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.”
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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.
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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.