A 24-year-old murder case was suddenly reopened this week after a California man walked into a California news station and confessed on camera.
According to KRCR-TV, 44-year-old Brian Hawkins visited its Redding station Tuesday and said he wanted to confess to the 1993 killing of 19-year-old Frank McAlister. Hawkins said that a newfound faith in God “pushed me and pushed me to do the right thing.”
“I know the wrong can’t be changed, but this is the closest I can come to doing the right thing,” Hawkins said in the KRCR-TV interview.
Hawkins reportedly declined to give specific details to the station but did agree to turn himself in to police.
The Redding Record Searchlight reported that Hawkins met with Redding police on Tuesday.
After reportedly telling investigators he could no “longer live with the guilt,” he claimed he had two accomplices in the slayings, siblings Curtis Culver, 45, and Shanna Culver, 46.
Hawkins said the trio lured McAlister to an area of Shingletown, California, about 30 miles east of Redding, under the guise of selling him methamphetamine.
Instead of making a drug deal, Hawkins reportedly told police, they robbed McAlister and then he and Curtis Culver stabbed the young man to death.
McAlister’s remains were not found until the following year, Fox News reported.
An insurance settlement McAlister received prior to his slaying ― approximately $4,500 from a car accident ― might have been a motive in his death, according to the Redding Record Searchlight.
Redding police arrested Hawkins and the Culvers. All three are being held on suspicion of homicide at the Shasta County Jail.
“Today, the man that did it confessed, and he and two others will now be brought to justice,” McAlister’s uncle, Jon McAlister, wrote on Facebook.