Dumped In The Creek | Case Files: Dark Waters | Forensic Files

[theme music] [ominous music] NARRATOR: Oyster Creek in Fort Bend County, Texas.
Named after the abundance of oyster shells once found on its banks, the slow-moving water
meanders through the area, eventually joining up with the Intracoastal Waterway network
lacing the United States until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico. [ominous music] - This particular area of Oyster Creek
is really a lot more like a swamp. Very murky, dirty water, a lot of vegetation, and
in the summertime can be extremely muggy. [ominous music] NARRATOR: In the height of summer, police and water
dive teams searched the creek in the hope of finding a missing person. [ominous music]
- It's a hot, hot July day in Richmond. It was over 100 degrees in that area. [water sloshing]
- Creeks and other smaller bodies of water that are present in hot or very warm environments
tend to also maintain that warm to hot temperature. And that is because they do have a smaller
volume of water, which requires less energy from the sun to warm up. These bodies of water can get very hot, and sometimes
considered like bathwater. Additionally, this creek was not known to have any current,
meaning the water was very stagnant. The lack of movement with the heat of the water
is a perfect environment for a lot of bacteria to form, speeding up the decomposition rate.
NARRATOR: As well as the time pressure. Police scouring the creek faced very real dangers.
- Crime scene officers in a boat out on a creek. Then you've got another who's in the boat
with a rifle in case an alligator comes along. SARAH MORMINO: Some of the main concerns that the divers would
have to deal with would be alligators, or even other animals that could cause harm to the divers.
Even turtles can become a threat to divers as they could bite if they ever felt threatened.
Furthermore, creeks tend to be very hot water, high bacteria. So on top of police divers having
to figure out how they're going to navigate these waters, they also have to be aware of their own safety.
NARRATOR: Despite the difficult conditions, police expanded their search. [ominous music]
- We called for a search team and did what we could to have the flow of water through there closed off.
They have control gates that they were able to close down for us to at least slow the water down.
NARRATOR: Police navigating the creek were from two states. The local state police from Texas,
but also a team of detectives from Raleigh, North Carolina, over 1,200 miles away.
[stirring music] JERRY FAULK: Raleigh is a very nice area. I think now there's probably close to half a million people
that live in Raleigh. The houses that are in this area, the apartment complexes that are in this area are nice.
Not a high crime area. [stirring music] I had come in to work. I remember-- I vividly remember, like,
I had my list of things that I wanted to do that I had that I wanted to get done that day.
And so when I come in at 3 o'clock and you're talking to the other squad like what's going on today.
And they're telling us about this missing person case out of Kinston. NARRATOR: The missing person was 27-year-old Laura Ackerson,
the mother of two young boys and a busy local businesswoman. Police in Raleigh were contacted
by her business partner, who hadn't seen Laura for five days. [stirring music] - The person might go missing for a couple
of different reasons. One, they run away or decide to leave the life that they have now.
They want to get a better life. They commit suicide or die by suicide, and so people don't know what's happened to them.
They've been in some kind of accident and people don't know where they are. Or a foul play has occurred.
- A lot of people have routines and schedules and things that they do on a regular basis,
and the same was true of Laura Ackerson. She had a schedule of things that she did.
A friend of Laura's and her business partner as well, Chevon Mathes had not spoken to Laura for five days.
That was very unusual because Chevon and Laura would talk about every day. - They had shared that Laura Ackerson had
been in a relationship with Grant Hayes, and they had two small children together.
NARRATOR: The couple had met four years earlier, in 2007, and started dating around the time
of Laura's birthday in April. JONI JOHNSTON: Laura and Grant met at a bar. He was a musician.
He was playing at this bar, and he was talking to her. They kind of hit it off. This is a relationship that developed very, very quickly.
They shared the same birthday, April the 30, which Laura, I think, saw as a sign that this was meant to be.
NARRATOR: Laura soon gave birth to their first child. But by the time she was due with their second,
the relationship was under strain, with Grant pursuing his music career away from home.
JONI JOHNSTON: Grant Hayes moves to the Virgin Islands in an effort to promote or boost his music career.
He meets Amanda. For whatever reason, these two get together and decide to have a relationship.
Laura had just given birth to their second son. She still wants Grant to be involved with the boys,
but she is seeing that the relationship is over. NARRATOR: Once the couple separated,
Grant went on to marry Amanda. And both set about pursuing their creative dreams.
