Southern Fried true crime covers cases that are not suitable for young listeners, and
there may also be some explicit language used. Today's episode is much more graphic
than usual listener discretion as strongly advised. Last week, I told you about
how Laura Akerson had been dealt a really shitty hand in life. Still,
she had the guts to move across country away from her parents to start over.
She was doing pretty good until she fell in love Grant Hayes was an
abusive narcissist. He didn't care about anything but himself and his laughable music career.
Her relationship with Grant didn't just fall apart. He blew it up spectacularly
when he married another woman without even ending things with Laura first, and then,
unbelievably, she lost custody of her two young sons to a musician who
drank and did drugs almost every day, who had never had a stable job.
Little Grant had just turned two years old and Gentle was only ten months
old. It was unthinkable, except I guess to the judge, since Grant
had a stable mother figure with him after his QUICKI marriage to a woman named
Amanda, and he had an apartment in his name, so I guess he
looked better on paper. But Laura jumped into action quickly. She fought back
in court but only got weekend custody of her boys, but she was far
from done fighting. It's amazing how much Laura Akerson had changed her life in
one year. She didn't just find a stable job, but began a career,
opening her own business, something she could personally be proud of, not
just something to satisfy the judge. She was making new friends too. Her
business partner, Chavin was a great friend to her, and she had started
attending Grace Fellowship Church in Kinston, joining evening Bible study classes. One of
the women she met there had agreed to be a character witness for her,
and her steadfast best friend, Heidi, was always there for her. When
Laura went missing one month before her important custody hearing, Heidi became frantic.
She later told a newspaper, I started bawling. They told me Laura was
missing and asked for any information I might have. I knew she wasn't missing.
Welcome to episode two fourteen Erasing Laura Akerson, Part two. On Wednesday,
July thirteenth, twenty eleven, Laura had a full day of meeting clients
for her ad agency. The last one was a restaurant manager in Wilson.
She had been rushing around all day excited to get this last meeting finished because
Grant had emailed her the night before offering another midweek visit. They had met
before at a place called Monkey Joe's, where Grant knew the manager, so
the kids could play and eat free pizza. The last time had gotten ugly
when Grant came to pick up the kids. He had rushed their goodbyes,
roughly pulling the boys away and taking them to his car while they were still
crying. This scene led to rounds of more emails, where three cheers for
Laura. She told Grant he was just using Amanda too, that she was
his gravy train. That was too much for Grant. There weren't any more
midweek visits for a few weeks, so on July twelfth, Laura was surprised
to get the invitation. She even told him in her email back that they
should set a start time and pick up time beforehand so there wouldn't be another
scene, which pissed Grant off. He defensively wrote that he only rushed their
goodbyes because Monkey Joe's was closing. Laura was desperately trying to be reasonable and
wanted to see her boys, so it's not like she was trying to anger
him. So she apologized, even though she had done nothing wrong except try
to avoid another fight or even misunderstanding if that's how he wanted to see it.
But in the end he seemed to cool off and Laura accepted the offer.
The next day, that Wednesday, the thirteenth, she was busy running
from meeting to meeting, but they were all going well. She texted happily
with Chavn and sent Grant a text letting him know she might be running late.
While she was still meeting with the restaurant manager in Wilson. Grant texted
her at four oh eight pm and said, would you like to keep the
boys for the week until Sunday, the twenty fourth. According to court documents,
Laura responded at four twelve pm. She wrote, Okay, I'm leaving
Wilson now, I'll call you when I get past the traffic. Where will
you be in an hour or so. Remember this was in the middle of
the week, not on her Friday pick up day, and it was July
thirteenth, so he was now offering her almost twelve days with her boys.
Of course, she responded as fast as possible. She was in Wilson,
where they were always supposed to meet at the public convenience store sheets, but
probably because of his offer of a week and a half with the boys,
she was willing to go to his apartment in Raleigh and pick them up.
I honestly think that's how he got her. She never would have gone there
otherwise. At four nineteen pm, she called an artist named Oxana Samarski,
who she was representing with her new agency. She had already helped sell one
of Oxana's paintings, and the two really liked each other and enjoyed working together.
Laura was supposed to meet Uxana that evening, but she wasn't sure how
long she would be in Raleigh and just wanted to warn her she might not
be able to see her at or before seven pm, as they had talked
about. Oxana missed her call because she was in class, so Laura's voicemailt
to her was the last time anyone heard from her other than Grant and Amanda
Hayes. Of course, later that same night, Laura's business partner, Chavin,
became worried. Laura was supposed to have called Chavon at nine PM to
discuss several business items, but Laura never called. Chavon knew Laura was supposed
to see Akxana, but she did not know she was planning on going to
Grant's to pick up the boys. She probably would have been worried much sooner
if she had known Laura was going to Grant's apartment. Then three days passed
and Chavonne still had not heard from Laura. Aside from their business obligations,
she knew Laura was supposed to have picked up her voice from Grant on Friday.
It was then that Chavon was certain something was wrong. Laura never messed
an opportunity to see her kids for the weekend. She even called Grant's mom,
Patsy, to see if she had heard from Laura. Patsy said she
had not. On Monday, July eighteenth, Chavon drove to Kinston to look
for Laura and maybe talk to the manager of her apartment. She saw that
her car wasn't in the garage. Now more worried than ever, she went
to the police station in Kenston and reported twenty seven year old Laura Jene Akerson
missing. Chavin was so upset she also went to Raleigh and even the Wilson
police station, the last place she knew for sure Laura had been, to
report her missing. I'm going to pause now for a short commercial break.
The police took Laura's case seriously right away. She had been missing since the
thirteenth, five days by then, and she had missed picking up her boys.
Chavon was adamant she would not just not pick up her kids. Investigators
first went to Laura's apartment to knock on the door. Then they talked to
management and went inside. Though the apartment was tidy, you could tell Laura
had been gone for a few days, if by nothing else. She had
potted plants that were almost dead from not being watered. Then they watched the
surveillance footage. The camera was right outside her door, so they could see
what she was wearing, a black sleeveless top and khaki capri pants. She
was five foot eight inches tall and weighed one hundred and thirty five pounds.
She had brown hair and hazel eyes. This would be the description given to
the media on the show see no evil. The detectives said they could tell
from the footage it was just a normal day. She wasn't carrying any extra
bags, like she was going anywhere other than work. She didn't look distressed.
She had her phone in her hand, and she walked out the door
at eight ten am. They checked her bank account. The last activity had
been July tenth. In ten days, she had not used her bank card
once. And now they had Laura's day planner slash diary and on the twelfth
she had noted a problem with Grant. They would later find that in her
emails, but they didn't know this the first time they talked to Grant.
Hayes investigators called him and he confirmed Laura never showed up on Friday, the
court appointed day for custody exchange. He acted concerned, but never mentioned his
midweek offer to Laura. Of course, investigators checked out his story and got
surveillance footage from sheets the convenience store where Grant always meant to exchange the boys,
and there he was on the camera footage at four thirty pm that Friday,
the fifteenth, with his two sons. He buys cigarettes and then hangs
out with the boys at the patio tables outside, looking like he's waiting.
You can see the footage on the episode of Scene Evil. For Now,
Grant Hayes seemed to be truthful, but they were always mindful that the first
suspect is the husband or boyfriend, be they X or not. Oxana Smarski
came in to talk to the investigators and played the voicemail Laura had left her.
