Murder of Georgann Hawkins

Georgann[4] Hawkins was born on August 20, 1955 in Tacoma, Washington. She was the second of two daughters born to Warren B. Hawkins and his wife, Edith "Edie" Hawkins. She and her older sister, Patti, were raised in an upper-middle class Episcopalian household in Sumner, Washington.[5] As a child, Hawkins was reported to be a spirited, vivacious, and outgoing individual. Her mother later described her younger daughter as a "wiggle worm" who was unable to sit still and who had a talkative nature. These observations were well-documented in report cards that her parents received from her grade-school teachers. Adored by her peers, Hawkins' mother dubbed her "the Pied Piper". Her mother later recalled of her daughter, "she had quite a following but she was not the kind of person who stuck to one group or clique. She had friends among everybody, older than her and younger than her. She was a very self-confident little girl ... she wasn't vain, she wasn't arrogant and she wasn't snooty. That's why kids liked her."[6]

At one stage in her childhood, Hawkins had a brief bout with Osgood-Schlatter disease which left a few small bumps visible just below her patellae. Despite this, she was a star athlete and swam competitively throughout grade school and won numerous AAU swimming medals. She later transitioned to cheerleading as a teenager, and was a member of the Lakes High cheerleading squad for four consecutive years. In addition to being a star athlete, Hawkins was an honors student and maintained a straight A record throughout her school years.[7] She was a graduate of Lakes High School in Lakewood, Washington class of 1973.[8]

Hawkins at age 17 in 1973. Pictured at the annual Daffodil Festival.

During her senior years of 1972 and 1973, she was named a princess to the royal court of the annual Washington Daffodil Festival. As a Daffodil Princess, Hawkins traveled around the state of Washington with the other court princesses, regularly being featured in newspapers, attending concerts, meeting children, riding in parades, and signing autographs at charity events. A highlight for Hawkins was in the spring of 1973 where she made a speech addressing lawmakers at the Washington state Legislature.

On July 14th, 1974, two young women disappeared approximately four hours apart from each other in broad daylight from Lake Sammamish State Park. The first was Janice Ann Ott, a married 23 year-old probation case worker at the King County Youth Service Center in Seattle. While Ott was laying on the beach, she was approached by a handsome man wearing a white shirt, tennis shorts, and tennis shoes. The man had his arm in a sling, and picnickers near by overhead bits of their exchanges. The man asked Ott for her assistance with putting his sailboat, that was located at his parents house in Issaquah, on his car. Janice had explained that she had her bike with her, and she did not want to leave it on the beach for fear it might get lost or stolen. The man assured her that there was room for it in the trunk of his car. Ott then said to the man "O.K., I'll help you." Ott was last seen walking away with the man wearing cutoff jeans, a white shirt tied in front, and a black bikini underneath. As they walked away, one witness overheard Ott say to the man, "Hi, I'm Jan", to which he responded, "I'm Ted".[20]

Four hours later, Denise Naslund, a 19 year-old computer programming student and office assistant, disappeared from the park. She was on the beach having a picnic, and was accompanied by her boyfriend, her dog, and another couple. Around 4:30 PM, she left the group with her dog to use the restroom and was last seen wearing cutoff shorts and a blue halter top; her sandals she left behind. Her dog later found its way back to Naslund's friends while they were searching for her. No witnesses are known to have observed Naslund conversing with or leaving Lake Sammammish in the company with a man with his arm in a sling. However, Naslund was well known for her tender-hearted nature and friendly personality, and she would have likely agreed to help any person in need (especially if they were injured or handicapped) without a second thought.

After the disappearances of Ott and Naslund, several young women, between the ages of 15-26, came forward reporting to have been approached by the man named Ted with his arm in a sling. One of the witnesses stated that she went as far as going with him to his car, reporting it to be a "metallic brown" Volkswagen Bug. She said that she ended up not going with him because there was no sailboat on his car, to which he said to her: "Oh, I forgot to tell you. It's up at my folks' house—just a jump up the hill." She told Ted that she could not go because she was waiting for her husband to arrive at park.

On September 6, 1974, two hunters stumbled across skeletal human remains near a service road in Issaquah, about seventeen miles east of Seattle and two miles from Lake Sammamish. King County police sealed off the area. After a three day search, a set of two skulls were found along with various other bones and tuffs of reddish blonde and dark brown hair. The remains had decomposed and disturbed by scavenging animals. The absence of clothing and jewelry at the scene led investors to believe that the bodies were left and discarded at the scene naked.

