this was his apartment, and he would do anything he could to save his life and save his face. you cut a deal with mr. schinberg. is that true, ms. williams? so you re not in prison for 20 years in florida state, are you, ms. williams? evidently not. i m here. the grilling of cory williams made it clear just how much was riding on his testimony. yes. here s cory, your friend. yeah. and what does she do? she comes in and lies in court in trial. and i see mark standing over her, putting the silicone inside, yes. and she dropped the whole 1,000-pound bomb on you. exactly. to save herself. as far as the defendants were concerned, this was no pumping party. it was just friends getting together to see cory williams new apartment. but defense attorneys had a startling suggestion about that fateful night. and it came from williams himself. maybe vera lawrence had been pumped by someone named marcos.
using these syringes? yes. at a pumping party? we have transsexuals that, you know, that wanted to become more feminine looking and pump a lot of silicone into the breast area and the buttocks to make female-looking breasts and to make their appearance more feminine. you won t find them in the yellow pages, but there is an underground community of people in this country with no medical licenses offering everything from implants and tummy tucks to liposuctions. mark hawkins, who d been at that party with vera lawrence, traveled in a close-knit circle of transgender silicone-pumping friends. what is this thing that drives them? it s so strange to people outside these circles. they get a lot of attention, and it s like a competition thing with each of them. which one will look better than the other one and so forth, and which one can pass for a female. some of them were pretty proud of their work, weren t they? they were proud. they re very vain people. but what would ve
they didn t even know their mother was going and getting injections. the lady, as it came down, the lady was a very vain lady. if vera lawrence wanted a voluptuous body, she paid the ultimate price for her vanity. a few days after vera s death, mark hawkins got in his car and drove home to greenville, south carolina, where hawkins says he cleaned houses for a living. it wasn t long before the police came calling. i was home a normal day and they knocked on my door and said i was wanted for murder. and you said? i was shocked. i said you ve got me mixed up with someone else. but, in fact, hawkins was at that pumping party. he went with his transgender partner of 15 years, donnie hendrix, a biological man living as a woman. an eyewitness had fingered hawkins and hendrix as more than just guests at a party. they were pumpers, responsible for injecting silicone into vera lawrence the night she died. they were locked up and charged with third-degree murder. ladies and gentlemen
transgenders, men who live as woman. they come to that apartment not for pizza and companionship but for syringefuls of liquid silicones. authorities said later this had been a pumping party. pumping party. do you remember the first time you had heard those two words? actually, we have a better name. tupperware for the lips. tupperware? the pumping parties are the same, except you re selling silicone injections. there are legitimate medical uses for liquid silicone injections. tiny amounts are used to fill out small wrinkles in the face. but as chief investigator of unlicensed medical activity for florida s department of health, enrique torres was all too familiar with how the stuff is used by quacks. he showed us evidence confiscated from a woman in another pumping case. oh, man, what is this stuff? it s like dirty, filthy. there s makeup in here. there s dog hairs. she was injecting silicone.
from the moment detectives knocked on their door, the defendants declared their innocence. both hawkins did you kill this woman? no, i didn t. and hendrix. was this gathering at cory williams house, in fact, a pumping party? no. did you inject vera lawrence with silicone? no. the defense challenged the charge that hawkins and hendrix were longtime silicone pumpers by attacking the flamboyant witnesses who testified about being their customers. hawkins attorney ridiculed them as clowns with multiple aliases and felony convictions. people whose testimony could not be trusted. your real legal name is terrell bell? correct. you look very nice today. thank you. is that gucci or prada that you re wearing? actually it s j.lo. hawkins attorney seemed to relish every moment. it s like a battle. it s like going to war. you love this stuff, don t you? absolutely. i love trying cases. i m a frustrated actor. you are a prostitute. yes, i am. you are a c