CHAPTER NINETEEN
RALEIGH Detective Sergeant Robert Latour entered the investigation when Kinston Detective James Gwartney briefed his department on July 19, 2011. Latour interviewed a distressed, soft-spoken Chevon Mathes, but wasn’t able to work more on the case until eleven P.M. that night.
Meanwhile, Raleigh Intelligence Center (RIC) sent Laura Ackerson’s last known address in the Raleigh area to Sergeant Dana Suggs. Suggs requested that patrol officers check out the parking lots in the surrounding area, and about thirty minutes later, he got a call back with the news that Laura’s 2006 white Ford Focus four-door sedan had been spotted near her old apartment complex.
Suggs called Latour, as did Detective Steve Previtali, another homicide investigator, and all three rushed to the scene. When Latour arrived, he noted that the wheels of the car were turned to the left and the car was locked up tight. The officers stood by while they waited for detectives and techs to complete their examination of the vehicle.
Detective Amanda Salmon, who was in charge of the homicide unit that summer, organized a canvas of the apartment complex. She divided it up into areas of responsibility, and she and five other detectives knocked on doors and asked questions of the tenants and personnel.
At two A.M., Latour called Chevon Mathes because she had a spare key to the vehicle. Sergeant Jackson of the Kinston police retrieved the key and sped to the parking lot in Raleigh, arriving at three A.M.
Meanwhile, Certified Crime Scene Investigator Tracy Tremmlet of the City/County Bureau of Identification arrived on the scene to begin the documentation and exterior survey of the vehicle. With a camera, a video camera and a 360-degree camera to take panoramic shots, she circled the car, documenting it from every angle from a distance and then from close up. She spotted a gray hair on the exterior driver’s door and secured it as evidence.
Using a magnetic wand, she applied a combination of a magnetic powder and volcanic ash on all the exterior car door handles and any other spot that looked likely for fingerprints, but she found none. Tremmlet then pulled out a clean swab and distilled water and rubbed the surfaces for possible touch DNA. Each swab went in a box, which was placed inside an envelope.
With the arrival of the key, she processed the interior, starting with close-up shots and moving on to the fingerprint search and found one on the right rear passenger door, another on the interior of the driver’s door, one on a cup and two more on a take-out tray. She also took a touch DNA sample from the lock button.
She moved to the interior portion of the trunk, where she found an unknown substance. She used phenolphthalein to do a field test for the presence of blood. It did not, however, turn hot pink in reaction, meaning the result was negative.
CHAPTER TWENTY
ON the morning of Wednesday, July 20, 2011, Grant and Amanda Hayes were packing up to leave Texas. Amanda drove her nephew Shelton’s truck with its magnetic sign bearing the name “Critter Catchers” in big arched lettering and a message below that read: “Wildlife Control. Feral Hog Removal.” She went first to an ATM at Waterside Market and made another withdrawal of cash, then shopped at Wal-Mart.
On the way back, she went to the cul-de-sac at the end of Skinner Lane. There she got out and lowered the tailgate on Shelton’s truck. She hauled out the boxes that held the muriatic acid that Grant had purchased the day before and set them one by one next to a cluster of trees. Then she drove away.
While she was gone, Grant started cleaning the four coolers they’d brought with them. Dalton pitched in and helped. Dalton thought they looked brand-new except for one black mark on the inside of one of them. While they worked, Dalton overheard Grant tell someone on the other end of his phone, “I don’t need an alibi. I was with my family.” Grant left two of the coolers behind since they weren’t bringing the U-Haul back and didn’t have room for them in the car. That wasn’t all they discarded. One of Amanda’s old suitcases was dumped in a trash bin, and Grant told Shelton, “I’m leaving the machete. I don’t need it. I was going to use it fishing or alligator hunting.” He added that he had to get back, since he wasn’t supposed to bring the kids across state lines.
