After enduring twenty years of beatings by her husband, Williamson Hawkins, she hired her neighbor Henry Garster in 1838 to kill him.

Rebecca had previously attempted and failed to murder Williamson herself with rat poison, for which she was tried and sentenced to five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary.

[1] Rebecca was married to Williamson and living in Stewart County, West Tennessee by the time she was twenty years old, according to the January 30, 1820 census.

In 1830 Rebecca traveled nearly 500 miles (800 km) by wagon train to Jackson County, Missouri, while pregnant with her sixth child.

However, the law limited her legal options to stop the beatings, and her attorneys did not have a self-defense argument for Rebecca either, because she pre-meditated his murder.

[1][5][15] Rebecca owned no property under the law of coverture until she inherited her dower interests upon Williamson's death, which was approximately one-third of his estate.

Williamson had inherited Ned and Mary, who probably helped raise him and ultimately served three generations of Hawkins family members.

On December 5, 1838, Mary pleaded guilty and was sentenced to receive thirty lashes, a penalty determined based on her status as a slave.

After his hanging, Garster's property was sold to cover his court costs but did not leave enough to pay his attorney's fees.

The jury found Rebecca guilty of poisoning Williamson on July 20, 1841, and sentenced her to five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary.

However, petitions signed by 351 influential community members along with personal letters were submitted to Governor Thomas Reynolds on Rebecca's behalf arguing for her pardon because her confession was made under unusual circumstances, her husband had brutally treated her, she had eight young children to care for, and she had an exemplary character.

[5][2][1] In 1850, Rebecca made the four-month journey to the gold mining encampment of Sacramento, California, to set up a “boarding house” with two sons and their families.

It is unknown when and where Rebecca died, but she was last known to have lived with her daughter Martha Ann and son-in-law, John Stayton, in San Joaquin County in 1860.