The Disturbing Case of Laura Ackerson

[Laughter] [Music] hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this all one we're going to talk about laura ackerson and her ex musician grant hayes now here's a treat for your eardrums was once in love with me we were always together and in the night time we'll go outside look up at the stars [Music] grant hayes had been in a relationship with laura ackerson they would have two kids together and this would then develop into a nasty custody battle and then grant married amanda hayes who as much as you know grant didn't like laura amanda really didn't like her so let's have a go [Music] this story takes us all the way back to the distant foggy year of 2011 in north carolina laura ackerson was finalizing a difficult custody battle for her two children with ex-boyfriend grant hayes the course of which led to laura only having her two children on weekends grant having them for the rest of the week this had been a temporary arrangement for over a year as both laura and grant had to undergo psychological evaluation grant claimed that laura had mental health issues laura claimed grant had substance abuse problems the court sided with grant for one reason or another laura had actually caught grant's eye at one of his gigs back in 2006. laura and grant started a relationship in 2007. they married maybe depending on different differing sources but they would end up having two kids together over those relatively short three years things would get rockier and rockier resulting in a custody battle between pooh in 2010 the same year of 2010 34 year old grant hayes married another woman 46 year old amanda smith who he had met the year before he had met her in 2009 by the way when he was still with laura they had met on the island of saint john in the u.s virgin islands amanda was a failed actress being in the 2004 stepford wives movie sure that's her there question mark and an appearance in the sopranos allegedly but i could find jack [ __ ] about that grant himself was a struggling singer songwriter all right okay struggling being the key word there all right guys we're bringing up a special performer special musician i got i need everybody to bring down the house for this man everybody get award welcome for mr grant hayes all right so this is really great to be here with you thank you uh grant hayes singer songwriter musician and artist yes pleasure and an honor thank you now grant had some um unusual beliefs thought to be a drug induced he was mad for the uh synthetic hallucinogens who is not me that is say no to drugs kids i did say earlier that laura claimed you know during the custody battle that he had substance abuse issues and if these beliefs you know are true then she was right for example when laura and grant were you know together he attempted to indoctrinate her into believing he was a time traveler and that beings from other planets followed him around and and you know he would shoot the [ __ ] with them as you do he also claimed that those beings were the same people who ran the united states up to no good as usual he erroneously believed the world would end on december 31 2012 simple mistake to make and that he needed to make a shitload of money to make it onto one of those alien spaceships so he could get the hell out of earth before we're all blown to bits musician is probably not the way to go be a doctor anyways together grant and amanda lived in rally and amanda would have a daughter to grant in 2011. amanda didn't like laura for obvious reasons probably because laura wasn't too keen on the whole reptilian shite and you know also the fact that i guess this is probably more important that laura you know being in a custody battle with her husband grant and amanda would get you know grant side of the story his side of the story being that laura's crazy she's the crazy one however come 2011 27 year old laura ackerson was pretty confident that at the very least she would share custody of her kids get them more than just on weekends and she was also planning on starting not one but two businesses related to the old droid drawing graphic design on the 12th of july 2011 laura got an email from grant at this time laura lived in kinston grant and rally the email was asking her if she wanted to visit her kids now this was a wednesday and the kind of results of the custody hearing or the outcome of the custody hearing wouldn't be for another month in august but laura was like you know maybe the writings on the wall she was pretty confident she would get her kids so she was like hey okay i'll go visit him it's the middle of the week which was usually when she didn't get to see them the next day the 13th of july she left kinston and began her drive to rally to see her children a journey of about an hour and a half she texted grant at 4 12 pm saying i'm leaving the wilson area now where will you be in an hour and a half she then called him about 45 minutes later and that was the last thing we know [Music] that night at 9pm she missed a call from her business partner which is the first red flag as the next few days rolled over no one heard anything from her she was reported missing on the 15th of july two days after she had last been heard free continues to deepen into the disappearance of a young mother whose car was located in raleigh yesterday laura jean ackerson is from kinston but was last seen here a week ago her car turned up at an apartment complex in north raleigh early wednesday morning friends and family are growing more and more concerned that something has happened to her amanda lamb was in kinston today and joins us now with how people are reacting to this disappearance amanda david people i talked to say laura jean ackerson would never leave her two sons they also say she had lost touch with a lot of family members and friends in recent years partially because of her relationship with the father of her boys a relationship that in recent months had turned volatile they say she was last seen on july 13 and was reported missing on july 15 after she failed to pick up her children from their father grant hayes in raleigh family and friends say ackerson and hayes