In the early morning hours of October 25, 2017, the life of a 27-year-old Black / African American woman, Crystal Hawkins, was tragically cut short. An employee arriving for work at St. Francis Hospital in Federal Way, Washington, made a grim discovery just before 4 a.m. near the main entrance. Hawkins was found on the ground, unconscious and bleeding from a severe head wound. A vehicle was heard speeding away from the scene moments before she was found.
Despite the immediate medical attention she received, Hawkins was pronounced dead at the hospital. A subsequent CT scan revealed she had been shot in the head.
Investigators soon pieced together the events leading to her death. Hawkins, who lived with her mother in Renton, had left her home between 1 and 3 a.m. in her mother's Volvo. She had told her mother she was going to visit a friend at a nearby apartment complex. Hours after Hawkins was found, her mother's car was discovered abandoned at a mobile home park in Kent. The vehicle contained a significant amount of blood and a single spent bullet casing, indicating a violent struggle had taken place inside.
The investigation into Hawkins' murder spanned over two years, but detectives eventually identified a prime suspect: her 41-year-old ex-boyfriend, Richard Nelson. The couple had dated for about a year before Hawkins ended the relationship. In the days leading up to her death, Nelson had expressed his desire to reconcile, but Hawkins had moved on and was in a new relationship. Prosecutors believe that on the night of her murder, Nelson used a fake name to lure Hawkins to an apartment complex where he shot her in the back of the head. He then drove her to the hospital and left her outside before fleeing.
In May 2020, Richard Nelson was charged with second-degree murder for the death of Crystal Hawkins. At the time the charges were filed, Nelson was already in jail for a separate domestic violence incident involving a different woman whom he had allegedly tried to strangle. His arraignment for Hawkins' murder was scheduled for June 1, 2020.
