On Sunday, September 21, 2025, Christina Denise Hawkins, 43, and her 25-year-old son Isaiah Thomas Hawkins were found dead outside a residence on Freeman Drive in Rickman, Tennessee. Both victims had suffered fatal gunshot wounds, and investigators treated the incident as a double homicide.

Authorities quickly identified 27-year-old Payton Wayne Nations as a suspect. A multi-county manhunt followed; a fisherman at Center Hill Lake reported seeing a man trying to push a car into the water and then fleeing on foot, a sighting that helped track the suspect. Surveillance footage and tips led to intensified searches and reverse 911 alerts to residents.

Late that Sunday evening a state trooper spotted Nations on Interstate 40 and took him into custody without incident. Nations was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and booked into the Overton County Jail with bond set at $40 million. Reports say Nations was the boyfriend of Isaiah Hawkins’ wife; motive remains under investigation.

If anyone in Rickman had contact with Christina, Isaiah, or Payton Nations around September 21, please share what you know with investigators.