PENSACOLA, Fla. -- Millionaire oilman David Ashton Robinson, whose efforts to avenge the mysterious death of his only daughter bought him tragedy and was the source of a best-selling book, died last week at 87.
Robinson died Thursday of undisclosed causes at Sacred Heart Hospital, a spokeswoman said. He had been at the hospital for about two weeks.
Skip Trahan, funeral director at Harper-Morris Memorial Chapel, said funeral services were set for 3 p.m. Saturday at the chapel, with burial to follow at Bayview Memorial Park.
Sacred Heart officials said Robinson, whose story was detailed in the best-seller 'Blood and Money' by the late Thomas Thompson, had lived the last several years in Pensacola.
Robinson made millions in the oil business, but his life remained essentially private until his adopted daughter died mysteriously in 1969 and her husband was shot to death in 1972.
The glamour surrounding Robinson's socialite horsewoman daughter, Joan, and her third husband, society plastic surgeon John Hill; her still unexplained death; the violence of Hill's death and their son's suspicions that Hill was killed for revenge, knitted a story made for Hollywood.
Author Tommy Thompson turned it into the best seller, 'Blood and Money.' Thompson sold the story to New York producer David Merrick who planned a television serial. Robinson filed a $20 million slander suit against Thompson and his publishers.
The tangled drama began unfolding in mid-March 1969, when Joan suddenly became ill. She was 38, blonde, beautiful, rich, unhappily married -- and previously healthy and active, a championship horsewoman.
Her father thought she had the flu. But after treatment at home by her husband, her condition worsened and she was rushed to a hospital. She died 15 hours after arrival.
Joan was embalmed before an autopsy could be conducted, complicating the search for the cause of death. Repeated examinations, including exhumation of her body five months after death, left her illness unexplained beyond a finding of 'massive infection' from an undiscovered source.
Robinson blamed Hill. The surgeon's 9-year marriage to Joan had been troubled near the end of her life.
Robinson -- quoted as vowing, 'I'm gonna nail him to the wall' - pressed for prosecution.
Two grand juries decided against an indictment. A third responded to Robinson's push for indictment in May 1970 by charging Hill with murder by neglect.
Hill, who remarried two months after his wife's funeral, hired defense attorney Richard 'Racehorse' Haynes. The first trial ended in February 1971 with a deadlocked jury.
Hill, 41, was awaiting retrial when he was shot to death by an intruder at his River Oaks mansion in September 1972.
The killer had forced his way into Hill's home, tied up his 8-year-old son, Robert, and his elderly mother, Myra, and announced a 'robbery.' He waited until Hill arrived, shot him three times with a .38-caliber pistol, perfunctorily took his wallet and fled.
Hill's third wife -- his remarriage so soon after the funeral ended in divorce nine months later -- and his son eventually sued Robinson for $7.6 million in a wrongful death action charging the old man masterminded the killing.
Robinson was never prosecuted and always protested his innocence while insisting his son-in-law was responsible for his daughter's death.
Police charged a petty criminal, Bobby Wayne Vandiver, with the killing, but he was shot to death by police in May 1974 before his involvement in the case could be detailed.
Robinson had been a loving grandfather to the boy he called 'Boot.' But the boy began avoiding him after the family tragedy began unfolding.
'My father didn't kill my mother,' Hill told an interviewer 10 years later. 'I'd bet my life on it. That's what Ash might have thought, but he was wrong.
'Ash gives lots of people the impression he's a charming old man, a grandfather who loves his grandson. Well, I'm wise to that image. If I saw him face to face ... I'd probably say something like, 'Why'd you kill my father? Why'd you ruin our lives?''
The lawsuit ended in his favor and Robinson and his wife, Rhea, receded from public view.
