Police settled in and tried to reason with him, tossing him bottled water several times during the day. For nearly eight hours, he held the LAPD SWAT team at bay.
With dusk approaching and crisis negotiators making no progress with Hill, the SWAT unit decided to wrap things up by using what the LAPD would later describe as a "less-than-lethal weapon."
As police moved in to employ tasers and bean-bag projectiles, Hill turned his back to them and seated himself on the cliff's edge, still holding on to his sword. With conscious effort, he pushed himself off the bluff.
He plunged 30 feet to a rocky outcropping, where the crash raised a huge dust cloud that slowly rose upward. Hill then cartwheeled another 20 feet in a grotesque free fall, having lost his sword on first impact. He came to a stop in another cartoonishly expanding billow of dust. He was dead.
The attacks and subsequent suicide were big talk in the gossip-loving porn world, but Porn Valley quickly went back to business as usual. There were bigger concerns: falling DVD sales, Internet piracy and a brief industrywide production shutdown after a male performer was found to have contracted HIV.
Director Mike Ramone attempted to capitalize on the crime's brief notoriety by quickly putting out a compilation DVD featuring both Hill and Wong. It had the provocative title Porno Samurai Killer. The cover art showed Hill and Wong wearing masks — a Ronald Reagan one for Hill and fetishistic leather blinders for Wong. Both men looked puffy and doughy. Though not a hit, the DVD did give the two dead men a measure of stardom they never achieved as mopes.
David Hill says of the events, "We found the live coverage on television and the Internet and watched in horror. After many hours we got a call that Stephen was injured but in police custody, and then a final call that he had died.
"We went down to L.A. to arrange a funeral," his father says. "We invited some of his friends in the industry whose names we found on his MySpace page, but none of them showed up."
Porn isn't unique, we all know people on the edge it's sad that society doesn't do much for those on the edge.
why did you even bother to read this, if you care about the fringe of society, a fringe society of three year olds could have convayed more deeper meaning to such a hot sexy story. sincerly, morgan gorman.ps. the profile picture is hot.
I find it entertaining, that a porn director would call another person a 'd-lister'. YOU AREN'T EVEN ON A LIST TO BEGIN WITH!
The first sign of a problem was that he racked up credit card debt buying porn over the internet. Seriously... who buys porn over the internet?
Good article Mike. I'd also mention that the mopes cast as extras on Hollywood sets don't get fed as well as their pornish counterparts.
It's sad but not at all surprising to read about "Porno Samurai Killer"; that, also, didn't get the backlash it deserved.
I SEE that now the losers out number everyone,( include me I'm drunk ) And I mean EVERYONE !! That includes dead people..!! the hell is going on to OUR society ?
Reading the story, Hill's biography reads practically like what we now know about Jared Loughner. The guy had obvious untreated mental issues and finally fell off the rails.
boring. if he smelled funky then he shouldve showered more. crazy. and dont pornstars put their tongues and faces in all kinds of places im kinda surprised they care for smells.
I've never read that New Yorker piece, and I don't live in LA, so this is all new to me. It may be insensitive, but I find the story fascinating.
This article is biased and condescending, plus it rambles and misses the point... Dislike. Thumbs down.
This is a really weird, strange journey into the mysterious world of porn. I just wanted to know about the murder.
This cookie-cutter L.A.-porn-noir piece is inappropriate:
This is one sad, difficult story of mental illness and meaningless loss that does not particularly need to be told, and certainly not in this way. We all read "The Money Shot" article by Susan Faludi in the New Yorker and have ever since suffered its progeny of L.A.-porn-noir reportage, so this article is hardly compelling or groundbreaking for its style or its "ironic" observations.
To the extent that it is news, it should be told directly and factually, out of respect for those involved - particularly the decent father of this troubled soul.
I'm disappointed in the L.A. Weekly for publishing it.
What's the point of covering up for the LAPD now? Everybody is dead. Hill didn't jump; he was tazed off of the cliff by the cops. The whole thing was taped and on the video you not only saw the tazer shots but you could see the wires coming out of his back as he fell to his death. By only mentioning the bean bags and characterizing the death as a suicide, the credibility of this whole article is undermined. The truth probably died with Dong and Driver. Who really knows what happened when all you have here are the comments of either people who weren't there or those with no objectivity. This is journalism?
