Who should collect on life insurance policy of San Antonio woman whose severed head was ID’d last year? – San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio resident Sally Ann Hines went missing after leaving her Northwest Side home in December 2017, never to be heard from again.
A sheriff’s office’s litter pickup team found Hines’ severed head in a plastic bag three months later in March 2018 in southwest Louisiana marshland, but it would take until May of last year to identify it. She was 58.
About two months later, in July, Prudential Insurance Co. of America received a claim from her husband, Harold Hines,79, for the roughly $153,500 death benefit on her life insurance policy.
But Prudential isn’t sure whether it should pay him.
“Upon information and belief, according to law enforcement officials with the Sheriff’s Department of Cameron Parish, Louisiana, Harold has not been ruled out as a suspect in connection with the insured’s death,” Prudential said in papers filed Monday in San Antonio federal court.
Federal and state laws prevent the beneficiary of a life insurance policy from receiving the proceeds if he or she is a principal or an accomplice in bringing about an insured’s death.
So Prudential filed what’s known as an “interpleader” action, asking the court to decide who should get the death benefits.
Sally Hines obtained the group life insurance policy through her then-employer, USAA, where she had worked as a senior software engineer. Oddly, according to the court filing, she didn’t designate any beneficiaries on the policy.
Sally Hines was survived by one child, Kelly Hines.
Kelly Hines has not submitted a claim to the death benefits.
Nevertheless, the benefits would be payable to Kelly Hines if it’s determined that her father has forfeited his right to them because he was involved in her death.
In an interview Tuesday, Harold Hines said he had nothing to do with his wife’s death.
“I’m a suspect immediately because I’m her spouse,” he said. “In this sort of death, that’s what happens. I understand that. But they can’t be doing much in the way of investigating if they haven’t even talked to me after four years. This is crazy.”
Cameron Parish Sheriff Ron Johnson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Harold Hines said he has never been told a cause of death, and as far as he knows, his wife’s body has never been found.
After the head was discovered, investigators combed through countless tips and sent out body tissue samples. A tip from a Cameron woman in May led to the identification. Authorities confirmed the identification using dental records.
At the time, Johnson told the Express-News that officials hadn’t determined how Sally Hines ended up in the area, but said body dumps aren’t uncommon because of the marshland and the proximity to the Texas border.
“People who know Cameron Parish — or have driven through here — know there are lots of alligators out and about. And they believe that if they dump a body here, the alligators will eat it and they will disappear,” Johnson said. “Tragically, this isn’t unusual for us.”
Sally Hines had various medical problems, Harold Hines said. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and manic depression. She was diabetic, had had a liver transplant and was hospitalized several times. She had been on long-term disability from USAA for nearly 10 years and was under a doctor’s care, he added.
On the night of his wife’s disappearance, Harold Hines had called emergency-medical personnel to their home. Police came to the house. She subsequently left home to meet someone.
“That was it,” Harold Hines said. “She went out and met someone and we’ve never seen or heard from her since.”
According to The Charley Project , a nonprofit organization that tracks missing persons cases, Hines left her home at 3 a.m. on Dec. 17, 2017, barefoot and without her purse, phone, medication or car.
The money from the life insurance policy would come in handy, Harold Hines said. Sally Hines had “racked up a ton of debts.” He’s paid off $50,000 to $60,000. He wants to use the insurance money to pay off his daughter’s college loans and put some aside for his “last few years” in case he has to go into an assisted-living facility.
After submitting a claim for the death benefits, Harold Hines said he received notices from Prudential that said it was “holding off on paying it out because (Sally Hines’) situation has not been cleared up yet.”
The action filed by Prudential is similar to one filed by Fidelity Guaranty & Life following the 2013 death of San Antonio trucking tycoon Bill Hall Jr. Fidelity had asked the court to determine the beneficiary of a $250,000 insurance policy on Hall’s life.
On Oct. 10, 2013, Hall’s wife, Frances Hall, was driving her black Cadillac Escalade on South Loop 1604 when she saw the Range Rover the couple owned being driven by his lover of three years, Bonnie Contreras. Bill Hall was on a motorcycle, following Contreras. When Frances Hall saw them, she turned around, rammed the Range Rover with the Escalade, and the trio became involved in a highway chase that ended with the motorcycle and SUV colliding, Contreras testified during a 2016 trial. Bill Hall Jr., 50, died in a hospital following the incident.
A jury convicted Frances Hall of killing her husband. The judge who presided over the trial, though, allowed the jury to consider during punishment that Hall acted under “sudden passion,” which lowered the first-degree felony punishment of five to 99 years or life in prison to a second-degree felony and sentence range of two to 20 years.
The panel gave her the lightest term possible — two years on the murder charge, and two years for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for ramming the Escalade into the Range Rover. Both sentences were served at the same time.
Frances Hall was the primary beneficiary of the life insurance policy. However, following her conviction, her son — Justin Hall — sought to have the death benefits awarded to him. He was a contingent beneficiary and argued that his mother’s interest in the life insurance policy was forfeited under the Texas Slayer Statute given her involvement in her husband’s death.
In December 2016, Chief U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia in San Antonio ordered that the policy’s proceeds — which were held in the court’s registry — be paid to Justin Hall.
Staff writers Taylor Pettaway and Elizabeth Zavala contributed to this report.
pdanner@express-news.net
