[mysterious music]
[suspenseful music]
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
A desperate text sent by a couple of young children.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Days later, the kids' mom, Tiffany Hill,
is at a school event when she gets
a phone call about her estranged husband, Keland.
She looked like a ghost.
She said, I have to go meet my social worker.
He tried to buy a gun.
[gun cocking]
He went to Walmart and tried to purchase
a bolt action rifle to take care of a varmint inside his home.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
For weeks, Keland Hill stalks his wife.
We were pressing the officer to check the car.
There's-- there's no way that he would have known she was here
unless he was tracking her.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Keland Hill was a Marine
trained to be a killer.
And the target ended up being his wife.
What were her chances of her surviving the marriage?
Tiffany always said, the only way I'm going to get
out of this is if he kills me.
He was a terrorist.
He terrorized her.
Nearly half of the women who are murdered
are killed by their partners.
But the men are also increasingly
victims of domestic homicide.
Are you sure the person lying next to you
in bed would never hurt you?
If not, you might want to pay attention.
I'm Michelle Trachtenberg, and it's time for another tale
of Meet, Marry, Murder.
[theme music]
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER): 2016.
After moving to the city of Vancouver in Washington state,
the Hill family largely kept to itself.
Both ex Marines, Tiffany and Keland were professionally
trained to fight.
Which they tended to do in their marriage, as well--
a lot.
Once his rage with the marriage
started kind of, like, getting out of hand--
that's when he started becoming more physical.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Tiffany and Keland had moved to Sifton, just northwest
of Vancouver.
A quiet neighborhood where they could get a fresh start
from their troubled past.
Tiffany was very closed off.
She didn't share herself with anybody.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
But when Tiffany strikes up a friendship with fellow mom
Karina Knight, she starts to open up
about her eight-year marriage.
Before they really knew each other,
she didn't like him at all.
She thought he was cocky.
He was always flirting with everybody,
and, you know, she's--
she's a New Yorker, you know.
She's from Brooklyn.
She doesn't-- she didn't do that, and she's very smart.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Back when they'd been deployed to Iraq,
Tiffany had been Keland's commanding officer.
They would work, like, 24-hour shifts, and it just blossomed.
It was very short, you know, that it happened.
Then all of a sudden, they started dating.
And I think it was-- they couldn't live together
when they were going to be coming back over here, so they
kind of rushed to get married.
That way they could live together right away.
In 2008, she sustains an injury
and is forced to retire from the military.
She retires as a sergeant.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
As Tiffany's new friends learn more about her marriage
to Keland, they start becoming concerned.
I had asked her, at any point in your marriage,
were you happy?
And she said at the very beginning, but--
you know, we met in the military.
And I didn't really want to date him, and he wore me down.
And that was another huge red flag, to me.
I went through Tiffany's house and went
through all of her things.
And I was able to find all of their love letters
from the very beginning.
Um-- and I only read one or two.
It was an intense love from the very beginning.
Very co-dependent.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
But what began as an intense affair
lost its spark when Tiffany and Keland started a family.
She had just said that things seemed different when
she'd had their oldest child.
He did not like the attention that she and the baby got.
He wanted 1,000% of her.
All the time.
He'd even tell her-- like, there'd
be emails that she'd show me.
I mean, he's even saying, like, if I can't have you,
I don't want the kids.
The kids-- that didn't matter to him.
It was her.
It was having her.
That's what he wanted.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
As Tiffany popped out two more kids, Keland's jealousy grew.
He wanted her all to himself, and moving to Vancouver
had mainly been because of that.
She did mention that they'd moved a couple of times
to get away from family.
And that this was the biggest move, to Washington state.
She said it was to purposely get away from her family--
to kind of isolate her from her family and friends.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Moving 2,000 miles from Michigan to Washington state
was a problem right from the start.
Keland took the job, told them they were moving out here,
and then left her there to pack.
What Tiffany said was-- he moved
her out here to get her away from the support
network that she had.