This guy was on a downward spiral for a long time. Can you imagine another industry where he could fine people who would let him stay a year at their place of work while showing major character flaws and ultimately intense mental illness? As Hill neared his psychic cliff represented by getting kicked out of the studio and decided to kill some people before suicide by cops, its interested to note Mr. Wong might have died because he hesitated when Hill attacked due to their friendship. Crazy people live among us. Work in every industry. Hill meant to kill and would have killed more people if he had a better blade or more training. But consider why he didn't use a gun? Too expensive? Not the "warrior's" way according to his mind? And after the long standoff, he takes the longer plunge. What was he thinking? Hill was someone's son, someone's friend. Whatever else this story is about, the star is David Hill. And he is not unique. We are in an age where the mentally ill are left to roam the streets, treated in an emergency room if they are dying, then put back where they collapsed.
I found this on Google News, too, and it is indeed a good story. I've always known that pornography was run by and performed by human garbage. It's hard to believe that these losers do what they do for only $50 a scene. Not surprisingly, the porn industry supports the Democratic Party. Democrats and human garbage are inseparable.
Sitting at home on your computer and classing people as "human garbage" certainly does put you on higher moral ground. I'm sure you'll be getting off on your self-righteousness when you look at all that foot fetish porn tonight.
WOW - amazing how you turned this into a political jab at Democrats. Can you find a way to link cancer to Democrats too? You are so clever.
only the typical self righteous conservative would believe your crap...lol, nobody else possesses this level of self absorbed, elitist ,privileged, sense of jesus-ness.....a story about a bunch of losers in an trifling industry and you inject it with your toxic point of view and compare them to being liberal, fuck you you cunt!
Yes, and conservatives are the people who voted in an entire party who stated bluntly that they were going to fuck everyone in the ass by not doing anything to help anyone but their Corporationalist masters. Thanks for that, The-Cheese. Why do you hate America?
he must have missed the part where he has a narcissistic disorder and his father said he sounded like a "young conservative."funny thing is most conservative sex scandals are of homosexual nature and not just something like an affair but more like male prostitutes, airport bathrooms or fantasizing of orgies.oh the hypocrisy .
Hill was most probably demoniacally possessed. The Dark Lord's orders are summarized by the following: Deceive, Defile Destroy. Porn does that very efficiently..... even for the "stars".
shut the F-up, you sound like a real bitch! get your head out of your ass and stop trying to rationalize with your make believe "devil", what a joke...
You would be amusing if I didn't know what was in store for you. Sometimes a peculiar 'bad' smell is associated with the possessed. Quite rare, but unmistakable if you know what to sense. Its more like rotting meat than BO. No amount of showering or baths help and it gradually gets worse. The porn girl who got out of the car probably got just a psychic glimpse of what she was riding beside.
bad odor? maybe he didnt floss?" you would be amusing if i didnt know what was in store for you"? so now your special and have the details on the devil, and know whats in store for me!....put some of your special powers to work you genius, perhaps play the lottery "see the numbers" pick em and win enough money to pay someone to believe your bullshit....lol
I'm from Cleveland and saw this article posted on google news. I'm glad I clicked on it. This article is great. Very well written and I learned a lot, and its like a story.
Yet you probably spend your entire day beating off to them naked. Wonder what that says about you...
I had heard about this when it happened - and even saw a blurb of the crazy free fall video - but this is a genuinely good article, something I rarely r on the web anymore. Kudoz!
Is this a real story, because if so one might accuse the author of sensationalizing a tragic event...
Forcing low level drug prisoners into slave labor at 'for-profit' prisons is inhumane and trashy. Extending "payday loans" to poor people at usurious interest rates is inhumane and trashy. Foreclosing on people's homes at the drop of a hat is inhumane and trashy. Some porn is rather declasse', but the only thing (inhuman)e about porn is your opinion of a normal human activity that's been going on for time immemorial.Enjoy.
If you want to place blame, blame our Failed Mental health system, as long as they don't come in swinging the swords the hold em for 72 and send on their way!
Also Apple has had 17 suicides at it's I phone plant, do you feel the same about the Capitalist that drive people to suicide?
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