She was also worried for her friend. They were supposed to have met
that Wednesday evening at seven pm. Laura was letting her know she might be
late or even miss their appointment because she was going to get her boys,
and asked Uxana to call her back. Detective Jerry Falk said that narrowing down
the timeline of between around four point fifteen from the last text message and calls
to around seven pm when she never showed up really helped. Right around that
time, he got a call from officers that Laura's carr had been found.
Her Ford focus had been abandoned in a Raleigh apartment complex parking lot. This
parking lot was less than four hundred yards from Grant and Amanda's apartment. They
swabbed Laura's ford for DNA lifted Prince and collected a hairstrand, but nothing they
could go on. So now investigators knew from Maksana that Laura was supposed to
have gone to get the boys at Grant's that Wednesday, which of course was
not the story he had told them, and then her car was found that
close to his apartment. They called Grant again and asked him to come in
and make a statement. He declined. He said he was moving and couldn't
come in at that time, but he had emails with Lara he would be
happy to forward along with a written statement as soon as he had good sell
service. Oh but he did now remember that Lara had picked up the boys
Wednesday around five and brought them back around nineth thirty pm, getting in a
dig saying she hadn't fed them dinner and his wife had had to take them
to Chick fil A, And he even vaguely mentioned they discussed a new custody
arrangement. But sure, Officer, he would send those emails as soon as
he could and hung up. The detective didn't hold his breath for the emails,
but obviously Grant didn't send anything, or call back or show up to
give his statement, and then Heidi Schumacher went to see the Raleigh investigators and
boy, if somebody could connect the dots, it was Heidi. If Chaven
had made them suspicious. Heidi made this clear, this may actually be a
murder investigation. She gave them the complete history of Laura and Grant, the
abuse, his surprise wedding to Amanda, the custody battle, his continuing nastiness
and game playing, and his life. Amanda was just as bad. She
even came back later with all of her emails with Laura since May on a
flash drive for the police. Heidi knew something had happened to her best friend.
She knew she was probably dead, not just missing. Heidi also gave
them a description of a tattoo on Laura's foot. They were already thinking grimly
that this might help identify her. Investigators put together from cell phone records that
her last known location was grant An Amanda's Raleigh apartment, and they were finally
able to get a search warrant. On Wednesday, July twentieth, investigators searched
the Hayes apartment. They were not even there. Officers had picked up Amanda's
adult daughter, Shay and she was there to witness the search. The odor
of bleach hit them as they walked in the door. For the most part,
the apartment was empty, with some stuff still in boxes. Grant and
Amanda were moving out, but not everything was gone yet. But the first
thing they saw when they walked in was a three foot bleach stain in the
furrier of the apartment. There was no getting around that it looked very suspicious.
I'll have a photo of this up on my social media. Detective Bobby
Latour also said on the show See No Evil that the bathroom was suspiciously clean.
The shower curtain was missing, and the tub was so clean you could
see it shining in places. The bathroom also had a really strong smell of
bleach. Something had happened in this bathroom, he intoned. They also found
a handwritten note, two paragraphs and two different handwritings. The beginning of the
note read, I, Laura j Akerson agree for the sum of twenty five
thousand dollars not to pursue custody of the two minor children. I am not
surrendering parental rights, but I do consent to leaving them in the sole custody
of their father. For now. Further, I agree to drop all pending
litigation against their father in the Lenore County Family Court. The next part of
the note appears to be in Laura's handwriting. I'm not sure if at this
point investigators already had samples, but it would be obvious later, well,
it would at least be obvious that this was a different person's handwriting. It
read by notifying Counsel John Sargent of our arrangement lest the monetary compensation, I
understand that I will be able to see my kids when I want, at
the discretion of their father. It was signed in tight cursive Laura Akerson,
dated seven thirteen eleven, although it was a originally six thirteen eleven, and
the six was crossed out for the seven, with Laura's initials by it,
as if she was indicating she made the change. John Sargent was Laura's attorney
in the custody case. If Grant Hayes thought this note would throw investigators off,
he was sorely mistaken. It only made them even more suspicious. First
of all, this mother who jumped at the chance to have twelve days with
her sons, then immediately pivoted and signed away custody when she got there to
pick them up. From everything they had learned about Laura, including her vicious
fight for custody, they did not believe she would have done this for any
amount of money. Those who knew Laura also said this out of court settlement
situation was bullshit. Her friends and brother were adamant that Laura would never have
taken such a trade. No amount of money would have made her give up
her children. But Laura's signature does appear on that piece of paper. Later,
handwriting analyst testified that it was Laura's handwriting. First of all, no
one witnessed her supposedly writing this except her ex and his wife. Handwriting analysis
has often been criticized as pseudoscience, and there's no way of knowing if Laura
was forced to write her part of that note or sign under duress. Handwriting
analysis or graphology is admissible in court under the seven oh two rule of evidence,
as long as the expert has the right credentials. The problem is it's
ultimately subjective. It's literally someone looking at the writing and comparing it with other
known examples. You're just looking at it and making the call. And so
if it is admitted in Core, you're usually going to have a battle of
the experts, but defense attorneys would actually never dispute this note. I have
photos of the note and Laura's signature, which I will post on my social
media. Zooming in on that signature. It looks so real, so tight
and perfect. It looks practiced, the way a woman signs her name in
cursive. Some of us practiced our signatures for years, and we can do
it in our sleep. That's what this looks like. Laura's signature on this
paper looked like a strong, practiced signature. It was actually the strongest part
of that note, in my opinion, But the expert actually refused to say
for sure it was Laura's signature, though they were willing to testify. The
other handwriting looked like Laura's. Of course, I'm obviously not an expert,
but it all looks real to me, and the first paragraph, not in
her handwriting, looks like a man's handwriting. The expert did testify that it
was Grant's, and I seriously doubt that Grant and Amanda had that note already
forged and ready. It looks and feels like it was Laura's handwriting. And
signature. It's that confident, practiced signature, and the other writing is uniform,
not a jumble of different letter formations that you might see in a forgery.
I know I'm harping on this much like a harped on how Laura's wedding
could have been faked, But it bothers me. The reason to look at
this note over and over is not just what the words say that she took
twenty five grand for her kids. It's that we don't believe she would do
that, and yet that is her handwriting. It is neat, it doesn't
look rushed, and it looks like a well practiced signature. Why why in
the world would Laura sign that paper, much less write the additional paragraph.
I don't think we'll ever know. Maybe she did it trying to get safely
out of Grant's apartment, because after she got there something had happened. The
detectives also noticed that there was a kitchen knife block in the apartment that was
missing knives. Maybe someone held a knife on her. Maybe they both did,
and she would not want to scream if her babies were in the room.
The presence of her children alone would have probably made Laura cooperate investigators later
said they felt sure that Laura had died where that bleach stain was by the
front door. Maybe she almost made it out the door. That breaks my
heart, the thought that she was that close to an escape. I think
the handwriting puts it over the edge for me for some reason. I can
just see her scared, just trying to get out of there, calmly signing
her name without causing a scene in front of her son's just trying to leave
and get to safety. But she didn't make it. I'm going to pause
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Member FDIC. The last few moments of Laura's life will always be a mystery,
even though both Grant and Amanda had their stories. However, based on
numerous court documents, surveillance footage, and eyewitness accounts, were at least able
to put together a fairly clear sequence of events leading up to her death and
what happened afterwards. On Wednesday, July thirteenth, Laura drove to Raleigh from
Wilson to pick up her sons. We know this from the text messages between
her and Grant. Now, what seemed like a friendly text from Grant was
seen for what it really was. He was luring her to his apartment.