Meanwhile, Karen had pulled Amanda aside to talk to her sister privately. She sat Amanda down next to her just like she used to do when Amanda was a child. She looked her straight in the eye. “I’m going to ask you this one time and one time only and I want the truth and I’ll never ask you any questions again. Are you covering for Grant?”
Amanda raised her head and looked straight in Karen’s eyes. She nodded her head up and down.
Grant and Amanda packed up their family, returned the trailer and traveled east back to North Carolina. After they left, Dalton spotted the machete lying on rocks beside the driveway. Karen told him to leave it alone. She used a rag to pick it up and stow it in the garage, along with the rags Grant had used to clean out the coolers.
Karen felt an immense sense of relief with the departure of her little sister and her family. Despite all she had heard, she still wasn’t able to accept that it was all true. Then her children, responding to their mother’s concerns, researched on the computer and fed her information from news stories about Laura’s disappearance. With that knowledge, Karen’s denial began to erode. Now, she was scared. Every time the phone rang, she was terrified that she was about to hear that Amanda and the children had been found dead on the side of a road somewhere.
—
THAT same Wednesday morning back in Raleigh, North Carolina, Detective Mark Quagliarello knocked on the door of Sha Elmer’s apartment. He heard a dog barking but no other response. He knocked again, waited and turned to walk away. Finally, the door opened and Sha asked what he wanted.
After he introduced himself, Sha said, “Are my mother and the kids all right?”
“I’m here looking for a missing person, Laura Ackerson,” Detective Quagilarello said. “I’m trying to get information about her, Grant and Amanda Hayes.” He asked for her assistance locating her mother and Grant and requested that she come to the police station with him. Sha agreed, and she called her boyfriend, Matt Guddat, from the back of the detective’s car.
After answering their questions, Sha accompanied Quagliarello to Grant and Amanda’s apartment for the execution of the official search warrant. Detective Latour brought the paperwork. He noticed that, aside from a large bleach stain to the inside right of the door, the place was neat, but the potted plants appeared to be dying from a lack of water.
Detective Previtali assigned personnel to different rooms. Quagliarello searched the boys’ bedroom but found nothing of evidentiary value.
Detective Salmon, after finishing the survey of the area where Laura’s car was found, joined the team at the Hayeses’ apartment. She noted that the large bleach spot on the carpet next to the tile of the front entrance began two feet from the front door and continued for three or four feet along the wall, extending out from it one and a half to two feet.
Senior Agent Shannon Quick with the Raleigh/Wake City-County Bureau of Identification photographed the entire apartment. In Grant and Amanda’s bedroom, all the bedding had been stuffed into a closet except for the mattress cover, which was still in place on the bed with two reddish brown spots on its surface.
Salmon searched the area labeled as the master bedroom and connecting bath on the floor plan. It was not being used for its intended purpose; instead, it seemed more of a general storage area. The space was filled with a changing table, office furniture, electronics and materials, musical instruments and art supplies.
In a briefcase, she found a receipt from the Apple Store in Crabtree Valley Mall, stamped at 8:45 P.M. on the day after Laura was last seen, for the purchase of a MagSafe power adapter for $79—a total of $84.33 including tax, paid in cash. When they later obtained the shop’s video, it showed Grant, accompanied by little Grant and Gentle, making that purchase.
Then Salmon
went to the kitchen area to review a handwritten document with writing from two separate individuals, discovered by Detective Previtali in a stack of miscellaneous papers on the counter. One of the people contributing to the note was later confirmed to be Laura Ackerson. It read:
“I, Laura J. Ackerson, for the sum of $25,000 agree not to pursue custody of the two minor children, Grant and Gentle Hayes. I am not surrendering parental rights but I do consent to leaving them in the sole custody of their father for now. Further, I agree to drop all pending litigation against their father in the Lenoir County Family Court.”
A different hand penned an added statement:
“By notifying counsel John Sargeant of our arrangements, less monetary considerations, I understand I’ll be able to see my kids when I want at the discretion of their father.”
