White Woman was Murdered by Black Drug Dealer for Stealing His Drugs

M Live
December 18, 2014

As days turned into months and months turned into years without somebody facing consequences for fatally shooting Jessica Callan in 2010, her family began to wonder if it ever would happen.

A jury has ensured the Midland woman’s family will not have to wonder anymore.

After deliberating for about two hours, a jury of six women and six men on Tuesday, Dec. 16, convicted Birl L. Hill of murdering the 23-year-old Callan late July 10 in Saginaw County after a drug deal.

The jurors reached their verdict Tuesday afternoon after listening to closing arguments Tuesday morning. Hill showed no emotion as the verdict was read.

Callan’s mother, Michelle Berk, said she and her family had “a lot of emotions” Tuesday and that she was sick to her stomach as they were on their way to Saginaw for the court proceedings and “just waiting for this outcome.”

“We waited four and a half years,” Berk told The Saginaw News outside county Circuit Judge Darnell Jackson’s courtroom after the reading of the verdict. “We’ll never get Jessie back, but at least this will maybe release some of the anger.”

Berk and her family conducted several vigils in the years after Callan’s body was found the morning of July 11 in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Spaulding Township. The vigils honored Callan but also were held in an attempt to “get some answers” as to who killed her, Berk said. Prior to prosecutors charging Hill in May 2014, the family began to wonder if that day ever would happen, Berk said.

“You feel like that all the way through,” she said. “But I didn’t give up.”

The jury convicted Hill, now 37, of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree felony murder, and 10 other felonies in Callan’s death. The conviction means Hill faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Closing arguments

Hill’s trial began Wednesday, Dec. 9, in Jackson’s courtroom and continued the rest of the week with testimony. County Assistant Prosecutor Paul Fehrman and one of Hill’s two attorneys, Alan Crawford, delivered their closing arguments Tuesday morning.

Four men — Hill’s cousin and three of their friends — testified about the events before and after Callan’s death. Their testimony showed Hill killed Callan after she stole $1,500-worth of OxyContin pills from him after he gave them to her to sell to another buyer outside an apartment complex in Midland. Hill forced her to come back to Saginaw with him in his vehicle and then told his friends, after arriving at a South Side Saginaw home, that he was going to kill her.

“This man chose to impose his own death penalty,” Fehrman said.