In the winter of 1993, Shawna Denise Hawk, a 20-year-old Black woman, was diligently building a future for herself in Charlotte, North Carolina. A paralegal student at Central Piedmont Community College, she also worked at a local Taco Bell to support herself and her mother, Dee Sumpter, with whom she lived. Described as a bright young woman with a smile that could light up a room, Shawna was pursuing a career in law and shared her life with her boyfriend, Darrell.
Her aspirations were tragically cut short on February 19, 1993.
That evening, Shawna’s mother came home to find her daughter’s coat and purse, but Shawna was nowhere to be found, which was highly unusual. After learning Shawna had uncharacteristically failed to pick up her godson from daycare, her mother grew deeply concerned and contacted Shawna's boyfriend. When he arrived at the home, he began to search the apartment. In a downstairs bathroom, he pulled back the shower curtain to make a horrifying discovery: Shawna was submerged in the bathtub. Emergency services were called, but it was too late; Shawna Hawk was pronounced dead at the hospital. An autopsy later revealed that she had suffered a blow to the head but that the ultimate cause of death was ligature strangulation.
For a year, the case remained unsolved, leaving Shawna's family devastated and the community on edge. The investigation into her death eventually converged with a series of other murders of young Black women in the Charlotte area. The breakthrough came in March 1994, when police arrested a man named Henry Louis Wallace for another murder. During a 12-hour interrogation, Wallace, who had been Shawna's manager at Taco Bell, confessed to killing not only Shawna but nine other women in Charlotte, and one in South Carolina. He calmly provided horrific details of his crimes, admitting he had raped and then strangled Shawna in her home before placing her body in the tub and stealing fifty dollars from her purse. In a chilling display of audacity, Wallace had even attended Shawna's funeral.
Henry Louis Wallace, who became known as the 'Taco Bell Strangler,' had terrorized the community, often preying on women he knew through work or personal connections. His victims were friends, co-workers, and acquaintances who had no reason to suspect the man they trusted. In January 1997, Wallace was found guilty of nine murders, including Shawna Hawk's. He was subsequently sentenced to nine death sentences and is currently on death row. In the wake of her daughter’s murder, Dee Sumpter founded the support group Mothers of Murdered Offspring to help other families who have lost children to violence.
