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A sheriff’s deputy on patrol in southwest Placer County observed a minivan parked beneath some trees and thought it was suspicious enough to check out the vehicle.
What he discovered on Oct. 31, 1993, soon had the area near the Oakhills Elementary School crowded with detectives and crime scene specialists. Inside the van, Deputy Jeff Adams had discovered the body of a popular fifth-grade teacher who taught school about a mile away.
Cherilyn Hawkley’s photo is showing wear from years of sitting in the cold case files.
Detectives said Cherilyn Anne Hawkley, 39, had been strangled with a
cord or wire in the back seat of the van. She was fully clothed, with
no signs of a struggle. She had not been sexually assaulted, and her
purse and all its contents remained in the vehicle.
“We never found a motive or any creditable suspect involved in the high
profile murder,” said Placer Detective William Summers. He said
investigators have been baffled about the slaying over the years since
no positive clues or information has turned up in the unsolved
homicide. There were no indicators of anyone involved in her personal
life other than a boyfriend who never was a suspect, according to
investigators.
Detectives theorized that Hawkley knew her killer, and probably met her
assailant after leaving the Eureka School on a Friday afternoon.
Detectives never established why she and her van were driven to
Elmhurst Drive just off the East Roseville Parkway in the Granite Bay
area where her body was found. Local residents reported they saw the
vehicle parked alongside the road during the weekend as they went to
and from soccer games and other school sporting events.
Hawkley, who had purchased a home in Roseville, was last seen at the
Eureka school shortly after 3 p.m. on Oct. 29, and was reported missing
to Roseville police by family members the next day. Adams was on
routine patrol on Elmhurst Drive when he discovered her body about 9
p.m. on Oct. 31. The van’s doors were locked and the windows secured.
School officials said Hawkley was a respected teacher and was well
liked by her students. This was her first year of teaching at Eureka
after leaving the Durham Unified School District near Chico where she
was a teacher for 2 1/2 years.
Sheriff Donald Nunes released a composite drawing of an unidentified
man seen on the Eureka School ground shortly before Hawkley left the
school and was last seen alive, but detectives never considered the man
more than a person of interest. He was never located.
Detectives first thought the murder of Hawkley might be linked to
another woman killed in South Placer County two years earlier. Cinthia
Wanner, 35, was abducted from her sister’s home in Granite Bay in
November 1991. She also had been strangled, and her body was
discovered near Foresthill three weeks after her disappearance. They
compared the two cases but concluded that there were two many
dissimilarities, including that Wanner had been kept alive for a time
and Hawkley’s murder happened within 24 hours.
Hawkley was recently divorced and had three children with her former
husband. Her two daughters and a son remained in Chico when she took
the teaching job with the Eureka Union School District and moved to
Roseville.
Any information about the murder of Hawkley can be relayed to Detective Summers at 530-889-7843 and 530-889-7800.
Unsolved murders in Placer County, no matter how long ago they occurred, remain active in law enforcement case files. There are a number of vicious murders still being investigated since there is no statute of limitation for a homicide. These cold case files remain open and detectives continue to look for clues and information that could lead to solving the crimes. In the coming months, some of those brutal, unsolved slayings, and the progress in bringing the murderer or murderers to justice, will be covered in The Sentinel.
Subscribe to the Sentinel and receive this weekly newspaper (the only general circulation newspaper in the area that is locally owned and operated) delivered right to your mailbox. Call the Sentinel at 530-823-2463 for more information.
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