But for him, it was all sunshine and daisies, you know.
He moved out here to make a better life for the family.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Keland apparently didn't anticipate that Tiffany would
immediately start making friends and building
a life in their new hometown.
She was new, and it was like an instant thing.
She kind of just started sidling up to me,
and we just got to talking.
And from that moment on, it was like we'd
always known each other.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
At first, they seemed to fit in just fine.
Turns out, I did actually like her husband quite a bit.
Him and I got along instantly.
And we just became friends over that, you know.
Everybody loved Keland.
Everybody that knew him liked him.
He was vivacious, he was fun, he was--
you know, he was handsome.
He could woo you in a minute.
Like, he was just funny.
You wanted to be around him.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Tiffany joined the local PTA, quickly getting a reputation
among other moms at her kids' new school
as a generous, hardworking member of the team.
She would do, like, a staff breakfast to where she's
up all night the night before, or she's up early that morning
getting things ready and bringing things in.
And they were super yummy (LAUGHS).
And the staff just gobbled it all up, quickly.
At one point, during her really rough patch,
she was up until 2:00 AM making food for our staff.
And she was crying because she said it's not enough.
I didn't do enough.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
For all that her friends appreciated her hard work
and generosity, it seemed that for Keland,
Tiffany could never do enough.
The marriage wasn't the way he wanted it to be.
He-- he wanted, like, you know, a 50s-style marriage,
where the woman stayed home, and cooked, and did what he said.
But Tiffany was an independent spirit.
And she was extremely active in her children's education,
and was volunteering all the time for everything.
And she just gave of herself constantly.
And so he would be upset that she wasn't--
she wasn't at home doing the dishes or cleaning the house,
or have dinner ready because she was so
busy volunteering all the time.
You could tell there wasn't a closeness that you
can see in a lot of marriages.
There weren't, like, the little touches, the hand holdings.
There weren't things like that.
And I always saw that, from the very beginning.
Whenever he'd enter a room, any time,
she would automatically, like, stiffen.
Like, her shoulders would kind of go up a little bit.
She was no longer that relaxed, talking.
He'd come in the room, and she automatically
would start tending to him.
Like, what he needed, what he needed to do, and like--
take orders from him.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: From the way
they saw how Keland treated her, Tiffany's new friends
got the sense that her marriage was far from perfect.
But they had no idea just how bad it was behind closed doors.
He was a terrorist.
He terrorized her.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
But the worst part?
Keland routinely terrorized her in front of the kids.
He didn't think they'd notice, but they did.
[dramatic music]
[theme music]
When Keland Hill made his wife, Tiffany, move
to a new town where they didn't know anyone,
it was just another example of the emotional abuse she had
suffered since marrying him.
I never saw any physical behavior.
But the way he talked to her--
you know, once he got really comfortable around us--
that wasn't behavior of a good spouse.
Kind of degrading things.
Like, if she, you know, wore a nice outfit or something,
he would just say--
talk down to her.
Oh, what do you think, you're so hot you
can wear stuff like that?
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
And that was just Keland's behavior in public.
In private, it was even worse.
She was tired.
Because he also was sleep depriving her.
When she would sleep, he would turn on the TV
as loud in their bedroom.
He put water all over her side of the bed.
So when she'd get into bed, it would be soaking wet.
She told me that he would keep her awake for hours,
if not days at a time.
Just to kind of play with the mental side of it.
And kind of slapped her around several times, sometimes
in front of the kids.
Keland was good.
He would never show anything in front of anybody.
That's why you could never believe
that this was happening.
Once he got comfortable with me,
he started speaking more freely.
Of course, it was his version of the story, so--
my wife, you know, we tell each other everything.
And so she would tell me things about the relationship
that Tiffany had told her.
And-- and then I would hear his side of the story,
but I wouldn't tell him that I knew those things.
I'd keep that to myself.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
The problem was that Tiffany's version of the things that she
was telling to her friend Karina didn't
match up with what Keland was telling to Karina's husband.
