On that day in March, Hill paid cash - $529 for each gun, just over $1,200 for everything, according to the manager of the shop in Isle of Wight, Va.
And he may have lied on a federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) form that he filled out the day he walked out of the store with the weapons.
Hill, a doctor who was found by a Virginia court in 1989 to be a danger to
himself and others and ordered to be detained in a hospital, completed the form that asked, among other questions, if he had ever been legally declared mentally defective or committed to a mental institution.
"If you answer 'yes' to any of those questions, I'm prohibited from transferring the firearm to you," Michael Dick, the gun store manager, said yesterday.
As Dick spoke, Philadelphia homicide detectives were driving Hill from the Surry County, Va., jail back to the city. He arrived at the Police Administration Building about 4:15 p.m., after a six-hour trip.
Hill emerged from the back seat of the unmarked police car with his hands handcuffed behind his back, wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
Police escorted Hill to the Homicide Unit for questioning, and, then to the detention unit for fingerprinting and processing.
His arraignment was scheduled for early this morning.
Police arrested Hill Tuesday afternoon as he jogged near his boyhood home in rural Elberon, Va., nine miles south of Williamsburg. The warrant for his arrest charged Hill with one count of murder, three counts of aggravated assault, and related offenses.
Police also recovered from Hill's car one .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol, a bullet clip, one spent and another unspent bullet cartridge. Three spent bullet cartridges were found in his parents' yard. A police source said the gun was "most likely" the murder weapon.
Yesterday, employees of Guns Unlimited in Isle of Wight, about 30 miles
from Elberon, said the only unusual thing about the March 29 purchase was the lengthy explanation they had to give Hill about the gun's operation.
