Shawna Hawk (1972-1993) was the fourth of 11 women killed by Henry Louis Wallace, the Charlotte Strangler, an American serial killer. He killed her on February 19th 1993, two months after she turned 20. It took 13 months and seven more dead women before the police found him.
A month after Shawna’s murder, her mother and godmother founded Mothers of Murdered Offspring (MOM-O). They helped to bring Wallace to justice.
Hawk was living with her mother in East Charlotte, North Carolina. She was going to Piedmont Central Community College. She was studying law to become a paralegal. She worked at the nearby Taco Bell, where a nice young man named Henry Louis Wallace hired her.
Shawna Hawk was beautiful, shy and unassuming. All dressed up and on the way to the junior prom her date told her she did not need the false fingernails. So she took them off and threw them out the car window onto Independence Boulevard.
Without anyone asking her one day she went down to McDonald’s and lied about her age so she could work to help support her mother.
When her mother came home on that day she did not see Shawna’s car. Maybe she was with her godson. But something was not right: her purse and coat were still there. Then the mother of the godson called and asked where Shawna was. As it turned out Taco Bell and Shawna’s boyfriend did not know either.
The boyfriend came over and searched the house looking for some sign of what became of Shawna. Then he pulled back the shower curtain….
Henry Louis Wallace had come by earlier that afternoon to visit Shawna. They had gone on a date the summer before, but they were just friends. They talked for an hour about this and that. Then Shawna started teasing him about a fight he had had with his girlfriend.
Somehow that pushed the wrong button inside him. He hit her over the head and knocked her out and then put a cord or something round her neck to cut off her breathing. He filled the bathtub, put her body in it, took $50 (ten crowns) and left.
He went to the funeral. At the viewing he sat all alone at the back of the room with a strange look on his face, just staring.
Several months later Wallace ran into Shawna’s mother. He told her how he missed Shawna, how he was sorry to hear about her death. He gave her a hug.
In that moment she remembered that she forgot to put Wallace on her list of Shawna’s old boyfriends as possible killers. But then she thought it could not possibly be him: he was such a gentleman!
It took the police two months just to find her missing car. It was parked at the college!
It was not till August when three other women turned up dead in East Charlotte that the police began to take the whole thing seriously. Some say it took them so long because Wallace killed “only” black women.
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Thank you Abagond for the loving tribute to Shawna Hawk. It’s very lovely and moving tribute. She would have been pleased.
May she rests in peace.
Stephanie B.
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I hope people who come to this website remember Shawna and other victims of that evil serial killer HW. These victims deserve to be remembered.
Again, I truly thank you Abagond for making the tribute to Shawna. It’s time to give time to remember Black homicide victims just as much as the others that are being remembered by the media and society at large.
Stephanie B.
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It makes me glad to think that Shawna would have been pleased.
I will probably write about some of the others if there is enough material (I think there is for at least two of them), but I started with Shawna because of something her mother said (talking about the sniper shootings):
“It hurts beyond words when I see the coverage that a lot of these cases are getting. I’m just screaming, `But what about us? Each of us has a story to tell.’ ”
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Abagond,
I agree.
Steph
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Abagond,
I found an article on the web concerning Crime in Charlotte from Charlotte Magazine. Shawna’s mother commented that the police were careless in its investigation of her daughther’s death and didn’t interview her friends, fellow students, and co-workers in the aftermath of Shawna’s death.
Here’s the article at:
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:VFp33fxm4twJ:www.charlottemagazine.com/index2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26do_pdf%3D1%26id%3D3381+%22shawna+hawk%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=92&gl=us&ie=UTF-8
The paragraph in which Dee Sumpter was quoted as saying regarding the police investigation of her daughter’s death and the murder of Black women in Charlotte:
“But perhaps the most outspoken critic of all was Dee Sumpter, executive director of Mothers of Murdered Offspring.
(MOM-O), which was established after the grisly rampage of accused serial killer Henry Louis Wallace. Dee Sumpter’s daughter, Shawna Hawk, was one of the victims, killed February 19, 1993. From the beginning, even in the midst of her horror and grief, Sumpter had doubts about the police. They had come barging in to the scene of the crime, not being very careful, or so it appeared, and she wondered what evidence was being destroyed. She also saw gaps in the questions they asked her, and as the weeks dragged on into months and then a year, they never came back for another interview. And later, when the serial pattern was clear, Sumpter had to wonder how they had missed it. Was the homicide unit simply too small? Too overworked to handle the job? Or was it because all the victims were black, and their deaths didn’t attract the attention they deserved? As Sumpter began to raise those questions, she found at least one source of encouragement. Dennis Nowicki was willingto listen. He did not agree that race was a factor, but he did make changes – increasing the size of the homicideunit and the level of communication between police and the victims. “Chief Nowicki,” says Sumpter today, “has given me a feeling of hope that I am most grateful for. I believe old habits willbe broken, and new ways of dealing with murder will happen… That’s what brings comfort – or elements of comfort and to this mother’s aching heart.” Meanwhile, down in the homicide unit, Sgt. Rick Sanders is also grateful. He doesn’t deny that mistakes were made inthe Wallace case and perhaps a few others. “We learn from every investigation,” he says. But now, at last, he hasenough people to see some results. In 1994, with twenty-one investigators assigned to his unit, they were able to solve 89 percent of the killings in Charlotte. (The national average is 65 percent.) And with a cold case squad, also new,addressing homicides going back five or ten years, the police in Charlotte were solving murders last year faster than they happened.”