In my own opinion, I had to be careful.
Because I knew all of their deep, dark secrets--
everything terrible that he was doing
to her, and the torment that was going on in their marriage.
But I knew that if I let on to him
that I knew what was going on, he would take it out on her.
I have to present, you know--
a false persona, basically, to him.
I have to pretend like I'm still his brother,
I'm still his friend.
To protect Tiffany.
As soon as, I think, he realized
that Tiffany was confiding in me,
is when he started changing with me.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
For Tiffany, it was part of an all too familiar pattern.
Every time Tiffany found a friend to confide in,
Keland would try to break them apart.
She's like, he's starting.
I was like, what do you mean?
She's like, he's starting.
He's starting to try to make me doubt my friendship with you.
I call it schmoozing.
Kind of schmoozing over and making sure everyone
is on his side, and that she seems
crazy to think about these different things that
are going on.
That it's all in her head.
It's nothing-- it's nothing big, it's nothing real.
Of course.
I wanted her to leave the very first time
she told me this was going on.
But he'd find her.
No matter what she did or where she went, that was her thing.
She's like, he'll find me.
He will find a way to me.
He will break apart every friendship
and relationship that I have, and I
will have to go back to him.
Because she'd always forgiven him.
She'd always let him come back, accepted his apologies,
and he always went back to doing the same.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
In late summer 2019, Keland finally did
something Tiffany couldn't hide from her friends and neighbors.
We were supposed to have our first official PTA
meeting at the school.
And she had texted me and said, I don't
know if I'll be there tonight.
I have a concussion.
All I could think of was, she must
have got in a car accident.
Because, for me, in my life, I had never been around--
at least knowingly-- someone who was in a domestic violence
situation.
September 11, 2019.
Keland gets angry and goes after Tiffany.
He throws her into a wall, he chases
her down a flight of stairs.
She tries to call 911.
She's terrified.
He slaps the phone out of her hand.
One of their children asked Google or whatever--
Amazon Echo-- that they had to call someone.
They told her what was happening,
and she called 911 from a different state.
Because he had taken her phone, so she couldn't call 911.
Tiffany was injured so badly in this assault
that she had gotten whiplash and a concussion
and had to be seen by neurologists.
The police came, and he was arrested.
And that night, she came to the meeting.
And after the meeting, Karina--
who was her best friend--
came in with her, and she was crying.
And I said, are you OK?
And Karina said, you tell her and you tell her now.
She needs to know.
And so Tiffany had said, my husband pushed me.
My head hit the wall.
I have a concussion.
He's abusive.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Injured and in pain, and, more importantly, with the knowledge
that her children were now witness to her abuse,
Tiffany was finally forced to confront
the fact that her marriage wasn't healthy.
KARINA KNIGHT: Her kids were getting older,
and she was seeing, like--
this is what they're going to think is acceptable for them,
you know.
That this is how people get to treat them.
This time, she goes to police and she files on him.
This time, Tiffany is not going to back down.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Detective Tanya Wollstein was waiting for Tiffany
at the Vancouver Domestic Violence
Prosecution Center when she came in to document the full history
of Keland's abuse against her.
80% or so of domestic violence victims recant.
They don't want to cooperate with investigations.
They are in such a state of being manipulated,
and gaslighted, and financially dependent--
a number of other things.
Tiffany had made that decision to break away.
She was reporting.
She was-- she was asking for help.
Tiffany explained that this is all a game to Keland.
And he's threatened to kill her before, and to kill her
or hurt her would mean nothing to him.
It's all a game to him, and she felt
like she'd be the one to lose.
What Tiffany and I talked about
was a brief history of their relationship
and then focused on what had been going on more recently.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
After hearing Tiffany's story, authorities
decide to take immediate action against Keland Hill.
CAROLYN CANVILLE: The day after the attack,
Clark County officials issue a no contact
order against Keland Hill.
