Murder of Georgeann Hawkins

Georgann Hawkins was an American college student from Tacoma, Washington, who disappeared from an alley behind her sorority house at the University of Washington in Seattle. Serial killer, Ted Bundy, confessed to her abduction and murder shortly before his execution in 1989. Bundy claims that partial remains of Hawkins were discovered at one of his crime scenes, but never identified. His statement regarding the discovery of her remains has never been confirmed and Hawkins is still listed as a missing person, but is presumed dead. Background: Georgann Hawkins was born on August 20, 1955 in Tacoma, Washington, to Warren B. Hawkins and his wife, Edith “Edie” Hawkins. The youngest of two daughters of a upper-middle class Episcopalian family, Hawkins was raised in Sumner, Washington alongside her older sister, Patti. As a child, Georgann was reported to be a spirited, vivacious, and outgoing individual. Her “wiggle worm” personality and talkative nature was 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.” At some point in her childhood, Hawkins had a brief bout with Osgood-Schlatter disease which left a few small bumps just below her knees. 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, Georgeann was an honors student and maintained a straight A record throughout her school years. She was a graduate of Lakes High School in Lakewood, Washington class of 1973. In 1972-73, during her senior year, 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. Hawkins elder sister, Patti, attended Central Washington University in Ellensburg, which was 120.6 miles away from their hometown of Tacoma. When it came time for Georgann to go off to college, her mother didn’t want Georgeann as far away as her elder sister had been. At her mothers request, Georgann enrolled at University of Washington in Seattle, which was only 30 miles from her hometown. Hawkins parents paid tuition, books, room and board; Georgann worked all summer to pay for everything else. During her freshman year, Georgann joined the on campus sorority Kappa Alpha Theta. After her experiences as a Daffodil princess and seeing the news media coverage of the hearings for the Watergate scandal, she had aspirations of becoming a broadcast journalist or possibly a television news anchor. She was looking into majoring in Broadcast Journalism. While in college, Georgann got good grades and enjoyed going to campus parties, dance formals, and Kappa Alpha Theta events. She had also found a steady boyfriend, Marvin Gellatly, who was a member of the Beta Theta Pi sorority. She occasionally came home for the weekends, and last saw her parents on Mother’s Day weekend 1974. She also landed a summer job in her hometown of Tacoma, which was set to start on June 17, to help her pay for her next year of college. Events prior to murder: Beginning in 1974, the state of Washington began to experience a string of mysterious disappearances of young college aged women. -February 1: Lynda Ann Healy (21), disappeared from her basement room in Seattle, WA. -March 12: Donna Gail Manson (19), vanished off The Evergreen State College campus in Olympia, WA, while going to attend a jazz concert. -April 17: Susan Elaine Rancourt (18), disappeared off Central Washington State College campus in Ellensburg, WA, after leaving a dorm advisors meeting. -May 6: Roberta Kathleen Parks (20), went missing from Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR, after leaving her dormitory to go meet friends at a coffee shop. -May 31: Brenda Carol Ball (22), went missing after leaving the Flame Tavern in Burien, WA. The disappearances baffled law enforcement officials, and many questions began to arose concerning the connections between the cases. There were many similarities to the cases of missing women that the detectives noticed. The girls all shared the same basic physical characteristics of being young, attractive, slender, of Caucasian decent, with long hair that was parted in the middle. They were all also considered to be of more than average intelligence with some sort of gifted talent and came from stable backgrounds. During the times of their disappearances, they were all reported to have been wearing slacks and vanished in the hours of darkness within a week of a midterm or final at a local college or university. Strangely enough, there was also construction work being done on each campus where the girls went missing from. Lynda Ann Healy’s case was the only one with physical evidence in the form of a blood stained mattress and night gown. The timeline of Donna Gail Manson’s last whereabouts were difficult to construct due to the fact that she wasn’t reported as missing for six days. This was because Manson often hitchhiked to nearby locales and could disappear for several days at a time without notice, and her peers initially believed that she decided to travel without sharing her plans beforehand. Manson was also depressed at the time of her disappearance, and law enforcement couldn’t rule out the slim possibility that she may have left of her own account to committed suicide. Susan Rancourt was also physically different from Linda Ann Healy and Donna Manson, in that she had blonde hair that was just past her shoulders. In contrast to Healy who had waist length chestnut colored hair, and Manson who had long dark brown hair. Captain Herb Swindler was convinced that Roberta Parks disappearance was linked to the others, but all other law enforcement officials doubted his claims feeling that Corvallis was too distant for a victim of the perpetrator who prowled the campuses of