213: Erasing Laura Ackerson, Part 1

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Southern Fried True crime covers cases that
are not suitable for young listeners, and

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there may also be some explicit language
used. Listener discretion is advised. Domestic

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violence that ends in death is often
called murder and slow motion. The danger

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builds at a pace we think we
can keep up with. I have this

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under control, I can fix it. He will change, but he's the

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one in control. Coercive control is
the foundation for most forms of domestic abuse.

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For Laura Akerson, it seems like
her whole life was a blur,

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a merry go round that was going
way too fast. She came from generational

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trauma and she walked away from it. She didn't have good role models or

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a stable support system. She had
to build one for herself. She moved

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across the country and met her best
friend, Heidi. Heidi was someone Laura

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could count on, unlike the charismatic
musician she soon fell for. Grant Hayes

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was the CD cliche of sex,
drugs, and rock and roll, and

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he was a classic narcissist. For
him, control equals power. But when

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Laura became pregnant, she thought she
could build a family with Grant. Heidi

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had always known Grant was a scumbag. She despised him, but she never

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wavered in her support of Laura,
and Laura needed her support, especially once

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she decided to finally stand up to
a man like Grant. Welcome to Episode

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two thirteen, Erasing Laura Akerson,
Part one. Laura Jean Akerson lived most

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of her life as a small town
girl. She was born on April thirtieth,

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nineteen eighty four, to parents Roger
and Brenda, in Hastings, Michigan.

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Hastings, with about seven thousand residents, is a small town in a

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rural county in southwest Michigan. There
were seven kids in the Hastings blended family.

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Roger was father to only four of
the siblings, including Laura's half brother,

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Jason, who was three years older
than her. She attended schools in

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Lake Odessa and Ionia, other small
Michigan towns. Her family life was extremely

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tumultuous. Brenda and Roger separated when
Laura was still a toddler. They went

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through a wrenching, traumatic divorce that
divided the family, with loyalties to each

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parent on different sides. In nineteen
ninety, six, year old Laura and

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her mother moved from Michigan to central
Iowa. They lived in the tiny town

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of Sully that had only around eight
hundred residents. It has closer to nine

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hundred these days. Though the town
boasts three churches, you would need to

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drive almost thirty minutes to the closest
hospital. In two thousand and three,

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nineteen year old Laura graduated from Lynnville
Sully High School in Sully, Iowa.

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She was a year behind because of
her tumultuous home life, but graduating under

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those circumstances is an achievement. So
many young people get lost in the kind

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of family turmoil Laura experienced. In
two thousand and four, Laura followed her

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brother Jason to North Carolina. It
was in Youngsville, another tiny rural town

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of almost twelve hundred residents at the
time. She stayed with Jason for six

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months, then moved to Raleigh for
better job opportunities. She had all been

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disappointed to live in another tiny town
with nothing to do with almost four hundred

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thousand residents at the time. Ralei
is a big city, and Laura loved

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it. She had never lived anywhere
so exciting, with so much possibility and

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so many opportunities. She quickly found
an apartment and got a job at an

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Applebee's restaurant. That's where she met
her best friend, Heidi Schumacher. Heidi

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told author Diane Fanning that Laura was
a perfect fit for waiting tables. Of

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course, it helped that she was
such a pretty girl with long, dark

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hair and a wide smile, but
it was more than her looks. She

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was also a sweet and cheerful girl, liked by both customers and coworkers alike.

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Just a few months later, Laura
and Heidi moved on to working at

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a sports bar together, and Laura
had started taking online classes at Kirkwood Community

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College. She earned an Associates of
Art degree in two thousand and five and

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thought she wanted to get her real
estate license. She even took a seventy

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five hour course to prepare, but
she had really liked her graphic design and

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marketing courses at Kirkwood and decided to
throw her passion into developing her graphic art

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skills. The real estate skills,
along with her creativity, were put to

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good use at her next job at
a furniture store in Raleigh, helping customers

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with decorating ideas. While there,
she remained close to Heidi and Heidie's family,

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who were in wake Forest, which
was in between Raleigh and Youngsville,

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where her brother Jason still lived.
Along with talking to her brother Jason all

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the time, Laura also stayed in
contact with her father and at least one

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of her sisters. Though it was
letters and phone calls. It was also

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the beginning of Facebook, and Laura
was reaching out to old friends and other

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siblings. From what I can tell, she didn't have much contact with her

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mother after she moved. She doesn't
figure at all and the rest of this

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case, but this young woman seemed
determined to build her own support system in

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North Carolina and also hang on to
some of her family ties in the Midwest

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as well. Family ties were important
to her, and she was building a

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different life for herself, nothing like
the chaotic way she grew up. And

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yet she was young and experienced unworldly. She had an underdeveloped sense of self

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and so she was passive and often
unsure of herself. She was without guile

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and could be taken advantage of more
easily than young women with more stable backgrounds.