In the paperwork that Tiffany fills out
supporting this no contact order,
she has written that if he were angry enough, and drunk enough,
and he had a gun, he would use it on me.
And he would kill me.
Some victims, we do have great concerns about their safety.
And Tiffany would be one.
So I would say I have more contact
with Tiffany than the average domestic violence victim.
More along the lines of domestic violence victims
who I am seriously concerned will be seriously harmed
or murdered by their abuser.
Keland was served with the protection order and arrested.
He was arrested for interfering with the report of
domestic violence and assault.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Keland was released on bail
and issued a restraining order, barring him
from getting within 250 feet of Tiffany
or making any kind of contact by phone.
He was also banned from buying or possessing any firearms.
But would that be enough to protect Tiffany's life?
Especially after he had the restraining orders,
and after he had been out of jail,
he was showing me the dark side.
He had a seriously bad evil in him.
By September 2019, after some 10 years
of marriage to Tiffany, and three children later,
Keland Hill seemed to have only one thing
in mind for his estranged wife.
Murder.
[dramatic note]
[theme music]
A court might have ordered Keland Hill to stay away
from his estranged wife, Tiffany,
but this was one time the former Marine
was not about to obey orders.
RENE SUNDBY: We have an assembly at the school.
She gets a phone call.
She comes back out of the room that she was in--
she looked like a ghost.
And I said, what's going on?
And she said, I have to go meet my social worker.
He tried to buy a gun.
[gun cocking]
He went to Walmart and tried to purchase
a bolt action rifle to take care of a varmint inside his home.
That is the day that I think her soul died.
She was just a shell of a human.
She was so devastated that he had tried to buy a gun,
and what that was going to mean to her.
As he tried to purchase this weapon,
the background check was completed.
And it showed up that he had been
charged with domestic abuse and had
a protective order against him.
Background checks are linked through all law
enforcement systems.
It's almost real time.
So if someone's attempting to buy a weapon,
and they have a protection from abuse order or something
like that, the jurisdiction that issued
it is almost immediately notified.
The theory behind it is to catch someone in the act.
Because it is illegal to attempt to purchase
a weapon knowing that you have a protection from abuse
order against you.
A sheriff's deputy shows up at the scene and talks to Keland.
And Keland's real calm.
That-- that deputy then reports it to the Clark County
officials in Washington state.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
The next day, a warrant is issued
for Keland Hill's arrest.
But since he's no longer living in the family home,
deputies can't find him to serve it.
He said he stayed at a friend's house--
his other friend, who lived half hour,
45 minutes from their house.
And he would also say things like, he's living in his car,
you know, by the river.
But he would just say things.
I don't know if it had any truth to them whatsoever.
He was-- he had so much untruthfulness about him.
He would just say whatever he had to.
So he's not arrested, nothing happens.
And he's still out there.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
It takes five more weeks before police
can take Keland into custody.
In the meantime, Tiffany's friends are doing
all they can to keep her safe.
And we did plan on-- here are the things that we need
to do to try to keep you safe.
Because we know that he's out there
trying to purchase a firearm.
We talked about calling 911 immediately,
and leaving the area immediately,
and many other things.
KARINA KNIGHT: We'd been practicing
lock downs at the school.
They were prepared.
There were security guards at the school every day.
I believe they sent his picture
to all the staff members.
And, you know, this person is--
because there's a restraining order--
he could have came and got the kids out
of school, because the restraining order
wasn't based at the children.
It was on her.
But she was always there.
KARINA KNIGHT: If Keland showed up, doors locked.
They hit the button.
Classrooms lock.
Everything locks.
Whenever we'd go to somewhere, I would go somewhere first,
take a look around, make sure he wasn't there.
And then she'd come behind me.
You know, if we went out to lunch, I'd go in first.
Let her know, OK, you're good.
And then she could come in.
And can you imagine?
Like, what a way to live.
I think the hardest part, for me, was being at the school
and walking out to my car with Tiffany and the kids.
I never tried to let her walk out by herself.
