DNA from a discarded water bottle has led to a murder charge in a 41-year-old Newport cold case involving the 1985 strangulation of Hillary Hellewell.
Fox News reported that William “Billy” Morton, 61, was arrested Oct. 6 and charged with first-degree murder in the death of 22-year-old Hillary Hellewell, found on a Newport, Rhode Island, sidewalk nearly four decades earlier.
He is being held without bond. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha said the case will go to a grand jury, with a status conference set for Oct. 20.
The break did not come from a confession or a new witness. It came from trash left behind at a concert.
Two brothers, ages 17 and 20, found Hellewell’s body at about 4:15 a.m. on May 19, 1985, while walking to work. She was lying on the sidewalk on Anthony Street in Newport.
The medical examiner ruled the cause of death asphyxia due to strangulation and classified it as a homicide. Court records described her body as mostly “cold to the touch,” with some areas still “slightly warm.”
"cold to the touch"
A “heavily soiled” blue T-shirt was near her head. Investigators noted a blood stain on the back of her white pants. Swabs showed spermatozoa, evidence of sexual contact.
The night before, Hellewell had been at a gathering with friends in Newport where alcohol was consumed. She offered to walk home an overly intoxicated male friend. He made it home. She did not.
The next day that friend was still too intoxicated to give police many details. Men close to Hellewell were later ruled out as potential donors of the sperm. Newport police never developed a viable suspect at the time.
About 45 days after Hellewell was killed, Morton was convicted in 1987 of a violent sexual assault in Newport, a couple of miles from where her body was found.
He drew a 20-year sentence, served seven years in prison, and spent the rest on probation. He later worked as a service technician at a Volkswagen dealership.
That record sat in the background while Hellewell’s case stayed cold. DNA from the crime scene had been collected and preserved. In 2004, state officials reviewed the file and entered profiles into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS. Still, no arrest followed.
In 2023, the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office formed a Cold Case Unit. The Hellewell file was pulled again. Evidence went to a private lab using newer DNA methods. Investigators zeroed in on Morton, including a family-line DNA lead.
Senior cold case investigator Michael Nayor then ran physical surveillance. On Aug. 21, he followed Morton and his fiancée from a Burger King stop to a theater in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where a Heart tribute band called Bad Animals was playing.
Nayor bought a ticket. He watched Morton purchase popcorn and two bottled waters, sip from one, and leave early with his fiancée. The investigator seized the water bottle left behind and submitted it for testing.
The Rhode Island Department of Health compared the profile from the bottle to the old crime-scene material. The department reported that the bottle DNA “is consistent with the previously reported partial profiles” from a sperm stain on Hellewell’s pants and a stain on the blue shirt.
"is consistent with the previously reported partial profiles"
That laboratory finding, built on evidence saved since 1985, underpinned the first-degree murder charge. Officers from multiple agencies, including the Newport Police Department, the Attorney General’s office, and the Smithfield Police Department, were at Morton’s home about 7 a.m. on Oct. 6 as he left for work.
He was arrested and charged in Rhode Island District Court Second Division. Fox News Digital said it could not reach Morton’s attorney for comment.
Hellewell was 22. Morton is now 61. More than 40 years passed between the Anthony Street discovery and the handcuffs on Oct. 6.
Police had biological evidence from the start. They had a homicide ruling by strangulation. They had a later sexual-assault conviction in the same city by the man now charged. What they lacked for decades was a DNA bridge strong enough to support an arrest.
The Cold Case Unit, the private lab work, the CODIS groundwork from 2004, and a water bottle left at a tribute-band show closed that gap enough for prosecutors to move. Neronha’s office says a grand jury will weigh the case next.
When killers leave biological evidence, and when the state bothers to keep it, test it, and chase it, time stops being a free pass, and a discarded bottle can finish what a 1985 sidewalk crime scene started.
