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Amanda Hayes, Grant Hayes: Bitter Custody Battle Motive Behind Missing Mom’s Dismembered Body Found In Texas Creek On TV One’s ‘For My Man’

By Traciy Reyes
Published on: 03:05 PST, Aug 7, 2016

Amanda Hayes and her husband, Grant Hayes, were responsible for killing and dismembering the body of Laura Ackerson, the missing single mother of two boys from North Carolina five years ago in Texas. The case received nationwide attention, and this Monday night, TV One’s crime series, For My Man, will dramatize their case. For My Man tells the most compelling stories of women who have been enticed to commit murders for their men. TV One viewers will see the story unfold through recreations and first-person interviews with police, experts, and possibly family members or friends of the victim. Amanda Hayes and Grant Hayes were convicted and sentenced to time in prison for killing Laura Ackerson.

Mom Of Two Disappears From North Carolina

Laura Ackerson, 27, of Kinston, North Carolina, disappeared in July, 2011. She was last seen dropping off her two boys to their biological father, Grant Hayes, who had custody of the children. Laura Ackerson was reported missing after she failed to pick up her children and lost communication with her friends.

For two weeks, her frantic family members and devoted friends and church members looked for the missing mother. However, their hopes were dashed after police recovered Laura Ackerson’s body, which was found in Oyster Creek in Texas.

The condition of the body is according to the coroner who performed the autopsy, according to Kinston.

  • The body was moderately decomposed.
  • The skin and the muscle could be seen.
  • It appeared that crabs and fish likely ate the tendons and connective tissue.
  • Upon finding the victim’s head, the skin hung loosely from the skull, and the brain was liquefying and leaking out her nose, mouth and ears.

Fierce Custody Battle At The Root Of Police Investigation

The investigation revealed that Laura Ackerson was involved in a bitter custody battle with her ex-boyfriend, Grant Hayes, and his new wife, Amanda Hayes. After the relationship between Laura and Grant dissolved, he married Amanda Smith, aka Amanda Hayes, and the two had a baby together just before Laura Ackerson vanished.

Evidence connected Grant Hayes and Amanda Hayes to the crime, and they were both arrested and charged with murder. Authorities say Laura Ackerson had gone to pick up her children when she was killed by Grant Hayes. Then, Hayes used a saw and a machete to cut up the body and placed the parts in ice chests and a U-haul truck before heading to Texas.

https://www.facebook.com/485866588137167/photos/a.490373611019798.110789.485866588137167/661975613859596/?type=3&permPage=1

Once Amanda Hayes and Grant Hayes arrived in Texas, they used a boat to dump the dismembered body parts in the water. Police later recovered the victim’s head, torso, and parts of her limbs. Prosecutors say that Grant Hayes, a Raleigh, North Carolina, musician wanted a life with Amanda Hayes, their new baby, and his other two children that he had with Laura Ackerson. The plan was to move back to the Virgin Islands, where he could make more money and live a happier life without the stress of an ongoing custody dispute.

Laura Ackerson had lost primary custody of the children after a judge ruled her unfit but was working hard to get them back, a friend told the Daily Mail.

“According to her friend, Jo Jackson, Miss Ackerson was doing her best to get the boys back. She started her own marketing business from home and had been taking online courses at Lenoir Community College. She had also started going to church.”

Happy Family On Facebook, Murderers In Real Life

After, Grant Hayes chopped up the body of Laura Ackerson, he and Amanda went about their daily lives as usual, even taking time to pose for pretty Facebook photos to impress their online friends. Many of the happy family photos found at the Amanda Haze and Grant Haze Facebook pages have either been deleted or made private. But, the profiles are still available.

Amanda Hayes said that she did not kill Laura but was made to help hide the body because her husband threatened to kill her. For her crime, she was sentenced to sentenced to 13 to 16 years. Grant Hayes was sentenced to life.

Here are some other interesting details in the Amanda Hayes case.

  1. The death of Laura Ackerson is covered in an episode of Snapped: Killer Couples on Oxygen.
  2. The book Bitter Remains: A Custody Battle, a Gruesome Crime, and the Mother Who Paid the Ultimate Price by Diane Fanning gives a riveting account of the case, according to WRAL.
  3. Amanda Hayes, an actress, starred in the 2004 movie The Stepford Wives.

Many of the details have been left out here. To get a full picture of how these three lives intertwined and ended in a deadly plot of murder, watch For My Man this Monday, August 8, at 10/9 p.m. Central on TV One.

[Photo by Mel Evans/AP File]

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