Investigator April Edwards of the Mathews County Sheriff’s Office was one of three people who received 2022 Public Service Awards earlier this month from the United States Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia, Newport News Division, for their work on the cases of the United States v. William Hooper & Jennifer Hutchens.
As background information, the award outlined the facts of the case, stating that William Hooper, while married, began an intimate relationship with Hutchens, a mother of two girls, and “convinced Hutchens to take intimate pictures of her 15-year-old child and send them to him.” In addition, states the award, Hooper used the ruse that he had connections to the teen modeling world to convince the child “to allow him to take sexual pictures of her, and they also engaged in sexual relations. Ultimately, the child’s 18-year-old sister found out about the conduct by Hooper and Hutchens and reported them both to the Mathews County Sheriff’s Office.”
The aw...