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Dateline Season 18 Episode 55, titled The Disappearance of Debbie Hawk, follows a case where a man killed his ex-wife to cover up an act of theft.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, the official synopsis of the episode is:
“A father is accused of stealing money from his children's trust funds and murdering his ex-wife to cover up his crimes.”
The year was 2006, and three children returned to their Hanford home to discover that their mother, Debbie Hawk, was missing. They spotted traces of blood leading to the garage, and realised something bad might have happened.
Debbie Hawk was never found again, and three years later her ex-husband was convicted of murdering her. Let us now explore Debbie Hawk’s case in detail as shown in Dateline.
Debbie Hawk disappeared from her house in 2006 as shown in Dateline
In June 2006, Debbie Hawk’s three children — Conrad, Chelsa, and Savannah — came back to their home to find traces of blood leading to the garage. Their mother’s van was missing, and so was she. From the moment the children entered the house, they realized something was wrong because their mother never left unannounced.
The police were informed, and while Debbie Hawk was never found again, they caught the man responsible behind her disappearance. It was Dave Hawk, Debbi’s former husband who was finally convicted in 2009, three years after Debbie’s disappearance, on charges of murdering her. He was given life sentence without the chance of parole.
Dave had stolen more than $300,000 from the trust fund of the children, and when Debbie came to know of it, she decided to alert the authorities. However, this did not sit well with Dave, and he ended up killing her.
Remains of Debbie Hawk’s body were found in 2016
Even after the conviction of Dave Hawk, the police could not solve the mystery of Debbie Hawk’s missing body. It took them another seven years after Dave's conviction to locate where the body was buried.
In 2016, a farmworker unearthed what turned out to be the remains of Debby Hawk. Her body was found about 10 miles away from Lemoore according to David Robinson, Sheriff, Kings County. Initially, the identity of the body was not clear but the mystery was solved by matching the dental records of the deceased and the body.
According to the show, Robinson said that Debbie’s body was buried almost three feet under the ground. No farming took place in the area at the time she was buried.
Talking about finding the body after so many years, the Police Captain of Hanford, Karl Anderson said:
“Dave Hawk is the murderer. We all know that. His last bit of control was he was able to deprive the family of closure. They have that now.”
Unearthing the body was indeed crucial for the case to be officially over, and while it would be tough for Debbie Hawk’s children and family to accept what happened to her, the body offered a definitive end to their search for answers.
Dateline can be streamed on Peacock.
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