Trial Begins for Pair in Murder of Retired Teacher

A teenager will testify that he watched a friend rob a retired teacher of $20 in her Compton home and then fatally shoot her in the head, execution style, jurors were told Thursday.

Ollie Wayne Hawkins Jr., 16, described as a model student and promising football star, will testify that the only mistake he made was spending the day with the friend.

On July 21, 2001, 68-year-old Kathryn Dawson was found dead of a single gunshot wound in the head. Hawkins and Joe Patrick Gaines were arrested after neighbors recognized them from sketches released by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department.

“[Hawkins] is a very passive type of person,” said his attorney, Marvin L. Part. “The only problem my client has was that his family lived down the street from Gaines.”

Part said his client, a Dominguez High School athlete who had been recruited by college football coaches, is different from Gaines, who he said is the killer.

Hawkins had never been a member of a gang and had a clean criminal record, Part said. Gaines, he told jurors, was a member of the Neighborhood 127 Crips gang and was on probation.

The day Dawson was murdered, the two teenagers were walking down their street when Gaines asked Hawkins to hold his gun, Part said. “He did something he shouldn’t have done: He put the gun in his pocket,” the attorney said.

Hawkins said Gaines forced Dawson to lie down with a pillow over her head and then shot her, Part said. “[Gaines] executed her ... for a lousy 20 bucks,” Part told jurors in Compton Superior Court.

Gaines’ attorney, Earl C. Broady, waived an opening statement.

Gaines listened to Deputy Dist. Atty. Danette Meyers tell jurors that the prosecution’s case will rely on neighbors who will testify that they saw the two teenagers at Dawson’s doorstep.

One of Gaines’ friends, convicted felon Leo Armor, will testify that he picked up the two defendants on the day of the killing and took them to Gaines’ house, Meyers said. Armor will tell jurors that he saw Gaines bury the gun in his backyard, and that Gaines told him: “I just popped the [woman],” she added.

The trial is expected to last about two weeks. If convicted, Hawkins and Gaines face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“It’s overwhelming to listen to somebody describe what happened,” said Yolanda Spooney, Dawson’s daughter. She said it was painful to look at Gaines.

Spooney said her mother, a substitute teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District who worked mostly in Watts, never opened her door to strangers.