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| Inmate linked by DNA to deaths of 2 women |
| By Baltimore Sun |
| Published: 09/17/2003 |
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A 33-year-old Maryland prison inmate was charged last week with sexually assaulting and killing two Baltimore women in 2001 while on parole after DNA tests linked him to the crime, city police said. Timothy Hawkins, who is being held in state prison on a parole violation stemming from a second-degree murder conviction in 1989, was charged with killing Latonia Shuler, 35, on May 11 and Durri Emmannuel, 27, on Sept. 5. Det. Mark Wiedefeld of the city's cold case squad said that police linked the deaths to Hawkins through DNA samples the inmate was forced to give prison officials after he was incarcerated for violating terms of his parole. Hawkins pleaded guilty in 1989 to second-degree murder and child abuse in the death of his girlfriend's 2-year-old child. He was released on parole in 1999, but was sent back to prison for violating the terms of his release, Wiedefeld said. Prison officials collected his DNA with an oral swab and entered it into a state database that compares known offenders' DNA to evidence recovered from crime scenes. The database alerted detectives to the potential match about 10 weeks ago, police said. Further testing confirmed those initial results, police said. In the cases of Shuler and Emmannuel's deaths, detectives had few clues because no witnesses reported seeing the killings. Both women were sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. Shuler of the 400 block of S. August Ave. was discovered about 6:45 a.m. in an alley behind the first block of S. Culver St. Emmannuel of the 3900 block of Chatham Road was found about 5:50 a.m. on the parking lot of Windsor Hills Elementary School in the 4000 block of Alto Road. 'The original detectives were pretty much stymied,' said Wiedefeld, who investigated the killings with Det. Gary Hoover. 'There are no witnesses [or evidence] other than those oral swabs.' In addition to Hawkins, the city Police Department has charged another man this year in a killing as a result of DNA tests, said Sgt. Roger Nolan of the cold case squad. |
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