A teenager accused of stealing a car with a young child inside, leading to the death of the boy’s mother, will face trial as an adult, a Franklin County judge has ruled. Seventeen-year-old Rayyon Hawkins was indicted on Sept. 11 by a Franklin County grand jury on multiple felony charges, including murder, involuntary manslaughter, robbery, theft, and failure to stop after an accident on a public roadway.
Hawkins, who was 16 at the time of the incident, was initially charged as a juvenile, but Juvenile Court Judge George Leach ruled on Sept. 3 that he should be tried as an adult. The case has been moved to the Common Pleas Court.
According to prosecutors, Hawkins was behind the wheel of 29-year-old Alexa Stakely’s Honda CR-V in the early morning hours of July 11, 2024. Stakely had been picking up her six-year-old son from a babysitter after finishing a late shift at her second job as a waitress. She also worked as a speech pathologist at Winchester Trail Elementary School in Canal Winchester.
Court records state that Stakely briefly left her running vehicle to retrieve an item from the babysitter’s home, a gap of less than a minute. During that time, Hawkins, then 19-year-old Gerald Dowling, and another 16-year-old attempted to steal the car.
Realizing her son was inside, Stakely ran to the vehicle and jumped onto the hood as it began moving. Prosecutors say she fell off moments later and was run over by her own car, suffering a fatal head injury. Her son, who was awake in the backseat, was physically unharmed.
The vehicle was later found abandoned in the same townhome complex. Assistant Franklin County Prosecutor Jeff Zezech said during Dowling’s sentencing in August that Stakely’s son witnessed his mother being struck. Dowling pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to seven to 10½ years in prison.
The other juvenile involved was found delinquent in juvenile court and sentenced to at least one year with the Ohio Department of Youth Services, where he could remain until age 21. Hawkins, now being held at the county’s Juvenile Intervention Center, faces the most serious consequences.
His first court appearance in Common Pleas Court is scheduled for Sept. 26. If convicted on all charges, Hawkins faces a mandatory life sentence with the possibility of parole only after 15 years. The case has drawn widespread attention across Franklin County, highlighting the tragic cost of a car theft that left a child without his mother.