REWARD OFFERED IN DEATH OF NURSE.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

LANCASTER - Sheriff's homicide investigators will distribute fliers next week looking for people with knowledge of the brutal April 16 slaying of a Lancaster nurse.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approved a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers of Biiance Hawkins, who was slain during an apparent home-invasion robbery at her Gadsden Avenue apartment.

``I think that the area we'll be concentrating on, that's a lot of money for some people in that area,'' said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department homicide investigator Richard Longshore. ``Somebody knows exactly who did what and why. We just need that information.''

Hawkins, a 32-year-old employee at Antelope Valley Hospital, was found bound and dead in a bedroom in her apartment after a co-worker became worried when she didn't show up for work and called a relative.

Hawkins' assailants taped her hands, feet and mouth with duct tape, covering most of her head, before slitting her throat. She died of suffocation due to the duct tape and not from having her throat cut, officials said.

Because of heated arguments between Hawkins and her former boyfriend, investigators initially listed him as a suspect. He was later arrested on unrelated charges but subsequently was released and is no longer the focus of the investigation.

When two other reports of home invasion robberies in the area were discovered, all in which the victims were bound with duct tape, investigators decided the three cases were linked.

In one case, a baby sitter and an 8-year-old girl were bound with duct tape by two men who forced their way in and ransacked the home.

And just a week before Hawkins' slaying, intruders forced their way into a house where a woman was alone.

The robbers tried to bind her with duct tape, but she fought back, officials said. The victim told deputies one of the men threatened to cut her throat and the other hit her with a hard object before fleeing.

Investigators say they are hoping the reward will prompt someone to come forward so the case can be closed and the Hawkins family can have some kind of closure.

Anyone with information in this case is asked to call the Lancaster sheriff's station at [phone] or the sheriff's Homicide Bureau at [phone].