The State - News from May 22, 1986

Booker T. Hillery Jr. refused to comply with a Kings County search warrant for a sample of his blood and hair in a new investigation of the 1962 murder of a 15-year-old Hanford girl. Hillery, 54, already has spent nearly 24 years in prison for the slaying of Marlene Miller, but his conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in January because the county grand jury excluded blacks at the time it indicted him. Hillery is black. He has pleaded innocent, and his new trial has been set for July 21, but that could be revised after a June 4 hearing on a change-of-venue motion. Hillery was ordered three times to die in the gas chamber, but each time the sentence was overturned.