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Hayden man faces attempted-murder charge

by Ralph Bartholdt Staff Writer
| November 16, 2019 12:00 AM

A 32-year-old Hayden man is charged with one count of attempted murder after his arrest Thursday by a SWAT team for allegedly threatening to shoot his sister in the face at a residence on Hayden Lake Road.

Justin Adrian Hill used a semi automatic rifle to shoot at the house on the 3200 block of E. Hayden Lake Road, the cars parked outside, and threatened to kill his mother and sister before he was arrested naked near the residence around 11 p.m. by a multi-agency SWAT team, police said.

Hill was charged Friday with one count of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated assault, as well as two counts of malicious injury to property and exhibition of a deadly weapon.

He is being held in the Kootenai County jail on $500,000 bail for each of the charges.

Police received a call from a family member late Thursday that Hill was in the house, on drugs and threatening to shoot people. Not long after that, another caller reported hearing as many as eight gunshots at the residence.

When police arrived they saw two cars, a Subaru Forester and a Subaru Impreza with bullet holes, as well as bullet holes in the front of the house and empty shell casings in the driveway.

Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies entered the house and escorted out the two victims, Geri and Stephanie Hill, before searching the neighborhood.

SWAT members found Hill standing naked in the dark near a fence with his hands raised, according to police.

Police said Hill, his sister and mother argued before he threatened to kill them, and pointed a rifle at his sister’s face. He left the house and shot at it, “with rounds passing through exterior walls … showering (the victims) with paint flecks and drywall,” according to a police report.

SWAT members found Hill’s clothing in a nearby yard along with cell phones and Hill’s wallet, and later found his rifle, police said.

Hill will have a preliminary hearing within 14 days if he remains in jail, or within 21 days if he posts bail.