The paper was initially dated “6/13/11.” The six was marked through and a seven added in its place. The initials “LA” were next to the revision. It ended with the signature “Laura Ackerson.”
Sergeant Brian Hall aided in the search, too. He noted that the foyer was relatively clean, the only anomaly being the bleachlike stain on the carpet bordering the linoleum by the entry. He found the hall bathroom remarkably clean—practically sterile—with a distinctive odor of cleaning solution in the air. There was no shower curtain or rod and no floor mats.
After Sergeant Hall finished up in there, Agent Quick entered the room wearing orange goggles and carrying a mini BlueMax alternative light source. She was looking for telltale indications of blood but found none. However, the presence of soap and shampoo on the rim of the tub told her that, despite the immaculate state of the room, it had been used as a functioning bath.
After leaving the apartment itself, Sergeant Hall researched the situation with the apartment Dumpsters and learned that the most recent pickup had been on July 15 and the next one wasn’t scheduled until the twenty-ninth. He drove out to the trash center and asked the employees if they’d noticed anything unusual. They said that they looked for hazardous materials or currency when the refuse was dumped and felt certain that they would have noticed a body or a lot of blood by the smell if not by the sight of it. They provided him with the video that showed a couple of employees working the load when it came in that day. Hall also found out about a discouraging fact: with forty to forty-five trucks coming in each day, the trash from that apartment would now be underneath ten feet of newer trash.
—
ACROSS town, Matt Guddat was very concerned about his girlfriend being hauled off by law enforcement. He called Sha’s mother and left a message asking her to call as soon as possible. Amanda sent a text with her sister’s phone number. Matt called Karen Berry’s cell and Amanda picked right up. “Sha has been picked up by the police.”
“Huh,” Amanda said. “That’s strange.”
Matt asked, “What do I need to do for her?”
“Well, we’re getting ready to leave Texas. We’ll be back soon.”
—
DETECTIVE Latour drove back to Kinston to get the files on the missing persons case from Detective Gwartney. While he was there, he went by Laura’s apartment in the renovated old warehouse building. He secured Laura’s BB&T checkbook, hair from her hairbrush and a tape from the video camera in the complex showing Laura leaving on the morning of July 13. Latour then went to Star Day Care Center, where Patsy Hayes, Grant’s mother, worked, and interviewed her before returning to Raleigh at 7:15 on the evening of July 20.
—
THAT day, Grant Hayes, while en route from Texas to North Carolina, had a conversation with Lauren Harris and continued the lies about his location. He told her that his boys were with him in Kinston and they were going to a candlelight vigil for their mother at a church there.
—
THE police brought Sha back to the station and Matt picked her up. The next time they wanted Sha to come in to talk, she was very uncomfortable. Matt offered to go with her for moral support and he ended up being questioned, too.
—
THE media caught the scent of a hot, developing story. ABC News interviewed Patsy Hayes about her missing daughter-in-law. Speaking of her grandsons, she said, “They get over things a lot faster and they could probably not be affected by things as much as adults are. You know, because they are small and they’re very resilient so they probably figure they’re just staying with Dad now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ON Thursday, July 21, 2011, Detective Robert Latour and another detective went to the restaurants where Laura had scheduled visits on the Wednesday she disappeared. On the way, they also stopped by the Sheetz in Wilson where Laura and Grant usually exchanged the boys. They requested the videotape from the previous Friday but learned it had already been shipped to the corporate office. They filed a request for a copy.
Then they went to Bill’s Grill and met with owner Randy Jenkins. He didn’t initially recognize the photo of Laura. They checked the carry-out trays used by that restaurant but they were not a match for the one found in Laura’s car.
When Latour returned to Raleigh, he began a review of the diary he received from the Kinston police and quickly noted the tumultuous nature of the relationship between Laura and Grant. He also viewed the video from Laura’s apartment, which captured her leaving on the morning of July 13. He circulated the last known description of Laura’s clothing to the investigators.