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However, although Laura was naive,
she was also smart, creative,

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and ambitious. She wasn't taking any
other classes during this time, but she

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never stopped studying on her own.
She scoured the internet and used the library.

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She was determined to open her own
buisin business one day, and her

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hard work was paying off until a
man named Grant Hayes crashed into her life

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like a meteor. I'm going to
pause now for a short commercial break.

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In March of two thousand and seven, twenty two year old Laura met a

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twenty seven year old aspiring musician named
Grant Hayes. His full name was Grant

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Rouffan Hayes the Third, and in
a coincidence, he and Laura shared the

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same birthday. She had been born
on April thirtieth of nineteen eighty four,

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and he had been born five years
before, on April thirtieth of nineteen seventy

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nine. Grant's parents were Patsy and
Grant Hayes Junior. Patsy Hayes owned and

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ran her own daycare, and mister
Hayes was a minister, and this family

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had a thing for the name Grant
as Grant the Third has a sister named

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Grant Tina, who goes by Tina. Though the family was from Tennessee,

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they now lived in Kinston, North
Carolina, about an hour and a half

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from Raleigh. In nineteen ninety seven, eighteen year old Grant graduated from Kinston

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High School. It was around that
same time that Grant first began recording music

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on his website. He called himself
an acoustic soul singer and he was pretty

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average. He could carry a tune, but nothing special. He accumulated a

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small following on MySpace, which was
kind of like followers on Facebook, but

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he was definitely small time. The
songs that he posted on YouTube averaged about

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one hundred to two hundred cliques,
which I guess would have been pretty good

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for a bar star in the early
two thousands, and he did book gigs

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at bars and other venues with some
consistency. But he wanted to be a

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famous musician. He wrote his own
songs, and to be fair, many

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people thought he had talent. He
thought his career just hadn't taken off yet.

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This is his Twitter bio acoustic singer, musician, songwriter, contemporary artist.

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New releases earth Wind and Fire and
Little Richard collaborations, Grant Hayes' art

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and Grant Hayes Music. He was
a pretty decent artist. Too. By

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the time of today's case, he
was doing portraits for money. When Grant

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was eighteen years old, he married
a ballet dancer named Emily. The marriage

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didn't last a year. Grant was
obstinate about getting a real job to help

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pay the bills, a problem he
never grew out of. Emily was in

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college and supporting them by herself.
She soon got sick of it. They

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separated quickly, but weren't formally divorced
until March two thousand and five. Then

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two years later, Grant met Laura
Ackerson. She met him while he was

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playing a gig at the Blue Martini
in Raleigh in early March two thousand and

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seven. Laura and Heidi saw him
one night, and Laura talked to him

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between sets. Heidi had gone into
the insurance business, moving to Charlotte,

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but she stayed close to Laura.
They talked all the time and had girls'

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nights out as often as they could. On April thirtieth, two thousand and

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seven, Heidi took Laura to an
Italian restaurant for dinner. It was her

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birthday, and Laura had exciting news. She had gotten married. Actually that

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same day, Like I said,
she and Grant shared a birthday, which

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she thought was so special it was
fate. He was just five years older

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than her. According to the book
Bitter Remains by Diane Fanning, there had

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been no real wedding. They went
to a Justice of the Peace in Raleigh

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and just walked in and did it. But I'll come back to this more

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later. Heidi was shocked and concerned. Grant was actually playing a gig at

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the restaurant that evening. So Laura
introduced Heidi to her new husband, and

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although she recognized him from the Blue
Martini and he was friendly enough, Heidie

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took an immediate and intense dislike to
him. The feeling would soon be mutual.

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He was so full of himself,
obnoxious, and, as she later

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told author Diane Fanning, not good
enough for Laura, not by a long

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shot. Heidi wasn't wrong, She
was smart to be worried for her kind,

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loving and trusting friend. Laura had
stars in her eyes when she saw

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Grant. Remember she was from a
small town, but Heidi wasn't. She

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knew barstars and Ralei were a Diama
dozen, and she didn't see anything special

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in this arrogant jack off. He
had glommed on to Laura too quickly,

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and it was obvious to anyone but
Laura. Just months into their marriage,

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when Laura was in her second trimester
with their first child, Grant was openly

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cheating on her. He enjoyed calling
the other women he was sleeping with while

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Laura was in the room, and
he was allergic to real jobs he refused.

