Don Wilson Hawkins

Background

Don Wilson Hawkins Jr. was convicted in Oklahoma County District Court of first-degree felony murder and kidnapping for the purpose of extortion in relation to the crimes involving Linda Thompson.

The background facts included Hawkins’s plan to kidnap a “rich woman” for ransom and the subsequent abduction, confinement, sexual assaults, and drowning of Linda Thompson, along with the kidnapping-for-extortion convictions relating to her children.

The offence

On August 19, 1985, Hawkins forced his way into Linda Thompson’s car as she purchased stamps at a self-service postal station at a shopping mall near her home. Thompson’s two small daughters, Lori and Katie, were also in the car at the time.

According to the account of events used in the appellate decision, Hawkins’s original plan was to kidnap Thompson and hold her for ransom. Hawkins drove the victims to the home of Shirley Pitts, with whom Hawkins had been living for several months. Pitts and Lovell watched the children while Hawkins and Shelton kept Thompson upstairs in the house for several hours. Later that night, Hawkins and Shelton took Thompson to a barn where she was kept chained in the barn’s loft, with her children confined to a bedroom in the house.

Shelton and Lovell each raped Thompson. During the night, they did allow Thompson to see her children at the house. After permitting Thompson briefly to say goodbye to her daughters, Hawkins and Shelton drove Linda Thompson to a nearby lake, where Hawkins hog-tied and drowned her while Shelton stood lookout. Hawkins and Shelton hid the body and fled the state.

Hawkins and Shelton took Thompson’s two children to their baby sitter’s neighborhood, where the daughters were released unharmed.

Investigation

Following Hawkins’s and Shelton’s murder and flight, police later arrested Pitts and Lovell. California police arrested Hawkins and Shelton two months later in Sacramento.

After his arrest, Hawkins made a statement to Oklahoma detectives admitting these crimes, including drowning Thompson because she otherwise could be a witness against him.

In Shelton and Hawkins’s case, Shelton directed the Seminole County Sheriff by phone to the location of Thompson’s remains. The skeletal remains were still clad in the blue striped dress.

Arrest

Pitts and Lovell were arrested after the police went to the “big house,” interviewed neighborhood boys, and found Thompson’s purse in a crate by the house.

Two months later, Hawkins and Shelton were arrested in Sacramento, California, where Hawkins was in the process of stealing a car battery. At the time of arrest, Hawkins was armed with a sawed-off shotgun, phony identification, and stolen credit cards. Shelton was arrested at a nearby motel and also carried phony identification.

Trial

Hawkins was tried jointly with Shelton. Hawkins was tried by jury for Murder in the First Degree (21 O.S.Supp.1982, § 701.7(B)) and Kidnapping for the Purpose of Extortion, two counts (21 O.S.1981, § 745(A)) in Oklahoma County District Court, Case No. CRF-85-6156.

The jury returned a verdict of guilty on each count. For the kidnapping counts, the jury imposed a sentence of life imprisonment; for the murder, the jury set punishment at death. The trial court sentenced accordingly.

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Hawkins’s convictions and sentences on direct appeal.

Sentencing

During the capital sentencing proceeding, the State incorporated first-stage evidence and presented additional evidence concerning Hawkins’s further violent criminal conduct. That evidence established that, after Thompson’s murder, Hawkins had kidnapped, raped, and sodomized two teenage girls in San Diego, California. The following day, he had kidnapped and robbed two other women, one of whom his accomplice had raped and sodomized. In addition, immediately prior to Thompson’s murder, Hawkins had killed a man in Denver, Colorado. Hawkins had also beaten his girlfriend Pitts and kept her locked in a trailer while the couple briefly lived in Colorado, and Hawkins had lost his job in Colorado after he shot at his boss’s car.

Hawkins instructed his defense attorney during the trial’s second stage not to raise any objections or cross-examine State witnesses, and not to put on any evidence in mitigation or present any opening or closing argument.

Jurors found all four charged aggravating factors:

1. Hawkins had killed Thompson to avoid arrest;
2. Thompson’s murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel;
3. Hawkins is a continuing threat to society; and
4. Hawkins had previously been convicted of a violent felony.

After the jury’s findings, Hawkins was sentenced to death.

Appeals

Hawkins’s appeal included an argument that the State improperly based his first-degree felony murder conviction on kidnapping for extortion, which he argued was not a specifically enumerated felony supporting a first-degree murder conviction under Oklahoma law. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals interpreted Oklahoma’s first-degree felony murder statute to include kidnapping for extortion as an underlying felony, and the appellate court held that interpretation was not unforeseeable and did not deprive Hawkins of due process.

Hawkins also challenged denial of claims that he did not receive a fair trial. The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued a decision denying Hawkins’s appeal to avoid execution.

In an Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals proceeding, Hawkins appealed raising twenty propositions of error. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed judgment and sentence, holding that none of the errors warranted reversal of judgment or modification of sentence.

Outcome

The jury convicted Hawkins of the first-degree felony murder of Linda Thompson and two counts of kidnapping her children for extortion. The jury sentenced him to life imprisonment on the two kidnapping-for-extortion convictions, committed after two or more prior felony convictions, and sentenced him to death for the murder.

Aftermath

Hawkins was executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on April 8, 2003. He was pronounced dead at 6:07 p.m., two minutes after lethal injection began.

In his last statement from the death chamber, Hawkins told his lawyer and investigator to “keep fighting” and told his spiritual adviser to “carry the torch.”

Hawkins said: “The state needs vengeance for the crimes I've done,” and “They are going to punish my body, but Jesus has forgiven me. I'm truly sorry I got everyone into this. I'm ready to go.”

Hawkins expressed love to his wife, Joelle, who had been married to him while he was on death row and who was present to witness the execution. At the time the lethal drugs began, he mouthed “I love you” to his wife.

Hawkins’s daughters, Lori Thompson and Katie Thompson, were released unharmed after Hawkins and Shelton drowned Linda Thompson.

Victim and family details

Linda Ann Thompson was 29 years old at the time of her kidnapping and murder. Thompson’s children were Lori and Katie, aged four years and 18 months respectively at the time.

Other named individuals and roles

Dale Shelton was Hawkins’s co-defendant, and was tried jointly with Hawkins. Shelton was convicted of first-degree felony murder, first-degree rape, and forcible oral sodomy involving Linda Thompson, and of kidnapping Thompson’s two children for extortion. Shelton was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences.

Shirley Pitts was Hawkins’s girlfriend and the person at whose home Hawkins drove Thompson after forcing his way into her car. Chris Lovell was Pitts’s nephew and was also named as one of the individuals who raped Thompson while she was confined in the barn’s loft.

David Coupez of Denver, Colorado, was described in the appellate decision as a man immediately prior to Thompson’s murder who Hawkins had killed and for which Hawkins pleaded guilty. Larry Olson, Jennifer Schneider, and three other members of Thompson’s family were described as witnesses to Hawkins’s execution.

Quotes from interviews and statements included in the record

Hawkins said in an interview that he was ready to die and that “It’s time to move on.” He also told a newspaper that he hoped his death would ease some of the pain he had caused.

Lori Thompson wrote a letter to the state Pardon and Parole Board stating she did not wish to see Hawkins executed. She said she had forgiven Hawkins, and that the “Bible that I follow as the guidebook for my life decrees that this is his due punishment,” as reported in the execution-related account.

Schneider, Thompson’s mother, said: “At every family gathering there's an empty chair that will never be filled,” and “Linda was - is a wonderful daughter that will live forever in my heart.”

Larry Olson said: “The wheels of justice have finally come all the way around,” and “It wasn't an even swap.”