Rhea Robinson, Late Socialite’s Mother, Dies
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PENSACOLA, Fla. — Rhea Robinson, mother of socialite Joan Robinson Hill whose death was dramatized in the Tommy Thompson best-seller “Blood and Money,” died in a hospital here Sunday. She was 86.
Mrs. Robinson’s husband, Houston oilman Ash Robinson, who died in February, 1985, at age 87, had been accused but never indicted of hiring the killers of his former son-in-law, John Hill.
Hill, a Houston plastic surgeon, was married to the Robinsons’ only daughter, Joan, who died March 19, 1969, of an unknown infection.
On Sept. 24, 1972, Hill was shot to death in his River Oaks home. At the time, he was awaiting a second trial on a charge that he murdered Joan Hill by withholding medical care.
The first trial in 1971 ended in a mistrial.
In 1979, the Robinsons left Houston for Pensacola to escape the notoriety surrounding the deaths.
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