On the night of July 11, 2025, Benjamin Hawk, 42, a male, White/Caucasian, was singing karaoke at Louie’s Corner House on Hebron Road in Buckeye Lake, Ohio, when a single gunshot ended the music and his life. Deputies with the Licking County Sheriff’s Office responded just before midnight and found Benjamin Hawk, 42, fatally wounded; he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The bar’s address—11174 Hebron Road—quickly anchored the call logs and headlines as neighbors gathered outside, stunned that a summer Friday could turn so suddenly into a vigil.
Witness accounts and court filings sketched a blunt, devastating sequence: as Benjamin Hawk, 42, performed karaoke, a man approached from behind and fired into the back of his head. Investigators soon focused on Richard A. Lindgren, 59, described as the ex-husband of the woman Benjamin Hawk, 42, had been dating. The story spread through Buckeye Lake and beyond—love soured, a crowded bar, a single shot during a song—and friends who knew him from the local karaoke circuit spoke of a generous presence suddenly gone.
Through the weekend, the search for a suspect turned into an interstate manhunt. Authorities obtained a murder warrant for Lindgren and alerted agencies outside Ohio. On July 13, 2025, U.S. marshals and deputies located and arrested him in Orangeburg, South Carolina, without incident. Detectives from Licking County traveled south to begin the extradition process, and by July 15 he had been returned to Ohio and booked into the Licking County Justice Center on the murder charge.
The public record rounded out the portrait of the man at the center of the loss. Legacy’s obituary confirmed that Benjamin “Donkey” Hawk, 42, died on July 11, 2025, in Buckeye Lake, memorializing him as a man remembered for humor and generosity. Listings maintained by national databases and memorial sites fixed the date and place of death, marking him among those lost to gun violence in the United States.
Any doubts about the circumstances were answered in a series of official and media updates that aligned on the essentials: the shooting occurred shortly before midnight at Louie’s Corner House; the victim was Benjamin Hawk, 42; the alleged gunman was Richard Lindgren, 59; and an arrest followed within forty-eight hours in South Carolina, with extradition to Ohio for prosecution. As the legal process advanced, the community held a vigil, speaking his name under string lights and summer air, and promising that the quiet that fell after the last song would not be the end of his story.
According to a compiled victim record, Benjamin Hawk, 42, male, White/Caucasian, was identified as the decedent in Buckeye Lake on July 11, 2025, reinforcing the basic facts that now undergird the case file and the memory of the man himself.