She never went over there on their visitation exchanges, but telling her she could
keep her boys for twelve days was enough to rule Laura in. She answered
his text within four minutes, telling him she was leaving right then and could
be there within an hour. Additionally, Laura's cell phone, which she had
used to contact Grant as she made the commute to Raleigh, pinged the appropriate
cell towers for from Wilson to Raleigh, so we know that Laura got to
Grant's apartment. Then later, Grant and Amanda admitted that Laura arrived at their
apartment, and according to them, she agreed to sign an out of court
custody settlement, which investigators found in the apartment just like they had wanted them
to. But Grant, being the mastermind criminal he was, had left behind
other papers, receipts, and other stuff that looked like a mess on someone's
desk. I guess he thought the police would read that note and move on.
They found a receipt to an Apple store, where apparently Grant had gone
on July fourteenth, the evening after Laura was last seen and bought a new
chord for his MacBook. Put that in your back pocket for now. The
detectives also found a song Grant had written scribbled on a piece of paper.
It was entitled Mankiller. According to court documents, Grant's lyrics described the first
person killing of a woman by making her bleed and by strangulation. Here's an
excerpt. Give in to me. I want it all. I want your
scream and I want you to crawl. I'll make you bleed, fall to
the floor. Don't try to plead. That turns me on. I'm not
the one to make you scream. I'm just the one to make you bleed.
Don't raise your arms. You can't stop me. I'll put my hands
on your throat and squeeze. Disgusting, but it's not like he's the first
musician to use that kind of language, and obviously still nothing concrete for an
arrest. Later. In contrast, detectives would watch a video for Amanda.
Grant posted a song on YouTube in tribute to his wife and baby daughter soon
after she was born. Watching it made me want to scream, and Grant's
mother wasn't exactly helping his cause publicly On July twentieth, she told ABC News
about her grandson's quote, they get over things a lot faster, and they
could probably not be affected by things as much as adults are, you know,
because they are small and they're very resilient, so they probably figure they're
just staying with dad. Now, she didn't sound at all worried about the
mother of her grandchildren. Sounds to me like she already didn't think Laura was
coming back. To be fair, maybe she thought Laura had run off with
twenty five thousand, but that's hard to believe, considering Grant and his family
were having to move in with her because they couldn't afford rent. How would
they have paid Laura? Where did Patsy think she really was? I'll be
fair. We believe our children, at least we want to. But that's
as fair as I'll be about Patsy Hayes. And that July twentieth date was
an interesting date for that story to run. Her son happened to get back
to town after a trip late that night and brought his wife and kids with
him to his mom's house. Like I said, detectives by this time had
already picked up Shay Amanda's twenty two year old daughter. She appeared to cooperate
and even accompanied them to her mother's apartment while they executed their search warrant,
but Shy didn't tell them much at that time. She called her mom in
Texas, telling her that the police had picked her up, but Amanda said
don't worry about it and that she would be home soon. It wasn't until
after Grant and Amanda were arrested and Shay went back to the apartment to pick
up stuff for the baby and the boys that she changed her mind. She
was there to get stuff to take back to Patsy's, but she started rummaging
around. She found something she thought was very alarming, an owner's manual for
a reciprocating saw. And then she thought of that immaculate main bathroom, the
usually messy bathroom everyone used, but especially where the kids bathed and brushed their
teeth. Now you could eat dinner off that tub. And by then there
was grisly news coming out of Texas, and Shay realized what she might have
found. This time, she didn't stay quiet like a good daughter. She
took the reciprocating saw manual to the Raleigh police investigators checked around Raleigh to see
who may have sold that saw, and there was a wal Mart just three
miles from Grant and Amanda's apartment that sold the saw. They went to this
Walmart and watched surveillance footage of Grant Hayes the Third At about two thirty am
on Thursday, July fourteenth, almost eight hours after Laura had gotten to his
apartment, Walmart cameras caught Grant buying several suspicious items goggles, trash bags,
plastic sheeting, a tarp, cleaning supplies, and a reciprocating saw with extra
blades. He was easy to spot. It's not like he went in there
with a hat pulled down or his hoodie up, avoiding cameras. And this
fool repeatedly asked a store manager to help him at two thirty am. It's
not like there are a lot of employees wandering around and someone walked up to
him. No, Grant went looking for help. The manager remembered it because
he repeatedly came back asking more questions. He couldn't just look for these things
himself. He wanted her to tell him where everything was. You can see
him even more clearly on the camera above the checkout lane where he paid cash
for his items, smart enough to use cash, but dumb enough not to
think of security cameras and to repeatedly ask an employee for help so he would
be remembered. Now, detectives felt sick. It seemed pretty clear what Grant
and Amanda had done with Laura Akerson. I'm going to pause now to hear
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police got a warrant for the Hayes Bank records and Grant had gone to Walmart
again. Two days later, on Saturday, July sixteenth, Grant went back
to the same damn Walmart at around seven am and purchased three large coolers like
you would use for camping. He also bought six bags of ice. Detectives
again watched the footage and again Grant was not in a disguise and he was
calm and looked like everything was fine. Then, according to the detectives interviewed
on c No Evil, they got a call from Shay with more information,
but I think there were compressing for time on that show, Shae told the
truth after she found the manual to the saw, but the detectives interviewed said
Shaye was upset and said that she didn't want to get her mom in trouble,
but she had to get it off her chest. She said her mom
and Grant had rented a U haul trailer and gone to Texas just a few
days after Laura went missing. To back up a little for Shay's account,
on July fourteenth, the day after Laura disappeared, at around ten thirty am,
Amanda had called Shay and asked her to come and pick up the kids.
She and Grant needed them out of the apartment for a while. I
think we know why they needed the children out of there. Shay took the
boys to Monkey Joe's the same place center Laura used to meet Grant at.
It's unclear if she took her mom's month old baby or if the baby stayed
in that apartment with Amanda and Grant. A kind of doubt she took the
baby while she was wrangling a two and three year old at a kid's pizza
Clay Palace, but it's sickening to think of that baby in the apartment during
what we know they did to Laura and that bathroom. Shay stayed at Monkey
Joe's with the kids until about four o'clock in the afternoon. Then, as
she called her mom to say she was bringing the kids back, Amanda said
she needed to borrow her vacuum. Shay brought it over to her mother and
Grant's apartment at about six o'clock that evening, aggravated by rush hour traffic,
and that her mom had also asked her to stop and pick up dinner on
top of the damn vacuum. This after babysitting for her all day. Despite
being pissed off at her mom or Grant or both, Shay still did whatever
her mom asked her to. In Bitter Remains, Diane Fanning wrote that Shay
had wanted to go with them on the trip to Texas. She loved her
aunt Karen, whom she had lived with for a while when her mom ran
off to the Virgin Islands and she wanted to visit her aunt too, She
said her mother snapped at her, telling her it wasn't a good time,
there was no room in the car with all the car seats or whatever.
Amanda also pointed out her mother had just died guilt tripping Shay, so whenever
it actually happened, I go with Fannings version. After Shay brought in the
reciprocating saw Manuel, she told police that her mom and Grant had taken an
unexpected trip to Richmond, Texas, twelve hundred miles away. At any other
time, this trip might seem ordinary. Amanda's older sister, Karen, did
live in Richmond, and again, their mother had recently passed away, but
not that recently, and not in light of the fact that Laura, the
mother of Grant's two sons, was missing. Grant, Amanda, and the
kids left on July sixteenth, four days after Laura disappeared, and only one
day after she was reported missing. It's not like the cops had not already
talked to Grant either remember, he had an extended phone call with a detective
while they thought he was still in North Carolina, but he was actually calling
from Texas. Then the family of five returned to Raleigh late on July twentieth.
