In 2015, a 17-year-old kid from Atlanta named Ricky Hawk, better known by his stage name Silento, seized the world’s imagination with a single, infectious song. “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” was more than just a hit; it was a cultural phenomenon, a digital firestorm independently uploaded and spread across Vine, YouTube, and Facebook, becoming the soundtrack to a generation’s childhood memories. Silento stood at the zenith of instant fame, a joyful, energetic icon who literally had the entire planet dancing.

Yet, less than a decade later, that same celebrated figure had collapsed into a pit of personal darkness nobody could have predicted. The story of the viral dance sensation transitioned into one of the decade’s most devastating criminal headlines: Silento was charged, and later pleaded guilty, to the murder of his own cousin. His journey from global icon to a convicted felon serving 30 years in a state prison is not just a tragic celebrity downfall; it is a profound and unsettling cautionary tale about the curse of sudden fame and the catastrophic consequences of unaddressed mental illness.

The Echo of Gunfire: The Night That Ended Everything

The full, devastating reality of Silento’s collapse came into focus on the morning of January 21, 2021. Around 3:30 a.m., officers were dispatched to Deep Show Circle in DeKalb County, Georgia, following a frantic 911 call reporting gunshots and a body lying in the street. Upon arrival, police discovered 34-year-old Frederick Rooks, dead in the roadway, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to his face and leg. Ten shell casings were scattered near the body, silent witnesses to a brutal and sudden act of violence. At that moment, police had no motive and no suspect, only the unsettling echo of the shots caught on neighborhood surveillance cameras.

The investigation moved swiftly. Ring video footage obtained by detectives revealed a white BMW SUV speeding away from the scene immediately after the gunshots. This vehicle—and the ensuing ballistics report—quickly led investigators to a suspect that left the entire nation stunned: Ricky Hawk, Silento, who was identified as Rooks’ own cousin. Just ten days after his arrest, Silento reportedly confessed to the shooting. Ballistics testing confirmed the casings matched a gun in his possession when he was taken into custody, sealing the tragic, undeniable link between the viral star and a shocking act of familial violence.

The sheer senselessness of the crime was compounded by the revealed timeline: just an hour before his death, Frederick Rooks had been picked up by Silento from a friend’s home. The motive for the ensuing altercation—a breakdown in conversation, an argument spiraling out of control, or something far more sinister—has never been publicly shared. What is clear is that the relationship between the two cousins ended in a fatal, chaotic eruption, fueled by a crisis far deeper than a personal quarrel.

The Spiral of Paranoia: Warning Signs Before the Crime

The murder of Frederick Rooks was not a singular, isolated event, but the devastating climax of a slow, public collapse that had begun months earlier. Silento’s once-celebrated, energetic public persona had dissolved, replaced by a pattern of increasingly erratic and alarming behavior throughout 2020, painting a clear picture of a young man spiraling out of control.

His run-ins with the law began to resemble a desperate cry for intervention. In a span of just 48 hours in August 2020, he was arrested twice in Southern California. The first incident involved a domestic disturbance in Santa Ana, leading to a charge of inflicting corporal injury on a cohabitant. Just one day later, the situation grew alarmingly severe: Silento reportedly went to a random, unrelated home in Valley Village while brandishing a hatchet, frantically searching for his girlfriend. He entered the stranger’s residence, where a family and children were inside, an act of sheer terror that fortunately did not result in injury, but led to his arrest on two counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

Yet, perhaps the most vivid public display of his mental distress came in October 2020 during a traffic stop in Atlanta. Silento was pulled over for driving an astounding 143 mph in a 65 mph zone, more than double the legal limit. Body camera footage captured a highly agitated and deeply paranoid Silento, claiming that his extreme speed was necessary because people were following him everywhere. He challenged the officer’s authority, demanding proof of the speed log and bizarrely claiming that “Donald Trump send messages on my phone every day” and that “the government” was tracking him with satellites.

This confrontation, widely circulated online, should have been the definitive warning signal. It was no longer a case of celebrity bad behavior; it was a clear exhibition of severe, untreated psychological distress, where a world-famous entertainer was lost in a terrifying delusion, convinced he was the target of a high-level government conspiracy.

The Unaddressed Trauma: Fame’s Curse on a Fragile Mind

The roots of Silento’s breakdown stretch far into his childhood, a painful history that fame only amplified. In a 2019 appearance on The Doctors, Silento bravely opened up about his lifelong struggle with mental health, detailing the trauma and hardship that formed his foundation. He revealed that he was born with drugs—marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and pills—already in his system. He spoke of a childhood marred by violence, watching family members fight and “talk to walls,” leading to a battle with depression that started early. He was diagnosed with ADHD, given sleeping pills, and experienced rapid decline after moving away from home in his adolescence.

His publicist later confirmed the severity of his mental state, telling the press that his outbursts in 2020 occurred during intense bipolar episodes and that he had attempted self-harm during the pandemic. As Silento himself said on the show, fame doesn’t alleviate pressure; it “just adds more pressure,” placing the intense scrutiny of millions of judgmental eyes onto an already fragile mind. His team attempted to humanize the celebrity, describing him as a “beautiful soul who’d been suffering for years,” not to excuse his actions, but to contextualize the catastrophic internal forces that had been unleashed. The spotlight, intended as a blessing for his talent, became a magnifying glass for his demons, accelerating his descent into dangerous delusion.

The Sentence: Justice Tempered by Illness

The tragic story reached its official conclusion on June 11, 2025. In a DeKalb County courtroom, Ricky Lamar Hawk pleaded guilty but mentally ill to several felony counts, including voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm. The “guilty but mentally ill” plea was a legal mechanism that acknowledged his suffering while simultaneously affirming that he possessed enough cognitive awareness to understand the gravity of his actions.

The overwhelming evidence—the confession, the GPS data tracking his vehicle, and the matching ballistics—left little room for doubt regarding the perpetrator. Prosecutors accepted a plea deal that reduced the original charge of malice murder, resulting in a 30-year prison sentence, with credit for the four years he had already served awaiting trial. His attorney, Keith Adams, stated that this was the first time since his arrest that Silento was “fully aware of what had happened,” expressing hope for his continued mental health improvement while acknowledging the outcome was appropriate for the crime.

The final chapter of Silento’s story is a chilling contrast to its joyful beginning. The young man who once taught the world to dance is now unrecognizable. A recent mugshot, released to the public after he began serving his sentence, showed a somber, aged figure, a powerful visual representation of the decades of psychological deterioration and the immense toll of his crime and conviction. His story underscores a profound lesson: that the intoxicating highs of instant fame are fleeting, but the personal demons that fame exposes are often unforgiving, capable of destroying not only the individual’s life and freedom but also the lives of those tragically caught in the crossfire. His 30-year sentence is a testament to the fact that when mental illness, trauma, and celebrity are combustibly mixed, the resulting explosion leaves behind only ruin.