An estranged husband who allegedly shot his wife to death inside of a Florida storage unit is now facing a first-degree murder charge, officials said.
Cory Hill, 51, is accused of murdering his wife Shakeira Rucker inside the unit and then covering her body with two tires, a probable cause arrest affidavit reviewed by Law&Crime says. As Law&Crime previously reported, Rucker was last seen on Nov. 11 and wasn’t found until a week later when a “distinct odor of human decomposition” was emanating from the storage locker in Apopka, a suburb of Orlando, the affidavit said. Detectives found four spent cartridge casings, including one in her hair, and blood on the walls and floor.
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. Hill utilized the storage, according to investigators. Video surveillance reportedly showed a car with two people inside fitting the descriptions of Hill and Rucker drive into the facility and Hill punch in his code to enter his unit shortly after 6:30 a.m. 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 about the other, investigators said. The ex-girlfriend ended the relationship after she learned Hill was married, investigators said.
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: Winter Springs Police Department; Cory Hill: Orange County Jail)
As Law&Crime previously reported, Hill is accused of shooting up the ex-girlfriend’s house the same day he allegedly killed Rucker.
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 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 prior to 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 next year and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The murder conviction was news to the Rucker family, local ABC affiliate WFTV reported.
“He had like a history we never knew,” Rucker’s sister Dedra Rucker said. “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 $30,000 as of Wednesday.
“She was a loving mother to four beautiful children and a victim of senseless violence,” Debra Rucker wrote.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