The skulls were later identified to be those of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund, through dental charts and samples of their hair taken from hair brushes. There was also a third set of remains discovered in the form of a femur and several vertebrae. These are believed to be the remains of Hawkins, but were impossible to identify.

Six months later on March 1, 1975, forestry students from Green River Community College discovered the skull of Brenda Ball on Taylor Mountain, approximately thirty miles from the Flame Tavern where she disappeared. Two days later on March 3, Bob Keppel stumbled upon the skull of Susan Rancourt, who had vanished from Central Washington State University in Ellensburg, eighty-seven miles away. Like Ball, Rancourt’s skull had been fractured from a blunt object. Roberta Park’s skull was the next to be found, 262 miles away from the campus of Oregon State University. Like the others, her skull too had signs of fractures from a blunt object. The last remains to be found on Taylor Mountain were those of Lynda Ann Healy. Unlike the other discoveries, only her jawbone was discovered and later identified through dental records. No remains of Donna Manson or Georgann Hawkins were found at the scene.

After the discovery of the remains, law enforcement found more common denominators in the murders and disappearances. Each of the women had been dealing with a turbulence of some sort on the day they had disappeared.

• Lynda Ann Healy had felt ill with some stomach aches.
• Donna Manson was reported to be weighed down with depression and had fallen behind on her academic work due to late night partying.
• Susan Rancourt, who was a nyctophobic and reported “creature of habit”, was walking on campus alone at night, against her normal judgment and typical pattern of behavior.
• Roberta Parks was depressed due to breaking up with her boyfriend and homesickness. She was also believed to be ridden with guilt over her father having a heart attack after they had gotten into a verbal altercation.
• Brenda Ball was stranded and struggled to find a way of getting back to her residence.
• Georgann Hawkins was stressed out over struggling in Spanish class and was anxious for the upcoming final.
• Janice Ott was missing her husband who had been away for several months in California on business matters.
• Denise Naslund had an argument with her boyfriend minutes before her disappearance.

Ted Bundy in January 1989, a day before his execution.

In an effort to avoid the electric chair, Ted Bundy confessed the details of Hawkins abduction and murder to detective Robert Keppel. Bundy stated that he approached Hawkins in the alley limping along on crutches and dropping his briefcase as a ruse. He asked Hawkins for assistance with carrying his briefcase to his car, which was located in a parking lot just off the side of the alley. Thinking that the strange man was really injured, Hawkins agreed to help him. As she bent over to put Bundy’s briefcase in his car, he grabbed a crowbar that he had hidden before hand, knocked Hawkins out with a single blow to the head, pushed her into his car, and sped off. Bundy claimed that while driving, Hawkins regained consciousness and started to incoherently talk about her Spanish test, believing he had taken her to tutor her for her exam. In response, Bundy simply proceeded to knock Hawkins unconscious with his crowbar.[21]

Once at the secluded location, allegedly located near Lake Sammamish, Bundy took an unconscious Hawkins out of his car and killed her by strangulation with an old piece of rope. He then claims to have severed her head when returning to the site three days later and buried it in the woods on a rocky hillside nearby. It’s also been alleged that Bundy said that one of her femur bones had been discovered but unidentified, one mile east of an old railroad trestle just outside of Issaquah around the same time that the remains of Janice Ott and Denise Naslund had been found. This statement has never been confirmed.

In his confession, Bundy also claimed that he ventured back to the parking lot on his bike that same morning, as the area was being secured off by law enforcement, to retrieve evidence. Bundy recovered the hooped earrings that were knocked off Hawkins ears after he had struck her with the crowbar,[22] as well as one of her shoes that had fallen from her foot during her abduction. Peddling through the area, Bundy surreptitiously observed law enforcement officials a block away, and noticed that they had not yet examined the parking lot where he abducted Hawkins from.[16]

After Bundy’s confession, Keppel and a team of Washington law enforcement went to the alleged area of the crime scene 14 years later in 1989. Despite the intensive search efforts that lasted several days, no remains of Hawkins were found and she is still listed as a missing person.

