BRUNSWICK, Ga. (WSAV) - A Georgia man has been sentenced to life in prison in a Brunswick Judicial Circuit following a guilty plea on multiple counts.
According to the Brunswick Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, Reginald Tyron Stokes, 41, of Oakfield, Georgia pleaded guilty to the following counts on January 30, 2025:
- one count of Malice Murder
- one count of Criminal Attempt to Commit Murder
- two counts of Possession of a Firearm during the Commission of a Felony
- one count of Possession of Firearm by a First Offender Probationer.
Evidence presented in the case showed that the defendant shot and killed the daughter of his girlfriend, Oneida Marie Hawkins, 48, of Baxley, Georgia. On August 25, 2022, Hawkins’s daughter, Malika Shanae Harris, 26, of Baxley, was at her mother's home with her four minor children, who were between the ages of one and six years old. While Harris and her children were asleep the defendant entered the residence and shot Malika Harris in the head, killing her instantly.
Stokes then went outside and waited for Hawkins to arrive. When she arrived at her home, the defendant shot her in the head and then forced her to go inside. Thereafter, the defendant disposed of his handgun and fled to his parents’ home in Oakfield, Georgia where he told his parents that he had killed his girlfriend and her daughter.
Hawkins did survive and continues to suffer from a brain injury that was caused by the gunshot and the loss of her left eye.
According to District Attorney Keith Higgins, who prosecuted the case for the State, “This is a senseless crime in which four children lost their mother, and the surviving victim will be affected for the rest of her life. The District Attorney’s Office will do whatever we can to keep Mr. Stokes in prison for the rest of his life.”
Judge Roger B. Lane sentenced Stokes to serve life in prison with the possibility of parole, plus a consecutive term of thirty-five years in prison.