Stephen Hill, man accused of killing a fellow porn actor with a sword and stabbing two others at a Van Nuys porn studio has died-falling 40 feet from a rocky hillside and hitting his head after standoff where police deployed a non-lethal weapon.
Stephen Clancy Hill, 34, ran out of a house in the 8000 block of Azul Drive, where Hill had barricaded himself since 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning, stood on a cliff, and threatened suicide, according to police.
Police and crisis negotiators surrounded the distraught porn actor, Hill, for hours as he pressed a sword (possibly a prop taken from the porn studio lot and used in the three previous stabbings) against his body, says LAPD. Police officials don't know yet, whether or not it was the same sword used in Tuesday's deadly attack on-site, at a porn DVD production center that left two people injured and one man, whom had tried to help during the stabbings, dead.
Police officers somehow made the decision to hit suspect Hill with a non-lethal weapon at around 5:30 p.m. Somehow, hitting someone who's standing by a cliffside doesn't seem like a move that will ensure the best possible outcome.
In camera video footage of the incident, porn actor Hill appears to jump off the approximately 40 foot high embankment after being struck by the police officer-deployed weapon. Hill apparently died of head injuries related to his jump down the cliff, police said.
Hill was wanted by police for charges including one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder, which hospitalized two and left one dead, related to a slashing attack at the Ultima DVD company' warehouse near Van Nuys Airport.
Police say porn actor Hill, also known by his stage name, "Steve Driver" had been living at the offices of Ultima DVD, told he needed to leave by Tuesday.
Hill worked at porn studio Ultima DVD as a web designer and also as a struggling porn actor, police say. Hill attacked a colleague with a prop sword during a social gathering at DVD Ultima's Van Nuys studios, police said, then turned on two others whom had rushed to help their co-worker being attacked. One of those men who attempted to help, 30-year-old porn actor Herbert Hin Wong, was killed during the attack. Wong, a native of China, acted in adult films under the name "Tom Dong" and had even appeared with Hill in several porn films. Two other people had suffered serious to moderate injuries and were expected to survive.
Hill fled in an SUV with the murder weapon at the time, police said.
Eric Jover, who runs Ultimata DVD, had offered a STEEP $2,000 reward (apparently porn isn't as profitable as it once has been) to anyone who could help police locate whereabouts of Hill, who had remained on the run since the stabbing incidents.
In 1999, Hill was convicted of assault with a firearm for threatening to kill a University of Maryland college professor for not giving him an 'A', the Washington Post reports.