On The Run

Hill was working for the government, flying back and forth between Omaha and New York, testifying against his old mob partners. He says his testimony sent about 50 people to jail. "I was scared to death at the time," he says. "But I was telling the truth."

Back in New York, there was a half-million dollar price on Hill's head, but the mob death sentence had no apparent impact on their father.

"He just refused to make any kind of effort to change," says Gina.

"He made calls to his drug-dealing friends. He made calls to his girlfriends in New York," adds Gregg.

The information made its way back to Jimmy Burke, the man who put the bounty on Hill. In the movie, "Goodfellas," Robert De Niro plays Burke, a cold-blooded killer. In real life, Hill's testimony put Burke behind bars, and Burke was heard in court telling associates to get Hill.

"They overheard him say, 'I know that guy's in the Midwest,'" recalls Gregg. "That was enough to spook the Feds to call us and say, 'We'll pick you up tomorrow morning.'"

After after just two months in Omaha, the Hills were on the move again: changing their names and re-inventing their past once more. Their next stop was Independence, Ky., surrounded by tobacco fields and horses. The population: 8,000.

Gregg says it was a culture shock: "My father, oddly enough, was the one who probably adapted better than any of us. He had the cowboy hat and the Willie Nelson playing soon after we arrived."

According to Gregg and Gina, Hill spent his days at the racetrack gambling, and his nights drinking.

"I wanted him to get a job. I didn't care what it was, I wanted him to get a job," says Gregg. "That's all I ever asked [for him to be a normal father.] That's all I ever wanted."

In Kentucky, Hill found a way to supplement his $1,500 monthly stipend. He co-wrote a tell-all article in Sports Illustrated about his role in a point-shaving scheme at Boston College.

Gregg says the FBI went nuts when they found out Hill received $10,000 from Sports Illustrated and "threatened to throw him out of the program." But the FBI still needed his testimony. His safety, however, was compromised, and after about a year in Independence, the Hills were uprooted once again.

The family was taken this time to Redmond, Wash., a city east of Seattle. In Redmond, their father had run-ins with the local police and was arrested several times for drunk driving. Gregg and Henry got into frequent fights.

One day, when he was 19, Gregg couldn't take it any more. "One of the most painful things I ever did was leave my mother and my sister. But I knew if I stayed there, something terrible would have happened," says Gregg.

Gina says it was very hard for her. "It ended in a very bad physical fight between my brother and my father," she says. "I didn't know that my brother had left town. I thought I'd see him after a couple of days when things died down, like they always did. And he never came back."

Gina says her mother "cried as hard as I did." Her father, however, didn't "shed a tear." She says she "never bothered to ask him."

Hill says he wasn't angry, but he was sad. "I couldn't believe that I had forced my son to leave," says Hill. "It was my fault he left."

Today, Gregg is an attorney and Gina is raising a family. Both say they rarely talk to their father. Rose played some of their interview for Hill.

"Amends take a long time. Sometimes it never happens," says Hill.

Just last spring, Hill was charged with drug possession, after narcotics were allegedly found in his luggage at an airport.

Was any part of Gregg and Gina's book written in revenge?

"None of it. All this book is for more than 20 years, we've lived with him telling our story," says Gregg. "With others telling our story. This book is our story, on our terms, in our voice."

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