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.
Grant claimed that, at that time, he went to wake up Gentle to leave with his mother while Amanda was supposed to be scanning the final contract for Laura. “Words were exchanged and Laura jumped Amanda as she walked away from the table with the contract. I was not in the room.”
Grant said that after he heard a loud noise, he ran back into the room and saw little Grant standing up looking over the sofa at his mother on the floor. “Amanda was in the nursery screaming, ‘Call the police. I want her arrested. Why did you leave her alone with me? Why did you leave the room?’”
Grant said that he slapped Laura’s face to try to bring her around and believes she died at the moment he attempted to raise her to a sitting position. During all of this, he said, little Grant was standing two feet away taking it all in.
He said his wife told him that Laura had threatened to take Lily from her and that Laura had grabbed Amanda’s hair and pulled her backward. Amanda, he said, claimed that in a reflex action, she slammed her elbow into Laura’s throat. When Laura released her, Amanda ran into the nursery, slamming and locking the door.
Grant alleged that all he was concerned with then was his three-year-old son. “Initially, I was more concerned about little Grant seeing his mother die and I didn’t want him involved in a police investigation. And all I could see was Child Protective Services coming in and taking all three of our children while there was an investigation. . . . Here I am, a black man in an apartment with a dead white lady who’s been suing me. . . . And being a black man for thirty-four years, I have a certain amount of paranoia and distrust for the police.” Nonetheless, he said, he told Amanda to leave and take the children, then planned to call 911. Instead, he started drinking and lost his nerve.
Grant said that if he had the chance to do it again, he would have called police so that they would have a record of Amanda’s story directly from her and not from his sister-in-law Karen Berry, whom he accused of lying to the court.
He said that he believed Karen had taken a deal to not be prosecuted in exchange for her testimony. “She was as much of an accessory as I was.”
Grant also claimed that the state framed him by covering up the truth, hiding exculpatory evidence and eliciting false testimony. “To establish the element of premeditation in first degree murder, they used lies—pure lies, unsubstantiated lies.”
He wrapped up his interview with a defense of Amanda Hayes, claiming her actions were the defensive reflexes of a mother defending her child and, thus, Amanda was not guilty of murder. “Laura got herself killed. I don’t blame Amanda. Amanda had a duty to herself and me to protect our child. . . . Justice would not be served if she were convicted of murder.”