- Amanda had a background in, you know, some B acting. She'd been to school for acting.
She had had some minor parts in "The Sopranos" and "The Stepford Wives." Grant and Amanda had actually met in St. John.
Grant had a little bit of a music career going down in St. John. I'm sure he wasn't making anything astronomical,
but he had a kind of a gig going. But Amanda had actually inherited some money. Her husband, before Grant had passed away
in a boating accident of some kind. And so she had inherited money enough to kind of
be able to live comfortably. NARRATOR: Laura had moved on too, starting a business
with her friend Chevon. - Chevon and Laura had this kind of brand new start-up advertising business.
AMANDA BOLIN: A very smart business endeavor, I thought. She would create menus for restaurants
and provide them at no cost to the restaurants, but on the menu themselves would have advertising space
that other businesses would pay for to get advertising space on that menu. - They were both working fairly hard,
and so they would talk every day, multiple times a day. And the other thing was, she was a mother of two.
Everybody that we talked to all said the same thing, that her life centered around her kids.
She shared custody with the father, who was Grant. She would pick up the kids on Friday.
And then they would meet again on Sunday to drop off the kids. - It would be unusual to have a midweek visit,
but we know July 13, 2011, which was a Wednesday. - She calls a friend of hers who lives in the Raleigh area.
And, basically, the essence of the voicemail was, hey, I'm coming to Raleigh, I'm going to visit my boys.
But I would like to meet up with you afterwards. I'll probably be leaving there at 7:00.
AMANDA BOLIN: The next thing we have is Laura disappears, drops off the map. [stirring music]
[ominous music] NARRATOR: In a murky creek in Texas, police teams and divers scour the water for missing
mother of two, Laura Ackerson. Then, as the search widens, they make a shocking discovery.
- Not only has a body been recovered in Oyster Creek, but it's not just a body. We're talking about body parts.
This was a big story. - That first day, they were able to find part of a female torso and part of a leg.
[water sloshing] SARAH MORMINO: Investigators first located a torso. Both the divers and the investigators
realized that they were looking for multiple body parts. This creates a whole new challenge for the dive team,
especially when dealing with bodies of water that have a lot of debris. Creeks also tend to be in heavily wooded areas,
resulting in a lot of vegetation, grassland, lily pads, and other forms of nature
within the water. - These were like monstrous lily pads, like, that really were so thick on the water at this time.
That it was difficult to force them open just to go another foot. - Lily pads have very complex stems and
root systems that travel throughout the water into the bottom. This makes it very difficult for any person
walking in that area to navigate through. Additionally, as you are trying to move those stems out
of the way to search for any of your items of evidence, they do not stay in that spot.
They will immediately come back to their natural position, making it hard to know what areas you've already searched
and what areas have not been searched. Additionally, divers can easily become entangled in this,
even with minimal equipment. [ominous music] - Once dismemberment occurs, the body parts you have
could be from one or several individuals, and we may not ever recover all of the parts
of any one individual. And that certainly complicates things. If somebody is looking to dispose of a body,
then dismemberment and then scattering the body parts in various locations would provide a unique challenge
for law enforcement and other investigative agencies. AMANDA BOLIN: I've got several cases
in my career that kind of stand out to me, usually ones involving a death of some kind.
But this one stands out just because of the sort of gruesome nature of the dismemberment,
gruesome and sad. [ominous music] - The father of Laura's two children, Grant, he lived in Raleigh.
He was married to Amanda Hayes. He also had an infant daughter with Amanda that was born just
about a month before this happened. BRAD WHICHARD: Laura had traveled to Grant and Amanda
to see her boys. And that was the last time she was seen. NARRATOR: Police had spoken to Laura's ex-partner
looking for information on her whereabouts. - Grant says, yeah, he didn't-- she didn't show up.
I don't know what's going on. [stirring music] NARRATOR: The day Laura was reported missing,
detectives began preliminary investigations. She had not been seen for five days.
JERRY FAULK: You want to do all those sorts of things to see if a credit card has been used.
We're getting cell phone records, that sort of thing. And we actually were able to get some of that stuff
back fairly quickly. We'd broadcast the description of Laura's car. And within just a few hours, roughly around 11
o'clock that night, our patrol guys had located that car. Based on the location of where they found that car,
that's really what did it for us. As the crow flies straight line was about 400 yards away from Grant and Amanda's apartment complex.