Stephanie
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Thank you!
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Abagond,
You’re welcome.
By the way, here’s an article from The Seattle Times regarding Susan Smith. Here’s the article:
“A Town Turns Angry At Dead Boys’ Mother
By Ricki Morell
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
UNION, S.C. – In the end, authorities said there was no phantom carjacker, just Susan Smith and the horrible reality of two dead babies at the bottom of John D. Long Lake.
Sympathy evaporated into anger and disgust when the people of Union and the nation found out yesterday that Smith was charged with killing her young sons.
“It’s crazy! It’s just crazy!” sobbed Tonja Jackson, who knew Smith from high school. “I’ve got two children and I’m not but 25 and never in my life, God forbid, could I do anything like that to my children.”
In this small textile town southwest of Charlotte, a crowd of about 300 waited in the fading daylight for the chilling news that finally came about 7 p.m.
Kathryn Sommer, 21, stood in the courthouse parking lot as tears streamed down her face.
“I went to school with both of them and I grew up with Susan,” Sommer said. “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe any parent could do this to a child.”
Instantly, the news spread across the nation. And instantly, it seemed that the nation had been drawn into a huge, cruel hoax.
“She made the public look like a bunch of idiots,” said Dawn Johnson, 26, a waitress at Charlotte’s Scoreboard restaurant.
In the restaurant, usually a rowdy scene, a hush fell across the tables as television broadcast the news of Smith’s arrest. Johnson, who has a 6-year-old child, had begun to doubt Susan Smith’s story the last few days. Now, Johnson’s angry.
“She said she didn’t know where her children were. How could she tell us that?” asked Johnson. “That’s sick.”
Smith, 23, had told authorities an armed black man jumped into her car while she sat at a stoplight in a deserted area at the edge of town. She said he ordered her to drive several miles, then forced her out and took off with her two sons, Michael, 3, and Alex, 14 months.
“No one asked the two babies whether they wanted to live or die,” said Rose Marie Savage, the mother of a 3-year-old girl.
For days, Charlotte’s Dee Sumpter had prayed for Michael and Alex. One night, watching television in bed, she started sobbing as she saw the videos of the two Smith children.
She couldn’t help thinking of her own child, Shawna Hawk, murdered 20 months ago.
Yesterday, as Sumpter returned home from dinner, one of her sons told her what happened to the boys in Union County.
“The little boys were so cute, so adorable,” said Sumpter, who founded the Mothers of Murdered Offspring group in Charlotte.
The boys’ disappearance Oct. 25 prompted a national search and an outpouring of sympathy. Hundreds of volunteers helped look for the missing children, staged prayer vigils and hung yellow ribbons as a show of support.
On Wednesday Smith and her estranged husband, David Smith, 24, had appeared side by side at a news conference, his arm around her shoulder, her eyes downcast as she pleaded for the return of her boys. As late as yesterday morning, Susan and David Smith had appeared on all three national network morning shows.
“I think she deserves an Academy Award for her acting,” said Julie Hart.
“I feel like I’ve lost two children,” she continued. “Our hearts have been with that family for nine days now, and we kept the faith that the children would turn up alive. Tonight Union County is filled with broken hearts.”
“If you could see the way she acted that night, that’s the main thing that gets me,” said Rick McCloud Jr., who was at home with his parents on Oct. 25 when Susan Smith pounded on their door, crying for help. “Just to think, for a solid week I was defending her. It gets me sick to my stomach.”
“Is there ever an explanation for murder?” David Smith’s grandmother, Sara Singleton of Los Angeles, told KNBC-TV. “Two little innocent children? There is no explanation for murder.” Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.”
From Steph
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I remember that! Thanks.
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Has Wallace gotten an execution date yet?
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No. He still has some appeals he can still make.
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HENRY WALLACE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD. WHY ARE THEY SPARING HIS LIFE?
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SAD! 😦
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Thank you for the tribute to Shawna. A great friend and such a wonderful person. She is truely missed.
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I’m the godson of shawna hawk I need to get in contact with my godmother dee sumpter …..
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I never heard of this case. I didn’t have a computer when this happened. This is the first time reading about this. This is just horrendous. RIP Shawna Hawk.
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