{"id":307268,"date":"2026-10-15T15:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/307268\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T15:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:14:18","slug":"trial-begins-in-lackawanna-county-for-man-accused-of-killing-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/307268\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial begins in Lackawanna County for man accused of killing wife"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly two years after Maxwell Hawkins was arrested and accused of killing Nicole Vega late one night in early January of 2025, his trial has begun.<\/p>\n

LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 Inside a Lackawanna County courtroom on Wednesday, Maxwell Hawkins<\/a> sat with his defense team and watched bodycam video of the night he is accused of killing Nicole Vega at their apartment in Dunmore<\/a> back in January of 2025.<\/p>\n

The graphic video is part of the prosecution team’s argument that Hawkins meant to kill Vega after finding out she was having and affair.<\/p>\n


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Deputy District Attorney Sara Varela called several witnesses, including Lackawanna County Coroner Timothy Rowland, who said an autopsy determined Vega died after being shot in the back of the head.<\/p>\n

The defense, led by attorney Bernie Brown, called into question the accuracy of Vega’s death certificate. He questioned whether Hawkins was either drunk or high the night Vega died.<\/p>\n

When police first arrived at the scene, Hawkins was heard “wailing,” according to one investigator.<\/p>\n

When questioned by police at the scene, body camera footage appeared to show Hawkins very intoxicated. At points, he was seen falling over and unsteady on his feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Officers with Dunmore police who were called to testify said Hawkins was constantly slurring his words and was told to repeat himself several times.<\/p>\n

The prosecution is set to rest its case sometime later this week.<\/p>\n

Along with first-degree murder, Hawkins was also charged with child endangerment after three of the couple’s kids were found to be at the home when the alleged crime occurred.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly two years after Maxwell Hawkins was arrested and accused of killing Nicole Vega late one night in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-307268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}