who is an aspiring musician had a volatile relationship and were fighting over the custody of their children ackerson's car was found in the camden crest apartments on summit manor lane early wednesday morning raleigh police are examining it for clues they say so far there's no evidence of foul play in ackerson's disappearance so with her reported missing the police went to grant and amanda's on the 20th of july because they knew you know she'd gone there to see her kids another thing was that a few months prior to her disappearance she had said to her lawyer you know representing her in a custody battle that she was worried for her safety so the police arrived at grant's apartment on the 28th i noticed bleach doing the old deep clean huh i mean this is basically uh only an idiot wouldn't notice something was amiss because besides the smell of cleaning agent missing from the apartment was a shower curtain hoover a few rugs like what else are you gonna do with those things those yolks were found in the dumpster outside inside that dumpster was also a glove with laura's dna on it however in the apartment which was empty of occupants of this stage grant and amanda were nowhere to be seen they did find a note written on the note was that laura agreed to give full custody of her kids to ex-grant in exchange for 25 000 the children she had just been you know true a year long custody battle for one which undoubtedly cost her a lot more than 25 thousand dollars so at this stage the smell of [ __ ] was more overpowering than the smell of bleach written in the apartment they also found lyrics to a song called man killer about the first person killing of a woman by making her bleed and by strangulation including the lyrics give into me i want it all i want your scream i want your crawl i'll make you bleed i'm not the one to make you scream i'm just the one to make you bleed don't raise your arms you can't stop me i'll put my hands on your throat and squeeze another surefire hit for grant hayes no diggity no doubt it was then that things became pretty clear however the manner in which they happened didn't and so the police began tracing the movements of grant and amanda from the 13th of july the day laura ackerson vanished [Music] they learned right that in the wee hours of july 14th all grant hayes decided to pay a visit to walmart and target in those uh shops he bought well what do you think how about a saw blades trash bags goggles gloves tape etc etc the classics that same morning of the 14th of july amanda called her daughter she had won from our previous relationship asking her to take the kids out for the day just get him out of the house then on the 16th of july grant bought ice and coolers and also rented a u-haul trailer doing a bit of moving well moving something while he was yapping away to the u-haul staffer he said he was going on down to texas richmond specifically a farewell 18 hours drive at that same time amanda told her daughter that herself grant and the kids were also going on down to texas to visit amanda's sister who lived there and so they arrived in the big old state on the morning of the 18th of july so driving pretty non-stop must have been in a rush huh on the 19th of july grant did a bit more real shopping at the old home depot where he bought gloves and a bottle of industrial hydrochloric acid on the evening of the 19th of july grant and amanda who genuinely we're at amanda's sister's place by the way and amanda's sister you know just by chance she happened to live near oyster creek this narrow little creek filled with alligators and grant and amanda asked her sister if they could borrow her boat they took the boat out into the creek and well the hayes returned to rally on the 20th of july returned to their third floor apartment to find the police enjoying the smell of bleach the police eventually tracking all of this on the 24th of july began searching that creek they found decomposed and dismembered body parts the remains of laura ackerson the official cause of death was homicide by undetermined means however it's believed that it was most likely asphyxiation and possibly blunt force trauma to the neck surveillance footage would also be obtained showing amanda dumping bottles of acid near her sister's home on the 25th of july 13 days after laura ackerson vanished both grant and amanda hayes were charged with first degree murder raleigh police arrived in fort bend county texas yesterday it appears their conversations with amandis hayes sisters living in richmond texas led them to a creek across from her house raleigh detectives believe that the creek held some answers in the disappearance of lara jean ackerson it's believed that the actual homicide occurred in north carolina where the suspects evidently purchased some ice chest dismembered the body placed in an ice chest acquired a u-haul trailer put the ice chest in the trailer and transported her through several states to fort bend county where they tossed her remains into oyster creek sheriff brady says detectives have recovered several ice chests on the property owned by amanda hayes sister but at this point there's no indication that hey sister knew what the couple was doing brady says that grant and amanda hayes visited her sister in richmond texas last monday and tuesday and then returned here to north carolina he says based on his information grant hayes used a boat in order to dump the remains in that creek he says amanda hayes was present when the remains were put in the creek brady says the body was severed into multiple pieces at this point he says dive teams have recovered three sections of the body amounting to about 60 percent of the remains the sheriff says that this is the most gruesome scene that he has ever seen in his more than 30 years of law enforcement as the sun rose over kinston north carolina on july 13 2011 laura ackerson woke up excited for once things were going her way ladies and gentlemen this is a case that is so calculated so malignant and so destructive that laura ackerson disappears off the face of the earth for 11 days after she goes to grant hayes apartment the prosecution came to the theory that um well