One of the other things that we did pretty quickly was we went ahead and worked on getting
the phone records for Laura, for Grant, and for Amanda. As far as talking to Grant and Amanda,
we didn't try to do that too quickly. We wanted to try to get a good idea before we tried to talk to them, you know,
what's going on. So we were able to get their phone records and see that they were not in North Carolina.
And at the time of that, when we initially got involved, they were actually in Texas.
NARRATOR: Police also started to build a picture of the relationship Laura had with her ex-partner, Grant.
- They were involved in it. Sounds like a pretty hotly contested child custody suit there in Raleigh.
AMANDA BOLIN: Being a mother to those two boys was her life. While she had had maybe some difficulties in the past,
having sort of a stable home and a stable income, it was obvious to me that she had made a lot of attempts
to try to get her life together, to get her finances together, to get a career going.
And all of that was in pursuit of changing custody orders to get her boys. - Things are moving forward.
And she is planning to file for at least joint, if not full custody of her boys.
And she's turned her life around. She's now independent. She's now making money.
And her attorney is telling her, things are looking your way. NARRATOR: And what police learned from Laura's business
partner Chevon and her friend Heidi gave them serious concerns. JERRY FAULK: From Chevon, we hear about this custody battle
that's going on with Grant. But it was really Laura's friend Heidi Schumacher that was able to give us more information
about this custody battle. We're just doing it really from a victimology standpoint, right?
Trying to find out more about who Laura was and that sort of thing. But Heidi was dead set on, I think Grant
had something to do with this. Her reasons were that Laura had kind of said, if anything ever
happens to me, look at Grant. NARRATOR: Worried, police got a warrant to search Amanda and Grant's apartment.
JERRY FAULK: We're heading over to 4021 Bellum Park trail. We knew from their phone records
that it looked like they were in Texas, but we didn't know what was inside the apartment.
I'm thinking about the first time that we went into this apartment, not really knowing what to expect when we open the door.
[stirring music] This is the apartment where Grant and Amanda lived, so right here on this side.
When we first walked in, we get that strong odor of bleach, and we see the large bleach stain there on the carpet.
AMANDA BOLIN: Not just like, you know, I spilled a little bit of bleach, but a large bleach stain.
The overwhelming odor of bleach. A home that was a little bit in disarray and not pristinely clean, but then
having a hallway bathroom that I think a detective described you could eat off of any surface in there.
It was so clean. What also stuck out is this was a bathroom that traditionally was used by the boys as a bathroom.
One that had a shower curtain, one that had mats on the floor. But now when we go in, no shower curtain,
no mats, every surface clean. JERRY FAULK: And then once we continue to search, the next thing that we see is this note that's up
on the kitchen counter, which talks about, in exchange for $25,000, Laura was going to drop the pending
child custody litigation. JONI JOHNSTON: I think that anybody who knew Laura would know that she would never agree to that.
And if her signature was on that document, it was under duress that she signed that.
It was another thing that I think that raised a huge red flag in terms of her disappearance.
JERRY FAULK: We're still kind of trying to figure out what's going on. And, you know, is this truly a missing person,
or is there more to it? Amanda had been married three previous times before Grant.
And she had a daughter from, I believe, her first marriage, and that daughter's name was Sha.
We have an interview with Sha. Because we know at this point that Grant and Amanda
are in Texas. They're not easily going to be interviewed, and we didn't really feel like it
was the right time to yet approach them to interview them. But we go to Sha. Sha doesn't know anything about this trip until, at some point,
she calls her mother. And her mom says, yeah, we're heading down to Texas to go see Aunt Karen.
And Karen Berry is Amanda's sister. [stirring music] Sha's kind of taken by surprise with that comment
because she didn't know anything about them going to Texas. And that was strange because Sha and Amanda were very close.
They were-- you know, they were mother and daughter, but they were almost more like sisters.
For Sha not to know anything about this trip down to Texas, she thought that was a little odd too.
NARRATOR: There was still no trace of Laura. So detectives from Raleigh flew from North Carolina to Texas.
JERRY FAULK: So now we have those two separate parts of the investigation going on because of the multiple states
and different things going on. She's missing under suspicious circumstances, and there's some connection to Texas.
