LITHONIA, Ga. — Ricky Lamar Hawk, 27, a rapper known professionally as Silentó, pleaded guilty to charges for the 2021 shooting death of his cousin, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston announces Wednesday.
Silentó is known for the song “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).”
Hawk pleaded guilty but mentally ill to voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and concealing the death of another in connection to the death of Frederick Rooks III in unincorporated Decatur.
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DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney Johnson, who presided over the plea hearing, sentenced Hawk to 30 years in prison.
On Jan. 21, 2021, the DeKalb County Police Department arrived around 3:37 a.m. and found Rooks with multiple gunshot wounds at the intersection of Deep Shoals Circle and Corners Crossing in the Panthersville area.
EMS confirmed his death. Ten bullet casings were found near his body.
Several people in the area reported they heard gunshots, and security camera footage from a nearby home showed a white BMW SUV speeding from the area just a few minutes after the gunfire.
Police said Family members said Rooks was last seen with Hawk. He had picked Rooks up from a friend’s home in the same kind of vehicle that was seen in the surveillance footage.
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The SUV was also caught by a Flock camera at the intersection of Panthersville Road and Flat Shoals Road at 2:45 a.m. that same morning, police said.
Hawk was arrested Feb. 1, 2021, and admitted to shooting Rooks.
Physical evidence corroborated his confession. Ballistics testing matched bullet casings at the scene to a gun found with Hawk when he was arrested. GPS data from his vehicle also placed the vehicle at the murder scene.
In a statement on social media, Chanel Hudson, who identified herself as Silento’s publicist to local media, asked for the public to send her client “some positive vibrations.” Hudson said Hawks has been “suffering immensely from a series of mental health illnesses.”
Hudson described him as a “beautiful soul, and we hope that the same people whippin’ and nay naying with him, continue to support him and lifted in prayer!”
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