Audrey Marie Hilley, born Audrey Marie Frazier on June 4, 1933, in the Blue Mountain neighborhood of Anniston, Alabama, came from an ordinary Southern background. She was raised by her parents, Huey and Lucille Frazier. In 1951, at age 17, she married Frank Hilley, a reliable and hard-working man with a well-paying job, and together they had two children, Mike and Carol.

Despite appearing to live a modest suburban life, Marie harbored more extravagant desires. Known for her lavish spending, she frequently struggled to maintain financial stability, even with Frank's steady income and her own job as a secretary. Unbeknownst to her husband, Marie engaged in extramarital affairs with her superiors in exchange for money or professional favors, further complicating the couple’s financial and emotional relationship.

Over time, Marie’s deception extended far beyond infidelity. Frank began suffering from mysterious symptoms including nausea and liver issues, which doctors misdiagnosed as infectious hepatitis. He died on May 25, 1975. Though an autopsy revealed damage to his internal organs, arsenic poisoning was not considered. Marie collected over $31,000 in life insurance shortly after his death — a policy she had secretly taken out when Frank first fell ill.

Three years later, she turned her attention to her daughter Carol, taking out a new life insurance policy on her and administering mysterious injections that worsened Carol’s health. Carol suffered severe symptoms consistent with arsenic poisoning — including numbness, nerve palsy, and loss of reflexes. After a period of hospitalization, physicians discovered Aldrich-Mees lines on her nails, and lab analysis of her hair confirmed chronic arsenic exposure over several months. Marie was soon arrested for check kiting, which brought her under further scrutiny and led to her arrest for attempted murder on October 9, 1979.

Marie’s criminal behavior came to light following a dramatic unraveling of her calculated poisoning attempts. After hair samples confirmed Carol’s arsenic poisoning, Frank’s body was exhumed and tested. The forensic analysis revealed arsenic levels ten to 100 times the normal range, confirming that he, too, had been murdered by poison.

Following her October 1979 arrest, police found arsenic in Marie’s possession. Further investigation revealed a jar of rat poison at her home. While out on bail on November 9, 1979, she vanished, leaving behind a suspicious note suggesting a kidnapping. Authorities quickly listed her as a fugitive, but she had orchestrated her escape — breaking into her aunt’s home, stealing a car, clothing, and cash, and leaving another note threatening to burn down the house if police were contacted.

While investigators continued searching for her, Marie fled south and assumed a new identity — Robbi Hannon. In Florida, she met and married John Greenleaf Homan III and moved with him to New Hampshire. Using aliases and false backstories, she created an elaborate double life. In 1982, she “killed off” her alter ego Robbi and returned to Homan as “Teri Martin,” Robbi’s fictitious twin sister. Eventually, inconsistencies and suspicious details prompted an investigation. Authorities uncovered her deception and arrested her in Vermont in early 1983. She confessed her true identity and was extradited to Alabama.

On June 19, 1983, Audrey Marie Hilley was convicted of the murder of her husband and the attempted murder of her daughter and sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison. She began serving her sentence at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama, where she was considered a model inmate. Her good behavior earned her multiple one-day passes.

In February 1987, during a three-day furlough to visit her second husband, Marie disappeared again. This time, she fled into the woods during cold, rainy weather. Four days later, she was found lying near a back porch in Anniston, barely conscious and suffering from exposure. She died a few hours later on February 26, 1987, from hypothermia.