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He slept all day and partied all
night. When he did have a

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gig, his fee barely covered his
bar tab. He brought all kinds of

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people over to the house at any
hour of the night he chose and expected

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Laura to just suck it up,
even after they had a baby in the

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house. And not just friends or
other musicians, but groupies and worse,

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drug dealers and pimps. Grant had
a significant drug problem. After his marriage

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to Emily failed, he went through
an intense depression and saw a psychiatrist.

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He was prescribed inti depressants and lithium. Lithium is prescribed for bipolar disorder.

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Like many people struggling with mood disorders, When he stayed on his meds and

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didn't self medicate, Grant did all
right, but he only did that for

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a short time after his first marriage
fell apart. Even got back into religion

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for a quick minute, but that
lasted as long as his sobriety. He

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just never could stay away from drugs
and alcohol, mostly weed and cocaine,

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but also psychedelics or hallucinogens. He
wrote a lot of his music while on

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binges, and it became increasingly dark
and the lyrics were disturbingly violent. Just

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as a note, I know that
addiction is a disease. I just also

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know it's not an excuse for abuse. But Laura put up with all of

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it. She worked and supported them, just like Emily before her, and

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she got pregnant right away. It's
also important to note that Laura very much

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believed in Grant's talent and aspiring music
career. She used her marketing skills to

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promote him and regularly helped her book
his gigs. So despite the cheating and

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the drugs and alcohol, Laura stayed
with Grant and her small support system tried

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to be there for her. Jason
got a job close to where they lived

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and started visiting almost every day until
it began to anger Grant. Jason later

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testified about Grant and said he was
pretty much ordering her that you don't need

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him in your life and you don't
need to be around him. He's a

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bad influence. I'm all you need. The last time Jason stopped by their

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house, he didn't get an answer
when he knocked at the door, even

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though he could hear them inside,
arguing, He tried for ten minutes and

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called her several times that day,
worried. She didn't call him back until

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the next day. He later testified, she let me know that I wasn't

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allowed to come over there, and
that if we were to see each other,

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we'd have to do it in secret
because Grant didn't like me. Jason

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stopped coming around, but even his
calls through Grant into a rage. He

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stopped calling Laura and waited for her
to call him, which she did whenever

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she could. Jason stayed in his
sister's life however he could, because he

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could now see she needed him more
than ever. The same thing happened with

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Heidi. She and Grant hated each
other, so she wasn't welcome at the

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Hayes home either. Like Jason,
she stayed in constant touch with Laura,

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very worried for her friend, particularly
after one horrible afternoon, she had been

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on the phone with Laura and heard
Grant screaming at her in the background.

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He said Heidie was a bad influence
and told her to hang up. Laura,

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apologizing to Heidie and crying, hung
up the phone. Heidie wasn't having

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it, so she drove over to
their place. She saw Grant leaving the

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parking lot, and when Laura came
him out the front door with a bloody

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nose and one of her eyes swollen
shut. Heidi begged her to go to

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the hospital, but Laura refused.
Laura was crying so hard, but kept

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insisting everything was okay. She said
he had never done this before and that

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they would get through it. Heidi
stayed with her friend for a while until

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Laura calmed down. She saw her
a couple days later, and it was

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obvious that Laura had tried to cover
up her bruises with makeup. Heidi felt

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helpless, but she couldn't force Laura
to do anything. I'm going to pause

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they'll ask you where you heard about
them. Please support our show and tell

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them we sent you. Grant and
Laura's first child, a son named Grant

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00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:36.400
Ruffin Hayes, the fourth, was
born on May second, two thousand and

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eight, almost a year to the
day of their marriage. After the baby

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was born, Laura became so much
more isolated. Jason didn't meet his nephew

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until he was six months old.
Heidi started meeting up with Laura wherever she

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could, but Grant would often find
them. One day, he pulled up

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to a Starbucks where they were meeting
and threatened to kill Laura and Heidi.