The Hawkins family deliberately stayed out of the limelight. Although they refused most interview requests, Hawkins mother consented to grant an exclusive interview with Green Valley News in 2014: "I was very, very angry and very bitter, and that was one of the reasons I didn't want to talk. Not only that, but angry, bitter and guilty. You think, what did I do that this [deserved to happen]... you know?"[6]

Edie also recalled that in order to cope with Georgann's untimely death, she and her husband rarely spoke about their younger daughter over the years, stating their belief "it was easier to think of other things."[6] They discarded most of the sympathy cards they received, and kept no shrine of their daughter. Of the notes they did find comfort in and ultimately kept, were the ones that mentioned specifically about how Hawkins had touched their lives. Her parents' one form of memorialization for their daughter was a thick scrapbook filled with pictures, school awards, and the few sympathy cards they kept.

Hawkins father, Warren B. Hawkins, died in 2003.[23] Her sister, Patti Hawkins, later got married and had children.[23] As of 2014, her mother, Edie Hawkins, is reported to reside in Green Valley, AZ.

Ann Rule referenced Hawkins and her disappearance in her 1980 best selling book, The Stranger Beside Me:

"Georgann Hawkins, at eighteen, was one of those golden girls for whom luck or fate had dealt a perfect hand until that inexplicable night of June 10. Raised in the Tacoma suburb of Sumner, Washington, she’d been a Daffodil Princess and a cheerleader... Vivacious and glowing with good health, Georgann had a pixie-like quality to her loveliness. Her long brown hair was glossy and her brown eyes lively. Petite at five feet two inches tall and 115 pounds, she was the youngest of the two daughters of the Warren B. Hawkins family."

In 1986, the best-selling book by Richard W. Larsen was adapted into a two part television film with Mark Harmon as Ted Bundy. In the film, Hawkins' name was changed to Anne Pitney and she was portrayed by an uncredited actress. The films opening sequence consists of a re-enactment of Hawkins abduction in a dark alley. The film presents many historical inaccuracies with Hawkins in particular.

In the film, she is seen wearing a hot pink navel baring top, with a white mini skirt, and stiletto platform shoes carrying a fancy designer handbag. In reality Hawkins was actually wearing long blue slacks, a sheer floral print long-sleeved shirt over a white backless shirt, with open-toed wedge sandals. While Hawkins was carrying a handbag, it was either a tan leather sack or satchel type of purse.

Another historical inaccuracy is shown with Bundy sneaking up behind her (while she was walking down a dark alley) and snatching her. In reality, Bundy first approached Hawkins while he was on crutches and carrying a briefcase (he often feigned injuries to ensnare his victims), and asked Hawkins to help him carry it to his car, which he informed her was parked nearby.[24] He lured her into a secluded parking lot near the alley. Bundy then unlocked his car and opened the door, and as Hawkins bent over to put his books into the car he grabbed a crowbar he had hidden under the wheel of his car and knocked Hawkins out cold. However, at the time the film was made, Bundy had not confessed or given the details to Hawkins murder, so the exact details of her death were not known at this time. It was not until three years after production, days before his execution, that Bundy confessed to Hawkins murder.

Throughout the rest of the film, Hawkins is occasionally referenced with a picture of the actress portraying her as her missing persons photo.

In the first season of the TV series Murder Made Me Famous, episode five focused on Ted Bundy’s crimes. The show features a re-enactment of Bundy abducting Hawkins, with George Quartz as Bundy and Alisha Revel as Hawkins. The depiction is based on Ted Bundy’s 1989 confession and retains a faithful adaptation to his words. The clothes that Revel wears as Hawkins, are much more consistent with what Hawkins was last reported to be wearing. Although there is no re-enactment of the murder itself, there is a close up shot of a dead persons bare foot laying on the grounds of a dark woods, with a narrative stating that Hawkins' body has never been found.

Hawkins is mentioned in great detail of this series. It also features previously unseen color photos of Hawkins in her lifetime. Phyllis Armstrong, a friend to Hawkins, was interviewed for this series and she shares her story of meeting Hawkins when they were Daffodil Princesses at the Washington Daffodil Festival in 1973, and their experiences together as peers at the University of Washington. Furthermore, Armstrong also revealed that Bundy had approached on crutches her asking for help with his books a few days before Hawkins went missing.