And we felt like the best way to figure out what happened is to go there. [stirring music]
[ominous music] NARRATOR: Detectives from North Carolina are in Texas, investigating the disappearance of mother
of three Laura Ackerson. She was reported as failing to arrive at a meeting with her ex-husband, Grant,
and his new wife, Amanda. The trail has led North Carolina police to the rural community of Oyster Creek, Texas,
where the pair visited Amanda's sister Karen in the days after Laura's disappearance.
- It was an unannounced, wasn't a pre-planned trip at all, which was another concern to us as investigators.
They had inferred to her that this trip was an impromptu trip to bring a family heirloom, a cabinet,
to Karen Berry, which had not even been discussed before. Not anything that Karen had apparently
expressed interest in having. But that was the story of why they needed this U-Haul,
was to bring this piece of unwanted furniture all the way from Raleigh to Richmond, Texas.
NARRATOR: Detectives told Karen they had grave concerns about Laura Ackerson. - When they asked about her sister's
and Grant Hayes's visit, she said, yes, I'll talk to you. Do you mind if we pray first?
So that was kind of OK. There's information that she has great concerns about. She's about to share, then she didn't.
- So when Karen and Amanda first got to Karen's home, they had conversations. And there was a lot of kind of weird questions
that Grant and Amanda were asking them. Is there somewhere we could just dig a big hole?
They asked if wild hogs would eat humans, because there was a hog pen on Karen's property.
BRAD WHICHARD: He asked her about sharks being across the street. Well, we're 90 miles from the coast,
and there's no freshwater Creek sharks here, no. But they had a faux well out front, a decorative.
Well, they'd asked about that. And then they asked about our septic system. And then he asked about how prolific alligators were
and what they could do. All right, the alligators are prevalent here, and they're across the street from the very home
in that creek. NARRATOR: Then Amanda had made an alarming confession to her sister, Karen.
- Amanda said to her, I need-- we need to talk. Can we step outside? Karen and Amanda step outside.
Amanda says to her, I hurt Laura. I hurt her bad. JERRY FAULK: Karen gave us a lot of information,
but it took a little bit of time. Basically, what we're asking her to do is to rat on your sister.
BRAD WHICHARD: Karen was relieved. Relieved that someone came and knocked on her door
because she had been so worried about the situation. JERRY FAULK: Grant and Amanda had taken this late night boat
trip and asked Karen, hey, can you watch the kids while we go out on this late night boat ride.
As we're asking and saying, well, what do you think happened to Laura and where do you think she is?
And she essentially told them, well, you may want to check the creek over there.
BRAD WHICHARD: We contacted the dive team for the Houston Police Department, and they came out the following day.
[stirring music] - You got to think it's the middle of summer in Texas. Not the best conditions to search
a creek in this legitimately alligator-infested creek. NARRATOR: Working in blistering heat, a combination dive
teams and police in small boats pushed through the overgrown creek. Armed officers watched over them,
ready to shoot any alligators who approached the divers. JERRY FAULK: It wasn't just open water,
it was vegetation across the creek. So you're kind of weeding through the vegetation
and stuff. [water sloshing] SARAH MORMINO: In an ideal scenario, the divers would have preferred to dive the creek using
their hands to feel through the debris and find any pieces of evidence. That proved pretty much impossible
in this case, which caused the divers to decide to walk through and search using other methods.
In some cases, feet can be just as beneficial of a tool as hands when searching for evidence.
There have been cases where the water has been very complex to search in, and has required me to use sweep patterns with my feet,
rather than my hands to conduct a search. Any time I felt something of interest with my feet,
I would then submerge to pick up that item and see if it was of evidentiary value.
When the divers changed their tactics and start to search the lily beds, they soon find what they were looking for.
JERRY FAULK: There was a smell as you got closer and closer. Those are kind of the signs that probably
going to find something here. BRAD WHICHARD: The first day, we recovered the remains of Laura--
a portion of the remains, the upper torso and some lower extremities. It was confirmed that, unfortunately, this
is a homicide investigation. The second day was instrumental, in that we recovered the head.
And that allowed the investigation to move forward a lot more rapidly. JERRY FAULK: Ultimately, I believe it was about 60%
of the total body that they were able to find. SARAH MORMINO: While many people think the challenge is over, as the police divers were
able to recover the remains, the challenge has, in fact, just transferred. At this point, the remains are very hard to read.