Again, investigators found the U haul location, watched the footage and talked
to the employee who helped Grant, and he remembered him. He said he
was going on a fishing trip and had these big coolers for bait he was
taking, and in true Grant form, he put it under his name with
Hayes spelled h a z E. Detectives watched Grant hitched the trailer to his
Dodge Durango. That was about eleven a m. On the same day,
the fourteenth, the day after Laura disappeared. That night, a little after
eight pm, Grant went to a target just a mile from his apartment.
He bought two more coolers on wheels, one seventy five courts, the other
fifty courts. He also bought more cleaning supplies. Then that Saturday night,
the sixteenth, Grant, Amanda, three year old Little Grant, two year
old Gentle, and the month old baby girl all got into that durango pulling
the U haul and left for Texas. It should be obvious by now that
Grant and probably Amanda, though she would later deny it, had dismembered Laura's
body. Her remains were stored on ice in those large coolers. The ice
chests were loaded into the U haul, just like she was fish bait.
North Carolina investigators traveled to Tech after they contacted the local Fort Ben County authorities
for assistance. The local sheriff's deputies and Raleigh detectives met and together went to
Amanda's sister, Karen's house in Richmond. When they asked Karen if they could
talk to her, she asked them if she could pray first, They said,
of course. Then Karen Barry sang like a canary. After confirming that
Amanda, Grant and the kids had visited and then left already, Detective Dexter
Gill asked, is Laura here? At this Karen began sobbing and said,
I'm afraid she is. You need to look across the street. Across the
street, less than one hundred yards from Karen's home was Oyster Creek. Detectives
sent word back to North Carolina. And Grant and Amanda Hayes. We're arrested
for Laura Akerson's murder. I'm going to pause now to hear another word from
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Try Fume fum dot com slash sftc. The operation to find Laura Akerson's
remains was immense. The Gulf Coast Water Authority was contacted to close the dams
to reduce the flow of water. As crime scene investigators and detectives rode out
on a boat an Oyster Creek, it did not take long for them to
spot two white objects floating among a patch of lily pads. It was two
parts of a torso divers worked until it was too dark to see anything that
night. They began again early the next morning. On Tuesday, July twenty
sixth, the Richmond Fire Department and Houston Police Department c SI crews scoured Oyster
Creek for more of Laura's remains. They sent investigators, bloodhounds, and divers.
And remember this was Texas in July. It was one hundred degrees in
the open air and about ninety degrees under the water. For reference, the
typical hot tub is give or take one hundred degrees. Not to mention that
the creek water was full of brown silled. The divers couldn't see anything.
They were searching on their hands and knees and what I should go ahead and
mention was known to be alligator infested waters. In the end, other than
the torso, divers found a portion of her leg which was stuck in a
patch of vines, and a short distance upstream they found Laura's decapitated head wrapped
in a sheet. Although they could still tell that it was Laura, they
had to use dental records to positively identify her. For reasons I will explain
in just a bit, Laura's head was more decomposed than the rest of the
body parts divers found. Due to the decomposition and water damage, the Texas
Emmy could not determine Laura's exact cause of death. It was declared a homicide
by undetermined means. On August eleventh, the Gulf Coast Water Authority was cleaning
the watergate under bridges. At the gate, less than a mile from Karen's
house, they found a portion of a leg. This part was carefully sent
to North Carolina to be buried with the rest of her remains. The rest
of Laura's body was never recovered. Twenty seven year old Laura Jene Akerson's partial
remains were buried in Tuttle Cemetery in Ionia, Michigan. On July thirtieth,
nearly one hundred people gathered at Grace Fellowship Church in Kinston, North Carolina to
remember Laura at a memorial service. Remember, while Laura was building her new
life during her difficult and often lonely custody battle, she had joined this church
and made many new friends. One of those friends had plans to testify as
a character witness at Laura's next custody hearing. Gravestone epitaph reads, now my
day is over night is drawing nigh shadows of the evening steal across the sky.
When the morning wakes, Then may I first rise pure and fresh and
sinless in thy holy eyes, which is beautiful. Then, for some reason,
on that gravestone, I just read you. Amanda's daughter's name is included
along with Laura's sons, saying I will love you forever after their names.
As though Laura was saying that there is also a photo of all three children
on that stone, across from a photo of Laura. It's not my place
to judge, but I sincerely don't understand this at all. I have nothing
against an innocent girl who had the misfortune to be born to two murderers,
but I don't understand how or why she is on Laura's gravestone. Maybe they
just felt sorry for what would surely now be a motherless and fatherless baby.
For her sake, I hope she changes her name. For that matter,
I hope Laura's sons do too. I would never have given Laura's sons names
if they had not already been so widely published everywhere. It also feels important
that their names seem more to do with Grant than Laura. Little Grant the
fourth carrying on the family tradition, and Gentle Rain, a g name with
rain spelled like a king's reign, not like the rain showers. That doesn't
sound like Laura. It sounds like Grant. I could be wrong, but
it's just a feeling I can't shake. It makes more sense that Grant,
as we know, felt ownership over his son, and he put his mark
on them in their names, and I was honestly floored to see Amanda's daughter's
name on Laura's gravestone. As loving a woman as Laura Akerson was, I
don't believe she would have considered Amanda's daughter like her own. It's just so
crazy to me. Grant and Amanda were already in jail by the time of
Laura's memorial, so it's not like her family didn't know. But grieving families
do things for all sorts of reasons, and it's not really my business.
Of course, maybe they simply did feel sorry for that baby girl. I
just couldn't help but pointed out, it's not like the gravestone isn't easily found
online anyway. Let's move back to the timeline, or actually back up a
little back still. On July twenty second, Raleigh Investigators, which at that
point was a task force even before Laura's remains were found in Texas, went
to Kinston, North Carolina, looking for Grant and Amanda Hayes. They went
to the home of Grant Junior and Patsy Hayes and then sat there watching the
house, waiting for that Durango to pull in the driveway. They were waiting
for search warrants for the Durango and Grant and Amanda's cell phones. As soon
as they got them, they knocked on the door and Grant answered. The
cops took both Grant and Amanda to the station, but they returned back to
his parents' home by midnight. The police later said Grant behaved nonchalantly the whole
time, like he had nothing to hide. His email and Facebook messages would
tell another story. At this point, Grant still had his MacBook. This
dummy was talking to every friend he could think of, asking them to pray
for him, Amanda, and for Laura's safe return because the police had trashed
his home, which I guess was his official reason to these friends that he
was back at his parents now, and also, poor thing the cops had
taken his car and both of their cell phones. If Laura didn't turn up
soon, it would look bad for him. He reminded many friends that he
was a black man who was fighting a white girl for custody, and now
that white girl was missing. He was even asking people if they remembered Laura,
ever, mentioning anything about just up and leaving anything about her past that
might help explain why she had just left on her own. I'm going to
pause now for a short commercial break. Grant had reason to be worried.
Investigators found blood in the Durango when they sprayed luminol, and not just on
Grant's driver's side, but on the passenger side, seat belt and door.
And wedged between the seats was doctor Calloway's voluminous psychological report on Grant and Laura.
There were many notes in the margin from Grant. No never things like
that. So he drove to Texas with that report in the car with him,
And how did they come to this macabre task driving Laura's remains to Texas.
