KOB
July 24, 2015
Charlie Hill is accused of killing a New Mexico State Police officer, stealing a tow truck, driving it to the Sunport and hijacking a plane to Cuba back in 1971. Now, he wants to come home to New Mexico.
KOB talked to his victims, and state police say they want to welcome him home with handcuffs.
It would be a cinematic end to a story of blockbuster proportions. As U.S.-Cuba relations thaw, a notorious criminal says it may be time to face the music, and state police say they’ll buy his ticket.
Hill’s story took New Mexico by storm before people here even knew his name.
On November 8, 1971, state police officer Robert Rosenbloom was gunned down outside Albuquerque after police say he stopped three men, including Hill, who identified as African-American militants.
After three weeks on the run, Hill and his gang suddenly popped up when they called for a tow truck and Victor Duggar pulled up in his wrecker.
“He said, ‘you know who we are?'” Dugar recalled. “And I said, ‘yeah, I know who you are.'”
Duggar’s life was about the change – in some ways for the better.
In a whirlwind few minutes, Duggar was carjacked. Hill seemed determined to get away with his crime, driving Duggar’s wrecker onto the Sunport runway, taking off in a TWA jet, which he hijacked and forced to fly him to Cuba.
The trauma of that day has stuck with Duggar for 43 years.
“It was rough for a while,” he said. “Your life passes in front of you real quick.”