West Union man gets five years in child abuse case

Tien Hawkins of West Union was sentenced to five years in prison on June 17 in Adams County Common Pleas Court after pleading guilty to child endangering and two counts of permitting child abuse in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Lilith. Hawkins received 345 days of jail-time credit and will be under up to three years of post-release supervision after her prison term.

The sentence closed a case that began with an Adams County grand jury indictment in July 2025. Hawkins had originally faced murder, involuntary manslaughter, three counts of permitting child abuse and three counts of endangering children. Under a plea deal reached in May, prosecutors dismissed the remaining five charges after Hawkins admitted guilt to one count of child endangering and two counts of permitting child abuse.

The investigation started on July 1, 2025, when authorities were called to an apartment complex in West Union for an unresponsive 2-year-old. Deputies, West Union Fire and EMS found the child not breathing, and the Adams County Coroner’s Office pronounced the child dead at the scene. Lilith had bruising, and the two other children in the home also showed signs of bruising and beatings.

Brian Moser, formerly known as Terry Smith III, was charged separately in the same case. He later admitted using corporal punishment on the children and was sentenced in March to an indefinite term of 17 to 22.5 years in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and child-endangering counts. During Hawkins’s sentencing, she told the court through tears, “I love my children.”

Judge Brett Spencer imposed Hawkins’s 60-month term as 30 months on the child-endangering count, consecutive to 30 months on one permitting-child-abuse count, with the remaining time served concurrently.