William “Billy” Hawk, the man accused of slaying his friend in 1981 and stuffing him into a 55-gallon steel drum, is getting some additional help.
Attorney Bill Speek has joined the defense of Hawk and will work side by side with Jim Logan on the side of the bowling alley owner from Lebanon, Tenn., according to a notice filed Thursday in Hamilton County Criminal Court.
“It’s a 34-year-old murder case with a ton of information that has been developed,” Speek said. “And having additional attorneys on this case helps to counterbalance the weight and number of resources invested in the prosecution of the case.”
Hawk, 61, was arrested Sept. 22 after a grand jury indicted him the same week on charges of first-degree murder. He remains in the Hamilton County Jail on a $500,000 bond and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In 1981, Hawk was the state’s primary suspect in the homicide of Johnny Mack Salyer. That summer, authorities found Salyer’s body stuffed inside a 55-gallon drum barrel floating on Chickamauga Lake. For weeks, Salyer went unidentified until a cousin ID’d him by a Rolling Stones tattoo on his right inner thigh. At the time, he and Hawk were co-defendants in a pending cocaine distribution case.