MEMPHIS, TN – Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons announced that the state Grand Jury for Shelby County had indicted a Memphis man for the first degree murder of his live-in girlfriend whose body was found last February dismembered in Mississippi, just south of Memphis. District Attorney Gibbons also announced that his office filed notice to seek the death penalty against the defendant, James Hawkins.
The Grand Jury indicted Hawkins, 31, for first degree murder, filing a false report, and abuse of a corpse.
According to the affidavits of complaint filed in this case, Charlene Gaither’s body was found on February 14, 2008 on Highway 78 in DeSoto County, Mississippi. The investigation revealed that Hawkins filed a missing person reports on Gaither February 12. According to the affidavits of complaint, Hawkins “admitted to dismembering the victim’s body and disposing of the parts in a secluded location” and “dumping the body in DeSoto County.”
The D.A.’s Office is seeking the death penalty against Hawkins because the case against him meets two specific aggravating circumstances under Tennessee law: (1) the defendant was previously convicted of one or more felonies, other than the present charge, whose statutory elements involve the use of violence to the person, and (2) the defendant knowingly mutilated the body of the victim after death.
“After reviewing the facts of this case, I have never felt more strongly about giving a jury the option of imposing the death penalty in accordance with our state law,” Gibbons stated.
Under Tennessee law, first degree murder is punishable by death, life in prison, or life in prison with the possibility of parole after 51 years.
This case has been assigned to the D.A.’s Domestic Violence Prosecution Unit and is being handled by Assistant District Attorneys Karen Cook and Missy Branham. |