DEADLY DNA

Article BY LORI BELL

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Imagine never knowing your biological father, but then finally meeting him on death row for committing crimes almost identical to yours. Not only was your father on death row, but your grandfather as well. In the case of Jeffrey Landrigan, this is exactly what happened.

Jeffrey was adopted by a picture perfect family which afforded him the opportunity to become anything he wanted to be. But the boy was destined for a darker future. Uncovering his blood lines sent him on a deadly collision course with fate.

The Landrigans were a fairly typical family of Oklahoma in the 1960s. Nick as an engineer in the oil business making good money, and Dot was a perfect stay- at- home mom. They also had an 8-year-old daughter, Bethany.

Bethany was the perfect child, she never got in trouble, did very well in school, and was a loving child. It was no surprise that her parents wanted to give her a sibling. They tried and tried but Dot had miscarriages.

So like many couples, adoption was an option at the time, so they registered at an adoption clinic and crossed their fingers. Later that year, the Landrigans received word that a baby boy was available. They were on top of the world.

They already had a girl, now here’s that perfect boy to complete that middle class family. Eleven month old Jeffrey joins the Landrigan family showered by love and attention. Being adopted by the Landrigans was like winning the baby version of the lottery.

There was a period when everything seems perfect, but as time goes on the Landrigans begin to realize that this boy was not what they thought. At six years old Jeffrey was acting out. He had behavioral problems that were very foreign to his family and confused them.

He had trouble surpressing urges, he had sticky fingers and liked to take things. He showed signs of being a bad kid, and to Nick and Dot this just didn’t make sense. It was a shock for Nick and Dot because their daughter was such an angel and a sweet child and they started noticing that Jeffrey was not like their daughter.

Finally Jeffrey was caught shoplifting. When asked by his adoptive parents why he did it he had somewhat of an unusual answer --- “It was something for me to do.” It brings out nature verses nurture. You have two children in the same family, same parents raised the same way, but yet the outcome is totally different.

Nature verses nurture is based on a debate about why we become who we are. Are we born that way or is it because of how we were brought up? Did Jeffrey Landrigan really have free will or were the cards stacked against him early in life?

Back in the 1960s adoption was very different from the way it is today. You didn’t know the biological origins of the child you were adopting. The Landrigans didn’t know it but Jeffrey’s biological father, Darrel Hill, came from a long line of career criminals.

Darrel Hill came from a family of bootleggers, it’s almost like he had outlaw in his blood. He was a criminal, drug addict, and at 15 he was convicted of stealing a car and sent to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, where he quickly realized he was swimming with sharks.

One day he was cornered by a convict, pulls out a shank he made, and stabs the guy. He pleaded it was self defense so he wasn’t found guilty of homicide. Instead of rehabilitating Darrel, prison only honed his skills.

Darrel was not just a hardened career criminal but he was also a killer. After serving three years in prison, Darrel was finally released. At 21, he returned home and found a surprise waiting for him, 15-year-old Desiree Flowers. He found there was good news and bad news.

His mother married another guy, but the good news is this guy had a daughter. Darrel has a new stepsister who he falls deeply in love with. This is a relationship that society would view as a taboo case. It’s not every day where you hear about people courting their stepsisters.

The forbidden relationship moved fast. Darrel and his stepsister are having sex like bunnies and they’re doing drugs. Almost from the get go it’s a toxic relationship. Darrel introduces her to his bad habit of doing drugs and before you know it , it’s spiraling downhill from then on.

In the midst of all their partying the couple got married. A few months later Desiree got pregnant. Darrel’s behavior didn’t change one bit. If anything it exasperated. Neither one of them had jobs so he was out making ends meet any way he could.

Darrel was stealing, robbing, and committing burglaries, and was probably getting worse. Bringing a baby into this particular relationship was not a good idea. Darrel Hill would thrust his son into a world of chaos.

He used the baby’s crib as a hiding place for his drugs and his gun. Could Jeffrey’s bad behavior been inherited from Darrel Hill, the biological father he never knew? Even in the womb, Desiree and Darrel exposed Jeffrey to a life of drugs and crime.

They were apparently a very hard drinking, hard drug using couple, and Desiree continued to use a variety of drugs as well as alcohol throughout the term of her pregnancy. So even before Jeffrey was born he had hits against him. Potential brain impairment, which we know raises the odds of future violence.

