After high school graduation, Hill said, he
took to the road for three years, criss-crossing
the country from the East to West Coast and back
again.
Yet from Sept. 21, 1973 to March 4, 1975, Hill
was employed full time in Huntsville at John Blue
Farm Equipment Co., making castings for farm
equipment in the foundry. The foundry has since
closed, but the business is still open.
Company employment records show no indication
that he missed work. He left he was not fired in
1975, the file shows.
Hill said recently he did work at John Blue
but spent a majority of the time hitchhiking
through Arizona, California and Colorado. He said
he worked odd jobs in Colorado and also at a
convenience store.
Hill cannot explain how he was capable of
traveling so much while working a full-time job.
"I don't remember all the details. In
Stone Cold Heart,' I don't say dates. It was a
total blur," Hill said. "I knew I
worked for John Blue."
Hill wrote in "Stone Cold Heart":
No longer did I even try to lie and
connive my way to get the judge to let me off
from punishment for my crimes. This was
partly because I usually didn't remember what
I had done under the influence of narcotics
to end up in jail. Yet somehow, the judges
seemed not to want to waste the taxpayers'
money on me and usually just gave me a short
jail sentence or probation.
Judge John David Snodgrass remembers Steve
Hill.
Snodgrass, 59, was a circuit court judge in
Madison County in 1976 when Hill appeared before
him on two counts of possession and sale of LSD
and two counts of possession and sale of
Dilaudid.
The judge dismissed three counts and convicted
Hill on one.
Enter Jim Summers.
Summers had moved to Huntsville in 1968 and
established Outreach Ministries of Alabama Inc.
The nonprofit organization was designed to help
kids on drugs learn to live a spiritual life.
Summers had met Hill once before at a Friday
night Outreach service but the two did not become
friends until Hill was in jail, waiting to go to
court.
Summers said he felt a calling to help Hill;
he began lobbying Snodgrass to release Hill to
his ministry.
Snodgrass reluctantly agreed. The county was
looking for alternative ways to provide for
offenders.
"It seemed like a good test proposition
for Summers to see if that was going to be a
workable situation," Snodgrass said.
Snodgrass sentenced Hill to two years in the
state penitentiary but changed it to two years of
probation with the condition that Hill complete a
Christian-based treatment program called Teen
Challenge.
Hill spent 3 months with Summers in
Huntsville, then was sent to Cape Girardeau, Mo.,
for eight months of Bible study in Teen
Challenge.
When he completed that program, Hill entered a
one-year program at Twin Oaks Academy in Lindale,
Texas, headed by David Wilkerson, founder of Teen
Challenge.
The school is now closed and Wilkerson has
since founded Times Square Church/World Challenge
Inc. in Manhattan.
When he finished at Twin Oaks, Hill was hired
by Summers' ministry to work with prisoners in
Huntsville. He did that for four years, and said
he often worked with Snodgrass to find ways to
help drug offenders.
Snodgrass, however, said he has seen Hill only
once since the day he sentenced him. That was a
few years ago when Hill visited Huntsville while
taking a break from his missionary work in South
America.
Hill cannot explain why the judge's account
differs from his.
"Whether he remembers it or not is up to
him," Hill said.
top of page
|