Washington colleges. Parks also had ash blonde hair, while all the other girls (except for Susan Rancourt) were brunette or dark haired. Police also couldn’t rule out the possibility that, like Donna Manson, Parks may have disappeared on her own account to commit suicide. It was a plausible theory as she had a history of mood swings, recently broke up with her boyfriend, was feeling homesick for her hometown in Lafayette, CA, and two days before she went missing got into a verbal altercation with her father who then had a near fatal heart attack that same day. The Willamette River, which was near the city of Corvallis, was briefly seen as a place of interest where Parks’s body might have been found, in the event that she had chosen to end her life by throwing herself off the river bridge. But after the being dragged, Willamette was ruled out. Brenda Ball was also not reported missing until after the disappearance of Georgann Hawkins. Like Donna Manson, Ball was somewhat of an adventurous spirit and may have taken off on a whim. With no bodies found, very few clues to go on, and the limits of forensic technology of the time, the disappearances became more complex to piece together. Events of June 10–11, 1974: On June 10, 1974, Georgann Hawkins went with a sorority sister to a party on campus. Hawkins didn’t stay at the event for too long as she had to study for her upcoming Spanish finals. Before leaving the party she told her sorority sister that she was going to the Beta Theta Pi House to say good night to her boyfriend and to pick up some study notes from him. Georgann was a very cautious person. The area along the sorority houses had become so familiar to her, the streets were always so well lighted, and there were generally people around that she knew. The alley behind the houses was brightly light by street lights approximately every ten feet. On the warm night of June 10th, most students were still awake cramming for their finals well past midnight. Hawkins boyfriends sorority house was six houses down from her sorority, approximately ninety feet. Hawkins arrived at Beta Theta Pi House around 12:30 A.M. on June 11th, and stayed for a little more than half an hour. After retrieving the Spanish notes and saying good night to her boyfriend, Hawkins exited the sorority house for the short walk to her sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. One of the Betas, Duane Covey, heard the back door slam shut and stuck his head out the window, recognizing Hawkins, calling out “Hey George! What’s happening?”. They talked for a minute or two, Hawkins mentioning her upcoming Spanish exam, and then she headed south towards her residence. She was last seen wearing navy blue cotton bell-bottom pants (which had one button and were missing three), a white backless T-shirt, a sheer red, white, and blue top, and white open-toed wedge sandals. Hawkins also had two rings: one was a rectangular black onyx ring on her left middle finger (with a small diamond in the center set in yellow gold), and the other was a cultured pearl ring in a Tiffany setting on her right ring finger (with a slender gold band). She was carrying a tan leather satchel-type purse with reddish stains. The contents of Hawkins purse included her large royal purple wallet, her school identification card, her checkbook from Sea 1st Bank Lakewood Branch, a small quantity of cash, a mini hairbrush with black bristles, a bottle of Heaven Sent perfume, a small jar of Vaseline, and the Spanish notes she borrowed. Investigation: Since Georgann had previously lost her key to the house, Dee Nicholas, Hawkins roommate, had been waiting for the familiar rattling sound of small stones hitting the window, signaling her to run downstairs to let Georgann in the house. When Hawkins failed to return by 3 A.M., Nicholas became concerned, and informed the housemother. By dawn police were on the campus to investigate. Standard law enforcement practices typically requires a 24-hour waiting period before commentcing a search for a missing adult. However, in view of the string of young girls who had disappeared that year in Washington, the disappearance of Georgann Hawkins was treated very differently. Hawkins case was also focused with intensity because she fit the physical profile of the previous girls who had mysteriously disappeared. Like the other girls, Hawkins was a young Caucasian female who was beautiful, intelligent, and had long dark hair that was parted in the middle. An extensive search on hands and knees of the ninety foot trail that Hawkins had to take, recovered no traces of any evidence. The father of one of Hawkins sorority sisters was a newsman. This pushed the story of her disappearance onto the front pages of newspapers and the top of TV broadcasts more quickly and frequently in contrast to the previous missing girl cases. Georgann lived in room Number 8 of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority house. A search of her room showed that all of her possessions, but the clothes on her back and the few items she was carrying in her purse, were still there. When law enforcement interviewed Hawkins roommate she said to them, “Georgann never went anyplace without leaving me the phone number where she’d be. I know she intended to come back here last night. She had one more exam and then she was going home for the summer on the thirteenth.