—
LAURA’S child custody attorney, John Sargeant, took the stand next. Since the estate had waived attorney-client privilege, Judge Stephens ordered him to answer the questions posed—a formality required by law. The lawyer recounted his interactions with Laura Ackerson from their first meeting in June 2010 until their final one approximately one year later.
He testified that whenever Laura was looking at an employment opportunity, dating someone or making any change in her life, she always called him first and asked if it would affect her ability to get custody of her children. When prosecutor Becky Holt asked about the possibility of Laura accepting cash in exchange for relinquishing custody, Sargeant said that they never discussed anything but Laura gaining full custody of both boys.
When defense counsel queried him about Laura’s concerns for her personal safety, Sargeant said, “Yes, she did. I remember specifically on March the second, us talking about Mr. Hayes getting desperate about the evaluation, and she was concerned that Mr. Hayes may hurt her or do something to her. In fact, I know that she and Heidi Schumacher, her friend, had a deal that if something happened to either one of them that the other one was going to contact the police.”
“Did she also share information with you about threats that Grant had made to other people?”
“I don’t know about threats that Grant made to other people. I mean, she had shared other information about Mr. Hayes having some violent tendencies, yes.”
“What violent tendencies?”
“I think she had indicated that he was violent to her when they were together. . . . He would say things like, not that he was going to do it, but he knew people who could do things to her.”
“Did . . . she ever use words to the effect that ‘if I can’t get it done, my goons can do it’?”
“Yes, sir. He said he knew some thugs from the old days that could take care of Laura.”
—
WITH psychologist Dr. Ginger Calloway, the state focused on the comments about Amanda that she’d made in her psychological evaluation for the child custody case. She read a few passages aloud to the jury.
“When Amanda was asked about how the family makes money, she reported, ‘Grant has a little money here and there. I’ve sold some things and we’ve spent our savings on the custody evaluation.’
“When asked about working after the baby is born, Amanda said, ‘No, I’m also an artist. I see myself with three little kids working on art at their little table.’”
Quoting Amanda again, Dr. Calloway read: “For Grant’s protection, we didn’t want to announce that we were dating. Sha and I moved to New York and we both encouraged him to move there. He said he didn’t want to return to North Carolina. His only connection there was his kids.” Although, Amanda wrote, he mostly missed “Grant IV. Not so much Gentle because he didn’t have a bond with him.”
Calloway wrapped up by reading a piece of commentary from her report: “It is concerning that although Amanda is superficially kind and attentive to the children, she does not recognize Laura’s importance and centrality to the children.”
The defense began their examination of the witness by questioning her about her education and credentials as if the court had not already recognized her as a forensic psychology expert. Calloway seemed a bit exasperated when she said she had received an MS in psychology from North Carolina State and Gaskins asked, “I believe you said you had a master’s degree, too, is that right?” She explained that it was the same thing. When he asked about the additional training she had after she received her PhD, she very nearly rolled her eyes. “If you look at my curriculum vitae,” which she knew he had in his possession, “you will see all the courses and workshops I attended.”
Gaskins then asked if Calloway was familiar with antisocial behavior, and she responded, “Do you mean antisocial personality disorder?”
He admitted that he did, then pulled out a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published in 2000, and asked her to read three pages to herself to refresh her memory. After she’d done so, he asked her to read several passages from her evaluation report.
She started with: “Grant Hayes is an attractive thirty-two-year-old African-American man of short stature with a bald, shaved head, long fingernails, and relaxed manner. He is very extroverted, charming, gregarious, witty and likable. He is jovial and verbose, was pleasant in manner and rambled extensively in interviews, frequently in a tangential or off-topic way.”
Next, Gaskins pointed her to this passage: “During interviews, Grant rambled in his responses, requiring a refocus and a request to limit his verbosity. He was entertaining with his various stories and accounts of his experiences and seemed to enjoy recounting those various reports. Without limit, he seemed he could have rambled extensively for quite some time.
“Grant was extremely negative, at times, paranoid, with regard to Laura, her character and alleged actions. . . . Of great concern is the finding that he scored positive for the suicide constellation on the Rorschach and reports a history of suicidal thinking. . . . This index is not a predictor for suicide. . . . At a minimum, a positive constellation suggests that Grant has significant pathological, emotional disarray. Grant reports suicidal thinking as early as fourteen years of age, reports three significant periods of suicidal thinking, and reports extensive illegal drug use following the last episode of suicidal thinking. In testing and interviews, he looks like an individual with an underlying mood or thought disorder—one who is self-medicating with the use of chemicals or illicit drugs.
“Despite being extroverted and gregarious, Grant looks very uncomfortable with emotions,” Calloway read, noting the use of “intellectualization to neutralize emotions” was a form of defense, but that “to the degree Grant is using it, the overuse of intellect to neutralize emotion can lead to delusional thinking. Reliance on this defense mechanism could also cause him to look more greatly impaired than he is. . . . Findings from testing supported by findings from some interviews indicate he seizes upon information before he has gathered all relevant pieces of a problem situation. This leads him into incorrect situations and faulty judgments. His interpretation of events, others’ motives and actions, the world about him, is damaged and inaccurate relative to other adults.”