And if there’s a genetic make-up for violence in the father, that is surely going to be passed on to the son. Little is known about how his parents treated him after he was born, but it seemed Darrel and Desiree continued their abusive behavior.

This obviously is a background of complete disfunction. Is this going to be the legacy of this little boy? Is he going to grow up to be a drug addict? For eight months the Hill household was mired with drugs and abuse. Darrel is hot tempered and you can imagine there’s domestic violence going on.

The chronic home early stress is already giving Jeffrey a big hit over and above the genetic hit he’s already inherited from his biological father. Then everything changed. Darrel was arrested again for burglary and sent back to prison.

That leaves Desiree alone with the baby, but eventually it gets to be too much and she knows she can’t do it. She’s in no fixed state to be a mother, she’s a drug addict. Jeffrey gets put into an adoption agency where he spends months waiting for adoption.

Jeffrey is then adopted by the Landrigans, but could this loving family be enough to save him from his real father and a destructive destiny? While Darrel was prison, Desiree divorced him. After serving just two years, he was released and tried to reunite with his wife and child.

Desiree had cleaned up her life and she didn’t want Darrel looking for Jeffrey. She lied and said Jeffrey was dead. The news that his son is dead sent him on a downward spiral. Darrel is eventually arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Darrel began serving his time without any idea Jeffrey was actually alive, but his son will soon find out about his father’s existence. When Jeffrey was 10-years-old he learns he was adopted. Some of his classmates found out about it before he did, and they teased him about it.

Everything Jeffrey knew was a reality, was false. After school Jeffrey begins searching for the truth. He took the first opportunity he was home alone and started rummaging through the house and found his own adoption papers.

One of the things he noticed was that the name Hill was on the papers. Jeffrey confronts his parents with the stunning revelation. When he found out he was adopted he wanted to find out more about his biological mother and father.

He didn’t feel like he belonged, he thought Nick and Dot were his parents and Bethany was his sister, so he felt lied to as well. The perceived betrayal seemed to send Jeffrey’s life further down the dark path. By his teen years, Jeffrey begins a life of crime.

As a teenager, unknowingly, Jeffrey picked up right where his natural father left off, committing burglaries and doing drugs. At the same time, Jeffrey’s father is wrestling demons of his own. After spending the majority of his life behind bars, Darrel’s mental state is deteriorating .

He’s severely depressed, having hallucinations, having violent outbursts, and being potentially very dangerous . Even within the prison there are clear warning signs that Darrel Hill is on the verge of something much worse than he’s done previously .

Darrel is transferred to the state’s mental health prison to serve out the remainder of his sentence. He still doesn’t know his son is alive but the career criminal will soon become closer to the truth. The mental health facility that they put Darrel in was a bad example of Fort Knox.

One day he just gets up and walks out. Two weeks later, Darrel is 200 miles away driving a stolen car and tweeking on meth and gripping a loaded handgun. He needs more money for drugs and pulls into a roadside gas station, run by E. L. Wood, who is all alone in the station. Darrel seizes the opportunity to make a quick buck.

Wood gave him everything that was in the register just to get him to leave. Then the two men get an unexpected surprise, an officer from the Game and Fish Commission walks into the gas station’s office. Darrel sees a badge and panics and makes a rash decision that will change everything .

Darrel forced both men into his car and made Teeg, the officer, drive. When Darrel spots a secluded location, he orders Teeg to pull over. He tells the men to lie down on their stomachs on the ground with their hands behind their back. He starts pumping bullets into both of them and then takes off.

Teeg was killed at the scene, but Wood was able to survive and play dead. Wood escapes and crawls on his hands and knees to a highway where he is ultimately picked up by a trucker. He gives a description of Darrel, the car he is driving, that he is armed , and what kind of gun he has.

Police immediately issue an APB and just two hours later officers spot his vehicle. They chase him and he is caught with the gun and the cash in the car. On July 11, 1980, Darrel is convicted of murder and given the death penalty . He may never see beyond the prison walls again, but outside his son, Jeffrey, is continuing his wicked legacy.

Jeffrey, now 19, is battling an out of control drug problem. In an effort to save their son, Nick and Dot send him to a rehab facility in Austin, Texas. They tried to do everything they possibly could. These are parents who really love their son, and despite everything, were really trying to patch together some sort of sensible life for Jeffrey.