—
ON the road from Texas back to North Carolina, Grant Hayes did not see for a couple of days the promising message sent to him by Lainie Panos on July 21. Lainie was marketing the cell phone covers with Grant’s artistic designs. A top designer in New York was very excited about his covers featuring deceased rap legends Tupac and Biggie and had passed one along to singer-actress Vanessa Williams. Even more enticing, Lainie received an invitation to a party that P. Diddy, a contemporary rap artist and producer, was attending. She needed a Biggie cover to give to him. She asked Grant to please call her the next day.
—
WHEN Detective Latour got to his desk on July 22, he had a message from Randy Jenkins waiting for him. Randy said that, although he hadn’t recognized Laura in the photo they’d shown him, he was mistaken. “Laura’s hair was different when I saw her than what she wore in the photograph and her face looked a little fatter in person.” Randy said his wife saw a missing persons story on the news and called him to see it. That’s when he realized that Laura was actually the girl who’d come to see him on the thirteenth.
Latour then called U-Haul’s corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona. They confirmed that Grant Haze had rented a trailer in Raleigh on July 16, and had returned it on July 20 to a location in Katy, Texas, near Houston. Latour called that location and talked to Rhonda Holiday, who verified that Grant had brought the trailer back but said that it had already been rented out to another party that morning. Latour was pretty frustrated about the timing.
Rhonda called back in a short while, though, to tell the detective she’d been mistaken. The trailer in question was still on her lot. The exterior had been cleaned but it was now secured for law enforcement. A relieved Latour reached out to the local Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which agreed to send deputies to the U-Haul location and bring the trailer to their storage facility for safekeeping.
—
OUT in Texas, John T. Schneider, an environmental investigator for the Fort Bend County Attorney’s office, headed out on his routine chore of collecting the tapes of photos from the motion-activated deer-trail cameras installed by the county at spots known for illegal dumping. He visited each site for a pickup as often as every other day but definitely at least once a week.
The cameras took photos whenever something moved in front of the sensor, took a minute to reset, then snapped another photo, repeating for as long as it caught movement in the vicinity of the lens. He arrived at the dead end of Skinner Lane,
where a camera had been positioned since 2008.
On July 22, 2011, he reviewed those shots, going through a long series of joggers, coyotes and turnarounds before finding anything of interest. He pulled off the series in question for a closer look. Seeing the corrosive emblem on the side of the boxes being unloaded from a pickup truck by a woman, he went back in person to the location the next day and found three cardboard containers a little ways off the road, concealed from view by some logs.
That same day, Officer Kevin Crocker and other members of the Raleigh Police Department Fugitive Task Force headed down to Kinston to look for two persons of interest: Grant and Amanda Hayes. Crocker and crew went to the home of Grant’s parents, Grant II and Patsy Hayes, and set up covert surveillance. Other team members scanned the area. One of them spotted Grant III’s white Durango at a nearby law office.
A while later, that vehicle pulled up to the older Hayeses’ home with Amanda Hayes behind the wheel, Grant in the passenger’s seat and three kids inside. Amanda went inside with the children while Grant made multiple trips carrying a pink tote bag, several grocery sacks and two large blue coolers with white tops—one with wheels.
Crocker and the others kept an eye on the house until lead investigator Jerry Faulk and another detective arrived with search warrants for the Durango, for Grant’s and Amanda’s cell phones, and one allowing them to fingerprint and photograph the couple. When the detectives knocked on the door, Grant answered and introduced himself, speaking briefly. They found Amanda in the kitchen with the three children. Since Grant’s parents had gone out earlier, a neighbor was recruited to watch the children until someone returned. A tow truck hauled the car back to Raleigh. Law enforcement brought the couple back to the house after midnight. Throughout it all, Grant seemed relaxed and composed.
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