“ Police didn’t believe that Hawkins would have left on her own account with an upcoming exam and taking only a meager amount of supplies, and no change of clothes. Hawkins was nearsighted, and wore eyeglasses and contact lenses to correct her vision. Ironically she had neither in her possession at the time of her disappearance. Her roommate told police that the reason why Hawkins didn’t have her eyeglasses or contact lenses with her that evening was because “she’d worn her contacts all day to study, and after you’ve worn contact lenses for a long time, things look blurry when you put glasses on, so she wasn’t wearing them either.” Despite her visual impairment, she still had relatively a fair view of the familiar brightly lit alley. Police suspected that if the perpetrator had been surreptitiously lurking in the shadows of the alley and learned Georgann‘s name after overhearing her friend call her by name. This would have given her abductor the chance to seize, gag, and carry her off undetected. No witnesses reported seeing or hearing such a thing.There were several occasions before Hawkins disappearance were strong young male students on campus would engage in picking up female students, playing “caveman” to relieve their tension during finals week. But there weren’t even reports of this type of play on the night Hawkins disappeared. Police then theorized that Georgann may have been hit on the head with a blunt object, rendered unconscious with chloroform, or captured through brute force. Since Georgann stood just over five feet tall, was visually impaired in the darkness of the night, and without the aid of her contacts or glasses, it wouldn’t have been that difficult for someone to overpower her in her vulnerable state. With no physical evidence to go on, and no suspects in question, Hawkins disappearance case quickly grew cold. As the days turned into weeks, it was becoming painfully clear that Georgann Hawkins had likely met the same fate as the other five girls who were suspected of being abducted and killed by the same person, or at least the same group of people. Aftermath- Lake Sammamish Abductions: Despite an early response, intense publicity, and an extensive search for Georgann, the case quickly went cold with no leads. Discovery of remains: 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 that 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 additional remains discovered in the form of a femur and several vertebrae’s. These are believed to be the remains of Georgann Hawkins, but these remains 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. The remains of Donna Manson and Georgann Hawkins were never found. After the discovery of the remains, law enforcement found more common denominators in the murders and disappearances. Each of the victimized women had been dealing with a turbulence of some sort on the day they had disappeared. -Lynda Ann Healy had hinted to be feeling 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, was walking on campus alone at night. -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. -Georgeann 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. Ted Bundy- Bundy’s 1989 Confession: 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 Georgann 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. He proceeded to knock her out again with the crowbar. Once at the secluded location, allegedly located near Lake Sammamish, Bundy took an unconscious Georgann out of his car and killed her by strangulation with an old piece of rope. He then claims to have severed her head and buried it in the woods on a rocky hillside. 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. Though 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 earrings that were knocked off Hawkins ears after he’d struck her with the crowbar, as well as one of her shoes that fell off one of her feet during the 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 Georgann from. 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. Hawkins Family: Georgann‘s family deliberately stayed out of the limelight. Although they refused to give interviews, Hawkins mother, Edie, gave 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.” Edie also recalled that in order to cope with Georgann's untimely death, she and her husband her rarely spoke about their daughter over the years, stating that “it was easier to think of other things.” 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 Georgann 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. Her sister, Patti Hawkins, later got married and had children. As of 2014, her mother, Edie Hawkins, is reported to reside in Green Valley, AZ. In the media- The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule: Ann Rule referenced Georgann 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, Georgeann 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.” The Deliberate Stranger (1986 TV film): 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, Georgann 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 was nearby). 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 where not known at this time. It wasn't until three years after production, days before his execution, which 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. Murder Made Me Famous (TV Series 2015– ): 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 Georgeann Hawkins, with George Quartz as Ted Bundy and Alisha Revel as Georgann Hawkins. The depiction is based off of 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 Georgann’s body has never been found. Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer (TV Mini series 2020): Georgann Hawkins is mentioned in great detail of this series. It also features previously never before seen 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 Georgann went missing.