The next series of questions regarded the details of Calloway’s interview with Heidi Schumacher, and Heidi’s belief that Grant was controlling. After that, Gaskins moved on to Dr. Calloway’s recommendation that Grant see a psychiatrist for evaluation of a mood disorder or other explanations for his “illogical, disturbed thinking.”
At the lawyer’s request, Calloway also read Laura’s note in the parenting survey: “‘I am of the belief that Grant has a personality disorder. After living with him for a period of almost four years, I have found a few labels that fit him but one that is near perfect: sociopath. The others are narcissist, borderline personality and psychopath. He likens himself to the main characters in these movies: Six Degrees of Separation with Will Smith and The Talented Mr. Ripley. Grant III has told me that he is the character depicted in these movies.’”
Gaskins pressured Calloway to say that Grant Hayes fit the definition of antisocial personality disorder, and she kept insisting that determination should be left to a psychiatrist. She also pointed out that the defense attorney had provided an older version of the diagnostic manual, and that changes had been made to that section since then.
On re-direct, ADA Boz Zellinger asked, “Did you ever give the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, parental history survey or the Rorschach—did you ever perform any of those tests on Amanda Hayes?”
“No.”
“Did you have concerns about the safety of anyone in this study?”
“I was concerned about the children and recommended a guardian ad litem for them.” When prompted by Zellinger about whether or not she had co
ncerns about Grant and Amanda, Calloway read her note that, “Grant and Amanda are convinced that Laura is sick, poisons the children’s minds and has some form of mental illness.”
“In your report, didn’t you say that these people wanted to travel the world and that this desire made it obvious that ‘they did not want Laura in the children’s lives’?”
“Yes, that’s the sentence,” Calloway agreed.
“That’s not just Grant but also Amanda?”
“Yes.”
“Where you talk about ‘erasing Laura’ that talks about Grant, Amanda and the paternal grandparents?”
“Yes, that’s what it says.”
Gaskins came back with one question. “And you concluded in your report with the recommendation that Grant see a psychiatrist over the question of a mood disorder or other explanations for the illogical, disturbed thinking he exhibits?”
“That’s correct.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
THE proceedings took a gruesome turn when forensic anthropologist Dr. Ann Ross ended the ninth day and opened up the tenth, on February 10, 2014. She told the jury about using the pig proxy, a new Skil reciprocating saw and an assortment of blades to determine what had been used to sever the bones on Laura Ackerson’s body.
On cross-examination, defense attorney Johnny Gaskins first asked if flesh was removed from any of the body parts of the deceased that she had examined. All Ross could tell him with any certainty was that she had not macerated any of them.
“Do you start with a live pig?” Gaskins asked.
Ross laughed and said, “Uh, no.”
“Did you use a reciprocating chain saw to cut through the flesh of the pig?”
“We removed his forelimbs and hind limbs and those were the ones we actually used.”
“And you sawed through the flesh in order to get to the bone?”
“Correct.”
“Did that create debris?” Gaskins asked.
Puzzled, Ross repeated the question before answering. “We did it outdoors,” she said. “We did it in a field—in a research field.”
“And one of the reasons you do that is because you don’t want to mess up your room with whatever debris is created by the sawing of the pig proxy, right?”
“No, not necessarily. The reason we do that is because we are dealing with a large hog and the best way to carry him out is with a large truck and place him in the field and start at the field site. But we have conducted comparisons in our laboratory under our hoods.”
Gaskins continued to ask questions regarding the messiness of the process, presumably to bolster the defense theory that Laura’s dismemberment had not occurred in the hall bathroom.
“When you cut through the pig vessels, did it create a spray of blood?”
“No.”
“Did it create a spray of tissue when you cut through the pig proxy tissue?”
“I don’t recall a spray of tissue.”
“Did the Skil saw jam up . . . with the flesh as you tried to cut through it?”
“Not to my recollection.”
Switching direction, he asked, “Is there any way to tell what occurred first, the dismemberment or the knife wound?”
“No there is not.”
Her final words were, “Dismembering a body in general is very difficult.”
—
COURTNEY Last returned to the stand to complete her testimony from the previous Thursday and tell the jurors about her examination of Grant’s and Amanda’s iPods.
Gaskins began his cross by showing photos from Amanda’s iPod at her sister’s house on July 18, in which she looks happy and asked if she agreed with his assessment. When she did, he moved to a photo of Amanda in a motel room from July 21, and asked her if Amanda looked happy in that picture, too.
Courtney said, “Yes.”
“She also looks haggard in that picture, doesn’t she?”
“It’s a matter of opinion. I guess.”
“She looks haggard.”
The judge interrupted, “Is that a question? If so, reword it.”
“I withdraw the question, your honor,” Gaskins replied.
