LANSING — Before the ravages of drug addiction took hold, Dominique Hawn was vibrant, driven and “full of potential with dreams and plans for her future,” her mother said.
And before she was tortured and murdered in 2022 at age 28, there were clear signs of hope for recovery for Hawn, Christine Adams said in a statement read in a Lansing courtroom on Wednesday, May 27.
“She wanted to rebuild,” Adams said in the statement. “I truly believe she was heading in the right direction.”
A few minutes after that statement was read, Ingham County Circuit Judge Morgan Cole handed Gregory Michael Sanders, 45, the mandatory sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole for first-degree murder. The judge said it was difficult to see Hawn’s family listen to her plead for her life in video recordings played in court during Sander’s trial.
Cole described it as one of the “most painful experiences this court has ever seen” and characterized the murder as “a calculated decision to take another’s life.”
Sanders was convicted of first-degree murder, torture and other counts in connection with the death of Hawn following a trial in April. He also was found guilty on several counts stemming from a nine-hour standoff with police in which he fired numerous rounds into a southwest Lansing neighborhood.
The jury acquitted him of assault with intent to murder charges in connection with the standoff.
Those incidents happened in early January 2022 at a house on Pleasant Grove Road. Police were surprised to find Hawn’s body hidden in the basement after the standoff ended. She had been stabbed more than 200 times and her face had been slashed from ear to ear.
Attorneys for Sanders mounted an insanity defense.
On Wednesday, Chief Ingham County Public Defender Stephen Cornish read a statement from Sanders’ mother, who described her son as a deeply troubled man who had been struggling with mental illness for years. Sanders’ behavior reflected someone struggling deeply with mental illness, she said.
Sanders made a brief statement to Cole, expressing his “deepest condolences” to Hawn’s family.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on X @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Man sent to prison for life in horrific Lansing murder, torture case
Reporting by Ken Palmer, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
