Holt spoke of the defense grasping at straws with that one bit of testimony and turned it back to Grant. “The defendant in this case was desperate—he was desperate to get rid of Laura—and to do it any way he could. He wanted to erase Laura from his life. He wanted to have a family without Laura in it,” she said, holding up a photograph of him, Amanda and the kids. “He didn’t want to have to deal with Laura Ackerson anymore. And when she came to his apartment, at his request, on July the thirteenth, he was going to make sure that Laura Ackerson never [again] saw the light of day. That was his plan the night before when he sent her an e-mail and whether he lured her over there initially with the promise of seeing her children, he lured her over there by saying, ‘Let’s end this custody thing.’ But he never intended to let Laura get custody of those children.
“For Grant Hayes, it was more about winning and being in charge. It was more about denying Laura to be a mother to those children. It was more about making sure that he wouldn’t have to deal with her ever again. And as the case started going bad for him, he knew the only way to do that was to kill her. Grant Hayes, either acting by himself or together with Amanda Hayes, killed Laura Ackerson,” Holt stated.
“Premeditation with deliberation on July the thirteenth, 2011. He then dismembered her body and drove her across the country and threw her in a river so that he could destroy what remained of Laura. He robbed her of her life. He robbed her of her dignity. And he tried to cover it up in every way he could.
“Don’t let Grant Hayes get away with this crime. Don’t let Grant Hayes not answer for what he did. Whether or not Grant Hayes began making that plan or formed that intent a week before, a year before; whether he formed that intent to kill Laura Ackerson when he wrote a song about killing her; whether he formed that intent and that plan when he sent her an e-mail the night before to tell her to come over—to come over and see the boys; whether he formed that intent when he had her in the apartment and got her to sign that note; whether he formed that intent when he stabbed her in the neck; whether he formed that intent when he wrapped his hands around her throat, cut off the blood flow to her head, cut off her air, for the four to six minutes it would have taken: Grant Hayes planned to kill Laura Ackerson. The judge will tell you that deliberation, the cool state of mind, the premeditation, over a period of time, however short before that takes place—listen carefully to Mr. Zellinger as he tells you about those things and to Judge Stephens’s instructions.”
Holt concluded by saying, “Tell Grant Hayes, by your verdict . . . that you know that that’s what he intended—that that is what he planned on July thirteenth, 2011. Tell Grant Hayes, by your verdict, that you’re not going to let him obliterate Laura Ackerson in this way.”
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ASSISTANT District Attorney Boz Zellinger took Becky Holt’s place in front of the jury to add the final arguments for the prosecution’s case. “Laura Ackerson loved her kids to death—she loved her kids to her own death. That is the only reason why she went over to that apartment that night. You all know after hearing the evidence in this case that Laura Ackerson was not going over to that apartment for any reason other than to get custody of her kids. Grant Hayes knew that. He tried to control her that night. Now, he’s trying to control you with his defense.”
Zellinger stated that this was “a terrible case—the awful truth that these courtroom walls have heard has been staggering. . . . What happened to Laura is something that shouldn’t happen to a human being—I mean, it’s something that shouldn’t happen to an animal. To be sliced apart and [have] acid poured on you and then left to rot in a Texas creek.
“It’s hard to get past the depravity of the situation. And the question—the reason that it’s relevant, the reason that everything that happens after the murder is so important, is because it tells you why and who committed this murder. Someone who takes someone’s severed head and pours acid on it—would that be the person who committed this murder or would it be someone else in this apartment? Would a person who wrote a song about killing someone—would that be a person who committed this murder or was it someone else in that apartment?”
Zellinger said, “Simply put: this is a guy who wrote a song about killing someone and then dismembered her body and then poured acid on it and left the body in a creek in Texas—the whole time lying about it to investigators and to people on Facebook and to his friends. If the defendant is lying on Facebook to his friends what does that say about this defense?”
Zellinger explained why “acting in concert” was an important element to this crime despite the defense’s mocking of it. Then he contested the other side’s claim that the custody dispute in this case was unpleasant but no worse than any other similar situations. “They were at each other’s throats. The defense wants you to believe that the defendant and Laura weren’t really fighting like this, that they really weren’t hating each other as much as they appeared to. And the best evidence of this malice—of this hate—between these two folks, that the defendant hated Laura Ackerson so much, is what happened after she was dead.” It was the malice, Zellinger said. “There is so much malice in this case. From that song alone you get a tremendous amount of malice. . . . Grant Hayes hated Laura Ackerson.
“There is so much hate in this case that not only did he kill her . . . this man bought a saw and cut her torso in half.”
Zellinger held up the reciprocating saw purchased by law enforcement for demonstration purposes. “You’ve seen the blades. This is a heavy object. This isn’t something that just happened. Yeah, he just disposed of the body and it ended up in Texas. This saw cut someone in half. And then he cut her head off. . . . With malice, there’s not much of a question. He had so much malice that he sawed the mother of his children’s legs off.
