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Tonya
Lynn HAWKS
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide -
Murder-suicide
Number of victims: 3
Date of murders:
February 7, 2006
Date of birth: 1975
Victims profile:
Her
sons, Chase Love, 5, Chole Love, 4, and Hunter Hawks, 2
Method of murder:
Shooting (.380
caliber semi-automatic pistol)
Location: Phillipsburg,
Montgomery County, Ohio, USA
Status:
Committed suicide by shooting herself the same day
Hawks Deaths were Murder-Suicide
CrimeSceneBlog.com
February 23, 2006
Eight days before the bodies of Tonya Hawks and her
three young sons were found shot to death Feb. 11 in their
Phillipsburg home, she bought a semi-automatic handgun, according to
Dr. James Davis, the Montgomery County coroner.
Davis said Wednesday that Hawks, 30, used the High
Point .380 caliber semi-automatic pistol on her sons, Chase Love, 5,
Chole Love, 4, and Hunter Hawks, 2, then turned it on herself Feb. 7.
Davis said all four died of chest wounds. Chase and
Hunter were shot twice; the others had single bullet wounds.
Chase and Hunter were found in the master bedroom.
“It looked as if they had been put to bed,”
Montgomery County Sheriff Dave Vore said.
The other boy was in a chair in the first-floor
living room.
Tonya’s body was found in the bathroom on the
floor. The gun was on the sofa in the living room.
Davis said, “It’s possible that the single
gunshot wound was not immediately fatal.”
Vore said investigators found a page-long note in a
child’s backpack a day after the bodies were discovered.
“It wasn’t addressed to anyone in particular, but
it had instructions directing a family member to … handle her
personal business,” Vore said.
Davis said the note helped confirm for the
coroner’s office that the deaths were a murder-suicide.
So it appears as though another parent has taken
the option of killing their children and then committing suicide. She
left what appears to be a form of suicide note, leaving instructions
for someone in a family member to handle affairs after her death.
At this point, a motive behind this apparent
murder-suicide has not been released. We are still, as always seems to
be in these cases, left to wonder what would drive a parent to kill
their own children.
Phillipsburg Mom, three children found dead
Associated Press
February 13, 2006
Autopsies were completed Sunday on a woman and her
three children found shot to death in their western Ohio home, as
investigators continued to gather evidence.
Tonya Hawks, 31, and her three sons, aged 2, 4 and
5, were found Saturday after concerned neighbors peeked in the window
and then broke through the door.
Montgomery Sheriffs Maj. Ed Copher said autopsy
results showed all four deaths were caused by gunshot wounds, but
investigators were still trying to determine if one of the four had
shot the others then committed suicide, or if all the victims were
slain by someone else.
Ken Betz, director of the Montgomery County
coroners office, confirmed autopsies were being performed but did not
expect to release further details Sunday.
Investigators interviewed Hawks boyfriend, who had
recently moved out, but found nothing suspicious, Copher said.
A handgun was recovered in the neat and orderly
home. Copher said the mothers body was discovered in the bathroom. The
two younger boys were found dressed in pajamas in bed, and the
5-year-old was found, also in pajamas, in an easy chair in the living
room.
Copher identified the children as 5-year-old Chase
Love, 4-year-old Cole Love and 2-year-old Hunter Hawks. They appeared
to have been dead for several days, Copher said.
Tonya Hawks had moved into the rented one-floor
white frame house in late summer with her boyfriend. A neighbor said
the couple worked at an auto plant in Dayton, about 15 miles southeast
of this one-stoplight bedroom community on a two-lane highway. The
house was secure. Nothing would suggest that it was an intruder,
Copher said Saturday. It didnt appear there was a struggle or
anything.
Copher said investigators returned to the house
Sunday to collect further evidence and would ask the crime lab to
perform tests Monday. Neighbors had called Clay Township police
Saturday because they saw no activity for four days while a dog barked
inside, and the house remained dark even though the familys car was
parked outside.
