BACK in Raleigh on Monday, July 25, 2011, Agent Michael Galloway with the Raleigh/Wake City-County Bureau of Identification stepped into the case at the request of the Raleigh Police Department. He went to their secure garage, where they had towed in Grant’s Dodge Durango for processing. Galloway shot a 360-degree series of the exterior and moved to the interior. He applied volcanic powder with a brush and transferred found fingerprints to a card. That task was made more difficult because, although some of the surfaces were smooth, much of the interior was cloth, a difficult material for fingerprints to adhere and be lifted.
He sprayed luminol inside, looking for blood. He got the telltale glow on the seat and floor mats on the driver’s side, and also on the right front door, the right seat belt latch, and the left second row and third row seats. Secondary confirmation tests using the three-part phenolphthalein process, however, had negative results. Detectives Zeke Morse and Thomas Oullette searched the vehicle when Galloway had completed his tasks. They seized the child custody review, which had been jammed down between the center console and the passenger’s bucket seat.
Then, Galloway, Oullette and Morse went to SecurCare Self Storage on Glenwood Avenue, where Galloway took photographs of the unit rented by Grant and Amanda. At seven thirty that evening, the three detectives reported to the couple’s apartment, where Galloway shot photos and pulled the molding away from the bathtub and toilet to see if any blood had seeped behind it. He sprayed luminol and several areas fluoresced, but again, confirmatory tests were negative. (The problem with both luminol and BlueStar is that they not only react to the iron in blood, but to anything with iron or other metals in it like pennies, mayonnaise or bleach.) He sprayed in the east side bedroom and bath, the living room, the foyer area beside the front door and on a mop on the balcony. All were negative.
That evening, John Williams called the police to report a spot that he thought could be a bloodstain on the covering under the couch he’d just bought from Grant Hayes. Detective Quagilarello went over to take a look and agreed that it looked suspicious. He brought in Agent Mike Galloway from the Raleigh/Wake City-County Bureau of Identification, who conducted a presumptive test on the spot, but the results were negative—it was not blood.
John then pointed to the arm on one side that had more play in it than the other one did. He was concerned that it might have been damaged in an altercation.
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OFFICER Kevin Crocker and his Raleigh Police Department Fugitive Task Force returned to Grant and Patsy Hayes’s home in Kinston to keep watch—the news from Texas made Grant and Amanda likely murder suspects. Grant remained in the house most of the time, coming out occasionally for a cigarette. After the eleven o’clock news aired with news of the imminent arrest of him and his wife, Grant’s trips outside to smoke became more frequent and his behavior seemed more nervous and unsettled.
In the early morning hours of July 25, detectives arrived and took the couple into custody. That evening Raleigh Detectives Thomas Ouellette and Zeke Morse conducted a search of Grant and Patsy’s home. In the master bedroom, Ouellette found a yellow envelope sitting upright in a chair. It contained $571 in currency and a personal check for $125 written on the account of Kandice Rowland to Amanda Hayes. In that room, he also found writing on a used envelope that appeared to be notes in preparation for a press conference. It read:
1) Grant Hayes—introduce Amanda, Father of Laura Ackerson’s children Grant and Gentle Hayes
2) Like I told my mom, I was supposed to meet her 7/15/11. I called my mom to get in touch with her and she couldn’t
3) If anyone has seen Laura, please call the police department and Laura: Grant and Gentle ask for you. If you’re listening to this broadcast, please call us.
4) I’ve spoken to Detective as soon as I learned of this situation
The detective also took possession of a men’s chain necklace, a small necklace with a palm tree pendant, a pair of pearl earrings, a bracelet, matching diamond wedding rings, a woman’s watch, a small handwritten note, the two coolers Crocker had seen going into the house and an RBC Visa check card in Grant Hayes’s name with a Post-it note bearing the PIN adhered to it.
In the home office, Morse gathered up the computer, its power cord and a notebook with a note about the children, dated July 24, 2011, that read:
I, Grant Hayes, leave Gentle, Grant and Lily Hayes in the sole custody of Grant and Patsy Hayes.
It was signed by both Grant and Amanda. Below that the name of a Raleigh pediatrics office was written along with two telephone numbers.
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ON July 26, while divers were continuing their arduous task under the hot Texas sun, Grant and Amanda Hayes appeared before District Judge Jacqueline Brewer in Raleigh, North Carolina. Even though the body parts found halfway across the country had not yet been officially declared as the remains of Laura Ackerson, the judge ordered both held without bond on first degree murder charges and appointed public defenders to represent them. She set their next court appearance for August 16.
Across town, CCBI Agent Michael Galloway and Raleigh Police Detective Amanda Salmon went to Glen Burney Trail in response to a report of possible drops of blood leading from the parking lot, down a sidewalk and a flight of stairs to the door of an apartment. When phenolphthalein was applied, the suspicious red drops did test positive for blood. Excitement over that find faded quickly when the innocent explanation was discovered—a man living in that unit had cut his hand and run inside to clean it up and bandage it.
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IN Texas, John Schneider had run down the partial license plate for the vehicle seen dumping the muriatic acid at the end of Skinner Lane and had received two possible matches. One was for a much older truck registered to an address down in McAllen, more than three hundred miles away. The other was co-owned by Shelton Berry and Kandice Rowland, with an address on Skinner Lane.
Having heard about the body parts found on the creek beside Skinner Lane on the news and recognizing the address in the story as the same one listed on the registration of the truck in question, John went online to do a little digging. He found the booking photo for Amanda Hayes and compared it to the pictures he’d retrieved from the deer camera. “The hair, the tank top, everything matched,” John said. He contacted Fort Bend County Detective Brad Wichard and turned copies over to him for use in the homicide investigation. Pursuit of the dumping offense went on hold awaiting the outcome of the murder trial.
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DETECTIVE Robert Latour returned to the Galveston County Medical Examiner’s Office that day to observe the autopsy on the newly discovered head. Its condition was deeply disturbing. The skin from the face had slid down, collecting near the jaw, exposing huge portions of the facial bones.
After the procedure was complete, Latour waited for the arrival of Forensic Odontologist Paul Stimson. Latour provided a copy of Laura’s dental records to the doctor and remained there until he had the results.
Stimson took x-rays of the skull with all the teeth in place. Then he examined it thoroughly, using Laura’s dental records and film. He compared the actual bone structure of the mouth, the alignment of the teeth and the pulp chambers. He applied iodine dye to make all the non-metallic fillings stand out readily. He prepared a report itemizing all of the similarities and explaining any dissimilarity caused by additional dental work or pre- or postmortem injury. In the end, he concluded, the skull did belong to Laura Ackerson. The stage was set to find justice for the mother of Grant Hayes’s two little boys.