DR. Deborah Radisch, chief medical examiner for North Carolina, had been with the department nearly continuously since 1983 and had served as chief since July 2010. Her record of effective performance on the witness stand was legendary.
Dr. Radisch had chin-length white-blonde hair and wore glasses, and she told the jury that she first became involved in the case when Detective Robert Latour of the Raleigh Police Department called her from Galveston, Texas, to inquire about preserving material to make tool-mark comparisons. She explained her examination of the remains prior to sending them to Dr. Ann Ross for analysis on the dismemberment cuts.
When asked about the stab wound, Radisch told the jury that if the puncture in C4, the fourth cervical vertebrae, came from the back, it could have struck important arteries or veins. From the front, it would probably cause a leak in the airway or a cut on the esophagus. For most of the possible angles for this wound, the damage would not be immediately fatal, although if the weapon hit the carotid artery, it would have been a very quick death.
The prosecution asked about her conclusions in the death of Laura Ackerson. Dr. Radisch said that there was a “possibility that injuries represent an asphyxial cause of death or means of death. . . . There was not enough information with the parts we received to determine the exact cause of death.” She could not determine if Laura was stabbed to death or strangled to death because of the decomposition to the head. However, she said, it was clear that Laura died by “undetermined homicidal violence.”
On cross-examination, the defense alleged that, according to Dr. Nobby Mambo’s testimony, the doctor had crushed the thyroid cartilage during examination. Dr. Radisch admitted she had no knowledge of that since it was not in his report, but said, “There’s no evidence of healing, so it’s an acute injury, but there’s no evidence if it happened before she died or just after she died at the time of death, you just can’t tell. It’s kind of a fresh injury.”
The defense pressed her about the broken and glued tooth in the skull. She said with a shrug, “When you work with them, they kind of fall out and you put them back in.”
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DETECTIVE Jerry Faulk, with the homicide unit of the Raleigh Police Department and lead investigator in the case, enumerated and presented into evidence the exhibits he collected from Grant and Amanda’s home. Among them were receipts for many different purchases around the time of Laura’s death, including Grant’s shopping trip to Wal-Mart.
It had to be a challenge for the jury to absorb all these details, but nothing compared to getting their minds around the idea of someone going into a store and picking out a power tool and blades knowing he was going to use to cut up another human being’s body.
Over strong objections from the defense, Faulk read into the public record the lyrics to “Man Killer,” one of Grant’s compositions. “Give into me, I want it all, I want your scream, I want your crawl. I’ll make you bleed, fall to the floor. Don’t try to plead, that turns me on. I’ll take the keys to your car and some more. . . . 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.”
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THE jurors then heard from one of the last people to see Laura Ackerson alive, Randy Jenkins, the owner and operator of Bill’s Grill, a small restaurant in the farming community of Black Creek, North Carolina. Randy described it as a “quaint little, sort of like Mayberry, type of place.”
Randy said he’d found Laura to be “very poised and very excited about her new business venture” and he’d signed a contract with her for menus. He noted that he’d urged her to change her appointment in Raleigh because of the heavy traffic at that time of day but she’d insisted that she had to go there anyway.
The defense had no questions for this witness.
Susan Dufur, the assistant manager at the Brier Creek Wal-Mart in July 2011, stepped into the stand next. The state played the video of Grant shopping in her store just after two A.M. on July 14. She took the jury through the details of her interaction with the defendant regarding his purchase of a reciprocating saw, goggles, plastic trash bags and tarps. “He was very inquisitive and laid-back—not excited or rattled or panicky,” she said. “He was calm the whole time he interacted with me.”
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THE state then played a recording of “Broomstick Rider,” another one of Grant Hayes’s songs. The defense objected, but the judge overruled.
As the music played in the courtroom, Grant bopped and bobbed his head along as if he were so totally caught up in his creation that he was unaware of his surroundings.
The prosecutors provided the jury with a transcript of the lyrics. “Baby Mama. I got two kids by you. I can’t take any more from you. The way we slept was so cold, I’d wake up every morning wondering which of us would go. I’m paying her bills. Find another sugar daddy. You tryin’ to take my kids. That’s the way you live. I warned you—don’t say I didn’t warn you. I don’t want your drama. I have two kids by you. I can’t take anything more from you. Price tag on your head. You must’ve told your attorney, I have intentions of killing you.”
With that, the state rested its case.