Police: Child molester killed, 45-year-old unsolved case closed

GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan — Grand Rapids police closed a 45-year-old cold case on Monday, all thanks to one woman.

Tommie Lee Hill was convicted of a series of sex crimes in Michigan and Indiana, and investigators spoke to other victims in Pennsylvania. Officials said his crimes included the rape of his young stepdaughters, assault with intent to murder, burglary, firearm possession and counterfeiting. He was on the run for 37 years.

Joe Garrett, a Grand Rapids police officer and member of the U.S. Marshals Service’s Fugitive Task Force, began investigating Hill’s case in 2017. The FBI had previously handled it.

In the 1960s, Hill began raping children, Garrett said. He was transferred from the Terre Haute, Indiana, prison to Grand Rapids to face trial for another sexual assault, a 12-year-old girl named Erma Shaw.

During his sentencing, he told authorities he was thirsty. He entered the women’s restroom, escaped through a window into a getaway car, and was never seen by Grand Rapids authorities again.

Hill was eventually arrested by police in Mississippi and resentenced in Terra Haute.

There, Hill again escaped the authorities. This time, he was released from prison due to a clerical error.

Authorities said he never set foot inside a prison again after that day and instead committed more sex crimes in Pennsylvania.

The case was closed. A $7,000 reward for information was offered through Silent Observer, an anonymous tips website, but years passed without anyone coming forward.

That changed in 2017 thanks to a single anonymous tip. A woman called and said she had seen Hill with his broken-down car on the side of the road in Pittsburgh in the 1970s. That was enough information to reopen the investigation and hand the case over to Garrett.

Garrett described what happened next as an “investigation with on-scene forces.” He worked closely with one of Hill’s survivors, Erma Major Shaw, now 57, who wanted the justice she never received as a 12-year-old.

Major Shaw was abused and impregnated by Hill in the 1970s. She was not his only victim.

“I have a child who was buried in a cemetery because of him,” Major Shaw said at the press conference on Monday.

Now she’s old enough to stand up for something she never had to: Major Shaw worked with Garrett for seven years to close this case.

Through genealogical evidence Hill had left with his victims, Garrett and Major Shaw were able to knock on the doors of six contacts Hill had in Pittsburgh, each of whom had their own stories of how Hill had sexually molested or raped family members.

Through these contacts, Garrett discovered that Hill had changed his name while in Pittsburgh. This led them to Pittsburgh authorities, where they met a 78-year-old detective who had been investigating the case for years. He showed them photographs of a man named Abdula Muhammad.

Major Shaw confirmed that this was her rapist.

Garrett and Major Shaw also confirmed another detail about Hill. He was killed on December 4, 1983.

Hill was shot in the back of the head by a man named Vernon Phipps after Hill apparently abused his sister.

“He seems to have gotten his own form of street justice,” Garrett said.

Major Shaw will never see her rapist behind bars. But she will be able to move on after this case and says she is grateful for the opportunity to finally move on.

In 2018, she wrote a book to encourage other survivors to get involved and keep an eye on Hill’s case. She hopes to one day start a nonprofit to raise more money to help solve unsolved cases.

“If he were alive, he would still be bullying children,” said Major Shaw. “As long as I’m still breathing, I’d keep going.”

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