Escape adds 5 charges for Hill

By Ed Runyan | March 28, 2012 at 12:02a.m.

Hill

WARREN

Instead of willingly returning to West Virginia to face a theft charge, Charles S. Hill now is looking at five felony charges related to his escape from authorities Monday.

Hill, 36, of Alliance, will be arraigned today in Warren Municipal Court on two counts of felonious assault and single counts of failure to comply with the orders of a police officer, receiving stolen property and abduction.

If convicted, Hill could receive a 30-year prison sentence. He’s also accused of stealing $45,000 in cash in Weirton, W.Va.

Officials with the U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Fugitive Task Force filed the charges Tuesday for the dangerous driving Hill reportedly did at the Warren Plaza and afterward as he fled from police.

The receiving-stolen property charge relates to having possession of a Chrysler minivan stolen from Stark County, and the abduction charge is for reportedly pulling a woman he knows into the minivan just before the chase began, said Dean Michael, coordinator of the task force.

Agents with the task force had been attempting to arrest Hill since March 19. They located him at the plaza and were attempting to take him into custody. But as agents closed in, Hill drove off and attempted to strike two agents with the van, Michael said.

Agents fired shots at Hill in the parking lot, and one blew out the rear passenger tire on the van, slowing it down during the high-speed pursuit on Elm Road Northeast. Hill was not hit and did not return fire.

Hill turned the van east onto Burnett Drive in Bazetta Township and proceeded into the Ivy Hill neighborhood about 10:30 a.m., traveling to the back and stopping the car in front of a condominium and fleeing into the woods. The woman refused to go with him.

Police spent the next several hours looking for Hill in the woods by the nearby Walmart and throughout the area, tracking the location of Hill’s cellphone for a time.

Police arrested Hill without incident in the Motel 6 on Belmont Avenue in Liberty Township at 2:30 p.m.

Michael said he doesn’t know how Hill got to Liberty, but there are no plans to charge anyone with assisting Hill in his getaway.

Hill was not armed at the motel.

Hill was sentenced to 33 months in prison in Stark County in 2007 on theft convictions and has a criminal record in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.

Hill’s actions, including statements he made on his cellphone about his desire to be killed by police and officers’ belief that Hill was armed with a gun, caused the area around the Walmart to go on high alert.

Michael says more than 100 police officers participated in the search for Hill, including officers from the Warren, Bazetta, Girard, Youngstown and Boardman police departments; Ohio State Highway Patrol, FBI, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, U.S. Marshals Task Force, Goshen, Fowler, Howland, Cortland, Liberty, TAG Law Enforcement Task Force and Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office.