FUGITIVE CAPTURED September 27, 2018 —
The Snohomish County Violent Offender Task Force with assistance from Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office South Patrol deputies arrested Jeremy Hill in Bothell on Thursday.
Deputies say he was in a stolen vehicle.
Hill was located thanks to a tip from a Washington’s Most Wanted viewer.
He was arraigned in court on Friday and being held in the Snohomish County Jail on $25,000 bail.
He is WMW Capture #1016.
—ORIGINAL STORY—
SNOHOMISH COUNTY — Jon Lipka says he didn’t have a cigarette to offer the stranger who approached him in a parking lot in Kirkland. And he sure couldn’t have guessed what would happen next.
Investigators say 34-year-old Jeremy Hill got behind the wheel of Jon’s gardening truck.
“I instinctively reach in and I grab him with my right arm. I grab him and I’ve got his head in my arms,” says Lipka.
He says he tried desperately to stop Hill from driving away.
“His eyes got really huge and his skin was all greasy, like somebody who’d been up for days. I’m hanging on and I see the wall coming, so I kind of let go. The momentum forced me forward. I kind of don’t remember a whole lot except for bouncing up off the pavement, spitting out a bunch of teeth and blood and then just started calling for help,” says Lipka.
The Snohomish County Auto Theft Task Force says Hill is suspected of at least two robberies and four vehicle thefts during the month of August in Seattle, Everett, Monroe and Kirkland. And investigators say Lipka’s case isn’t the only time Hill’s gotten violent.
In the Everett robbery on August 9, detectives say Hill and two others are suspected of stealing a Toyota Highlander from a husband and wife.
“As the driver was walking a donation box over to a bin in the parking lot, Hill hopped in the driver’s seat. The wife, a 63-year-old female, attempted to stop Hill by grabbing the vehicle, he accelerated and ended up dragging her 18 feet and she sustained multiple injuries,” says Courtney O’Keefe with the Snohomish County Auto Theft Task Force.
“Of course after all the medical bills that are coming in, the jaw surgery, the internal bleeding, almost bleeding to death, all of that has brought me on this roller coaster of emotions where I get very angry,” says Lipka.
After several weeks in the hospital, multiple corrective surgeries, even eating chicken broth from a syringe, Lipka fears it’s only a matter of time before someone else is severely injured or killed.
"Jeremy, you may be thinking you’re just stealing cars, but you’re not, you’re really hurting people. You’re out of control and you need to stop,” says Lipka.
Lipka says he’s worked as a gardener in the Totem Lake area for 25 years. He recently created a GoFundMe to help cover his medical bills.
As for Hill, investigators say he has ties to the Monroe-Sky Valley area in eastern Snohomish County. He is 5-foot-9, weighs about 210 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes. Hill is a felon, with a felony warrant out of Seattle, as well as a misdemeanor warrant for possession of vehicle theft tools and driving on a suspended license.
Anyone with information about Hill can submit a tip to Crime Stoppers by calling 1-800-222-tips or through the P3 tips app.