Shakeira Rucker, right, has been missing since Saturday and her estranged husband Cory Hill, left, a convicted murderer, is a person of interest, cops in Florida say. (Rucker photo via Winter Springs Police Department, Hill photo via Orange County Jail)
Authorities in Florida are desperately searching for a missing mother of four after she was last seen with her estranged husband who is now considered a person of interest in her disappearance.
Shakeira Yvonne Rucker was last seen around Saturday with her estranged husband, 51-year-old Cory Hill, police said. Her family said she could be in danger. Local ABC affiliate WFTV reported the Winter Springs Department on Tuesday said Hill is considered a person of interest in her disappearance. Police said the two left her Winter Springs home around 7:30 p.m. Saturday and were later seen about 70 miles south in Polk County.
Her family was out searching for her on Tuesday, hoping for the best.
“Even though we can’t find her right now, there’s still a possibility, so we are still staying strong and having faith. Hoping she’s alive and we can find her. She’s just waiting,” her sister Dedra Rucker told local NBC affiliate WESH.
Hill is no stranger to the law: He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a second-degree murder conviction in Suffolk, Virginia, in 1993, and he now sits in the Orange County Jail after allegedly shooting up his ex-girlfriend’s house in front of her kids — an incident that took place the day after Rucker was last seen.
On Sunday, the day after Shakeira Rucker went missing, Hill’s ex-girlfriend told Orange County Sheriff’s deputies she was standing outside her Kissimmee home with her cousin and her two children when she noticed Hill’s vehicle. Hill got out of his car and started shooting at them, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime. She and her family ran into the home and she heard what she believed was a “bullet fly closely by her ear.”
Once inside the home, the ex-girlfriend went to hide in a bathroom while her cousin hid in another room with the children. Hill allegedly broke a kitchen window and started screaming her name. Hill then broke down the bedroom door where the cousin and children were hiding and said to one of them “take me to your mommy” while holding the gun at his side, the affidavit said. The woman said she dated Hill for about two months but he became upset when she called a woman later identified as his wife. Hill said she would “regret it,” according to the affidavit.
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Deputies found four bullets in the home and home surveillance video showed Hill inside with a gun, detectives wrote. Hill was arrested on four counts of attempted murder and is in jail without bond.
More than 30 years ago, Hill was charged with second-degree murder in a Dec. 23, 1992, shooting death of an 18-year-old man in Suffolk, Virginia, court records and news archives show. The Virginia Daily Press reported at the time that Hill, then 20, shot and killed a man who he thought had stolen his 1988 Ford Tempo with his daughter still inside weeks earlier. Hill went to the teen’s home and shot him several times after an argument. A jury convicted Hill the next hear and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The murder conviction was news to the Rucker family.
“He had like a history we never knew,” Dedra Rucker told WFTV. “He was supposed to be a man of God in the church. We never knew.”
Police continue the search that spans Seminole, Orange and Polk counties. Capt. Doug Seely told the TV station that Hill is not talking to investigators.
“We’re not going to give up until we have answers for everybody involved,” he said.
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