Rampage Stuns Neighbors -- `Super Guy' Accused Of Killing Three

RADCLIFF, Ky. - The kids all liked him.

Arthur Hill coached them in the Junior Babe Ruth League and the North Hardin Youth Football League.

He let them shoot baskets in his driveway here, even when he wasn't home. They picked grapes off the vines in Hill's backyard.

"He was never mean to us," said Alisa Bryan, 8, who lived just down the street.

The grown-ups liked him, too. Good neighbor, good man, they said. Hill, a retired Army sergeant, worked at nearby Fort Knox. Recently, the weekly newspaper there ran a story about Hill and his wife, Gwen, a high-school math teacher. It said they were "role models" for young people.

But something strange and terrible was going on in Arthur Hill's life.

Authorities said Hill, 53, reported for work yesterday at the Training Supply Center at Fort Knox. About 10:15 a.m., using a .38-caliber handgun, he allegedly killed three people, including his boss, Paul Higdon. Leaving two others severely wounded, Hill apparently then drove to a Louisville Veterans Affairs hospital, where he had been an out-patient. He arrived about noon, entered a restroom and shot himself in the face.

Hill was in critical condition and not expected to live.

Jason Higdon, Paul Higdon's son, blamed the shootings on anger. He said Hill learned yesterday morning that he was being passed over for a promotion.

"Dad took a lot of pride in his job and he fought for his employees. But about a week ago he spoke of Mr. Hill and about how things weren't right with him," Jason Higdon said.

Higdon said his father, 49, told him last week that Hill "wasn't a very good employee."

"Dad never talked bad about anybody, so it was unusual to hear him talk like that. He just knew something was wrong with Mr. Hill and it bothered him a lot," the son said. "I really shouldn't say any more."

The news stunned Hill's neighbors in an area of comfortable brick homes and apartments, occupied mostly by Fort Knox civilian workers and retired military personnel.

But Ronnie Turner, who lives two doors from Hill's yellow brick home, said Hill had told him he was having trouble at work.

"He was a super guy; fair, honest, dependable, an everyday type of guy. The problem was the people he worked with," said Turner.

Other neighbors said they knew of no such problem. But Turner said Hill told him several times he was having difficulties at work. Turner said that he didn't know the nature of the trouble, but that Hill had sought help through the Equal Employment Opportunity office at Fort Knox.

"You push somebody long enough . . . one day you're going to push him into a corner and he's going to come out swinging," Turner said.

However, Lt. Col. Kevin Kelley, a Fort Knox spokesman, said Hill had filed no official grievances and was in good standing at his work.

But Kelley also confirmed that Hill recently had completed a temporary 120-day promotion to the civil service rank of GS-7 and had reverted to the rank of GS-6.

There were hints that Hill had a short temper in certain situations.

Hill's son, Adrian, was the starting quarterback at North Hardin High School last year as a senior.

But Joe Jaggers, North Hardin's football coach, said Hill complained about Adrian's lack of playing time some years ago when he was on the junior varsity team.

"A lot of parents complain. It was nothing unusual," Jaggers said.

Vince Conway, a past president of the Junior Babe Ruth League, said Hill sometimes got angry during games while he was a coach.

"He would dispute calls. He would get hot under the collar. But every coach does that. Once the game was over, that was it."

Hill joined the Army about 1961 and retired from service about 1981. He apparently began working at Fort Knox as a civilian not long after leaving the service.