The challenge now transfers from the divers to the pathologist, who has the responsibility
of trying to determine a cause of death with very little evidence. JIM CARUSO: If the skull is recovered,
as was the case in Laura Ackerson's death, you can proceed with a dental identification.
You can also get DNA from the teeth themselves, from the roots, or even from the skull bone itself.
In this particular case, they did postmortem and antemortem dental comparisons based on the circumstantial evidence
that this was Laura Ackerson. They managed to get a dental identification of the skull.
AMANDA BOLIN: We did not recover all of the body parts in this case. We've got two legs, two portions of torso, and head,
but no hands or feet were ever discovered. And so it's quite possible that alligators did
do some damage in this case. NARRATOR: Next, detectives started to piece together how the suspects might have
committed this shocking crime. They turned to the car and trailer that the suspects had driven to Texas and the items
they brought with them. - As we're going through these financials, we also see they had purchased some coolers.
AMANDA BOLIN: Grant cleaned out the coolers, but left the coolers there on Karen's property.
So those were recovered by law enforcement. I mean, it was obvious they were, like, brand new.
Some of them still had stickers on them. If you need coolers to make your cross-country trip,
why would you not need your coolers to make your cross-country trip back home? - We recovered the items that they
used to clean the ice chests with that they concealed in a barn. Recovered a machete that they had left there and
concealed near where they had hidden these rags and this cleaner. AMANDA BOLIN: I can't imagine taking a normal trip 1,500
miles with a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a five- or six week old. But to do so knowing you have the body parts
of their mother cut up in coolers on ice in a trailer that you're dragging behind you the whole way.
[ominous music] NARRATOR: Forensic teams had also gathered evidence from the suspect's apartment
back in North Carolina. - Obviously, once we get into the home of Grant and Amanda,
the huge things that stick out there. The manual for the reciprocating saw, that's huge.
It's just sitting out in the open, not something that is hidden. JERRY FAULK: We were able to sift through the trash.
And we found a couple gloves, rubber gloves that had blood on them. And we tested those gloves, and that blood came back to Laura.
BRAD WHICHARD: They left a physical trail and a digital trail. We recovered the receipt that they used at a hotel
that they stopped at along the way. They left it there at Karen's home. So we know where they stopped and stayed,
including the video surveillance of them at all the locations that they went to.
AMANDA BOLIN: The surveillance video from Walmart seeing Grant Hayes at 2 o'clock in the morning
after the last time Laura is seen. Walking up and down the aisles of Walmart, picking out a reciprocating saw.
But he's walking around almost like he's trying to pick what flavor cereal he's going to buy.
We had Amanda at an ATM withdrawing cash. Right after that, Grant is using cash to make purchases at a nearby Home Depot
for muriatic acid. Then Amanda is seen later dumping that muriatic acid. Fort Bend County is not a small county, but at that time,
we had one camera set up in the entire county in a location that had been a problem for illegal
dumping and littering. And where that one camera is set up near Oyster Creek is exactly where Amanda Hays drives.
She drives by herself and dumps this muriatic acid. JERRY FAULK: When they found the skull,
there was some tissue on it. But the skull looked different than the rest of the body
parts in that it looked like it had been melted. - The forensic odontologist was able to confirm
a likely exposure to muriatic acid, or an acid, because of etching that had taken place
on portions of the skull. JIM CARUSO: Hydrochloric acid is extremely caustic to tissue,
and can be caustic enough to dissolve tissue if the tissue is exposed for a prolonged period of time.
Certainly, it denatures any DNA that it would come in contact with. Eventually, one could completely de-flesh a body
and be left with skeletal elements due to immersion in hydrochloric acid or dousing the body
with hydrochloric acid. AMANDA BOLIN: There was sort of a dark stain inside that hog pen that was consistent with the acid.
The dumped acid did have some missing. NARRATOR: With such strong evidence, police arrested both Grant Hayes and his new wife, Amanda.
- Grant and Amanda were staying at Grant's parents' house. And we had some covert units that
were kind of watching the house to make sure that Grant and Amanda were there. There were no issues as far as they tried to fight
or they tried to run or anything like that. Pretty immediately, they both said, I'd like to talk to an attorney.
I'm not going to say anything. - I think when you have an offender who is incredibly calculated, not only in terms of planning
a murder, particularly of somebody they once cared about, and then systematically goes about finding ways
to destroy that person's body. This, to me, means that this perpetrator has such disdain for this person and truly
is interested in just wiping this person from the face of the earth, like Laura never existed.