In treatment, Jeffrey meets Amy Lansky, another patient whose life is also off course. When you have a co-educational drug rehab situation, there’s a lot of romance going on because everybody is emotionally uninvolved to begin with, so it’s easy to fall in love.

After successfully completing the program, Jeffrey proposes to Amy, and the two return home to Tulsa. Nick and Dot were not happy with the situation. They felt it would be easy for him to fall back onto his old habits. They move in together.

This is the exact recipe for failure that his father and biological mother had tried out decades before him. After a few months Jeffrey and Amy get married. They quickly find life in the real world is wrought with temptation.

Jeffrey is still a criminal and is arrested for a drug charge and is back in prison for another year. So although this could have been a make or break time in his life, it’s a break time. The trip to prison will give Jeffrey a whole new direction in life.

One day an inmate named Tommy Jones approaches Jeffrey with a burning question. He asked Jeffrey if he was related to Darrel Hill and said he could pass for his son. Suddenly a light turns on in Jeffrey’s head.

He remembers the name Hill was on his adoption papers. He gets the whole story Darrel’s on death row in Arkansas. For as long as Jeffrey can remember he has felt like odd man out, and now with his first knowledge of his father he gets the feeling he belongs with these people.

Jeffrey is released from prison and returns to his wife Amy and is fortunate that his adoptive parents rent them a house in Tulsa. After he came out of prison, Jeffrey and Amy tried to stay sober. A few months later Amy tells Jeffrey she is pregnant with his child.

At age 22 he was going to be a father just like his father was. For a Hill boy, adopted or not, staying out of trouble never lasts long. Around the same time a friend from prison, Gregg Brown, gets out and is asked to be Godfather of Jeffrey’s unborn child.

Gregg and Jeffrey reconnect and fall back into hanging out, drinking, and getting high. For some reason Jeffrey starts to tease Gregg about being a punk. The ribbing sends Jeffrey’s friend over the edge. The phrase “punk” in prison culture usually refers to someone who is going to be victimized, who is going to be raped, sexually assaulted.

Gregg says” Let’s go outside.” Jeffrey cannot admit he's afraid to fight another man in front of his wife. He tries to figure out how to not get his butt kicked when he sees a knife on the counter and puts it in his pocket.

As soon as they go outside Jeffrey attacks, burying the knife in Gregg’s chest again and again. It was as if he stepped inside Darrel’s skin. There’s something in Jeffrey’s mind telling him that murder was the thing to do. Prior to this he was just a petty thief. Now, like his father, he has turned into a murderer.

Someone comes out of a house with a gun and tells Jeffrey to stop right there. He drops the knife and runs. And, like his father before him, he doesn’t get far and is arrested for murder. On September 9, 1985, Jeffrey is convicted of murder and sentenced to 40 years.

While he’s in prison he learns that his wife Amy gives birth to a daughter, and is also served divorce papers. Now, Jeffrey, at the same age as his father, has a child that he hasn’t seen. Once behind bars Jeffrey continues to parallel his father's life.

He gets cornered by an older, larger inmate, pulls out a shank and stabs the guy with it. It's a carbon copy of what had happened to Darrel exactly a generation before Jeffrey. He is placed in solitary confinement, and with not much else to do, he can’t help but reflect on his life.

Jeffrey starts thinking more about his biological father and decides to reach out and writes a letter to Darrel. When Darrel gets this envelope he sees the name and doesn’t know who this person is. He was totally confused because he was under the impression that his son died in a fire.

Darrel is intrigued and writes back to Jeff and pretty soon they’re pen pals. The amazing thing is that Darrel has become a born again Christian . He doesn’t use drugs anymore and he urges Jeffrey to get his life together.

The irony is rich, Jeffrey is genetically bad because of Darrel, and yet here’s Darrel taking steps to make Jeffrey a better person. While exchanging letters with Darrel, Jeffrey learns about his birth mother, Desiree. He is told she has moved to Yuma, Arizona, has remarried and moved on with her life.

Now that he found his father, he wanted to find his mother and ask the age old question of why she gave him away. Jeffrey is obsessed, he has to find his mother. He writes to her, she doesn’t write back. Jeffrey isn’t deterred, now his life has purpose.

At this point in his life he really has nothing to lose. He begins plotting an escape. The path to Jeffrey’s birth mother will end in blood.

