Once seen as a success story for life after prison, he’s now accused of double murder. Again.

The Wednesday in January 2017 when Steven Hawthorne walked out of Stateville Correctional Center, criminal justice advocates hailed it as an ultimate triumph: He was a free man for the first time in 33 years after being sentenced as a teenager to life in prison for the double murder of an alleged neighborhood bully and a bystander.

Over the next three years, Hawthorne was seen as a successful example of integrating former prisoners into society. He earned a certification for fixing heating and cooling systems. He volunteered at the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern University, where law students worked to help free him. He was also a big brother figure managing a transitional housing for formerly incarcerated men, a role featured in a Tribune article in 2019.

But over time, cracks began to appear in Hawthorne’s new lease on life. In February 2020, he was arrested for gun possession. In January, he was arrested after police found five firearms, including an AR-15 rifle, during a traffic stop, according to court records.

Now his run-ins with the law have taken a violent turn. Cook County prosecutors accuse Hawthorne — a former shining example of successful inmate reentry into society — of committing a grisly new double homicide of an ex-girlfriend and her new beau.

Part of the violent attack on April 16, that ended with the woman’s head being crushed with a large rock, was witnessed by the woman’s children, a 3-year-old girl and 5-year-old twins. They were most likely spared from witnessing the most brutal part of their mother’s death when a good Samaritan pulled them into his car during the alleged attack. They told him that Hawthorne shot their mother, authorities said during an April 18 bail hearing.

While prosecutors provided the details of the double slaying of Tamera Washington, 26, and her new boyfriend, Norman Redden Sr., 51, they did not offer a motive, merely hinting that it was related to Hawthorne’s failed relationship with Washington, which ended late last year.

But regardless of the reason, the allegation of the killings stunned friends and former colleagues of Hawthorne, particularly those who worked with him to support freed inmates. The imposing 6-foot-3 Hawthorne, who had taken the first name Mustafa, was well respected by the former inmates he helped reintegrate into society and the staff of the charity where he worked.

In fact, he’d made such an impression with his hard work and willingness to pitch in, officials at the Inner City Muslim Action Network, a charity and advocacy group, had begun shifting him toward more community organizing and policy work instead of the more grueling reentry work.

The allegations left his former boss, recently elected 5th Ward Ald. Desmon Yancy, who supervised Hawthorne last year as a former administrator with the Inner-City Muslim Action Network, “shocked and devastated.”

“My heart is broken for Tamera’s children and for Norman’s family,” Yancy said when reached by the Tribune. “This isn’t anything I saw coming by any stretch.”

The alleged attack

Prosecutors said Hawthorne used a key to enter Washington’s brick two-story bungalow on South Luella Avenue in South Chicago around 1:40 a.m., while the woman’s 63-year-old uncle watched television in the living room. Washington and Redden were sleeping in one room while the three children slept in another when Hawthorne entered the house, according to authorities.

Holding a 9 mm handgun, Hawthorne entered a bedroom and shot Redden in the head, Assistant State’s Attorney Anne McCord Rodgers told the court two days after the shooting. The gunshot awakened everyone, including Washington’s children. Washington’s uncle briefly struggled with Hawthorne during the commotion until two more shots were fired, prosecutors said. The uncle pretended to be wounded and Hawthorne ran out of the house, Rodgers said.

Authorities said Hawthorne chased after Washington from the home to the corner near 83rd Street and Paxton Avenue, shooting her once as they ran, wounding her. They said the 250-pound Hawthorne then got on top of the smaller woman and beat her repeatedly with the handgun. Finally, prosecutors said, Hawthorne retrieved a large rock from a nearby yard and dropped it on Washington.

In the midst of the alleged beating, a couple passing through the area happened upon Hawthorne and Washington and attempted to intervene, believing it to be a sex assault because the woman was half dressed.

“I pulled up on the side of them and that’s when he raised the gun and said ‘Keep going,’ ” the 62-year-old motorist recalled to a Tribune reporter. “I kept going. I didn’t know what to do, so I called the police and told them they need to get there in a hurry,” he said.

