DEXTER HAWKINS GUILTY
--------
Chas. Ward's Murderer Gets Ten to Twenty Years in Marquette.
--------
Dexter Hawkins, who was convicted at the February term of the circuit court of Cheboygan county of murdering Chas. Ward in a camp near Tower last October, has been sentenced to not less than ten nor more than twenty years in Marquette prison. The verdict was murder in the second degree.
The following brief story of the crime is given by the Cheboygan Tribune:
"Dexter Hawkins and George Levoy were living in a camp near Tower, making cedar by the piece. They had been out to Wolverine on a spree, returned with five or six quarts of whiskey. Sunday afternoon Chas. Ward who worked in a nearby lumber camp visited them and after several drinks with Hawkins, the two got into an argument over their abilities as cedar makers, and later brought up the subject of religion. Hawkins being a Catholic and Ward an Orangeman. Hawkins claims Ward threatened to kill him, and started for his gun that was left standing beside the camp door, the murderer was quicker than the old man, and reaching up over his head where his 44 calibre rifle hung, pulled it down and shot his visitor thru the body. The man fell stretched on the floor of the shack. Levoy, who was in a drunken sleep in his bunk, jumped out and tried to take the gun away from Hawkins, but was pushed aside and as the man on the floor raised his head a few inches and groaned Hawkins sent another bullet crashing thru his brain. This was the shot that sealed the murderer's doom."