Police: Sword-wielding porn actor wanted to kill

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A porn actor who plunged off a cliff to his death as officers tried to arrest him on murder and attempted murder charges was aiming to kill or hurt as many people as possible when he went on a sword-wielding rampage last week at an adult film company’s production facility, a police detective said Monday.

Stephen Clancy Hill was “hell-bent” on taking lives and was indiscriminate about his victims, police detective Joel Price said.

Hill plunged to his death Saturday after SWAT officers trapped him on a hillside cliff overlooking the San Fernando Valley.

Price said officers believe Hill jumped rather than fell after they tried to take him into custody following a nine-hour standoff. Police said the actor, armed with the sword he used in the June 1 attack, had repeatedly threatened suicide.

News video shows Hill, still holding the sword, tumbling off the cliff after sliding to its edge from a seated position. Several officers had moved to almost within reach of him.

Earlier, police said he went over the cliff after a “less than lethal munition” was fired at him. They haven’t said whether the projectile struck him.

“Everyone out there would have wished for a different outcome,” Price said. But he said officers had to try to take Hill into custody after failing to persuade him to surrender.

Hill’s death came just four days after he went on a rampage at Ultima DVD’s production facility in the San Fernando Valley. He fatally stabbed one Ultima employee, Herbert Hin Wong, 30, and wounded two others, Christopher Rachal, 36, and Yuri Drell, 28,

“He was hell-bent on hurting, killing as many people as he could,” Price said.

In this photo taken June 5, 2010, Stephen Clancy Hill, 34, a porn actor suspected of fatally stabbing a former co-worker and wounding two others during a violent rampage threatens to kill himself with a samurai sword as Los Angeles Police Department SWAT team members and crisis counselors attempt to keep him from jumping off a cliff during a dramatic, daylong standoff in Chatsworth, Calif. Saturday afternoon. Clancy later fell to his death when officers moved in. (AP Photo/Axel Koester) ORG XMIT: CAAK101

Hill, 34, had worked both as an actor and in production for Ultima, a small company that produces niche films featuring fetishes and sexual domination of men. He had been living on a film set at the production facility but was recently fired and ordered to move out.