Danny Lee Hill and Timothy Combs were sentenced to death in Ohio for the brutal killing of a young boy in Trumbull County in 1985. Hill, an African-American, was born January 6, 1967 and Combs December 21, 1967. Not much else is known about their early lives, but Hill had a prior history of violent assaults.
On February 8, 1984, he raped a white woman named Mary Ann Brison at knifepoint while she was walking behind the Valu-King convenience store in Warren where his subsequent victim was killed. A month later, he broke into the home of Candyce Jenkins by punching out a window and entering with a knife. He then raped her anally and vaginally and made her perform oral sex on him. Additionally, Hill bit her back and breast and threatened to stick the knife "up her ass", cut out her vagina, and cut off her breasts, and as a capper rape her infant daughter, who was asleep in another room, and dismember her.Jenkins escaped while Hill was putting his clothes back on, after which he ran to a field behind the Valu-King convenience store where his later victim was killed. As Hill was 17 when the incident occurred, he plead guilty to rape in juvenile court. While he was detained at the Juvenile Justice Center, he made sexual advances on a fellow inmate named Steve Melius, who declined the offer.
On September 10, 1985, twelve year old Raymond Fife got on his bicycle to ride to the home of his friend Billy Simmons. Fife usually rode there by cutting through a wooded field with bicycle paths behind the Valu-King on Palmyra Road. That afternoon, Matthew Hunter, a high school junior, went to the store accompanied by his brother and sister, and saw Danny Hill and Timothy Combs in the parking lot. After buying some items inside, Hunter saw the two standing outside a laundromat. Combs waved and said hi as he passed. Hunter also saw Raymond Fife riding his bike in the parking lot. Another high schooler, Darren Ball, left football practice at 5:15 PM with his friend Troy Cree and walked down Willow Street to a trail in the field located behind the Valu-King. Ball said that him and Cree saw Combs on the trail walking away from the convenience store. As they got to the edge of the trail, they could hear a child yelling in seeming distress.Still another student, Don Allgood, was walking with a friend near the wooded field behind the convenience store and saw Hill, Combs, and two other individuals coming out of the field and that Hill tossed a stick into the woods. Combs was seen zipping up his pants and he looked away when he saw Allgood. At 5:50 PM, Billy Simmons called Raymond Fife's house to ask where he was. He got on his bike and rode down to the house. As it had become apparent that Raymond was nowhere to be found, Simmons rode on to a Boy Scout meeting while the Fifes began looking for him.
At 9:30 PM, Fife's father found him in the field behind the Valu-King. The 7th grader was nude and extensively beaten and burned in the face. His groin was swollen and bruised, and it appeared that he had been anally sodomized. Raymond's underwear had been tied around his neck and lit on fire. Raymond was still alive, but did not regain consciousness and died in the hospital two days later. Autopsy found the cause of death to be asphyxiation, brain bleed, and numerous other injuries. He had been strangled and had a brain hemorrhage, was burned, had injuries to the anogenital region, and bite marks on his penis. Fife had numerous external injuries and abrasions and a ligature mark around his neck. There was extensive bleeding from the anus and the autopsy found that he'd been impaled with a sharp object that punched through the rectum and into the bladder.On September 12, Hill went to the Warren police station to ask about a $5,000 reward in connection with any information about the murder of Raymond Fife. He talked to Sgt. Tom Stewart and said he'd "just seen Reecie Lowery riding the boy's bike who was beat up." When Stewart asked how he knew it was Fife's bicycle, he replied "I know it is. If you don't go out and get the bike now, maybe [Lowery] will put it back in the field." He went on to say he'd seen Lowery and Andre McCain coming through the field at 1:00 PM. Stewart noticed that Hill seemed to know an awful lot about Fife's bicycle and the underwear around his neck. When he asked if Hill knew Tim Combs, he said "Yeah I know Combs. I ain't seen him since he's been out of the joint. He likes boys. He could have done it too."
The following day, Sgt. Dennis Steinbeck of the Warren PD read Stewart's summary of the interview and went to his house and asked him to come downtown to make a statement. Hill agreed to go to the police station with Steinbeck and was read his Miranda rights, which he waived. He made an oral statement which Steinbeck wrote down, but the latter forgot to have him sign his name on it. Steinbeck later found that eyewitnesses had seen him at the Valu-King on the day of the murder.On the 16th, Steinbeck went to Hill's house with the latter's uncle, Detective Morris Hill of the Warren PD. Again he voluntarily went to the police station with his mother. He had his Miranda rights read and again waived them. After further questioning, he said he would like to talk to his uncle alone. A few minutes later, he told Hill he was in the field behind the Valu-King when Fife was killed. He later gave two taped statements. In both he admitted he witnessed the entire murder of Fife, but insisted it was all Combs and he was just a passive spectator. Hill said Combs knocked Fife off his bike, held him in a headlock, and threw him onto the bike several times. Combs then anally sodomized him and kicked his head. He yanked on his penis and took what looked like a broken broomstick handle and shoved it in his rectum. Combs choked Fife, doused him with lighter fluid, and set him on fire. Although Hill insisted he did not participate in the murder at all, he did admit he stayed with Fife while Combs left the area to get the broomstick and lighter fluid.
Combs was arrested shortly afterward and charged with the rape and murder of Fife and Hill was arrested as an accomplice. They were tried separately. Hill waived his right to a jury trial and was tried by a three judge panel in January 1986. The physical evidence at the crime scene seemed to disprove the idea that Hill merely watched as Combs brutalized Fife--the bite marks on his penis appeared to match Hill's dentition. A stick found in the woods nearby was considered to be a near-perfect fit for the injuries to the victim's anus and rectum. The panel of judges found Hill guilty of aggravated first degree murder and he was sentenced to death.Combs was tried separately by jury in May and found guilty of first degree murder, however he was 17 when the murder took place and thus could not be sentenced to death. He received three life sentences. He began serving his sentence at Grafton Correctional Institute. He appealed his conviction over the years--in 2005 Combs demanded DNA testing, but a state court of appeals ruled that there was sufficient circumstantial evidence proving his guilt. Combs passed away in an area hospital on November 9, 2018, a few months after his latest appeal was rejected.Danny Hill appealed his death sentence over two dozen times; it was overturned by the courts a few times before being reinstated. He appealed in 1989, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2006, 2008, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. In September 2022, the state set an execution date of July 22, 2026, but Ohio had not executed anyone since 2018. The execution was suspended in January 2026 over shortages of lethal injection drugs. A new tenative date of July 18, 2029 was set.Hill remains on Ohio's death row awaiting execution. Raymond Fife's father Ike passed away in 2006, but his mother Miriam has continued to support the execution of her son's killer.
>>18625977>>18625980>>18625974Systemic racism made him do it.
>murder happened when Reagan was president>maybe execution in 2029...
>>18625980this is why the death penalty needs to exist
That kid probably called them the N word.
>>18625980brutal stuff. i could never work in the medical field.
>>18626013/thread
