Two former police officers in south suburban Phoenix have been charged in a sealed indictment returned by the Cook County grand jury with the 1979 murder of the suburb`s mayor, a source close to the investigation said Monday. The source identified one of those indicted as former Phoenix Police Sgt. Robert Anderson, a convicted killer now in prison, but would not identify the second.
Phoenix Mayor William Hawkins Sr. was gunned down by rifle fire as he arrived home in the suburb late on the night of Oct. 16, 1979.
Sources familiar with a long-standing federal investigation of the killing have said that Hawkins may have been marked for death by police officers whom he suspected of extorting money from a Phoenix brothel.
Hawkins was an outspoken foe of vice and gambling activities in his low-income community. He had left a note in his home that referred to his belief that he might be killed.
In a related development Monday, jury selection began in U.S. District Court in Chicago for the trial of Phoenix resident Michael Stoudemire, 31, on perjury charges related to the death of Hawkins.
A federal indictment alleges that Stoudemire lied to a federal grand jury when he denied that he witnessed the mayor`s death and also when he denied that he told a friend and an acquaintance on separate occasions that he and another person witnessed the shooting of Hawkins.
Federal prosecutors are expected to reveal in their opening statements who the government believes was responsible for killing Hawkins, according to sources.
Anderson currently is serving 25 years in prison for the murder of a woman in Phoenix with whom he lived after resigning from the Police Department in 1983. Anderson pleaded guilty to killing the woman, Eula Green, 53, during a quarrel in 1984.
Reliable sources said earlier that Anderson was cooperating in the investigation of the Hawkins slaying.
