2008 Woodie Awards
Convicted For Life
Trial concludes for 2006 murders of two Kirkwood students
Ali Carlson
Issue date: 11/15/07 Section: News
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This was the statement given to Deborah Collins-Gallo, a Cedar Rapids jail attendant, on April 23, 2006- the day Kyle Anthony Marin turned himself in.
On Oct. 22, a year and a half after confessing to Collins-Gallo, the trial proceeded in the State of Iowa vs. Kyle Anthony Marin. The 21-year old defendant stood trial for the beating and stabbing deaths of 18-year old cousins Molly Edmondson and Katrina Hill in Edmondson's southwest Cedar Rapids apartment on April 23, 2006. Edmondson was a student at Kirkwood, majoring in Dental Assisting and Hill was majoring in Liberal Arts while completing high school.
Marin's attorneys filed notice that they would use the defense of insanity and diminished responsibility. Marin had been hospitalized in early April of 2006 after a suicide attempt and was then released just days prior to the killings.
Hill's father, Raymond Hill, testified in the murder of his daughter and niece and was one of eight prosecution witnesses in the opening day of the trial.
Raymond stated that when his daughter did not show up for a family dinner on the morning of April 23, he called his daughter but she did not answer. He then drove to Edmondson's apartment near Kirkwood Community College. When he noticed that the door was unlocked, he entered the apartment to music playing; the lights were turned off. Raymond said he checked around the apartment and entered Edmondson's bedroom. He saw his niece. "She was face down, naked and on the floor," he said. He then proceeded to the bathroom in search of his daughter.
When the prosecution asked Raymond what he saw in the bathroom, he struggled to answer. According to a court document he said, "My daughter. She was face up and I could tell [it was my daughter]." Also in court documents, when Raymond called 911, the operator requested that he go back into the apartment to check if the girls' bodies were cold.
After Raymond was off the witness stand, Public Defender Tom Diehl, who was representing Marin, said, "We're very sorry for your loss."
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