But having to tell my 10-year-old
if you see the kids' dad, and I tell you to run--
I want you to run, and I want you to hide.
And I don't want you to come find me.
I don't want you to look back.
I don't want you to come for me.
I want you to find a safe place.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
A few days after Keland's first failed attempt to buy a gun,
he breaks his restraining order once again.
On October 10, 2019, Keland shows up
at the Peach Tree Restaurant where, coincidentally,
Tiffany Hill is there.
We have-- just a board meeting at a restaurant
here in Vancouver.
And we're all leaving.
And I see this man walking up, and he smiles at me.
And I think to myself, well, that looks like Keland.
And I said, all right, he's not supposed to be here.
He can't be here.
And I hear Tiffany say, oh my god.
And she starts running for the car.
Keland's yelling at her--
I just want to see my kids--
and then realizes, you know, we're all coming towards him.
Like, this is going to be us forming a circle around her.
And he runs.
Sheriff deputies were called to the Peach Tree Restaurant.
And when they arrived, he had already left.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Keland Hill remains free to continue terrorizing
Tiffany for another four weeks.
He pops up at the grocery store, at restaurants, school.
It seems like he's everywhere.
But how?
On November 7, Tiffany and her friends begin to figure it out.
I tell her, the only way for him to know that you're here--
because we're parked in the very back-- is he has to be
following you or tracking you.
That is the only way.
The parking lot was all the way in the back.
I mean, you would have never seen someone pull in and park.
We knew that he was somehow tracking her.
We didn't know how.
We didn't know if it was by her phone,
or there was something on her car, but we just--
we knew that there was some way of him tracking her.
We were pressing the officer to check the car.
Eventually, they searched Tiffany's vehicle.
And beneath the wheel well of the vehicle
was a small black box that was used as a GPS tracking device.
At that point, Keland was arrested taken,
into custody for stalking and violating his protective order.
His vehicle and his cell phones were taken as evidence.
On November 8, 2019, Tiffany Hill
goes back to the prosecution center
to report yet more violations of the domestic violence
no contact order.
And the Vancouver police decide, you know, they
want to do a risk assessment.
Tiffany was very concerned that Keland
was going to murder her.
We use a danger assessment that's
essentially a lethality predictor for our victim.
She scored very high on that, 31 out of 41.
Which is an extreme risk category for us.
We were all very concerned about Tiffany's safety.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER): For a minute,
Tiffany's able to breathe a sigh of relief,
knowing Keland is behind bars.
But her reprieve only lasts until Keland's bail
hearing on November 21, 2019.
The state believes that if the defendant is released,
he will kill the victim.
The prosecutors argue to the judge, this man is dangerous.
If he gets out, he will kill her.
So they argue for Keland's bail to be raised
from $75,000 to $2 million.
She had hired a lawyer to advocate
for her, who told the judge--
he will kill her.
Tiffany is begging you.
He will kill her.
She had done all these things to help protect herself
and to work within the system.
I've stopped reporting because he's made aware of it
if I report, and I'm scared of his anger and retaliation.
Despite my non-report, he continued
to escalate because he feels he's smarter than everybody
else and he's untouchable.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
In a court statement, Tiffany desperately
tries to explain just how afraid she is of her husband.
He is here now because he placed
a tracking device on my vehicle and tried to possess a weapon.
Those two things are major indicators of what I've
known all along, deep down.
That he's going to kill me if he's given the opportunity.
I beg you to not allow him to get to me and my children.
We have no family here.
Nowhere to go.
We have no money and nowhere to hide from him.
He's made sure of that.
Thank you.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Unfortunately for Tiffany, the law
didn't quite see it her way.
The judge looks at the records,
and he says, well, I don't know.
I mean, this guy--
you know, he doesn't have a criminal history.
Because, of course, he has forced
Tiffany to drop all the charges, including attempted murder.
He has a job.
He's gainfully employed.
He's not a flight risk.
He has served in the military, honorably.
