James Hill is charged with murder in the slaying of an off-duty police officer in 1980, but neither the prosecution nor the defense placed Hill as a shooter during their opening arguments in his trial.

Rather, Hill was the driver of the “getaway” car while two other men went inside the hotel during the attempted robbery, prosecutors said.

Attorneys made their opening arguments Tuesday in Hill’s jury trial in Lake Superior Court. Hill, 55, is charged with murder, murder in perpetuation of robbery and attempted robbery in connection with the death of Lawrence Pucalik, an off-duty Hammond police officer, on Nov. 14, 1980, while Pucalik was working a security job at Holiday Inn off Cline Avenue in Hammond.

Hill has been charged twice in Pucalik’s death, first in 2012 and again in 2016.

Two other men, Pierre Catlett and Larry Mayes, both 68, also were charged in the case in 2012. Mayes was found incompetent to stand trial after he suffered a stroke, attorneys said. Catlett was released last week from a lengthy prison sentence in Illinois, and prosecutors said they plan to bring him back to Lake County to face charges.

On Nov. 14, 1980, Hill, Mayes and Catlett left a maroon Oldsmobile at an apartment complex before going in a blue Chevy Impala to the Holiday Inn less than a mile away around 3 a.m., said Peter Villarreal, prosecuting attorney.

Hill, the driver, waited out front while Mayes and Catlett went inside, displayed guns and demanded money from the hotel clerk, Villarreal said. When Pucalik came out of a back room, “they saw him … and shot him,” Villarreal said. The two ran to the car and switched back to the Oldsmobile, and “they begin the getaway,” Villarreal said.

At the beginning of Villarreal’s opening statement, he said Hill had confessed to police that he was the getaway driver, after requesting to speak with investigators. “Folks, I just wanted to tell you I was the driver of the killer car, the one where the police officer was shot,” Hill told police, according to Villarreal.

Hill stopped talking shortly after saying that, and investigators were unable to make a recording or get a written, signed statement from Hill “because it all went so fast,” Villarreal said.

Scott King, Hill’s attorney, noted that this “so-called confession” was made in March 1981, when Hill was in custody on an unrelated case. At that time, police did “absolutely nothing” with the statement, King said.

In 1982, Hill was convicted of kidnapping and raping a Hammond woman. After Hill spent years in prison, his conviction was overturned in 2009. In 2010, Hill filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Hammond and Michael Solan, an investigator in the case. That lawsuit is ongoing. Solan, now retired, was one of the original investigators in Pucalik’s death.

King asked the jury, made up of eight men and six women, to keep that civil case in mind when making their decision.

“Because he had the temerity to challenge the police, that’s why we’re here,” King said.

King described his client at the time of Pucalik’s death as a 17-year-old student at Gary’s Roosevelt High School who played football and basketball and worked as a janitor after school.

“That is who the state said they are going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt of murder,” King said.

Prosecutors focused on what they said would be the evidence in the case. James Dillon, Villarreal’s co-counsel, carried a tire into the courtroom after a witness examined a silver hub cap with a Chevy emblem on it.

A blue Chevy Impala that matched the description of the suspects’ vehicle was found at a nearby apartment complex, prosecutors said. That car was missing a hubcap, which was found outside of the Holiday Inn, according to prosecutors.

Investigators also found a blue denim bag on top of a cash register at the hotel and that Hill had been spotted carrying the bag before the robbery, Villarreal said.

Prosecutors showed photos, which had a reddish hue, from the Holiday Inn. They showed the office with orange carpeting where Pucalik fell after he was shot.

Keith Foor, who worked for the Lake County police crime lab in 1980, said he found two bullets in a partition and a wall at the hotel. One of those bullets went in Pucalik’s back and exited out the front near his throat, Foor said.

Karen Guy received the 911 call from the shooting while working as a dispatcher for Hammond police, she said. Guy figured out the officer who was shot was Pucalik, with whom she went to high school and whom she knew around the station by his nickname, “Pumpkin Head.”

Donald Smulski Jr., who was a Highland police officer at the time, was one of the first at the scene and began performing CPR on Pucalik, he said. But when Pucalik was taken to a hospital, he “was basically dead on arrival,” Villarreal said.

Hill’s trial is scheduled to resume Wednesday morning.

rejacobs@post-trib.com