By: Dalene Davies-Smoot
Note: On October 15, 2013, Judge Chambers revealed his decision regard the verdict of Ronald Hawkinson, charged with two counts of murder in the first degree.
The verdict: Guilty of murder in the first degree – two counts. Sentencing will be December 3. This is my story….now I am free to write all and tell all….
On May 17th, 2012, the day started like any other day with Bob getting up and going to work and me starting my day with plans to clean the office so the brokerage could move home with me. That way he and Sam could keep building the fleet and Bob could purchase another truck.
At 11:35 a.m. Bob called me as he did every day when he went to lunch but this day was different. He was so very quiet and my prodding to find out what was wrong did no good he would not say that anything was wrong just that it was normal trucking with a few problems that were deeper than most.
I asked if he would be home on time that I was going to grill out kabobs and we can eat and then we could start refreshing my memory and setting up the office for the brokerage. I started the grill about 5 knowing he would be home by 5:20 and realized around 6 o’clock that something must be wrong because he wasn’t home and he always was home or called first if he was going to be late.
So I went ahead and ate my kabob and kept his warm in the oven thinking something had come up or a driver had come in late and he had to work with him or something. Around 6:45 I began to worry and I started calling his cell phone which I had already done a couple times but I started calling it constantly.
I also called my kids to see if they’d heard from him. I called so much between 6:45 and 1 o’clock the next morning – I called every hospital in the area, I called friends, and I called his sister in Michigan. I told her there was something wrong that he never was late without calling me and something was wrong!
My daughter and son text’d him and kept calling and Carla decided she was going to go down to the office when she got off work at 10:30 pm. In the meantime I was getting more and more panicked and worried.
Around 11 p.m. his sister Connie called me and said why don’t you check the computer and see if you can trace his cell phone? When I pulled up the computer a breaking news banner flashed across it, “Shooting at Seibert Trucking and it showed the parking lot with Bob’s car in front of the building with it all taped off as a crime scene. I threw the computer and went screaming to my next door neighbors. I was formally notified long after midnight.