And then the prosecutor argues, well,
if you're going to not raise the bail,
then at least put an electronic tracker on him.
And the judge says no, I don't think so.
For a period of a month, he had violated
the domestic violence order--
the protection order-- 64 times.
That we know of.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
According to Washington state senator, Lynda Wilson, who
actually fought for a law to monitor people accused
of domestic violence, tracking abusers like Keland Hill
is the key to stopping them.
The gist of it is--
for victims of domestic violence that
can get electronic monitoring on their abuser,
this bill will create a real time notification
of this electronic monitoring.
So 24/7.
And then, if the abuser gets too close,
then they will get an alert on their phone through an app.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
But for Tiffany Hill, there was no such protection.
Keland Hill is released on bail.
$250,000 bail, meaning he only had to post $2,500.
Would putting Keland Hill back on the streets
end up being a big mistake?
I think we all know the answer to that question.
We heard the tones.
It initially sounded like, perhaps, a school shooting.
It came out rather quickly that this
wasn't like an active shooter situation.
[intense music]
[theme music]
Vancouver, Washington.
November 26, 2019.
After losing the court battle to keep her husband,
Keland, behind bars, Tiffany Hill
has her mother come from New York to give her some support.
That afternoon, Keland Hill drives to Sarah
J. Anderson Elementary School.
The school where he knows that his wife
will soon be arriving to pick up their three children.
He must have been parked in such a way
that he could see Tiffany's car, so he
could see when she came out.
He was there, in the lot, for approximately 20 minutes
talking on the phone with his mother.
After the 20 minutes, he pulled out of his parking spot,
pulled up in front of Tiffany's vehicle
so he was parked kind of perpendicular to her vehicle,
got out of the vehicle, stood in front of the driver's side,
and shot several times through the driver's side window.
[gun shots]
And then had some kind of a malfunction with this firearm,
it appears.
Went back to his car trunk and appeared
to kind of reload or clear his malfunction.
Came to the side of the driver's side
and fired a couple additional rounds.
Then got into his car and fled.
The fact that he would fire inside a vehicle--
there-- there are all sorts of dangers.
Ricochet, pass through-- oh, god.
It's just-- it's numerous.
Firing a firearm in any small space
is a dangerous undertaking.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER): Also in the car
with Tiffany is her mother.
Tiffany's mom was shot trying to protect her.
Tiffany's mom leaned over and did the thing that they-- you
know, just the instinctual reaching out
to try to protect her daughter.
And she was shot in her arms, in her hands--
several times.
Clark County deputies were actually executing a warrant
just a few blocks away.
So when the call came out, they left the scene of the warrant.
And I believe he probably heard the sirens.
So they were right on him as he was leaving.
Keland's first objective, and his primary objective,
was to kill Tiffany.
And then secondarily, he perhaps would have focused on others.
And perhaps, if Clark County hadn't been so close,
and he had more time--
we don't know what he would have done.
So I'm certainly grateful that they
were there, because I believe they
saved those children's lives.
Once the first responders get to a school
and there's been a shooting like that,
immediately the school is going to be on lockdown.
There's going to be a perimeter set around the school.
And a search is going to begin.
I just heard part of the lockdown procedure
go into place, and I wasn't quite sure.
Like, is this real or not real?
So I was at work at the Domestic
Violence Prosecution Center.
So we heard the tones.
It initially sounded like, perhaps, a school shooting.
So we all began gearing up and getting ready to leave.
It came out rather quickly that this
wasn't like an active shooter situation.
And then they mentioned Tiffany's name on the air,
and that's when I knew it was Tiffany.
It was devastating.
I mean, I remember just yelling to Prosecutor
Boyd across the office.
It's Tiffany, it's Tiffany.
And just feeling so terrible.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
While one set of first responders
rushed to help Tiffany and her mom,
another was hot on Keland Hill's tail as he fled.
Keland was located, and he led police on a high speed chase.