While police were on the way, a woman looked in the
window and saw one of the boys, Copher said. Michael Hines, who lives
across the street, said he used his shoulder to break through the
front door after another neighbor told him a child inside might need
help. As soon as I entered the living room I found the first child in
the chair, Hines said Sunday. Hines said he could see another body
lying on the floor behind a door through a gap at the bottom. I
spotted the gun on the couch and thats when I left the house, he said.
The father of two of the children followed him inside, rushed to his
child in the chair and then ran back outside, Hines said. Its
something you dont want to see, he said.
Mother, 3 Children Found Dead in
OH
CrimeSceneBlog.com
February 13,
2006
Tonya Hawks, 31, and her three sons, aged 2, 4 and
5, were found Saturday after concerned neighbors peeked in the window
and then broke through the door.
Neighbors had called Clay Township police Saturday
because they saw no activity for four days while a dog barked inside,
and the house remained dark even though the family’s car was parked
outside.
While police were on the way, a woman looked in the
window and saw one of the boys, Copher said.
Michael Hines, who lives across the street, said he
used his shoulder to break through the front door after another
neighbor told him a child inside might need help.
“As soon as I entered the living room I found the
first child in the chair,” Hines said Sunday.
Hines said he could see another body lying on the
floor behind a door through a gap at the bottom.
“I spotted the gun on the couch and that’s when I
left the house,” he said.
The father of two of the children followed him
inside, rushed to his child in the chair and then ran back outside,
Hines said.
“It’s something you don’t want to see,” he said.
A handgun was recovered from the neat and orderly
home.
Montgomery Sheriff’s Maj. Ed Copher said the
mother’s body was discovered in the bathroom. The two younger boys
were found dressed in pajamas in bed, and the 5-year-old was found,
also in pajamas, in an easy chair in the living room.
Copher identified the children as 5-year-old Chase
Love, 4-year-old Cole Love and 2-year-old Hunter Hawks.
They appeared to have been dead for several days,
Copher said.
Tonya Hawks had moved into the rented one-floor
white frame house in late summer with her boyfriend. A neighbor said
the couple worked at an auto plant in Dayton, about 15 miles southeast
of this one-stoplight bedroom community on a two-lane highway.
“The house was secure. Nothing would suggest that
it was an intruder,” Copher said Saturday. “It didn’t appear there
was a struggle or anything.”
Autopsies were completed Sunday. Copher said
autopsy results showed all four deaths were caused by gunshot wounds,
but investigators were still trying to determine if one of the four
had shot the others then committed suicide, or if all the victims were
slain by someone else.
Investigators interviewed Hawks’ boyfriend, who had
recently moved out, but found nothing suspicious, Copher said.
As with most cases of this sort, the details are
lacking from any news report. Police never release all of the
information, to protect their case, and in some cases because they
don’t want folks to jump to conclusions. Sometimes the details of
these types of cases, especially where children are involved are just
too awful to want to discuss.
It will be interesting to see a few more details
about this case. First, it is imperative to know if any of the
gunshots were self-inflicted. That would clearly indicate at least
suicide, most likely a murder-suicide. Also, if it were possible to
determine in what order the murders happened, this would give us a
timeline of events. It would also be nice to know if the boyfriend has
a good alibi for the time frame.
Devoted mom turned into 'classic' killer
Friends baffled, but expert not surprised at local
case
By Mary McCarty and Anthony Gottschlich -
Dayton Daily News
May 2006
"If anybody ever messes with my boys, I'll kill
'em," Tonya Hawks once told her friend Wayne Owens.
Now Owens is grappling with the realization that it
was Hawks who took a gun to her three young sons before ending her own
life Feb. 7 in their Phillipsburg home. "I will never understand it,"
Owens said. "This is not the Tonya I knew. Something has happened to
change her from the person who lived her life for her kids to someone
who would take their lives."
The 30-year-old mother and her three children Chase
Love, 5, Chole Love, 4, and Hunter Hawks, 2 were found Feb. 11, four
days after the shootings and eight days after she purchased the
semiautomatic handgun found in the home.
Investigators, family and friends may never know
what caused Tonya Lynn Hawks to snap. Maybe it was the breakup with
her boyfriend, at least her third failed relationship in five years.
Maybe it was the prospect of raising three boys alone on a factory
laborer's wages.