i'm sure you came to it too grant and amanda dismembered laura ackerson when they lured her to their apartment in raleigh then they dumped her remains into ice coolers put them in the u-haul truck and got rid of them in a creek in texas far enough from north carolina that they thought no one would ever uh you know find her they had initially tried to dissolve her remains with acid and when they realized that acid wasn't doing the job they hoped the alligators would get rid of any trace of her grant and amanda were tried separately during the trial a lot of emails between the hazes and laura were shown and they were not on good terms at all obviously in one email laura wrote to amanda i would like to address the attitude you have toward me in front of my children though i understand that grant has probably told you i am the worst person in the world among whatever else was useful for him to say in that moment even at one point wright grant kept emailing laura even after she was dead basically having a go at her for going dark on him and not responding to his messages he would say he had nothing more to say to her which is true i mean seriously we are trying to reach a settlement and you go dark on me after agreeing to shall i say certain terms yes real [ __ ] up i have nothing more to say to you until i hear from your attorney and that note about laura giving up her kids for 25 000 that was signed by her well the thing is it actually seemed like it it could have been signed by her it seemed to match her handwriting but the comparison guy couldn't get it like a hundred percent accuracy so under duress or simply forged i mean the final custody hearing uh was only a month away from when laura vanished and she was pretty confident that she would at least get shared if not full custody of her kids so that's your motive right there the custody battle had cost grant 85 000 it seemed like he would lose and himself and amanda were broke amanda's sizable inheritance was gone and they'd pawned some of her heirloom jewelry for cash grant and amanda wanted laura out of the picture permanently so they could move the children to new york where grant could pursue his music career this one [Music] so all that you know combined with the note seem to indicate a pretty well thought out premeditated plan to get rid of her kind of during grant's trial a witness also came forward one pablo trinidad he testified that in july 2011 he was being held in the same detention center that grant was in and grant's case came on the news a few inmates saw that and well decided they wanted to beat the piss out of grant pablo diffused the situation and not long after grant decided to tell pablo in return for defending him i guess that he called laura and lured her to his apartment under the false pretenses of settling the custody dispute he then subdued her with amanda's help strangled her and drove out of state to dispose of the body what did he tell you about the case he told he told me that she it was she was an unfit mother that they've been going on they've been having a custody battle for some years now of um going back and forth and that she was soliciting herself on the internet she continuously asked for money and he was just tired of going back and forth with that so he said that he placed the call to her and lowered her to his apartment and that's when him and his wife subdued her to do that and strangle her um later on after that that's when this member of the body and afterwards they took a road tripping i just out of state out of town and got rid of the body and he called under the false predetestors that him and her was gonna resolve the ongoing custody battle they had and that's why she came over there to talk to him about to get the custody thing they had going on resolved grant pled not guilty his defense was going with well the usual it was amanda who you know she was sick of that [ __ ] and she just killed her and he just helped his dear wife cover it up it was amanda's plan because amanda was responsible for killing laura welp grant was found guilty and in 2014 he was sentenced to life without parole trial the prosecution said that amanda was jealous and angry at laura and wanted her out of the picture so she could live her life with grant and the children however the defense said that amanda didn't even know grant had killed laura until after the fact amanda did you kill laura accuracy no sir i did not did you help grant kill laura hackerson i absolutely did not were you present when grant killed laura ackerson no sir i was not did you know that laura had died before you got to texas no sir and was then threatened into helping him get rid of any evidence the offense said that grant told amanda he'd kill her and manipulated her into doing what he needed her to do amanda was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced the 13 to 16 years in prison after that she was also tried in texas charged with illegally disposing of a dead body suppose it's um not terribly illegal to try and dissolve someone's remains in acid and then dump them in a creek full of alligators i guess she got an extra 20 years for that one and so ends the case of laura ackerson and what happened to her a pretty unhappy ending for everybody involved although grant and amanda deserved it unfortunately for grant the world didn't end in 2012. so um he couldn't escape in a spaceship or whatever although i don't think they'd have much use for him in 2014 uh amanda and grant divorced and uh his appeal was denied in 2015. so great grant is lucky though you know because in prison he'll still have amanda you know amanda huggin kiss [Music] thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it i will see you as always real soon in the next video take care of yourselves [Music] you

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 1,535,939

Keywords: that chapter, laura ackerson, grant hayes, amanda hayes, laura ackerson grant hayes, grant hayes music, amanda hayes trial, grant hayes trial

Id: F0Ud6fwFstk

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/unable2sitstill]

the prison rape jokes...mike PLEASE stop. it's not even funny, it just sucks.