One of two elderly sisters charged in connection with the slayings of a teenage Walker County teens couple has asked to have her case tried separately from her sister.

Marie Hawk Holmes, 74, is charged with attempting to tamper with evidence in the case involving her nephew, Howard Hawk Willis, formerly of Brock Road in Chickamauga. Willis, 51, faces charges of first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse in the October murders of Adam Chrismer, 17, and his 16-year-old wife, Samantha Leming.

Holmes’ sister, 71-year-old Emma Elizabeth Hawk, faces two counts of abuse of a corpse, one count of evidence tampering and one count of being an accessory after the fact.

Chrismer’s head and hands were recovered in a Johnson City, Tenn., lake. His other remains and those of his wife were later found in a storage warehouse, investigators said.

Hawk and Holmes are accused of urging Howard Willis ex-wife to destroy an audiotape in which he reportedly confessed to murdering the young couple, according to an Associated Press report.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Holmes told Criminal Court Judge Lynn Brown she had not spoken to her sister for five years before last summer when Hawk became ill and came to her house.

Neither women were represented by an attorney during their arraignments.

Brown reset separate February arraignments for the sisters. He said because they are included in the same indictment, they will inevitably be tried together, according to the Associated Press.

Holmes has been released on bond; however, the judge refused to lower Hawk’s bond to from $50,000 property, according to the Associated Press.

Howard Hawk Willis is in federal custody in New York awaiting a Feb. 14 sentencing on drug charges, according to the Associated Press report.

Willis is also suspected of murdering Sam Thomas, his stepfather, Walker County Sheriff Wilson said. Shortly after investigators the teens’ bodies, Walker and Bradley county authorities discovered Thomas’ body along the Walker-Dade County line near the Tauqueta Falls development on Ga. 157. His head and hands had been severed from his body