There would be conflicting stories, naturally, though at first the Hayes were
a united front. Later, according to Grant, he left the room where
Laura was signing the settlement note, leaving her alone with Amanda. When Grant
returned, he claimed that Laura and Amanda were at the tail end of a
physical altercation. Amanda was unharmed, but Laura was on the floor. Grant
told investigators Laura died as a result of the injuries from her and Amanda's fight.
In fact, he said it happened in front of her two year old
son, But according to Amanda, that's not at all what happened. In
Amanda's version, all three adults engaged in a heated argument over custody. Obviously,
Laura was upset because she wanted the kids, and Grant was also upset,
But Amanda was concerned about where this twenty five thousand dollars lump sum Grant
was offering Laura was supposed to come from. So far, Grant had already
sold a large amount of Amanda's prized possessions. She was upset trying to figure
out where the hell he would get this money. Amanda also told a tell
that Laura became enraged when Amanda wouldn't let her hold the new baby. So
Laura began following Amanda around the apartment, and then the two women bumped into
each other due to how close Lara was following her, or maybe shoving her
was how Amanda made it seem. Then she claimed Laura tripped on the carpet.
Then Amanda said Grant quote stepped in after Laura fell. She said that
Laura was injured, so Grant took her into the bathroom presumably to stop bleeding,
I guess, and he sent Amanda and the children away. Grant didn't
want the two boys to see their mother like that. This was part of
that Chick fil A story he had already been telling, And Amanda did leave
the apartment late that night, sometime before ten pm. Remember, the best
lies have a little bit of truth in them. So Amanda took the kids
on a drive while Grant was supposed to call nine one one and get ems
there. But when Amanda returned, Grant told her that Laura was fine.
She had gotten up and left on her own, no paramedics needed. None
of this makes any sense. We're supposed to believe that Laura was going to
take a payout in exchange for her two sons, whom she loved more than
life itself, and that Laura was so infuriated about not being allowed to hold
her ex's new wife's baby that she started following her around, even shoving her
bullshit. If anything, the Laura Akerson everyone knew, the Laura Akerson,
who was so polite and kind in all of her texts and emails with Amanda,
would have politely told Amanda her baby was beautiful, but she would not
be demanding to hold that baby. She was there to pick up her sons,
not coup over her ex's new baby. It's so ridiculous. At the
end of the day, Grant and Amanda can't both be right. One or
both of them was definitely in that room when Laura died. Someone is lying,
probably both of them, to certain degrees, and we will probably never
know what really happened. Regardless of the exact details of the situation. Laura
was murdered. We don't know who dealt the final blow, or who held
the chord that strangled her, or if they did it together, But that
didn't matter on the evening of Wednesday, July thirteenth, twenty eleven. All
that mattered at this point was that Grant and Amanda had a body to deal
with, and how they chose to do with Laura's body was, in no
uncertain terms, absolutely depraved. When they were finished, they got on the
road to Texas. Then, after nineteen hours of driving, on the evening
of Sunday, July seventeenth, Grant, Amanda and the kids arrived with that
U haul trailer at her sister's home in Richmond. Later, during her own
court testimony, Amanda would claim that she had no clue that Laura's remains were
in the U haul. Amanda claimed she had no part in dismembering Laura.
She claimed that she never even saw the body. She supposedly thought she and
Grant were dropping off some of her mother's things at Karen's house. That's it,
and she and Grant had stopped at a self storage unit in Raleigh before
going to Texas to pick up a piece of furniture. But if Amanda's story
were to hold up, what was she doing in the apartment during the hours
when Grant was dismembering Laura's body. She wasn't at Monkey Joe's with Shay,
her baby, and her two step sons. And there's no indication that Amanda
had any other alibi for this time period. Maybe she had her headphones on
with music turned up really loud, or maybe Grant dismembered Laura at a different
location. It is strange that not a single trace of blood was ever found
in Grant and Amanda's apartment, and investigators tore that place up. They removed
the plumbing and ripped up the carpet, but naw that clean, shiny bathroom,
along with all the tarpus, plastic and other accessories all point to the
bathroom. My grizzly guess is that they put a tarp in the tub before
dismembering Laura. They didn't just wash all the blood down the drain, because
typically when investigators remove all the plumbing like that, they do usually find blood.
It's why they've learned to rip out all the plumbing no matter what,
which at that time meant tearing apart the roof in the apartment below Grant and
Amanda's. But here's the thing. Once someone is dead and their heart stops
pumping, they don't bleed out. I'm not saying there wouldn't have been blood
even a mess, but I would say the bleach stained by the front door
is where Laura did the most bleeding. By the time she was in that
bathtub, her heart had long stopped. Grant didn't even have the saw until
almost nine hours later, so if they used a tarp, there wouldn't have
been that much blood to wash down the drain, if any. And of
course they would have poured bleach down the drain to just in case. And
here's another way. I'll never understand how smart and how stupid of a criminal
Grant was. Somehow no trace of blood was found, but we have his
dumbass on surveillance footage at Walmart twice, Target, once U Haul, and
the home depot in Texas. Maybe it was Amanda who was smart about the
cleanup, but hey, maybe it was Amanda who was the smart one period
who sent Grant out for those supplies. But maybe she forgot to warn him
about cameras and talking to people. I just don't know. We never will.
Ultimately, they did not testify against each other. On that Wednesday,
July twentieth, investigators had tried to comb through garbage looking for any signs,
but the most recent dumpster pickup had been on the fifteenth, two days after
Laura went missing. Employees with City Trash had assured them that they would have
seen a body or even blood, and if they had not seen it,
they would have known the smell. And remember Amanda had gotten the kids out
of the house on the fourteenth, Maybe they would have noticed a body.
Who is to say about the blood, especially if the dumpsters were emptied that
soon after her murder, detectives found out that about forty five trucks had dumped
at the same trash center, So whatever was in that particular dumpster was under
more than ten feet of trash by the time they were questioning the city about
it. I've seen on documentaries where police will go to dumps and search for
bodies. I'm not sure why they wouldn't have here, except all of this
was happening very fast, and Amanda and Grant Hayes had just rolled back into
town on the night of the twentieth. Maybe they thought they would get a
confession and find out where Laura was. Then they would, but not from
Grant or Amanda. It was from Karen Barry, and she was the reason
why Laura's family and friends had a body to Lateter Rest. Five days after
the investigators were looking in Kinston dumpsters, Laura's remains were being found twelve hundred
miles away in a creek in Richmond, Texas. The investigators did actually go
through the trash and found many things that helped, including Latex gloves with Laura's
DNA on them, But while they were in Texas, it was all on
Amanda to get her sister's help. Karen Barry would testify at both trials.
Grant put it on Amanda to explain things to Karen. Karen testified that her
sister said, I hurt Laura. I hurt her bad, and then she
said Laura is dead. She then called Grant over to join in the conversation.
Karen did point out that she later asked Amanda if she was covering for
Grant, and her sister just nodded. After that was when she had a
conversation about the creek across from her house. They asked to borrow Karen's boat.
She claimed she didn't know for sure what they were doing, but she
guessed. But on their first morning in Texas, Grant had a conversation with
Karen's son, Dalton. How deep is that creek? Up to thirteen feet
in some places? Was the answer? Are there alligators in the creek?
Yes? Was the answer. Later, Amanda questioned Karen's other son, Shelton,
do alligators eat people? She asked, Yeah, they're alligators, was
his answer. Then she asked about hoggs. Shelton managed a business that caught
feral hoggs. What about hogs? Do they eat people? Shelton said,
yes, I have a search on my computer now about this question, and
evidently they will eat people, but they won't eat bones, teeth, or
even fingernails. I hate that I know this, and so I suppose this
is where the conversation turned to other ideas. Karen later characterized this as brainstorming.