“The next is the proximate cause of death—the cause without which the victim’s death would not have occurred. Again, this is not much of an issue. Even the defendant’s counsel in closing seemed to concede that it comes down to two people who killed Laura. It could be Grant. It could be Amanda.
“Then the third element is this intent to kill. The judge is going to tell you that the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended to kill the victim. And the judge is going to tell you that ‘intent is a mental attitude seldom provable by direct evidence. It ordinarily must be proved by circumstances from which it can be inferred.’ . . . Circumstantial evidence is ‘proof of a chain or group of facts or circumstances that points to the guilt or innocence of the defendant,’” Zellinger said, reading from the jury instructions document. “We are asking you to use your common sense: whether a guy who wrote a song about murdering a woman was actually the person who murdered the woman. . . . You noticed that the defendant, in his e-mail box, puts all the correspondence from Laura Ackerson in an inbox labeled ‘letters from a ho.’ The defendant despised Laura Ackerson. Laura Ackerson prevented him from doing what he wanted to do with his life, which is moving with those kids and moving all over the country. And that’s why he made this concerted effort to eliminate Laura from his life and from any other person’s life,” Zellinger stated.
“The fourth element is the one that the crux of this case comes down to: premeditation and deliberation. The judge is going to tell you that premeditation is that the defendant formed the intent to kill before acting over a period of time, no matter how short. Remember that bleach spot is right by the door. And that’s interesting. Why is it right by the door? You know when Laura walks in the door; she’s not immediately murdered because her handwriting is on that document. . . . Why did we find that? Everything else in the apartment is gone. The carpet is bleached. The rugs are thrown out. . . . Gone is that shower curtain, those mats, the shower rod, and you heard the defendant went and bought a computer cord the next day, that’s Thursday. That’s interesting. Why did the defendant feel the need to go out and buy that laptop computer cord—the charger for that computer? Was it
because it was used to choke someone? We don’t know.
“But everything is missing from that apartment. You saw the pictures of that apartment. You saw that knife block that interestingly was missing some knives. . . . In a case like this, you’re not finding the evidence of the murder; you’re finding evidence of the cleanup. So why is that note left there?” he asked, continuing, “You have to gotta have some questions about the note. . . . Here you’ve got your premeditation and deliberation. Here at some point this night, they are signing this. You don’t know if Laura is signing this at knifepoint. You don’t know what’s going on in that apartment. Really, only three people did know—two are charged with first degree murder and one’s dead.
“But why do we find this note? Why is it left in that apartment? The defendant obviously knew the police were coming at some point, because he got rid of everything else in that apartment. But we find it there. And why do we find it? Well, it’s designed to look like Laura took twenty-five thousand dollars and took off. . . . We find this note because the defendant wants the investigators to think Laura took off with this money. If that was the thought process going on in the defendant’s head, then with this note, he had the intent to kill Laura . . . and he acted in a cool state of mind.”
ADA Zellinger explained that condition of a cool state of mind does not require a total lack of emotion and that it can be inferred from the defendant’s actions, such as how Grant’s behavior appeared when he went to Wal-Mart at two-thirty in the morning. “Twenty-six minutes he was shopping. And you saw him standing there, arms crossed, looking at all the saws—premeditating and deliberating on how he was going to saw up Laura Ackerson’s body. . . . At no point in any of this evidence is Grant anything but completely calm and collected.”
Zellinger also challenged the defense’s use of the word “disposed.” “The defense said he disposed of the body. It sounds like you have a wrapper and you toss in the trash can. The defendant didn’t just dispose of the body; he engraved his hate for Laura Ackerson by cutting off her head. He cut off her arms. He cut her torso in half. He cut her legs off. He cut her at the knees. He then took those parts and put them in coolers—and at that point, these [aren’t] coolers, they’re coffins—those four items you saw in front of you. He then drives those items to Texas—halfway across the country. And then when he’s there, it’s not good enough to just throw it in that creek, he then also has to pour acid on it.
“That dismemberment, ladies and gentlemen, means more than just disposing of the body. It’s in an aggressive emotion—this extreme abhorrence toward the person he killed. He’s trying to disregard Laura as a person whatsoever. He couldn’t control her in life so now he’s going to control her death. He’s just driven by this power and control to carve up her body. . . . The defendant argues that how Laura died isn’t proven. . . . And Dr. Ross and Dr. Radisch through their medical examinations were able to discern as much as they could about the body. But of course, evidence of whether Laura was strangled or stabbed would be much easier if there were muscle or tissue attached to her neck. Remember, those C4 vertebrae, the ones that go down to C5, those were all found at the bottom of her head in very bad condition. I mean, you got to see the picture of Laura’s head when it was recovered by the Houston dive team member Brian Davis, it was in terrible condition. But you’ll also remember, it was in a different condition than the rest of her body. And the defendant says, ‘Well, there’s no evidence about acid, there’s no evidence on any of her body.’ That’s because the acid was poured on her head. There’s not going to be evidence of acid on her other body parts when Grant Hayes pours acid on her head and it doesn’t do whatever he was intending for it to do. But you do see acid on her teeth—on that tooth—and yes, it’s only one tooth, but you see acid etching. That’s circumstantial evidence.
