A former Ohio Reformatory for Women inmate is facing additional time behind bars after having a shank at the prison.
Earlier this year, Sonya Hawkins pleaded guilty to possession of a deadly weapon while under detention, a felony of the first degree. In exchange, prosecutors dropped an attempted aggravated murder charge.
Tuesday, Common Pleas Court Judge Don Fraser sentenced the woman to four to six years in prison, to run consecutive to her current prison term.
“It is always a goal to make certain we don’t have weapons inside the Ohio Reformatory for Women,” Assistant Union County Prosecutor Kelly Hamilton said.
Hawkins, 46, is serving a 31-year-to-life prison sentence for convictions on two counts each of complicity to murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, and obstruction of justice, along with one count of arson and one count of theft.
On Dec. 21, 2018, Hawkins was an inmate at Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. Two inmates told the corrections officer that Hawkins made a shank out of an ink pen and a razor blade. They said Hawkins was planning to kill one of the corrections officers. Officials have not said why Hawkins wanted to kill the officer.
When officials went through the woman’s cell, they found “a pen with razor blade.”
Defense attorney Perry Parsons said Hawkins admits to having the blade, but said she “never made a threat, which is why the attempted murder was dismissed.”
Fraser said that does not align with the presentence investigation.
Parsons said the information came from other inmates, not from Hawkins.
“I don’t believe there is any indication she actually said anything directly to a guard,” Parsons said. “It all seems to be coming from another person, claiming that she said something that she denies she ever said.”
The judge read from a statement that indicated Hawkins never specifically said what she was going to do with the shank.
Fraser also read from another corrections officer’s statement that Hawkins wanted to kill the victim.
He said court documents detail the defendant’s comments that she did not care what the punishment was, she would “get it done.”
Fraser called the language “problematic in light of what she is serving a sentence for.”
“I never said anything to him,” Hawkins said.
The defense attorney said when the statement was made, she knew they had found a blade, but didn’t know there was an allegation she was planning to kill the guard. She said the statement was about her willingness and ability to do additional time for the blade.
“She understands she never should have had this thing, but that she was in fact using it to put lines in her hair,” Parsons said.
Hawkins echoed that.
“That’s was all it was used for — was for my hair, period. Not to hurt anybody. Not to do anything to anybody. Not to hurt myself or anybody.”
She added that, “Everybody knows I am going to take care of myself. Just because I am in prison doesn’t mean I have to look crazy.”
Hawkins said she didn’t intend to hurt anyone and she never said she did.
“I don’t talk to people. I stay to myself, period. This is the reason why I stay to myself, because of stuff like this. I have done a long time already. I am not a people person. I stay in my room. I do my job. I go back in my room. That’s all I do, because I don’t like talking to inmates. I pretty much stay to myself,” she said.
Hawkins, who was moved to Dayton Correctional Institution, has been denied parole once already and is not eligible to be heard by the parole board for another four years.
The original crimes the judge referenced involve Hawkins’ actions in the early morning hours of Sept. 25, 1994.
Hawkins and two juvenile neighbors shot two 16-year-old girls in an apparent gang initiation.
One victim died immediately after being shot, the other did not. The group put the living girl in the trunk of a car, then moved the body to an abandoned barn on another property about a mile and a half away. According to court documents, Hawkins and another man apparently stabbed the girl, then later dropped a cement block on her head to finally kill her. The other body was also moved to the barn.
When investigators got close to finding the bodies, Hawkins, along with others, set fire to the barn and the bodies.
Hawkins was implicated after her mother and stepfather reported several guns, including one the same caliber as the murder weapon, missing.