‘They knew the Lord’: Georgia coroner finds son and parents killed at gun range
A Georgia coroner went to a shooting range owned by his family on Friday evening and found his parents and son had been shot dead in a robbery, officials said.
In a brief telephone interview with the Guardian on Sunday, Richard Hawk confirmed his 19-year-old son Luke Hawk, father Tommy Hawk and mother Evelyn Hawk were killed at the shooting range, which was owned by his father.
Police were still searching for suspects, said Richard Hawk, whose office determines causes and manners of deaths in Coweta county, about 50 miles south-west of Atlanta.
“Tommy, Evelyn and Luke knew the Lord as their personal savior,” Hawk said, fighting tears. “They died knowing the Lord, and they’re in heaven.
“If anyone is out there who doesn’t know [the Lord], they need to – time is short.”
The murders of Hawk’s son and 75year-old parents came in the wake of a number of high-profile and deadly shootings across the US, including one that left six dead and 12 injured in Sacramento on 3 April. Calls for meaningful gun control legislation have increased in some quarters.
Police from Grantville, a city in Coweta county, went to the Lock,
Stock & Barrel Shooting Range at about 8pm on Friday. They found the owner, Tommy Hawk, his wife and their grandson killed in an apparent robbery.
Someone had stolen about 40 weapons. The security camera had also been taken, police said in a statement.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were helping local police. Officials offered up to $15,000 in reward money for information leading to arrests.
The Hawks are well-known in their community, which was left in shock by the slayings, according to WSB-TV in Atlanta.
“The Hawk family, the city of Grantville and the Coweta community were forever broken and changed by the senseless and tragic event,” the local sheriff, Lenn Wood, said in a statement. “Family was taken from the Hawk family, and us, way too soon, and we are left with hurt, pain and very little answers.”
Richard Hawk, 51, was elected as the coroner of Coweta county in 2012. Before that, he spent nearly three decades as an emergency medical technician.
“My heart is hurting, and my prayers to our God is that he is ever present right now with Richard and his family, providing peace, strength and overwhelming love,” Wood added. “I am also fervently praying that God will use our law enforcement community and the Coweta community to bring justice swiftly.”