The Murder of Kay Hall

[themaninblack]

Though I can accept that her husband had motive to kill her, and I can even admit that he did, I find it almost unbelievable that he was able to track down and kill his wife within the short time allotted, which was around 25 minutes.
Your thoughts?

[RobinW]

Yes, this is definitely one of the most frustrating UM cases out there in that it's technically "solved", but there are just so many nagging questions. There have been plenty of UM cases where a guilty-looking husband has appeared on camera to claim he didn't kill his wife, but it's ironic that one of the suspects who actually got charged with the crime was one whom I actually thought might be innocent.

Like you, I am just still bothered by the idea that Bob Hall could have been dropped off at home, driven off to find his wife, murdered her and made it back home to place a phone call in such a narrow timeframe, especially since Kay had originally left the country club in the opposite direction, so how could have he known where she was? I'm not saying it's impossible Bob could have done it, but he would have had to have been VERY lucky! I was always bothered by the police doing a re-enactment of driving the route to prove that it was possible, especially since they knew exactly where they were going, performed the drive in broad daylight, and weren't intoxicated, like Bob was on night of the crime.

I read somewhere that Bob's attempt to clear his name by appearing on UM backfired horribly because viewer tips apparently lead to the uncovering of evidence that further implicated him in the murder and allowed the police to finally charge him. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find out exactly what this evidence is, which is one of the most frustrating things about this case. While Bob was convicted and given a 20-year sentence, he eventually took a plea deal where got 15 years probation, which tells me the evidence against him just wasn't that strong. You could say that a person would never take a plea deal if they were totally innocent, but going from 20 years in prison to 15 years probation is a pretty damn sweet deal, no matter how you look at!

I don't know, since this case is officially closed, we'll probably never find out anything else about it. If Bob is innocent, we'll never know how Kay really died or if someone else got away with murder, but if Bob is guilty, I'd really love to find out the details of how he pulled this off.

[justins5256]

While I think Bob Hall probably killed his wife, the time element has always been a serious problem. The segment is extremely vague about Kay's destination (if she wasn't headed straight home from the country club) and doesn't suggest why her car may have been out on that road.

If you search Bob's name on the forum, you may find a post which contained some old news articles about the case and the aftermath. While I don't believe the articles specify what information was phoned in to UM that led to Bob Hall's arrest, they do contain a curious anecdote about one of Bob's friends or relatives who committed a crime some years prior and then used a phone call as a means of building an alibi. I always thought that was "interesting".

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by justins5256

If you search Bob's name on the forum, you may find a post which contained some old news articles about the case and the aftermath. While I don't believe the articles specify what information was phoned in to UM that led to Bob Hall's arrest, they do contain a curious anecdote about one of Bob's friends or relatives who committed a crime some years prior and then used a phone call as a means of building an alibi. I always thought that was "interesting".

I did just that and found that the prosecution's key witness was a woman who'd survived being shot by her ex-husband, who immediately rushed home to make some phone calls in order to help establish an alibi. She was a friend of the Halls and this attempted murder took place two months before Kay's death and she testified that she believed it may have given Bob ideas. That does add an interesting angle to the whole thing and I wonder if she phoned in this info after the UM segment was aired.

That said, if this was the prosecution's key piece of evidence, it seems they had a pretty weak case. It's surprising that Bob Hall was convicted on this, but not too surprising that the prosecution wanted to avoid going to trial again and offered him a plea deal.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by RobinW

I did just that and found that the prosecution's key witness was a woman who'd survived being shot by her ex-husband, who immediately rushed home to make some phone calls in order to help establish an alibi. She was a friend of the Halls and this attempted murder took place two months before Kay's death and she testified that she believed it may have given Bob ideas. That does add an interesting angle to the whole thing and I wonder if she phoned in this info after the UM segment was aired.

That said, if this was the prosecution's key piece of evidence, it seems they had a pretty weak case. It's surprising that Bob Hall was convicted on this, but not too surprising that the prosecution wanted to avoid going to trial again and offered him a plea deal.

That's just too odd a coincidence, IMO. Bob's friend attempts to kill his wife and then make a long distance phone call to help establish an alibi, and Bob Hall just so happens to do the exact same thing? I too thought he was innocent, until I learned about his friend's attempted murder. I think he was guilty. Hasn't he been released though?

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

That's just too odd a coincidence, IMO. Bob's friend attempts to kill his wife and then make a long distance phone call to help establish an alibi, and Bob Hall just so happens to do the exact same thing? I too thought he was innocent, until I learned about his friend's attempted murder. I think he was guilty. Hasn't he been released though?

Yes, Bob Hall has been a free man since 1992. The original article about his release said he was going to live with one of his daughters. No idea what he's been up to since then, but he was not allowed to collect Kay's inheritance.

The article also said that the phone call Bob made on the night of Kay's death was a five-minute call to his daughter. I would be VERY interested to know the context of their conversation and if Bob sounded like he had a legitimate reason for calling her. If he hadn't talked to his daughter for a long time, then suddenly calls her out of the blue to see how she's doing on the same night his wife is killed, then, yes, it looks pretty damn suspicious!

[justins5256]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

I too thought he was innocent, until I learned about his friend's attempted murder. I think he was guilty.

You just proved why the prosecution called that witness. Pretty damning testimony, no?

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by justins5256

You just proved why the prosecution called that witness. Pretty damning testimony, no?

Absolutely. There's no doubt in my mind he purposely made Kay mad that night so she would leave the party before he did to establish that he wasn't with her. I think he had the whole night planned out.

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Absolutely. There's no doubt in my mind he purposely made Kay mad that night so she would leave the party before he did to establish that he wasn't with her. I think he had the whole night planned out.

UM was pretty vague about the reasons why Kay decided to leave the club, mentioning something about how she was upset about how much Bob was tipping the bartender. In the reenactment, I believe it shows Bob handing over a $50 bill, which, if true, would indicate an attempt to deliberately antagonize his wife. Still, if Bob had planned this whole thing out, how he could be so sure she would go somewhere else and not drive straight home?

The UM segment said there was an entire hour between when Bob was dropped off at home to when he made the phone call. However, the article from the previous thread said he was dropped off at home around 9:05 and made the call at 9:47. I wonder which one is accurate. He probably could have made that drive and pulled off the murder within an hour, but I think 42 minutes is really stretching it.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by RobinW

The UM segment said there was an entire hour between when Bob was dropped off at home to when he made the phone call. However, the article from the previous thread said he was dropped off at home around 9:05 and made the call at 9:47. I wonder which one is accurate. He probably could have made that drive and pulled off the murder within an hour, but I think 42 minutes is really stretching it.

42 minutes really does seem like a stretch for him to pull it off, but I wouldn't count it as impossible. The fact that Hall had a friend who did the exact same thing is too much of a coincidence, IMO. And who's to say that Hall didn't hire someone or have an accomplice in the crime?

[RobinW]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

42 minutes really does seem like a stretch for him to pull it off, but I wouldn't count it as impossible. The fact that Hall had a friend who did the exact same thing is too much of a coincidence, IMO. And who's to say that Hall didn't hire someone or have an accomplice in the crime?

I've always pondered that possibility, but Kay didn't find out about her inheritance until that very morning and I wonder if that would have given Bob enough time to plan the crime and hire someone else to kill her. Of course, he could have formulating a plan like that for awhile and just decided that the day he learned Kay was receiving an inheritance was the perfect time to set it in motion.