Oxford police say Brandon Hawkins, shown in the driver's license photo
to the right right, is the man who shot a Papa John's Pizza employee in
September. At left is an artist's rendering of the suspect, drawn from an
eyewitness description.
Oxford police have identified the suspect in the September killing of a Papa John’s employee.
After three months of investigation, police Tuesday signed a warrant for Gadsden resident Brandon Hawkins.
Investigators said Hawkins, 21, is the man who – on the night of Sept. 9 – entered the Snow Street pizza shop, shot one assistant manager, assaulted another and stole cash from the store.
Barbara Exum, 56, died from the gunshot wound she received that evening.
Another employee suffered minor injuries after Hawkins struck her with his handgun during a struggle after he shot Exum, police said.
The warrant for Hawkins charges him with capital murder, first-degree robbery and second-degree assault.
Major Crimes Investigator Dewitt Ashley said Hawkins hasn’t been arrested yet; police believe the Gadsden man fled the state sometime after his crime and remains outside of Alabama.
But Oxford Police Chief Bill Partridge said it’s “just a matter of time” before police catch Hawkins and take him into custody.
Once the warrant for Hawkins is entered into the National Crime Information Center – an online database of criminal justice information – his name will be flagged for any officer across the country to view.
“Any time he gets stopped for something, he’s caught if he gives his name,” Partridge said.
Asked if he had an indication of Hawkins’ whereabouts, the Oxford chief said he could only publicly note that Hawkins was not in Alabama.
Investigator Jason Webb, a member of Oxford’s special investigations division, said his five-investigator team now will shoulder the task of helping to locate Hawkins.
It was Ashley, with help from Webb, who for the past three months has dedicated all of his efforts to finding out the suspect’s identity.
Ashley said he has worked only the Papa John’s murder-robbery case since he first set foot onto the September crime scene.
Webb, too, has spent time out of every day since then helping Ashley chase down leads and interview people who said they had information.
“And it’s been on my mind every day since Sept. 9,” Partridge added.
When Oxford police first responded to the pizza shop that night, they had little to work with.
After a week of investigation, investigators still only had a sketch drawing to approximate the suspect’s features and a vague description of a young black man with close-cropped hair, a slight build, wide shoulders and a raspy voice.
After a month and no promising suspect leads, Gov. Robert Bentley’s office and Papa John’s both publicly offered rewards to anyone with information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the case.
Finally, three days later, someone came forward with Brandon Hawkins’ name.
Partridge said he couldn’t currently discuss whether the award money played a part in that revelation or whether the person who first identified Hawkins would receive any of the money.
But as investigators began to look into Hawkins’ background, they became increasingly suspicious that Hawkins was their man.
”We ran all the leads down, and it all came back to him,” Ashley said.
Investigators didn’t reveal specifics of their case against Hawkins for fear of jeopardizing months of work but said that on Tuesday afternoon, they had enough information to secure the capital murder warrant on Hawkins.
Partridge said Hawkins was on probation for a prior crime when the robbery at Papa John’s occurred but legally could not say what crime Hawkins committed. That’s because when the Gadsden man pleaded guilty, he did so as a juvenile offender, and Alabama law protects the identity of youthful offenders.
Partridge gave credit to Webb and Ashley for successfully obtaining a warrant for Hawkins, calling the pair “two of the best homicide investigators.”
The chief cited a police rule of thumb: The chances of solving a crime decrease significantly if a suspect is not identified within the first 48 hours.
“There was no sleep that weekend,” Webb said of the initial response to Exum’s homicide and the pizza shop robbery. “I can tell you I saw all of those first 48.”
Ashley, Webb and Partridge visited Exum’s family members Tuesday night to tell them about the warrant for Hawkins.
”It was like an early Christmas present,” Ashley said.
Partridge said he hopes the discovery of Hawkins’ identity sends a message to criminals.
”I want these people to understand that law enforcement isn’t going to stand idly by and let these individuals get away with it,” Partridge said. “We will spend every waking moment working … until we bring you to justice and take you out of society.”
Read our first story on this killing from Sept. 10th here:
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