They discussed disposing of Laura's remains by feeding them to wild hogs. They
searched for a hole on the property big enough to bury Laura, but that
idea felled too. Then they considered storing Laura and Karen's septic tank. That
way, they could just wait for Laura to fully disintegrate, but the opening
to the septic tank was inaccessible. Whatever the outcome of this brainstorming, later
that morning, July nineteenth, Amanda went to an ATM and got cash,
and then Grant went to a local home depot and again didn't know exactly what
he was looking for, so he asked for help with covering up an odor.
He said he wanted some kind of acid, and even though the employee
said that wouldn't work on an odor, he sold Grant a couple of boxes
of muriatic acid what would later be eight bottles. He also purchased gloves on
the advice of the employee, and a thirty two gallon trash can. The
acid did not work, but It explained the difference in decomposition from Laura's head
and the rest of the pieces they had found. It was most important to
try and dissolve her head because of the identifying features like her teeth. An
expert would later say they definitely tried because acid marks were found on Laura's teeth.
There would be another expert who would analyzed the soil and the hog pen
where Shopton worked and found mariadic acid in that soil. I don't need to
connect the dots here, and I don't want to. What is important is
after this, the plan was to take Karen's boat out on Oyster Creek that
night. Amanda later testified that she would quote never forget how Grant revealed to
her that Laura's remains were in the U haul. She said that while they
were at her sister's house in Texas, quote, he was smoking a cigarette
and he was really calm, and he told me, what would you do
if I told you Laura was dead? He told me he got scared that
he was a black man with a dead white woman and no one was going
to believe him. When she testified, Amanda said that Grant was holding a
machete when he said these things, which scared her. She said she was
afraid of not cooperating with his plans. However, Amanda also testified that Grant
had never physically harmed her before. Security tapes showed Amanda pouring out those same
bottles of muriatic acid near Karen's home, and the discarded bottles were also recovered.
Incidentally, when Amanda was finally arrested, she had on the same clothes
and her mugshot that she had on in the video of her dumping out the
acid. That will be important later. On the evening of Tuesday, July
nineteenth, Grant and Amanda borrowed Karen's boat and traveled along Oyster Creek. Over
the course of several hours, they dropped the portions of Laura's body into the
creek well. Amanda claimed that Grant did this while she had her back turned
the whole time she helped row the boat, but never saw or touched any
part of Laura's body. She said her husband did that she just heard the
water splashes as he dumped them in the creek. After all of this,
they rushed to return the U haul at a location in Richmond, then jumped
on the road nineteen hours back, somehow making it back to Patsy Hayes's home
either late on the twentieth or in the early morning hours of the twenty first.
Then, on the morning of Monday, July twenty fifth, twenty eleven,
thirty two year old Grant Hayes and thirty nine year old Amanda Hayes were
arrested for Laura's murder. They were held at the Wait County Detention Center without
bail. Investigators had not yet matched DNA taken from Laura's hairbrush as well as
her son's, to the remains they had found. When they did, a
grand jury returned an indictment on August fifth. No charges were pressed against Amanda's
sister, Karen Barry, but that's only because she agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
She had already known she would have to face her sister in court.
Now it was official going to pause for a short commercial break. Craig Brady,
the Chief deputy for the Fort Ben County Sheriff's Office, was baffled by
this crime. He told the News and Observer that it seemed strange that someone
would kill their victim, dismember them, and then drive more than one thousand
miles to dispose of the body within one hundred yards of a known relative.
After passing through a lot of secluded areas on their way to Texas that were
better suited for a body, Brady said, So they drove through what five
or six states and over a forty mile wide swamp in Louisiana, all so
they could bring the body here. Fortunately, for police, criminals just aren't
very smart. The evidence against Grant and Amanda was insurmountable. Investigators had found
resperried or masked packaging and LATEX gloves. The DNA on the gloves matched Laura.
Grant had also been caught lying to the police when they first called him
about Laura's missing person status. Grant had said he was in Raleigh when he
was actually in Richmond, Texas. As it turns out, Grant had lied
to law enforcement multiple times. He had given inconsistent stories regarding his whereabouts on
July thirteenth several times. In the fall of twenty eleven, law enforcement seized
Grant's email records. That's how they learned that Grant had reached out to Laura
to invite her to another midweek visit with her boys. It was just supposed
to be another visit to Monkey Joe's. He had not yet offered to let
her keep the boys until the twenty fourth. They also saw a few emails
he had sent on July fifteenth to Laura, again offering the extended time with
her boys and then complaining that she didn't show up that Friday, which doesn't
make sense between the two anyway. He did this two days after she was
already dead. Originally, Grant and Amanda were to be tried together as co
defendants. However, Amanda's attorney accused Grant of sending Amanda intimidating letters from the
Wake County jail. She alleged that Grant threatened to kill Amanda and these letters,
so in April of twenty thirteen, Wake County Judge Donald Stevens ruled that
Grant and Amanda would be tried separately. On Monday, September TEWOD twenty thirteen,
jury's selection began for the trial of thirty four year old Grant Hayes.
The prosecution's case was simple. They argued that Grant and Amanda wanted Laura out
of the way so they could have custody of the two boys. With the
next custody related court date looming on the horizon in August of twenty eleven,
they knew they had to act fast. As I told you in Part one,
they knew they were about to lose custody of Grant's sons, so Grant
and Amanda lured Laura to their apartment. They promised her that she would see
her kids for an unexpected midweek visit that would last to the twenty fourth,
almost twelve full days, and after she got to their apartment, they were
going to offer Laura twenty five thousand dollars in exchange for full custody, or
they were really going to force Laura to sign a piece of paper, saying
that I believe it's doubtful that they had any intention of letting Laura walk out
of their regardless of what she signed. The state supported their theory with forty
seven witnesses and five hundred pieces of evidence. Through the testimony of Laura's friends
and family, they proved that Grant was abusive to her, and the prosecuting
attorneys called to the stand the psychologist, doctor Ginger Calloway, who had evaluated
both Laura and Grant for custody purposes. Doctor Calloway testified that Grant had a
history of illicit drug use, suffered from a possible mental illness. He was
manipulative and a liar, He had a DWI, and he had literally told
her that he wanted to obliterate Laura Akerson. Remember, doctor Calloway's report was
in the Durango wedged, where Grant would have sat to drive. That report
was a trigger. He was about to lose, and Grant Hayes didn't lose.
Grant Hayes had to win. Shelton Karen's son testified that he heard Grant
say to someone on the phone, I don't need an alibi. I was
with my family. Wonder who he was talking to. My money is on
Patsy Hayes. The state said the importance of that note with Laura's handwriting is
that it showed they, or at least Grant, had intent to kill Laura
and that he had acted in a cool state of mind. Heidie Schumacher's testimony,
as you can imagine, was not emotional. She had a spine of
steel and a great memory. She despised Grant Hayes, and no matter how
sad she was for Laura. Her calm and collected demeanor on the stand was
a credit to her. It wasn't just an emotional friend who was guessing.