It certainly speaks to a lack of empathy, a lack of caring, a lack of in, some respects, emotions that most of us have.
- To dismember someone you don't know, it takes a different kind of person. To dismember someone that presumably you once loved and
had a relationship with and who bore two children of yours is just hard to understand.
[stirring music] NARRATOR: Police in Texas have now confirmed that dismembered body parts found
in an overgrown creek are those of missing mother Laura Ackerson. Now, they must gather evidence from this watery crime scene.
[water sloshing] SARAH MORMINO: In aquatic scenes, it's very important to collect, not only the items of evidence,
but the environment surrounding the evidence, such as the mud, soil, or water. These items can later be used to compare
against other items of evidence to place someone at the scene. For example, if mud from the water
was found on a suspect's shoes, they could compare the mud sample in the shoes to the mud sample in the water and place the two together.
Using the information that has now been found in the case, it is clear that the water did not
cause those remains to be skeletonized, but instead the presence of muriatic acid placed
onto the body or exposed to the body prior to the body being placed in the water.
[stirring music] NARRATOR: Police and prosecutors started building the case against their two suspects--
Grant Hayes, Laura's ex-partner, and his new wife, Amanda. JERRY FAULK: Grant and Amanda Hayes both had dreams.
They had goals. And those included things like being a successful musician, being a successful actress, you know, in Amanda's case.
And, you know, those type of people that kind of live with their head in the clouds sort of thing.
- We certainly see early on that Grant appeared to have some beliefs. We see him as somebody who's a musician who thinks
he's above a menial job. Who is very, very happy to let his significant other support
him and carry all the weight. NARRATOR: The police also uncovered a major factor in the ongoing child custody case.
- The turning point in this custody battle, though, is when the psychologist gave her report to the court.
And she had some not-so-good things to say about Grant. In fact, I think she believed he had some kind
of personality disorder. JONI JOHNSTON: We can certainly say that this is somebody who was self-centered,
who was violent, who was narcissistic in many respects. And we can certainly say that in many, many occasions,
he acted psychopathically. AMANDA BOLIN: Things were starting to turn in Laura's favor.
On top of that, you've got Amanda and Grant basically running out of money to be able to continue
this custody battle. And in just a matter of weeks after the date of the murder was supposed to be a final hearing, where from all those
involved seemed to think that Laura was probably going to be granted custody. JERRY FAULK: Grant and Amanda wanted
to go do something different. And I believe that Laura threw a monkey wrench into those plans for them.
Everybody felt like this child custody arrangement was, at minimum, going to be a shared custody.
That messed up the plans that they had because that tied them down to Raleigh. AMANDA BOLIN: I think they lured her there.
Grant and Amanda together physically did something to overcome Laura. Some sort of struggle or fight that took
place either knock Laura unconscious or maybe strangulation that killed her there.
And then you're presented with the problem of, now what do we do? I mean, can you imagine?
I mean, like, the physical act of using a reciprocating saw to cut off a limb, to cut off a hand, to cut a torso
in half, to cut off a head. There's only one word that comes to mind, and that is a monster.
- If Grant Hayes ever loved Laura, which I wonder about, that had ceased long ago.
And I think, from the very beginning, it really was all about him. Everything was about him.
The world revolved around him. And people would be plugged into his life to the extent
that they served a purpose for him. And when they no longer did that, he was perfectly happy to remove
that person from his life. NARRATOR: Prosecutors now had to convince a jury that Grant and Amanda both had
a part in murdering Laura. JERRY FAULK: So, you know, there were two different trials, one for Grant,
and then one for Amanda later. Grant's trial's first. And, you know, again, there was so much evidence.
It was a pretty long trial. In Grant's case, the nail in the coffin, if you will,
was all the evidence and all the information surrounding the saw and the dismemberment.
- In the hands of a skilled forensic anthropologist, the tool marks that they identify
on the skeletal remains can actually be tracked back to specific instruments. In Laura Ackerson's case, not only did the anthropologist
track the tool marks to a specific tool that was used, but then further investigation found that the tool was
purchased by her ex-husband. JERRY FAULK: When you're able to show these side by side
pictures and comparisons and the video from Walmart that shows Grant purchasing this exact type of saw and this exact type of blade,
you know, right after Laura goes to their house and then disappears, that was pretty damning evidence.
