RUTLAND, Vt. -- An Alabama woman hunted for three years in the arsenic slaying of her husband faked her own death, adopted a new identity as a slimmer blond and returned as a fictitious twin sister, fooling even her second husband, police say.
Audrey Marie Hilley's masquerade worked so well she convinced her second husband, whom she married before her 'death,' she was her own twin sister and lived in the same home with him, police said.
'It's wild,' said a one-time employer of Mrs. Hilley, 49, of Anniston, Ala., who has been the subject of a nationwide manhunt since 1979 in the poisoning death of her husband and the attempted slaying of her daughter.
Mrs. Hilley was arrested Wednesday after an acquaintance went to police with suspicions that Mrs. Hilley was a radical fugitive.
She was being held today at the Chittenden Community Correctional Center on $100,000 cash bail, awaiting extradition to Alabama.
'She is a very convincing woman who has the ability to change her physical appearance and personality,' said Anniston, Ala., police Lt. Gary Carroll.
In her flight, Mrs. Hilley, who most recently lived in Marlow, N.H., adopted at least three new identities, police said.
Police said the saga began when she was charged in Anniston with poisoning her daughter Carol, now 22, in 1979.
The daughter recovered, but after arsenic was found in her system, authorities exhumed the body of Mrs. Hilley's late husband Frank, who died four years earlier.
She was charged with murder when an autopsy pinpointed arsenic poisoning as the cause of his death.
Mrs. Hilley was free on bail in 1979 when she allegedly fled from Alabama to Texas, officials said.
She married a man in Texas, divorced him and after moving to New Hampshire allegedly faked a death of a blood disease, placing her obituary in a newspaper, officials said.
Mrs. Hilley, 20 pounds lighter with lighter hair and a new set of teeth, then met her ex-husband in Florida and told him she was the twin sister of his late ex-wife. He reportedly told FBI officials he was astonished when he learned the truth about her.
No charges have been filed against the man, John Homan, of Marlow.
Court documents indicate Mrs. Hilley uses the alias Audrey Marie Frazier. Acquaintances in New Hampshire said she has also been known as Robbie Homan and Theresa Martin.
Officials at the Cheshire Employment Agency in Keene, N.H., said they found her a temporary job in November 1982 as an executive secretary at The Book Press in Brattleboro, Vt., a publishing firm where she was arrested Wednesday.
Cheshire President Robert March said her boss at Book Press was so impressed with Mrs. Hilley's skills that he offered her a permanent job Dec. 6, about two weeks after she had started work, using the name Theresa Martin.
'She's very beautiful, the southern-drawl type person, very congenial, very impressive,' March said.
March said he was shocked to find out she was a wanted fugitive.
'This is so unbelievable,' he said.
