Arraignments for mother, aunt reset in mutilation case
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Posted 2:23PM on Wednesday, January 22, 2003
JONESBOROUGH, TENNESSEE - The elderly sisters charged as accessories in East Tennessee mutilation murders will be arraigned next month. <br>
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At a Jonesborough court appearance Tuesday, 74-year-old Marie Hawk Holmes begged the prosecutor to separate her case from that of her 71-year-old sister Emma Elizabeth Hawk. <br>
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Holmes said the two hadn't spoken in five years when a doctor released her sister to come and live with her. <br>
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Both women are accused of helping Hawk's son -- Howard Hawk Willis -- try to cover up the dismemberment slaying of a teenage couple. <br>
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Willis faces two counts each of first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse. <br>
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He's accused of killing Adam and Samantha Crismer of Rossville, Georgia, and throwing Adam Crismer's severed head into a lake. <br>
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The rest of their bodies were found in a rented storage unit in Johnson City, Tennessee. <br>
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Willis is being held for sentencing in New York, where he was convicted of delivering cocaine.