“And you know there’s acid, the pH in that hog pen is very low, you heard about how acidic it was. You hear about the acid etching on her teeth and you know that Grant Hayes bought acid. That’s circumstantial evidence.”
Furthermore, Zellinger said, “Not only did he send e-mails to Laura to try to cover up what happened and then he goes and in a very deliberate manner, he stands out in front of that Sheetz for an hour, an hour and twenty minutes. And we tried to speed up that video as much as we could but he stands there, waiting, for the woman who’s dead in his bathtub. How more deliberate could Grant Hayes get in the aftermath of this murder?
“Then there’s this note that says Grant keeps custody and Laura just gets twenty-five thousand dollars. And that that note is left in that apartment after everything else is thrown out to shown that Laura Ackerson disappeared. And the question for you is: why is that note written? It is written so that so that it looks like Laura Ackerson disappeared. And Grant Hayes intended for Laura Ackerson to disappear when that note was signed before she was dead. And that gives you that premeditation and that gives you that deliberation and that leads to one inalienable conclusion”—Zellinger turned and pointed a finger at Grant Hayes—“that this man killed Laura Ackerson, the mother of his children. This defendant then cut up her body, that then, he did very deliberate things to cover up that it happened and that coverup continues today. And that can lead you to one conclusion that he is guilty, beyond reasonable doubt, and you should find him so.”
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AFTER Boz Zellinger’s closing, court adjourned for the week. The jury had time to ponder over the weekend, and began their deliberations on Monday morning, September 16, 2013.
It took them less than two hours to announce that they had a verdict.
Grant Hayes was escorted back into the courtroom. When he sat down between his two attorneys, Will Durham gave him a smile and an encouraging pat on the back. Grant rocked nervously as if moving to a beat inside his head.
The judge read the verdict: Grant Ruffin Hayes III, guilty of the first degree murder of Laura Ackerson.
A deputy moved closer to Grant and stood directly behind his chair. Will Durham’s smiling face turned somber.
Judge Stephens moved immediately on to the sentencing phase. “A jury decision in an hour and a half probably speaks louder than anything anyone can say about this case from the state’s perspective, from the family’s perspective.”
Will Durham made the customary bid to set aside the verdict. As expected, the judge denied the motion.
Stephens continued, “Grant Ruffin Hayes III, having been found guilty of the murder of Laura Ackerson, it is the judgment of this court that you be sentenced to the North Carolina Department of Corrections for the period of your natural life without benefit of parole.”
Grant was handcuffed and, after a few mumbled words to his lawyers, he was led out of the courtroom without displaying any emotional reaction at all to this life-altering event. His attorneys announced their intention to appeal. The judge denied bail. Phase one of the search for justice for Laura Ackerson was at an end.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
A Wake County grand jury returned an additional indictment against Amanda Hayes the month after Grant Hayes’s trial came to an end. In case the jury at her January 2014 trial did not convict her of first degree or second degree murder, the state’s backup plan would be to also charge her with being an accessory after the fact.
A request to allow the defense’s investigator to search the Dodge Durango was granted by the court. In doing so, a knife was found that had not previously been collected by police. On December 16, 2013, Amanda’s attorney Johnny Gaskins filed another request for the testing of that implement. In his motion, the attorney wrote: “The knife that was found in the Dodge Durango by the Raleigh Police Department appears to be yet further evidence that the defendant’s husband was prepared to kill the defendant and their children while they were in the Dodge Durango.”
Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway approved the motion for testing as well as for an analysis of a biohazard suit and pair of
rubber gloves also recently found in the SUV. The State Bureau of Investigation found no blood on the weapon, but Gaskins was not satisfied. He planned to have it examined by a North Carolina State anthropologist to see if it had been used in Laura’s Ackerson’s murder.
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IN early January 2014, the defense announced its intention to call Grant Hayes to the stand during trial. Gaskins hoped that if he did so, Grant would be forced to invoke his fifth-amendment rights, since he had a pending appeal. When the lawyer approached Grant in prison, he insisted he would not claim the fifth because to do so would indicate that he had killed Laura and he claimed he had not.
Grant may have thought he could discourage the state from calling him by previewing his testimony in an interview to Amanda Lamb of WRAL TV in mid-January. He told her that he had not testified on his own behalf because his attorney did not want him to do so. He felt that Jeff Cutler had misled him and had not had his best interests at heart.
Grant also gave a version of the events of July 13, 2011, that placed the blame on Amanda but differed in significant ways from the story his attorneys told the jurors. He claimed that Laura came over to the house to discuss an out-of-court settlement. He said that her opening bid to end the suit was fifty thousand dollars but that amount was negotiated down to twenty-five thousand dollars. It was after that was done that Laura asked to hold Lily.
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