On a spring evening, May 12, 1989, 38-year-old Annette Hill said goodbye to her young daughter in their Sandy, Utah condominium, promising she would be back in a couple of hours. Annette, a social worker with the state, left her home near 82nd South and 1220 East for a Friday night out, leaving her vehicle behind in the carport. She was last seen wearing a black jumpsuit, black shoes, a gold-colored watch, and a peach-colored ring.
Her planned short outing turned into an enduring mystery when she never returned home and was never heard from again. Initially, her evening included visits to Club 90 in Sandy and the Zephyr Club in Salt Lake City. From there, she reportedly went to the Avenues-area home of a man she had met, but left his residence in the early morning hours and vanished. That man was thoroughly investigated by police and was ultimately cleared as a suspect in her disappearance.
The investigation into Annette Hill's disappearance took a significant turn approximately ten months later in connection with a separate, brutal crime. While investigating the March 1990 murder of a restaurant chef, Victor Aguilar, police uncovered evidence linked to Annette at apartments rented by a man named Thomas Evan Noffsinger, also known as Thomas Trujillo. In one of his former residences, from which he had been evicted, authorities discovered Annette's black purse, which was stained with blood. Inside were her personal effects, including her driver's license. In another of Noffsinger's apartments, a prescription pill bottle bearing Annette's name was found in his medicine chest. Noffsinger was a long-considered person of interest in Annette's case, but for years he denied any involvement, claiming he found her purse while burglarizing a car. This explanation was met with skepticism by investigators, who noted that Annette's own car had been left untouched at her home on the night she disappeared.
For decades, the case remained cold, a source of unending pain for Annette's family who had legally declared her deceased in 1991. The breakthrough finally came in October 2014, when Thomas Noffsinger, already serving a life sentence for the murder of Victor Aguilar, confessed to killing Annette Hill as part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty in another murder case, that of 17-year-old Felicia Pappas. Noffsinger revealed that on the night of her disappearance, he encountered Annette using a pay phone near 900 E. South Temple in Salt Lake City while he was riding his bicycle home from a bar. He stopped to talk to her, and after an unknown trigger, he struck her. He then confessed to strangling her to death behind a nearby gas station, sexually assaulting her, and disposing of her body in a dumpster. Despite his confession, Annette's remains have never been found, leaving her loved ones without the closure of a proper burial. The case, which began with a mother's simple promise to her child, concluded with the chilling confession of a serial killer, officially resolving her disappearance as a homicide but leaving a permanent void for those who knew and loved her.Last Seen: May 12, 1989