—
DETECTIVE Jerry Faulk, the lead investigator in the case, talked about the investigation in general and then focused in on the trip Amanda made to Target on July 14, 2011, at 5:31 P.M. At that time, the defendant purchased a bottle of bleach, a pack of bath tissue, two pairs of gloves, a package of electrical tape, an eraser-scrubber and a lint roller.
At Gaskins’s request, the detective read the transcript of an anonymous Crime Stoppers tip to the jury. “I played music and recorded a song with Grant Hayes in late 2007 or 2008 but quit dealing with him because he creeps me out. I only knew him about three weeks and during that time I practiced at his home a lot but felt uncomfortable because of the type of friends he had,” the transcript read.
“I do not know if he had anything to do with his wife’s disappearance but it is possible. I say so because one night we were drinking and we both went upstairs and while we continued drinking, he told me that he chokes people. He said that he was going to tell me something but I should promise him that I’ll not tell anyone. Then he said he killed a man when he was younger and was never caught and no one knows he did it.
“I did not go back to his house from that night because I did not know what to make of what he told me. And I have not seen him since. We recorded a song but he edited me out of it and rerecorded it without my voice,” the tipster said.
“Grant Hayes is creepy and had shady friends who were drug dealers, both sellers and users of cocaine. At the time, he lived in a brand-new house valued at somewhere near $600,000 and I often wondered where he got the money from to afford it.
“I will speak to a detective but I want to remain anonymous because he will know it is me if I mention I recorded with him,” he said.
When Gaskins followed up, asking if Faulk had found information that Grant associated with “shady characters,” the state objected. The judge said, “Shady characters? Sustained.”
Gaskins substituted the word “criminals,” and the detective said that they found no evidence of that. When Gaskins moved on to ask him about three specific individuals and their criminal records, Faulk said that he had talked to two of those men but did not recall seeing any reports of charges or convictions.
“Were you there when Grant was arrested?” Gaskins asked.
“No, sir.”
“Were you aware that he was held in a holding cell at the Raleigh Police Department for approximately six hours?”
“We don’t have any holding cells, so, no sir.”
Gaskins next produced three receipts for purchases made at gas stations in the Raleigh area July 14 and 15, 2011, which he insisted proved that the body was moved far from the Hayes’s apartment probably to Kinston. Detective Faulk countered that all of the gas stations also had convenience stores, meaning there was no way to know if all of those purchases were for gasoline.
After Detective Faulk stepped down, the state rested its case.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
AS is usual, the defense requested a dismissal on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to sustain a first degree murder charge. Judge Stephens rejected that motion.
Defense attorney Johnny Gaskins next asked to recall Detective Jerry Faulk to read the transcript of Grant Hayes’s interview while the video (which had unintelligible audio) played on the screen. The judge wanted to know if the defense planned on calling Grant as a witness. When Gaskins said they were not, the state objected and the judge asked how they can admit his words if they don’t. He further explained that an interview taken ten days after the alleged offense might indicate a lot about Grant’s state of mind at the time of the crime but that it would not be relevant to Amanda’s.
; Stephens sustained the state’s objection. He told the defense team that the tape could be made part of the record but it could not be produced as evidence or referred to unless they came up with a more compelling argument for inclusion.
—
THE first witness for the defense was Mel Palmer, who’d been a licensed private investigator in North Carolina for more than twenty years. Continuing the disputed assumption that the gas station receipts all reflected the purchase of gasoline only, Palmer described how he’d driven the Durango to Wilson and back to Raleigh and then to Kinston once the defense had permission to search the vehicle. When he reached that town, he drove around to all of the properties listed as belonging to the Hayeses, covering 598 miles in the process.
Palmer also supported the defense theory that Grant used his answering service to make indirect contact with drug dealers. Then Gaskins brought up The Stepford Wives and The Talented Mr. Ripley, which Gaskins now wanted to play for the jury.
The state objected to wasting time watching movies. The jurors were adjourned for the day for the judge to listen to arguments from both sides. After doing so, Judge Stephens said, “We’ll allow Mel Palmer to describe the movies and allow them to be entered into the record. However, the state’s objection to playing the movies is sustained.”
The next morning, Palmer returned to the stand and presented a written description of both movies. He then went back through the details of his December 2013 recreation of the trail the defense claimed the Dodge Durango had followed on July 14 and 15, 2011.
On cross, the state questioned the validity of the miles-per-gallon figures he’d given but Palmer sidestepped the issue by saying that he did not have the manufacturer’s pamphlet. He also admitted that he had no independent knowledge of the real estate in question and only knew what the lawyer told him.
Then, Palmer said that the movie descriptions he’d read aloud were not written by him but by the attorney, or more accurately, he admitted, were both from Wikipedia entries with minor revisions. (For instance, the word “murder” in the Wikipedia version was replaced with “killing”; the phrase “young man” in first sentence had changed to “young sociopath”; and that the phrase “lie and deceive” was added by the defense.)
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