Suddenly, Washington’s 3- and 5-year-old daughters appeared near the scene, causing the motorist and his wife to take them into their car for fear they might be harmed. Doing so may have shielded them from witnessing the most gruesome aspects of their mother’s death. A bloodstained boulder was found next to Washington’s body.

“I know it’s a good deed and everything and I’d do it again if I had to,” he said, asking not to be identified. “That’s just how it goes. I don’t want to see anyone harmed, period.”

The motorist said it’s the second homicide he has witnessed. He is using work to distract himself, and put the horror behind him.

“I work a lot. I’ve been doing a little extra work, just keeping my mind focused on other things. And talking with my wife, because she’s strong — way more than me,” he said. “She was talking about counseling or something, but I don’t need that. God is my counselor.”

An autopsy confirmed that Washington died primarily from massive head injuries, with the gunshot to the right arm being a contributing factor, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Redden died from a single gunshot wound to the face. Both deaths were classified as homicides.

Funerals for Washington and Redden were recently held. Attempts to reach their families were unsuccessful.

A 54-year-old south suburban man who said he’s been friends with Hawthorne for years and posted his bail for his January gun case told the Tribune that Hawthorne and Washington’s relationship had been deteriorating. The former couple had an ongoing dispute over Hawthorne’s personal items left in Washington’s home.

“The understanding that I got was more of a person enraged, a person that was just fed up,” said the man who also asked not to be identified when the Tribune contacted him. “I wish he would have came to me to tell me how he was feeling and I could have talked him down ... or would have went over there myself and talked to the young lady ... so it wouldn’t have even happened like this. It’s just real sad ... this mother’s gone and these kids.”

The friend said he thought the situation was complicated by Hawthorne’s stunted development with women, saying Washington was only the second woman he’d dated since being released. “You have to realize he’d gone though his adolescent years without a young lady,” the friend said.

The Cook County public defender’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Hawthorne’s attorney could not be reached for comment.

Sentenced to life at 17

When Cook County Judge Stephen Schiller sentenced Hawthorne in 1984 to life without parole for killing two people, he lamented the lack of any judicial discretion that would allow him to sentence the teenager to a lesser sentence, but added that he couldn’t make law, only interpret it.

Rather ironically, he also expressed doubt that Hawthorne would pose a threat to the community by the time he reached 40 or 50, a 2014 news report stated.

Now at age 55, Hawthorne faces a possibility of returning to prison for the remainder of his life for an alleged attack so violent, he was covered in blood when a Chicago police officer tackled and arrested him.

Hawthorne had spoken publicly about his tough childhood growing up in the former Stateway Gardens complex in Bronzeville. His childhood had an abrupt end at age 16, when he fatally shot two people during a single incident: one a neighborhood bully, the other a bystander fatally struck by a ricocheting bullet.

In 2014, the Tribune followed the court cases of Hawthorne and others hoping to be released following a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that life sentences without parole for juveniles were unconstitutional. He was later resentenced to serve 68 years and was released with court restrictions. His murder conviction remained intact and was required to register as a violent offender.

Hawthorne’s release and community work has been used as an example to help inspire other men struggling to reenter society following jail or prison sentences.

Yancy said he sensed the emotional toll that growing up in prison had taken on Hawthorne, who was sentenced when he was 17.

“I could tell that he was wounded or at least traumatized by his prison experience,” Yancy said.

Hawthorne’s arrest highlights the challenges that other formerly incarcerated men encounter following long prison terms. One 2018 study found that 68% of state prisoners are rearrested within the first three years of release.

“People exiting prison from long-term confinement need stronger support around them. Many people exhibit a low crime risk but have high psychological, financial, and vocational demands that have been greatly exacerbated by their lengthy incarceration,” wrote Ashley Nellis, co-director of research for the Sentencing Project, an advocacy group for assisting prisoners.

“Mustafa’s story, until recently, was lifted up as a success story, but then there’s a reality that returning inmates have a lot to deal with,” Yancy said. “This is unimaginable, but it also isn’t the first story that we’ve heard about people who come home from long stretches in prison and just found themselves unable to cope.”

wlee@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @Midnoircowboy