The Jessup woman who was found dead this week along the Patuxent River in Laurel was three months pregnant when she was killed, her family said Friday.
The body of Christen Hawkins, 21, of the 8000 block of Cheshire Court in Jessup, was found Tuesday in Riverfront Park behind the community pool in the 900 block of Main Street, Laurel City police said.
An autopsy revealed Hawkins was pregnant and stabbed multiple times between Monday night and early Tuesday morning, said Laurel police spokesman Jim Collins.
“She was a fun-loving person who just loved to be around her family,” said her brother Randall Hawkins Jr., 33, of Jessup.
“She was always wanting to give everybody a hug and be your friend.”
Hawkins, a 2004 Hammond High School graduate, recently left her job at Tasty Diner in Laurel and completed rehabilitation for a substance abuse problem, her brother said.
Randall Hawkins said his sister?s death may be the result of “someone trying to pull her back into that world … chances are it was someone she knew down near Main Street.”
Hawkins? family saidher on-and-off boyfriend, who lives in Riverdale, was the baby?s father, but he could not be reached for comment Friday.
Investigators have not determined whether Hawkins knew her attacker, but Collins said investigators are interviewing everyone who was close to her.
“I don?t think it?s a person out there where all the citizens need to worry,” he said.
“It was Memorial Day weekend, so there were a lot of people in the park and … now we?ve got to backtrack where she?d been and who she was with,” Collins said.
Police are following several leads including people who heard a woman scream. Police also are searching for the car that Hawkins was driving the night she died, a maroon 2000 Ford Explorer with Maryland tag M520767 belonging to her mother, Heidi Hawkins, 52.
A reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest. Anyone with information should call police at 301-498-7645 or 301-498-0092.