The other thing that kind of sticks out in my mind as far as his trial was Grant had written a song,
and it's about how Grant wants to kill his ex. So we played that song during the trial.
And as the song is playing, you know, Grant is sitting at the defense table. And he starts kind of bobbing his head
to the beat of the song. And for the jurors to sit and watch that and to see the person that he was,
I believe that was really good evidence too. Grant was convicted of first degree murder.
So here in North Carolina, that's kind of the highest charge that you can get. And for that, he got a life sentence in prison.
A few months later, Amanda was convicted of second degree murder. And for that, she got a sentence of 13 to 16 years.
That was a little bit upsetting. NARRATOR: But this wasn't the end of their bid to bring Amanda to justice.
- We packaged up all the information that we had learned and presented it to the district attorney's office.
They were in agreement of pursuing charges for the disposal of Laura here, which is, you know,
destruction of evidence with the human corpse. Second degree felony here. NARRATOR: Amanda Hayes was brought before a court in Texas
to stand a second trial. [stirring music] - I was fully expecting a well-rehearsed actress.
And I also seen her testimony in the North Carolina trial, and so I knew she was very well-rehearsed and
poised in that trial. Amanda's defense was, I did all of this under duress. I did all of this under fear of some kind of injury or harm
from Grant. And my issue always was, then why do I have you on game cam by yourself dumping some of the evidence?
If you are so scared for your life of what this man may do to you if you don't help, you know, when you're at an ATM
by yourself, if you are so scared about being involved in this and what Grant may do to you,
ask to use a phone and call the police. Like, just none of it made sense that this was something that she
was doing only under duress. What became important for the Texas case is that we're talking about two sets of gloves, two sets
of goggles, two sets of masks. So if Amanda had nothing to do with this and didn't know what was happening at the time,
why do we need two of everything? NARRATOR: The jury agreed. Amanda Hayes was found guilty of destruction of evidence,
in this case, the body of Laura Ackerson. - Punishment range from 2 to 20 years in prison.
And that's what she got, 20 years in prison. And it was consecutive sentence. She had to complete her sentence in North Carolina.
Once that was completed, she's transported here to Texas to sit in prison here. - It's been several years since this trial.
Just the gruesome nature of it, first and foremost, is one that is a case I'll never forget.
And I think probably a big part of it for me, too, is those two boys. Being two and three and no longer having a mom,
having a father who's going to be locked up for the rest of his life, a stepmother, who is going to be
locked up for a long time. Being a mother myself, I didn't want them to have to face a situation of Amanda
being out of prison until they were adults, to be able to cope with the whole situation.
I think we accomplished that with the sentence here in Texas. JERRY FAULK: Being back here, you know, it reminds me of--
just kind of takes you back to when this case happened. I never knew Laura, but I felt like I did know her.
And to look back at the apartment and think, that's where she took her last breath.
I can't drive over this way, you know, or come over this way or come by here, obviously, without thinking about that.
[theme music]

Police discover the dismembered body parts of a missing woman in an alligator-infested creek.

In this chilling true crime series, detectives, pathologists and police divers work together to decode complex crime scenes where victims' bodies are discovered in water.

For More FilmRise Check Out Our Other Channels: FilmRise Television: https://www.youtube.com/⁨@UCVVXDVee0JZ2dlPYtpdTZVg FilmRise Movies: https://www.youtube.com/@FilmRiseMovies Highway to Heaven - Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@HighwaytoHeavenFullEpisodes

Brief Summary

Laura Ackerson's murder investigation reveals dismemberment and a shocking custody battle involving her ex-partner and his wife.

Key points

The Search for Laura Ackerson. Police and dive teams search a murky creek for missing mother Laura Ackerson.
Shocking Discovery. Divers find not just a body, but body parts in Oyster Creek.
Amanda's Confession. Amanda admits to her sister that she hurt Laura badly.
Discovery of Remains. Divers recover the remains of Laura Ackerson, confirming a homicide investigation.
Evidence from the Suspects. Police gather evidence from the suspects' apartment, including blood-stained gloves.
Trial and Conviction. Grant Hayes is convicted of first-degree murder, receiving a life sentence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was a big story.

The discovery of body parts in the creek.

10:56WatchApr 4, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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