She knew dates, times, the whole story. She testified approximately two months
before her death. She told me she was very worried, and she said,
Heidi, if anything happens to me, if I come out suicide,
or if I go missing, or if I get into a car accident,
Grant did it. The state also put on Grant's jailhouse companion, a man
named Pablo Trinidad. I know, I know, jailhouse informants are not always
the best, but as the state will later prove, Pablo had no way
of reading any articles about what happened before he testified, because it wasn't coming
out in the papers or online until after he testified. And he humbly said
there were no promises made to him about his sentence. He just hoped it
would look good for the parole board. Pablo was serving twenty one years for
conspiracy to traffic in cocaine and possession of a firearm, so he was a
convicted felon, but not a murderer. Remember Pablo's twenty one year sentence by
the way, He and Grant were in the same housing area of the jail
for around one to two weeks. Pablo testified that one day the inmates were
watching Grant's case being covered on TV. Seeing what Grant was accused of the
other inmates were outraged. They wanted to jump Grant, but Pablo diffused the
situation. After this incident, Grant admitted to Pablo that he called Laura and
convinced her to come to his apartment under false pretenses of settling the custody dispute.
Pablo testified that Grant told him she was an unfit mother and that they'd
been having a custody battle for some years now, going back and forth,
and he was just tired of it, so he said that he placed a
call to her and lured her to his apartment, and that's when him and
his wife subdued her and strangled her. And the famous doctor Deborah Radish from
the Michael Peterson case testified that Laura's next sustained wound consistent with stabbing or strangulation.
There was no way to be sure which, but she was sure the
wound was not from the dismemberment. Laura had suffered the injury to her fourth
cervical vertebra, as well as damage to certain tissue and thyroid cartilage. So
it's very possible she was strangled. Remember that apple power cord you have in
your back pocket. Doctor Radish agreed that was a possibility. She also said
it was very possible it was a knife wound. Remember there were missing knives
from the kitchen block. If I had to guess, they tried to use
the apple cord first, and she struggled too much, so someone lost their
temper and used the knife. Or maybe strangling was taking too long it's not
how it looks in the movies. Or maybe Laura fought like hell for her
life she knew she had to and was making too much noise, so they
used the knife. Whatever happened, it's very clear that a great deal of
blood was spilled near that front door, Like I said, as Laura was
almost making her escape. I've mentioned Diane's Fanning's book It remains several times.
It is an amazing read, and if for no other reason than to get
her idea of those last moments, I may not actually believe that is how
it happened, but I like how she wanted to think it did. Grant's
defense team took one definitive stance. Yes, Grant had helped get rid of
Laura's body, but he hadn't killed Laura. His wife, Amanda was entirely
responsible for that. They repeated the story I told you earlier, how Grant
left the room for a short period of time, then when he returned,
Laura was somehow dead by Amanda's hands. The defense was vague on how she
died, but they claimed that it was an accidental death, not an orchestrated
murder scheme. Amanda and Laura had simply gotten into a fight that went wrong.
The defense's first witness was Amanda's sister, Karen. Karen testified about how
Amanda came in and told her that she had quote hurt Laura and hurt her
bad. Grant's attorneys leaned heavily on this statement, and Grant's defense attorney said
in opening statements, the evidence will show that the death of the victim happened
in a spontaneous, unpredictable way at the hands of Amanda Hayes. The defendant
helped clean up the evidence and dispose of the body. That's a serious thing.
That's a terrible thing, but it's not murder. No, he just
dismembered the mother of his children with a reciprocating saul, drove her remains across
country and tried to feed her to alligators. And we're supposed to believe he
did all of that even though he didn't kill Laura. As Becky Holt,
a prosecutor, would say in closing arguments, he robbed her of her life
and he robbed her of her dignity. In closing arguments, the state played
a song Grant wrote and performed about Laura when he first went to New York.
It was called Broomstick Writer. The words were my baby's mama, don't
talk to me, don't want your drama. I got two kids by you.
I can't take any more from you. I put a price tag on
your head. You must have told your attorney I got intentions of killing you.
And the worst part, Grant bounced in his seat as the prosecution played
this song for the court. He literally sat there, dancing in his seat,
mouthing the words. The state, after calling forty seven witnesses and introducing
more than five hundred pieces of evidence over the last two weeks, was finally
finished. The jury of four men and eight women listened and then watched as
Grant Hayes jammed along in his seat to his song Broomstick Rider that was probably
more effective than anything they said and closing. The trial lasted nearly two weeks,
and on Monday, September sixteenth, twenty thirteen, after ninety minutes of
deliberation, the jury found Grant Hayes the third guilty of first degree murder.
He was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole at the advice of his
counsel. Grant had not testified at his own trial. Later he would say
that he wished he had testified. He felt he was misled by his lawyers.
Grant firm believed that from the very beginning his trial was rigged. Yeah.
Right. The presiding judge, Donald Stevens said it best to quote,
I think that a jury verdict in a case like this in an hour and
a half probably speaks louder than anything anyone could say about this case. Right
away, Grant's attorneys announced their intentions to appeal. He didn't testify on his
own behalf, but he was happy to give a jailhouse interview and continue to
throw Amanda under the bus. Speaking with ABC eleven, Grant Hayes claimed he
didn't kill Laura. He said Amanda killed her in an act of self defense.
Quote. As Amanda was walking away, Laura snatched her back by her
hair after telling her she was going to take her child from her, and
Amanda told me that she forcefully hit her in the throat with her elbow.
Grant said when he came back into the room, Laura was lying on the
floor bleeding from her nose and Amanda was screaming. It does not dawn on
me in any way that she might be mortally wounded at all. I mean
I was gone out of the room less than a minute, literally, and
uh, Laura died in front of me and my son, little Grant.
Of course, he couldn't deny what he did with that saw in his bathroom,
but it's like he feels sorry for himself. It's awful, he said.
It's something you never want to experience or know what it's like. It's
haunting. This mother trucker said it was haunting for him. He went on
to say, I need to extend my condolences to Laura's family and friends and
to my family as well. But I didn't kill Laura. And as bad
of a crime as desecrating a corpse is, it's a worse crime to sentence
a man to life without giving him a fair trial. Hey, buddy,
your attorney can't stop you from testifying. They can't help it if you're stupid,
and they were smart to advise you to stay off the stand. You
were your own worst enemy. In twenty fifteen, Grant did appeal, but
nothing came of it. Today, forty four year old Grant Hayes is in
the Eastern Correctional Institution in Marey, North Carolina. He will never be released.
I'm going to pause now for a final commercial break. By the time
Amanda's trial came around, this was a highly publicized case. Camera crews from
Inside Edition and other national media outlets were staking out seats in the courtroom.
Nancy Grace, NBC's Dateline, and numerous other court TV shows were also following
the case. In January of twenty fourteen, three years after Laura was murdered,
forty one year old Amanda Hayes's jury trial finally began. The prosecution presented
basically the same case they had against Grant, he and Amanda were both equally
responsible for Laura's murder. It was on purpose, and it was to avoid
a bitter custody battle. Amanda's defense counsel also took a similar approach to Grant's
attorneys during his trial. They argued that Grant had killed Laura, not Amanda.
After she fell or hurt herself, Grant told Amanda to take the kids
and leave, and he took Laura into the bathroom. Amanda had only helped
with the body disposal when she realized that Laura's remains were in the U haul
they had towed to Texas. Amanda's lawyers painted Grant as an intimidating figure who
had pressured Amanda into her role in the crime. So we are supposed to
believe that Amanda didn't know Laura was in the main bathroom of that apartment,
the bathroom the kids used for four days. She got to their apartment on
the thirteenth, They left for Texas on the night of the sixteenth. Four
days. It took them to dismember Laura and sneak her out in coolers to
the U haul, but Amanda had no idea sure, the defense said Grant
was a sociopath and had the nerve to call Laura and Amanda both victims.
Amanda's team described Grant as seeming very charming, witty, and very talented while
actually being controlling, manipulative, and deceitful, which was true, but those
last three words were perfect for Amanda. Hayes two. Amanda did testify on
her own behalf. I bet there was no talking her out of it.
