Shakeira Rucker was found dead in a Florida storage unit after she had been missing for a week. Her estranged husband, Cory Hill, is facing murder charges in her death. (Rucker: Winter Springs Police Department; Cory Hill: Orange County Jail)
The attorney for the Florida man accused of murdering his wife said the evidence cops collected from the storage unit where he allegedly killed her should be tossed because it was opened without a warrant.
Cory Hill, 52, is charged with first-degree murder in the November death of 37-year-old Shakeira Rucker in an Orlando-area storage unit. He’s also charged with four counts of attempted murder after he allegedly shot up his girlfriend’s house hours after police say he killed Rucker. He’s facing the death penalty.
Hill’s attorney is trying to get a judge to dismiss evidence the Orange County Sheriff’s Office obtained at the storage locker because the deputies reportedly opened the unit without a warrant. Robert S. Larr of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office is using the “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree” argument in an attempt to get the evidence tossed.
A property manager from Your Storage Units in Apopka called 911 around 5 p.m. on Nov. 18 after she possibly saw a head in a neighboring unit. There was also a “distinct odor of human decomposition” emanating from the locker, cops said. Larr writes in the motion that body camera shows the door to the unit was “clearly closed.” One of the responding deputies opened the locked door, Larr wrote.
The deputy and his partner looked inside the storage unit.
“Oh s— dude, there’s a body right there. Behind the tire,” one of the deputies reportedly says.
The deputy went inside and found Rucker’s body.
Larr writes cops recovered some items before obtaining the warrant. Detectives found four spent cartridge casings, including one in her hair, and blood on the walls and floor. Deputies also observed bullet holes and blood in the unit. The unit belonged to Hill.
“The Defendant seeks suppression of the above evidence as fruit of the unlawful search,” Larr wrote. ” … Clearly, the Defendant has displayed an expectation of privacy by closing and locking unit 3032.”
Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to the defense motion. Orlando NBC affiliate WESH reported Hill was in court Tuesday, but the judge made no ruling on the motion. A hearing is scheduled for October.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Rucker left her Winter Springs home with Hill on Nov. 11, and they were seen on surveillance video later that day about 50 miles away at a retail store and restaurant in Davenport. Video surveillance reportedly later showed a car with two people inside fitting the descriptions of Hill and Rucker drive into a storage facility and Hill punch in his code to enter his unit shortly after 6:30 a.m. on Nov. 12.
Hill left the facility alone about 20 minutes later. Rucker’s family contacted him to ask about her whereabouts, but Hill said he was not with her. Her family also received a text message around 6:45 a.m. that she was on her way home, the affidavit said.
Detectives wrote that Rucker had recently found out that Hill had been in a romantic relationship with another woman. Neither woman had been aware of the other, investigators said. The ex-girlfriend ended the relationship after she learned Hill was married, investigators said.
Hill’s ex-girlfriend told Orange County Sheriff’s deputies she was standing outside her Kissimmee home on Nov. 12 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. 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 hid in a bathroom while her cousin hid in another room with the children. Hill allegedly broke a kitchen window to get inside 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.
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 was in jail without bond before the murder charge for Rucker’s death. He has not cooperated with detectives regarding the Rucker case, authorities said.
If Hill is found guilty of killing Rucker, it will be his second murder conviction. 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 following year, 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.”
The death has left her family devastated. Now, they want justice.
“He needs to go down for everything, everything he is,” Clarence Thorton, Rucker’s brother, told WFTV. “My sister should have never been in that situation. Not in a million years I would have thought my sister (to) ever been in that situation.”
Shakeira Rucker leaves behind four children, ages 7, 9, 16 and 18. The family has started a GoFundMe account for her kids, which has raised around $35,000.
“She was a loving mother to four beautiful children and a victim of senseless violence,” Debra Rucker wrote.
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