Court records show a woman whose life was in
constant turmoil in recent years, her Dayton home lost to bankruptcy
and a series of relationships in tatters. But co-workers and friends
describe a model employee and cool-headed woman who seemed intent on
rising above all of that and putting her sons first. She plastered
photos of her sons inside and outside of her locker at the Behr
Thermal Plant in Dayton, where she worked. The boys trailed after her
at the company Reds outing last summer, the very portrait of the happy
family. "They're all she talked about," said co-worker Kari Shields.
"She loved those boys. They were her whole life."
The slayings left friends baffled. But Wright State
University professor Cheryl Meyer, a nationally known expert on women
who kill their children, calls it a "classic case."
"Let me guess," she speculated. "She was a devoted
mother, right?"
"These are extraordinarily devoted moms. I know
that sounds like an oxymoron because they killed their kids, but the
bottom line is they see their kids almost as an extension of
themselves, like an appendage. So it only makes sense (in the mother's
mind) to kill the kids, because if you're getting rid of yourself,
there's a reason to get rid of the kids as well."
Mom's actions fit pattern, but her motive is a
puzzle.
No one can fathom why Tonya Hawks would shoot and
kill her three little boys not this doting mother who lived for her
kids.
But Cheryl Meyer has seen cases like this before.
"Tonya Hawks so fits the pattern it's almost amazing," said Meyer,
author of Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of
Mothers from Susan Smith to the Prom Mom.
"Typically, they're younger, and when a mom kills
her kids, in the majority of cases, she almost always kills them all
and she almost always has a plan to kill herself," said Meyer, who
studied more than 1,000 cases in the 1990s of mothers who killed their
children.
"They're described, by and large, as devoted and
loving mothers," Meyer said. "People are shocked they did this and
most of the time (the mothers) have experienced a recent loss, either
through death or divorce. They use very, very sure methods to kill
their children. They know it's going to be successful; they use a
fire, or guns or knives."
In many ways Hawks does fit the profile. She was
two weeks away from a final divorce decree with Brent D. Hawks, the
father of her youngest son, Hunter. Her live-in boyfriend, whose name
has not been released by authorities, had just moved out neighbors say
the same day Hawks killed her three children and then herself. Her
wedding anniversary with Brent Hawks was just one week away,
Valentine's Day, yet another reminder of lost love.
Yet as much as she fits the profile, none of these
explanations make sense to friends who say Hawks typically took her
troubles in stride. "Tonya had financial problems from the day I met
her, even though she made good money at the plant," said Wayne Owens
of Union, who worked with Hawks for several years at Englewood
Precision Inc. "She bought a new Ford Bronco and a new house at the
same time, and it ended up being too much for her, so she lost both.
But it didn't seem to bother her too much."
Nor is Owens convinced she committed the crimes
because of a failed relationship: "She loved both of the boys'
fathers, but when that ended she was able to handle it."
But those kind of losses can lead to hopelessness,
despair and the tipping point toward violence, Meyer said. "If her
life was that bad, why would she take her children with her?" wondered
co-worker Kari Shields.
That's the question on people's minds at Behr
Dayton Thermal Products LLC plant, where Hawks worked since February
2004. Plant general manager Dean Arneson described her as energetic
and someone who wasn't afraid to approach him with constructive
suggestions.
Co-workers have contributed generously to a
collection for the family. A few have said, "I don't want to give any
money to that monster."
Shields tells them, "You didn't know her. She
wasn't a monster. She absolutely loved those boys."
Meyer and her co-author, Michelle Oberman, estimate
one child dies at the hands of the mother every three to four days in
the United States. They didn't study fathers who kill their children.
The mothers usually fall into one of five
categories: those who kill their babies within the first 24 hours of
birth; those who kill through neglect; those who kill through the
assistance or coercion of a partner; those who kill through abuse; and
those, like Hawks, who deliberately kill their children.
Meyer, who is working on another book on the topic,
said the mere thought of killing one's children, at least for a
fleeting moment, is not unusual. Several mothers have told her so.
"I think it's something in a lot of people's dark
recesses," she said.
The victims
Chase Love, 5, Chole Love, 4, and Hunter Hawks, 2.
