Trial for Port St. Lucie nursing home murder suspect gets underway
By Jade Jarvis
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FORT PIERCE, Florida (WPBF) — The trial for a man accused of killing a 95-year-old patient at a Treasure Coast nursing home started this week.
William Hawkins is facing a first-degree murder charge in the January 2020 death of Robert Morell.
Opening statements got underway Tuesday afternoon.
Prosecutors said on Jan. 4, 2020, then-47-year-old Hawkins suffocated 95-year-old Morell with a pillow inside his room at Tiffany Hall nursing home in Port St. Lucie.
Hawkins then escaped but was later caught after a tip from his ex-girlfriend, who told police that she was seeing him while she was also seeing the victim.
After that, prosecutors said Hawkins made a recorded jailhouse confession to his sister, Shannon Hawkins, saying that he had been planning the victim’s homicide for several years, using Morell’s girlfriend to get close to him and that he had “accomplished his life goal.”
“My brother is insanely intelligent. He is so smart that he is not stupid enough to do this. He had to have been set up by somebody,” Shannon Hawkins said.
WPBF 25 News spoke to Shannon Hawkins outside of the courtroom Tuesday.
She said while she did knowingly record her brother’s confession, she now believes there’s more to the story involving William Hawkins’ ex-girlfriend that the prosecution is ignoring.
Shannon Hawkins said her brother was taken advantage of, and while she believes that he did kill Morell, she thinks he wasn’t in his right mind during the crime.
The defense tried to have that recording suppressed from trial evidence, but the motion was denied by the judge.
“They used me to get what they wanted. They didn’t want the whole story. The confession, they didn’t want the whole story behind it. All they want is that one little thing,” Hawkins said.
The trial is expected to continue throughout the rest of the week.
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