OPENING arguments for Grant Hayes’s trial began as scheduled on August 29, 2013. Dark-haired, sharp-nosed, whip-thin Assistant District Attorney Boz Zellinger rose first, looking wound up tight enough to go into orbit, and turned his attention to an array of expectant faces. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as the sun rose over Kinston, North Carolina, on July 13, of 2011, Laura Ackerson woke up excited. For once things were going her way. [She was] the twenty-seven-year-old mother of two little boys, little Grant and Gentle. She shared custody of them with this man,” he said, pointing to the defense table, “Grant Hayes.”
“You’ll hear that morning Laura got her things and she started to walk out the door and walk past her refrigerator covered with pictures of her little boys. Little did she know that those little boys would only know their mother for only three years. Little did she know as she walked out that door that within twenty-four hours, she would take her last breath. Little did she know that that man,” he said, pointing again at the defendant, “the father of her children, would be the one responsible for her murder and disappearance.”
After introducing himself and his cocounsel, Becky Holt, Zellinger continued, “Evidence is going to come from this witness stand. It’s going to come from the people involved in Laura’s life. . . . [Investigators] are going to get up there and tell you the truth about what happened. And it’s not a story. It’s a reality. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, this is a case that is so calculated, so malignant, and so destructive, that Laura Ackerson disappears off the face of the earth for eleven days after she goes to Grant Hayes’s apartment.
“You’ll ask yourself as you hear this evidence: Where has Laura gone? On July 13, after she heads over to Grant Hayes’s apartment, no one hears from her. Grant told Detective Gwartney that when Laura arrived that night, Amanda kept the boys in another room so they didn’t know she was there yet. You’ll also hear that Grant and Laura were to discuss her and him signing an agreement for her to keep custody of the boys.
“The question still remains that ‘Where is Laura?’ You’ll hear that Detective Gwartney, upon learning the last place Laura has been is Raleigh . . . enlisted the assistance of homicide detectives and the homicide unit there.
“Wednesday, July 20, everyone still is asking: Where is Laura? . . . You’ll learn that detectives also learned, as the investigation speeds up, Grant and Amanda rented a U-Haul trailer that could be dragged behind their car. And that they rented that in Raleigh and then they returned it in Katy, Texas.
“Where is Laura? All roads appear to lead to Texas. . . . Ten days or eleven days have gone by of asking: Where is Laura?
“Perhaps, most importantly . . . on Thursday, July 14, at around 2:40 A.M., some six or eight hours after Laura went over to Grant’s apartment, you’ll hear the Grant Hayes walks into the Wal-Mart at Brier Creek. . . . You’ll hear that he bought a plastic tarp, nine foot by twelve foot. That later he bought some goggles. You’ll hear that he bought some firm-grip stripping and refinishing gloves. And perhaps most importantly, you’ll hear the Grant Hayes purchased a Skil reciprocating saw with six-inch blades. You’ll hear talk about some other blades for that saw. And that’s at 2:40 A.M., right after Laura goes missing. And you’ll hear more about the eleven days that Laura disappeared. And you’ll hear about this six days between the time she went to see her children and the time that Grant Hayes took that boat ride.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, when all the evidence has been presented, when all is said and done in this courtroom, were going to come back here and ask you to find that man guilty for murdering Laura Hayes, for bringing her over to his apartment and then dismembering her body so that she disappears off the face of the earth. Thank you.”
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BOYISH-LOOKING defense attorney Will Durham stood with a demeanor so relaxed, it didn’t seem in keeping with the seriousness of the moment. He contradicted the state’s theory from Zellinger’s first sentence. “This case is about a man covering up his wife’s actions,” he said. “On July 13, Amanda Hayes killed Laura Ackerson during the fight. It wasn’t something that was planned, it was something that happened.”
Durham told the jury about Laura Ackerson’s little silver recorder that she used to tape all her phone calls with her kids, the exchanges when she picked up or dropped off the kids and every interaction she had with Grant Hayes. He explained that she would download them all on her computer, “But you won’t hear any of those recordings or see anything in those e-mails that’s violent—no arguments that have a tenor of violence.
“You’ll also see from those documents, as well as from Laura’s diary, which was seized in this case, there are a lot of hostilities between Amanda Hayes and Laura Ackerson. You’ll see that Laura writes in her diary that Amanda sees her as psycho-crazy. And that they’re yelling at each other at exchanges. And Laura feels pretty angry that her ex-boyfriend’s new wife is yelling at her in front of the children about things related to being late or whatever kind of chastisement is going on. And the evidence will show that Amanda Hayes was extremely resentful of Laura Ackerson. This was her husband’s ex-wife that was calling multiple times a day to talk to the kids. Was still constantly e-mailing with her husband, was still constantly involved in their lives. And there was hostility there.”
On July 13, Durham said, Laura Ackerson “goes to Grant’s house as she’s done many times before. And she gets there and they are talking about the custody case and talking about how much money they spend on it. And somehow a joke about how much money has been spent becomes an agreement. And you’ll see that agreement,” he said, referring to the piece of paper found in the Hayes’s apartment. “They agreed to end the custody dispute . . . This what Grant had wanted, he wanted custody of his kids. And he was ecstatic. But standing three feet away was Amanda Hayes, and her husband had just agreed to give his ex-girlfriend twenty-five thousand dollars and they didn’t know exactly where they were to get it from yet. And she was angry about it. Grant went to go to get the kids ready for the special visit, something happened and we don’t know exactly what that was. But we do know what Amanda Hayes . . . tells her sister five or six days later about what happened.” Durham claimed that Amanda said Laura tried to take Lily away from her. “Then Amanda did something serious and Amanda tells her sister that ‘I hurt Laura. I hurt her bad.’
“Now what happens next are the terrible decisions of people who are terrified. Grant and Amanda started making terrible decisions because they were afraid to call the police. They were afraid that no one was going to believe what had happened wasn’t intentional. . . . They worried about going to prison. They make terrible decisions and Amanda took charge of the situation. Sent Grant out that night. He went and got some money. He said he went to Wal-Mart, hours after Laura’s death. He buys a saw and, the next morning, Amanda calls her daughter Sha and says come get these children. Come get the boys out of the house. And Sha does it and leaves Amanda and Grant with Laura Ackerson’s body and the saw in the house.
“And you’ll hear that Amanda calls her sister, two days after Laura’s death, and says, ‘You know we always talked about maybe coming down there and you know, we’re coming.’ And she says, ‘Okay, that’s kind of weird, but okay, come on.’
“And this was a place that Grant has never been before; this is Texas, rural Texas. Grant Hayes had never met any of these people before, these were Amanda’s kin. And they drove down there and Amanda went to her sister and told her what happened, told her what she had done and said, ‘Help me.’ And her sister helped her. And her sister gave her keys to unlock the boat, watched the kids, and then Grant and Amanda unloaded that U-Haul and they dump Laura Ackerson’s body in the creek.
“The evidence will show that the death of Laura happened in a spontaneous, unpredictable way. Grant Hayes helped clean up, he helped dispose of her body and that’s a serious thing and that’s a terrible thing, but it’s not murder. The evidence will show that Grant Hayes is not guilty of murder.”