BECKY Holt stood to deliver the prosecution’s final argument. “Grant and Amanda Hayes acted together on July the thirteenth in 2011 because by July 2011, Grant and Amanda Hayes were desperate.”
She went through the dire financial situation facing the couple and the final blow to their hopes found in the psychological evaluation. Amanda had called Dr. Calloway’s recommended two-three-two split “‘ridiculous.’ And what did that mean? It meant, not only were they not going to be free of Laura, not only were they not going to get custody and be able to move away and pursue their dreams . . . they were going to be stuck in Kinston.”
Holt scoffed at Amanda’s attempts at trial to appear as the peacemaker, to distance herself from the custody battle. She reminded the jurors that Amanda got married for the custody battle, moved to North Carolina for it and spent tens of thousands of dollars on it. “What does your reason and common sense tell you about that?”
Holt reread a few previously shared passages from Laura’s journal that outlined the contentious nature of Laura and Amanda’s relationship, before moving to the events of July 13. She alleged that the last phone call answered on Laura’s phone was from Amanda telling her to come to the apartment. “We know that because that’s what she told Patricia Barakat.”
Holt referred to Grant and Amanda’s need to stretch time, because if Laura got there at five thirty, that’s four hours before Amanda is seen outside that apartment and that span did not fit with Amanda saying that she didn’t know what happened to Laura. She mocked the contention that Laura arrived much later because of the stop for food at Crabtree Valley Mall, telling the jurors that the defense only told them that so they wouldn’t question why Amanda was there so long with a dead body while claiming ignorance of the fact. She added that what actually happened in that apartment on that night will remain unknown, “because Laura is not here to tell us; because Grant has been convicted of first degree murder; and, we submit, because Amanda has not been truthful telling you about those events.
“We know that what she did in that apartment before she was murdered was that she signed an agreement that she never, ever would have signed. . . . Laura Ackerson did not voluntarily sign that agreement or write that in there that said ‘I can get to see my children whenever [their] father says.’ You know that.”
Holt also focused on the “stab wound to C4. Mr. Gaskins explains that to you by saying her neck must have been cut so the blood could have drained out. That’s not what Dr. Ross said. She said there was a stab wound.” Holt moved her arm through the air, pantomiming a knife thrusting into her own throat. “We know that Dr. Radisch testified that she witnessed injuries to the neck muscles and the crushing of the cartilage. We know that the damage to her head was like you would get from a concussion—it was not fatal. We know that she was either strangled or stabbed or some combination of those two. We know that she was murdered in that apartment.”
Holt turned to Gaskins’s outline of Grant going out to stores and she asked, “What does that mean? It means that Amanda and the boys are home in that apartment with Laura’s body. And what would Amanda say? She would say, ‘No, I didn’t know Laura was dead. I didn’t know she was in that bathroom.’ She would have you believe that for four days that hall bath, the main bath, is out of use and shut off and that she didn’t know that Laura’s body was in there. What does your reason and common sense tell you about that?”
Holt ran through Amanda’s actions over the time they were in Texas, from the disposal of the clothing they wore when Laura’s body parts were dumped in the creek to Amanda’s careful concealment of the boxes of acid behind some trees. “Where’s the duress? There isn’t any—because they’re in it together, from the beginning.”
Holding up a photograph taken at the motel near Kinston on their arrival back in North Carolina, Holt said, “Mr. Gaskins argues that she’s haggard, that she’s not happy. I’ll tell you what this is—this is a celebration. This family is going to be together and Laura has finally, in their view, been erased. They’ve taken her halfway across the country. They chopped her up. They poured acid on her. And they fed her to the alligators in the creek. [Amanda] thinks they’re home free. This isn’t the face of someone,” she said pointing to Amanda in the photo, “who’s frightened of this man,” she said as she shifted her finger over to Grant.
She directed her attention to the fact that Grant and Amanda were in separate cars with police officers when they were taken downtown. “That’s important because if things had happened the way she told you they happened, don’t you know that she would have told the police officers? She said she was scared. She was afraid. How much safer does it get? He’s in a police car. She’s in a police car with officers. She doesn’t say a word about that.”
Holt defended the testimony of Patricia Barakat and the state decision to call her. She said that the woman was a valuable witness because Amanda told her that she and Grant “both hated Laura.
“You also know that a year after they were arrested, Amanda doesn’t say, ‘I was afraid of Grant.’ No. Patricia Barakat said she loved him. When Amanda could not adequately explain why she didn’t call 911 or why they had to cut up Laura’s body to Patricia, that’s when Amanda changed her story and testified that she didn’t know Laura was dead until that Monday night in Texas.”
Holt reminded the jury of Patricia Barakat’s observations about Amanda in the courtroom when she was pressed, “and suddenly that little innocent-sounding, singsong voice was gone: ‘that’s how it was when we talked.’” The prosecutor noted that Patricia said Amanda’s “little singsong voice” only appeared when she was trying to manipulate others.
Just like Zellinger, Holt disparaged the defense’s groundless contention that the dismemberment occurred in Kinston and said that it was only common sense that Amanda was involved.
“Grant Hayes is a horrible person who did a horrible thing but he didn’t act alone. Amanda Hayes and Grant Hayes decided that they were going to kill her and erase her. That she was going to stop being the barrier and the anchor them here and kept them from going forward. It’s selfish. It’s horrible. . . . What you have experienced through this court and through Amanda Hayes is a fine acting job. Amanda Hayes has come before you and tried to sell you on a role. She’s tried to play a role in which she didn’t know what was going on, in which she was controlled and manipulated by another person. And your reason and common sense says that’s not what the evidence shows.
“She was not afraid then of Grant Hayes. She was not afraid a year later of Grant Hayes. She has given the performance of her life. . . . She has come here and constructed something that she thinks answers all the questions. And she’s come concerned about her wardrobe. She asked Patsy Hayes for a baby pink blouse. . . . She’s used a voice trying to manipulate you which is not her regular voice but one she uses when she wants to get something. Don’t fall for it.
“Tell her that there will be justice for Laura Ackerson today—that it’s not going to stop with Grant Hayes being held responsible for his actions. Tell her that she is going to answer for her part in the murder of Laura Ackerson. Tell her like you told all of us in jury selection that the law applies to her just like it applies to Grant Hayes—that the fact that she’s a woman, the part of us that doesn’t want to believe anyone could do this, especially a woman, is not going to get her out of this—that you’re going to hold her responsible for her actions—that you’re not buying this act she put on. Tell Amanda Hayes by your verdict that she is guilty of first degree premeditated murder.”