Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 3, 1990                   TAG: 9005030613
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                                LENGTH: Medium

WOMAN CONVICTED FOR HELPING FRIEND KILL 6-YEAR-OLD BOY

Dawn Egan pleaded guilty Wednesday in the strangulation of Ricky Creekmore. Egan confessed that she helped John Hastings kill the boy Sept. 16 in a squalid, darkened room at an abandoned motel.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, Circuit Judge John K. Moore sentenced Egan to life in prison. She will be eligible for parole in 20 years. Hastings is awaiting trial on a capital murder charge.

Egan's guilty plea followed two days of hearings in which her attorneys tried to get Moore to suppress videotaped confessions she gave to police.

The tapes offered the first detailed public account of the days and hours leading up to Ricky's death.

Egan told police that Hastings' alleged murder plan was hatched a week before the killing.

Ricky, who lived with his father in an apartment next door to Hastings, was a frequent companion of his 6-foot-7, 370-pound neighbor, Egan said. The boy's father, Ricky E. Lawrence, frequently left Ricky in the care of Hastings.

Egan said she met Hastings shortly after running away from home and moved into the apartment Hastings shared with his mother.

A few days after she moved in, Egan said, Hastings struck up a conversation about Ricky while she and Hastings were watching television.

"He said he wanted to scare Ricky," she said in a Sept. 21 interview with police. "He wanted to hurt him."

The boy "gets on my nerves," she said Hastings told her. "He's a bossy little kid. He tries to hurt other people. . . . He's a little brute."

Indeed, Egan said, Ricky was a rambunctious little boy who liked to wrestle and roughhouse. He also was given to spontaneous acts of affection - kisses, hugs and hand-holding, she said.

A day or two later, Egan sealed her bargain with Hastings when he offered her $200 she needed to fix her car, she said.

On Sept. 15, Egan said, Hastings met her at their apartment and put the plan into action: "He just said we're going down to Flipper McCoy's [arcade] and after that it's going to be done. . . . Let's just do it. Let's get it over with and just hurt or kill him or whatever."

Sometime after midnight, the trio left the arcade and headed toward the motel. On the way, Egan said, the boy "was holding my hand - kissing me on my hand."

Hastings walked to the door of the room and pushed Ricky inside, Egan said.

"I want to go home," Ricky wailed.

Hastings threw his weight on the boy, drove him to the floor and began choking him, Egan said. After a few seconds, Ricky lost consciousness.

Egan then wrapped a plastic grocery bag around Ricky's face, she said. She said she and Hastings twisted it around the little boy's neck until he stopped breathing.