Speeds up to 75 miles per hour on busy streets.
In a situation, such as a fleeing person
at a very populated area or dangerous area,
one has to decide which one would cause
the less amount of damage.
Letting this person run free, or pursuing them?
But if the police officers pursued,
or the first responders pursued Keland,
it was because they thought he was a higher
risk by fleeing with a firearm.
He was-- he was a danger.
He was a danger to himself, and he was
a clear danger to other people.
Deputies actually attempted to stop his vehicle
by ramming it with theirs and pursued him
until he got caught in traffic.
And that's when Keland exited the vehicle,
turned to face the oncoming officers, and shot himself.
[gun shot]
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Maybe in hindsight, it's not surprising
that a relationship that began on the battlefield
ended in bloodshed.
But at the time, as word of what happened started to get out,
it still shocked everyone.
ISAIAH KNIGHT: I had just gotten home from work.
All of a sudden, her phone just started blowing up.
You know, Karina, have you heard?
There's a shooting at the school.
It's Tiffany.
I had just turned on my phone and was already on Facebook,
and it said school shooting.
And I knew instantly.
I called her phone first.
I called the school.
And then, about three minutes later, the school called me.
And they said you need to get here.
The kids are waiting for you.
They know you're coming.
Tiffany and her mother were both taken to the hospital.
Tiffany was pronounced dead on arrival,
and her mother miraculously survived.
We immediately left our three kids with our neighbor.
We booked it down to the school.
We had to be cleared before we could go in.
When we went in there, the kids
had no idea what was going on.
They saw their mother get shot, but they
didn't know she was dead.
We were with the children when the sheriff told them
that their father had killed their mother
and then killed himself.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
In the aftermath of Tiffany Hill's murder,
Senator Lynda Wilson became even more
determined to push forward her bill protecting
victims of domestic abuse.
Well, I was watching television,
and I saw the police report on the news.
And, of course, when I saw that, it broke my heart,
because I witnessed domestic violence as a child
pretty consistently.
Senator Wilson contacted Karina and had said,
you know, I'd really like to use Tiffany's
name for this act we're trying to pass to become a law.
And then, with our testimony-- you know, our personal
experience and what we knew--
it went from there.
And it wasn't, in my mind--
it wasn't gonna stop.
I told them--
this-- that I would like to honor Tiffany
in a way that would help others.
I think it's an important piece of legislation.
And I think that, at the very best, it can save lives.
And at the very least, maybe give
the victims of domestic violence control
and some feeling of peace in their lives.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Senator Wilson still believes that giving victims
the ability to track their abusers
is the best way to protect them.
Had this technology been around then,
and Tiffany had been available to it,
she would have known more often when he was lurking.
Because she would be notified on her phone or her watch.
Then they would get a real time notification.
So as soon as that happened, then they
would be notified that this person
was within their geoprotection zone.
So many times with domestic violence victims,
these-- they--
it's the element of surprise that takes them off guard.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
As a result of Senator Wilson's work,
Washington state lawmakers passed
the Tiffany Hill Act in 2020.
All those in favor of adoption of the proposed substitute,
please say aye.
Aye.
All those opposed, say no.
The proposed substitute is adopted.
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG (VOICEOVER):
Tiffany's friends hope similar laws will protect
more women like Tiffany--
not only in Washington, but across the entire country.
Which is exactly what Tiffany would have wanted.
She loved God.
She loved people.
She would give you the shirt off of her back.
She loved her kids, her community-- she worked really
hard at building a community.
She knew how important it was, she
knew it-- it takes a village.
Tiffany Hill is gone, but because
of her, domestic violence victims
will be safer in our state.
And Tiffany really will continue to serve in a different way.
Tiffany and Keland Hill got married in 2008.
But by 2019, they would both be dead.
Victims of Keland's uncontrollable rage.
Just another reminder that the person you meet and marry
could end up being your murderer.
I'm Michelle Trachtenberg, and this is Meet, Marry, Murder.
[determined music]