Jeffrey becomes a model prisoner, his good behavior comes with benefits. He gets himself put into a minimal security prison and eventually he's put on work detail where he’s put in a park and told to pick up litter. That’s where he meets Angela Donte.

Angela was a single mom with a young son, and she was looking for any kind of attention. This eventually leads to them sneaking in the bushes to have sex. Jeffrey is thinking of Angela as his ticket to freedom. She was so in love with Jeffrey that she agreed to help him escape.

Angela waits in her car outside the prison while Jeffrey manages to escape and meets up with her. She thinks she’s starting a whole new adventure in life with Jeffrey. He drops a bomb that he wants to go a thousand miles to Yuma to see his mom.

Angela eventually kicks him out of the car after a few days. Jeffrey thumbs his way west. Two weeks after his escape, he lands in Phoenix, Arizona. He almost made it to Yuma. With his world turning on him, he turns to the only source he knows.

Jeffrey got within 200 miles, but he didn’t make it the rest of the way because he was detoured by drugs. You need drugs, you need money or someone who has the drugs. Jeffrey runs into a gay bartender who picks up men, and asks him if he wants to party.

Chester would blow his entire paycheck picking someone up that he was interested in. Jeffrey noticed that Chester had money and thought he would be an easy mark. Once in Chester’s apartment they partied, drinking and smoking pot.

However, life happened and Chester called his friend saying he picked up a young guy and suddenly Jeffrey’s plans for a discreet robbery were thwarted. Jeffrey was thinking he was going to be nameless and faceless, but now his name was out there. He was panicking and scared.

When Chester suggests they take the party into the bedroom, Jeffrey decides there’s only one way out of the situation. Jeffrey acted violently. He tied an extension cord around Chester’s neck strangling him, and then proceeded to stab him several times with a screwdriver. Chester is dead.

Jeffrey decides to search the place thoroughly for money or valuables. He finds a deck of cards with leud pictures of men on them, picks out the ace of hearts and sets it on Chester’s back. Jeffrey was callous, he was psychopathic-like, and he was heartless.

Jeffrey thought that killing Chester would shut him up forever. He didn’t realize he left some clues behind. Chester’s friend discovered his body two days later. This was the same friend Chester called and mentioned Jeffrey to. Chester’s friend told police about the call and Jeffrey .

The police found a perfect clue at the crime scene of a perfect shoe print in a pile of sugar dumped on the floor. While the cops were looking for a faceless killer, Jeffrey was looking for a way out of Phoenix. The money he found at Chester’s house he used for drugs instead of a way out of Phoenix .

Jeffrey was suffering from a conflict with drugs and a desire to see his mother and unfortunately the drugs won out. He felt that stealing a car would be his best bet to get to Yuma, but he picks the wrong car.

Two policemen on a stake out saw Jeffrey breaking into a car. They followed him, and Jeffrey leads them to an abandoned house where he is squatting. Jeffrey saw the cops coming up to the house and he was like a trapped animal ready to strike.

The police arrested him and took him in for car theft. While he’s being processed an officer notices something strange about his sneakers. They were on a wanted flyer along with the name Jeffrey. He was being questioned when the detective noticed Jeffrey was wearing a shirt with Chester’s name on it.

Jeffrey admitted to being there when Chester was killed but blamed someone else by the name of Darrel for actually committing the murder. He picks his father’s name as the imaginary killer. They don’t believe him and charge him with Chester’s murder .

From the moment he learned that his father was on death row he must have thought it was his destiny, and here it was. With his arrest, all hope of seeing his birth mother was squashed. At trial, the evidence was overwhelming, and even his loving, adoptive parents can’t bail him out of this one.

On November 9, 1990, Jeffrey was found guilty of murder. He turned to the judge and said if you want to give me the death penalty just bring it on. His journey of ending up like his birth father had come full circle .

Darrel Hill and Jeffrey Landrigan become the only father and son on death row. Though they never met in person, Darrel Hill and Jeffrey Landrigan lived parallel lives of murder and mayhem. Their only connection, the blood in their veins.

In December of 2005, while awaiting execution, Darrel Hill died of heart failure. Five years later, Jeffrey Landrigan was executed by lethal injection. Were their parallel lives just coincidence, fate, or the result of deadly DNA?