On Tuesday, October 6, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha announced that William Morton, 61, of Smithfield, was charged with first-degree murder in the May 1985 killing of Hillary Hellewell, a 22-year-old Jamestown woman found dead on a Newport sidewalk. Hellewell was found unresponsive on Anthony Street on the morning of May 19, 1985, and the medical examiner determined she had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Morton was arraigned in District Court in Newport before Judge J. Terence Houlihan and ordered held without bail. A status conference is scheduled for October 20, and Neronha said a grand jury could review additional charges as the case proceeds.

The surprising turn came from ordinary detective work layered on modern science. According to the Newport Daily News, prosecutors learned on September 24 that a 2026 DNA profile from Morton was consistent with a 1985 profile recovered from the victim's pants and a blue T-shirt found near her body. That new profile came from a water bottle Morton drank from at the Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket on August 21. Per the Newport Daily News, cold case investigator Michael Naylor followed Morton to the theater, watched him buy two bottles of water and popcorn, leave one on an empty seat, and then seized it. The cold case had been reopened in 2023, according to WJAR.

Rhode Island had no DNA testing capability in 1985, and evidence preserved from Hellewell's clothing later yielded a profile that excluded every man investigators compared it against, including men at the gathering she attended and the intoxicated man she left with. According to the Newport Daily News, a promising lead suggested the profiles from the clothing were linked to a specific family line, and additional work identified two half-brothers of William Morton through a paternal relative. WJAR reports investigators used DNA evidence to identify members of Morton's family, helping lead them to him. Forensic work spanned from the 1985 scene to a private lab submission by Newport police and the attorney general's cold case unit.

The case carried unusual personal weight. Neronha, who grew up in Jamestown and was born the same year as Hellewell, said he knew her at least from kindergarten and recalled her as an amazing, fun, energetic person. According to the Newport Daily News, Hellewell was a 1982 graduate of Prout High School and studied business administration at the University of Rhode Island. Neronha said that healing is a process without a defined end, but that victims and their loved ones deserve answers and ultimately justice, noting that DNA advancements have now produced answers in four previously unsolved cases over the past year.

The stakes extend beyond one charge. According to WJAR, Rhode Island Supreme Court records show Morton was convicted in a separate 1985 Newport case of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old, with his appeal denied in 1989. Neronha said a grand jury could review more charges as the case proceeds, meaning the scope of the prosecution could still widen. Newport Police Chief Ryan Duffy praised his department's Criminal Investigation Division and the attorney general's Cold Case Unit, saying the passage of time does not diminish the commitment to seeking justice for victims and their families.

The Hellewell arrest lands amid a broader run of DNA-driven cold case resolutions reported the same week. Texas DPS and KTSA report that remains found in Hamilton County in 1983 were identified as 44-year-old Betty Jo Norris through genetic genealogy under the department's Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, with her son's DNA confirming the match in August 2026. The Texas Rangers and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office are still investigating her death. In Kentucky, WYMT reports prosecutors consider the 2017 killing of Clancy Ray Adkins solved, concluding the suspected shooter has himself been dead for four years, so no prosecution is possible. These outcomes show how preserved evidence and new testing keep converting decades-old dead ends into answers, sometimes decades after the fact.