Little miss actress thought she had this. During her testimony, Amanda said she
wanted to leave Grant as soon as she found out that he had murdered Laura,
but she couldn't because she thought he would hurt her newborn daughter or her
older daughter, Shay. I watched her testimony on YouTube. She sits there
in her pink dress, in her little girl voice, saying no, ma'am,
no, ma'am, over and over when Prosecutor Becky holt asks her repeatedly
about seeing Laura's body, about helping dump Laura's body. We are to believe
she turned her back while on that boat in Oyster Creek and didn't help her
husband bullshit. Her wide eyed little girl routine was sickening. The prosecution called
Amanda a liar. One attorney said her statements were so ridiculous compared to the
physical evidence that she made zero sense. They also pointed to her background as
an actress. Prosecutor Bob Zellinger said she has given the performance of her life.
The state also pointed out the testimony of Amanda's cellmate. That cellmate said
Amanda told them Laura died during a kitchen accident in Amanda's apartment, which really
goes against the whole I wasn't even in the apartment at the time story that
Amanda's defense counsel was peddling a kitchen accident is also interesting with the knife theory
and the huge bleach stain by the front door Laura bled there, so like
Pablo before. In Grant's trial, Lara's cellmate's story rang true. She also
testified that she was not promised anything for her testimony and the defense could not
prove otherwise. Plus, the prosecution pointed out that Amanda had continued to correspond
with Grant even after they were incarcerated. She would write letters to Grant's mother,
who would then relay them to Grant. Patsy Hayes wasted no time bringing
them to the prosecutor to make her daughter in law look bad. In the
letters, Amanda told Grant how much she loved him and thought about him every
day. While the nuances of a domestically violent relationship could allow this to happen,
it does make you wonder how can she still love a man who blamed
it all on her to save himself. And let's not forget. She also
testified that he had never harmed her. Doctor Callaway testified that the Hayeses wanted
full custody of the two and three year old boys and that their wishes,
comments and actions suggested that they would quote effectively erase Laura as the children's mother.
There was a collective insensitivity to the children's needs for their mother. Although
Grant declined to testify for Amanda, how could he since he blamed her and
he couldn't risk being cross examined for his own appeal, But he did give
that Jeilhouse interview and supported his wife quote, my wife is not guilty of
murder in any sense of the word. What she did was a reflex,
and the injury sustained as a result of her defending herself and her child led
to her death. Grant Hayes then actually said Laura got herself killed. The
trial had more than ten days of testimony and over fifty witnesses. On Wednesday,
February nineteenth, twenty fourteen, after ninety minutes of deliberation, the jury
convicted forty one year old Amanda Hayes of second degree murder. She was sentenced
to thirteen to sixteen years in prison. Pablo Trinidad got twenty one years for
cocaine and fire possession. Let that sink in. This was obviously a disappointment
to Minny, as the jury could have sentenced her to first degree murder.
Then Amanda would have been automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole, just
like Grant. Laura's father, Roger, who sat through every day of the
trial, said of Amanda, she's a manipulator, She's a liar. She
uses that sing songy voice when she wants to get something from you that doesn't
work with me. I don't think it was the pink dress, or Amanda's
testimony or her voice. I do just think the jury believed Grant was the
murderer and Amanda was his accomplice. That's what most people believe. But since
Amanda had not received as harsh of a sentence as Grant. North Carolina prosecutors
called Texas prosecutors and gave them the heads up prosecute Amanda Hayes in Texas for
the disposal of Laura's body. She had now admitted to being there an open
court. She knew Laura was dead. She knew she was at the very
least helping Grant. In twenty eighteen, forty six year old Amanda was tried
for tampering with evidence, in this case a corpse in Texas. They had
that dear hunter's video of her dumping the acid, and she was wearing the
exact same clothes in her booking photo in North Carolina. Amanda was convicted and
given the maximum. She was sentenced to an additional twenty years in prison,
which was the maximum amount she could have received. Amanda's sentences will be served
consecutively, so once she finishes her time in the Antsign Correctional Institute in Polkton,
North Carolina, they'll cart her ass straight to Texas. If Amanda ever
gets out of prison, she'll be in her seventies. Today she is fifty
one years old. I saw on one documentary a Texas prosecutor say that it
wasn't unusual to hear from other prosecutors within their state, but the call from
North Carolina was a first and they were happy to oblige. Amanda and Grant
have since divorced, and as far as my research could find, Amanda has
never appealed, which might seem odd, but author Diane Fanning explained it pretty
well in an interview with WRL News promoting her book Bitter Remains. She's not
a stupid woman. Fanning said about Amanda going on, she knows that if
she went for a new trial, there's a strong possibility that this time the
jury wouldn't be convinced that she was partially a victim. It appears that Grant
and Laura's two sons are being raised by grant aunt's mother, Patsy. In
early August of twenty eleven, Laura's father filed for custody of the young boys.
However, three years later, in February twenty fourteen, grant'smother, Patsy,
was still their primary guardian. Roger Akerson later died in twenty twenty one
at the age of seventy five. He is buried near his daughter as far
as we can tell, Brenda, Laura's mother evidently still lives in Michigan and
her married name is now Brooks. I have found no indication that she came
to the trial or was in any way interested in what happened to her daughter.
Incidentally, Patsy Hayes lost her daycare as a result of the bad publicity.
Two thirds of her children dropped out until there wasn't much use in continuing
on. I don't feel at all sorry for her, except that as guardian
of Laura's children, I would have wanted her to be financial stable. Of
course, so it's hard for me to sneer at Patsy losing her business,
even if she did deserve to. Laura Akerson's sons are now fifteen and fourteen
years old, soon to be sixteen and fifteen. I cannot even imagine how
their lives have been. A doubt they would even remember the warm, loving
mother who fought so desperately to get custody of them back from her abusive X
their father. Laura's phone and her tape recorder, along with her purse,
were never found, while the state could subpoena her text and email records.
Whatever was recorded on that phone, and that tape recorder was lost forever.
There's no doubt in my mind the recordings would have buried Grant in the custody
case. Their poor mother, who had always been too smart, to be
alone with Grant Hayes again until he offered her something he knew she couldn't resist,
twelve solid straight days with her boys after a year of weekends. Only
that lure was just too strong. As one of the state's prosecutors said,
he couldn't control her in life, so now he has to control her in
death. As the other prosecutor said, he wanted to erase Laura from his
life. He wanted to have a family without Laura in it. This has
been one of the most horrific cases I've ever covered, But like almost every
domestic violence case that ends in murder, it was about control. Grant Hayes
had lost control of Laura Akerson, so he could not let her live.
Southern Fried True Crime is hosted and produced by me Erica Kelly. I'm sorry
the creek did rise with almost thirteen thousand words more, and I couldn't bear
to split this into three parts, even though there were two trials. Today's
episode was written by me Erica Kelly and was researched by me and Andrea Marshbak.
Southern Fred's original music is by Rob Harrison of Gamma Radio and the original
graphic artist by Coley Horner. Today's episode was edited and mixed by Brendan Schecksnier
of Southern Gothic and Erica Kelly. As I said, an excellent read for
this case is Diane Fannings's Bitter Remains, a custody battle, a gruesome crime,
and the mother who paid the ultimate price. It was a very helpful
source and of course covers way more ground than I could ever in two episodes.
If you have any case suggestions, please go to my website Southernfred True
Crime dot com and click on the listener suggestion to app or email SFTC Research
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