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00:20:00.279 --> 00:20:06.319
Heidi later testified he just went off
and said, I have friends, I'm

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powerful, my friends are powerful,
and I can kill you. Don't fuck

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with me after that. Heidi bought
a gun and got a conceal and carry

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permit and tried to talk Laura into
getting a gun too, but Laura was

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00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:26.400
afraid of guns and refused, so
Heidi bought her a pink handled knife that

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00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:32.839
Laura carried with her always. Laura
had so much on her plate, taking

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00:20:32.880 --> 00:20:37.400
care of little Grant and working to
support them, and she felt increasingly scared

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00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:41.519
of and disgusted by her husband.
He wanted all kinds of sex that Laura

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00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:45.640
was uncomfortable with, and he wanted
her to brag about their sex life and

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00:20:45.720 --> 00:20:51.799
his penis sas to his fans.
He wanted an open marriage. The list

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00:20:51.880 --> 00:20:57.079
goes on and on. Laura would
later tell a psychologist that Grant had quote

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00:20:57.519 --> 00:21:02.680
used sex as a tool to hunish
and mold my behavior instead of a way

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00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:10.640
to show affection. He also had
incredibly strange philosophical and religious ideas and frankly,

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what sounds a lot like delusions of
grandeur. His parents even staged what

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they called an intervention with Laura about
their own son, warning her about his

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00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:25.559
sick worldview. I won't even go
into all that mess here, except that

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they claim Grant thought he would repopulate
the world one day by having fifty kids

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00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:37.599
with fifty different women. What was
not at all fantastical or scientologist is that

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00:21:37.640 --> 00:21:41.839
Grant Junior, Laura's father in law, said his son would pimp her out

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00:21:41.880 --> 00:21:47.119
if he needed to. Then Laura
thought back to all the women hanging around

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00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:51.680
Grant and his felon friends. They
joked and called the women party Favors.

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00:21:52.319 --> 00:21:55.759
At least Laura thought it had been
a joke. Now she felt sick.

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00:21:56.079 --> 00:22:02.400
Grant's parents also gave Laura Emily's phone
number, grand sex wife. She simply

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00:22:02.440 --> 00:22:07.559
said, run, run as fast
as you can. And with all this,

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00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:12.039
Laura finally seemed to come around.
Grant's sister, Tina, took her

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00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:17.839
to file assault charges at the magistrate's
office, and Laura looked into a shelter

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00:22:18.119 --> 00:22:22.359
and Charlotte for abused women, which
would have been good for Laura since Heidi

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00:22:22.480 --> 00:22:29.480
lived in Charlotte, but she never
followed through on anything. She didn't show

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00:22:29.559 --> 00:22:33.599
up to the hearing for the assault
charge. She had been living with Heidie's

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00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:37.039
family in wake Forest, but she
returned to Kinston and vowed to make her

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00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:42.880
marriage work. She is not the
first woman in an abusive relationship to still

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00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:47.480
be in love with her abuser and
want to make it work, and it

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00:22:47.519 --> 00:22:52.960
won't be the last time she was
close to leaving Grant either. I understand

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00:22:52.240 --> 00:22:56.920
that it's hard to hear these details
without being in full disbelief, but never

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00:22:56.960 --> 00:23:02.839
blame a victim of abuse. On
average, it takes a victim seven times

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00:23:02.880 --> 00:23:08.359
to leave before it is for good, and this was only Laura's first try.

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00:23:10.119 --> 00:23:14.880
Around March of two thousand and nine, Grant was becoming restless and frustrated

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about his lack of success in his
music career. He had all kinds of

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00:23:18.759 --> 00:23:22.680
excuses for his problems, but eventually
complained to a friend who was an agent

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00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:27.400
promoter type named Joseph Harden, who
thought he should move to the US Virgin

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00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:34.480
Islands. Harden thought Grant's style of
music was perfect for the Caribbean, and

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00:23:34.680 --> 00:23:40.559
soon the selfish Grant was in paradise
with his wife and son, back homing

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00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:48.160
Kinston struggling now, he described his
music as reggae folk. He settled on

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the island of Saint John and within
a month he had a girlfriend and had

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00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:57.720
informally changed his name to Grant Hayes
spelled h a Ze. He never changed

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00:23:57.759 --> 00:24:03.680
it legally. Current and past court
documents still referred to him as Grant Hayes

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00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:07.559
with a y. As usual,
he pretty much bragged about the women he

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00:24:07.640 --> 00:24:12.240
was seeing to Laura on the phone. She once again screwed up her courage

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00:24:12.279 --> 00:24:17.160
to leave him and moved in with
Heide's parents, as she could not afford

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a place of her own yet.
She was considering going to stay with her

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00:24:21.640 --> 00:24:26.559
dad in Michigan when she discovered she
was pregnant again. She was already three

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00:24:26.559 --> 00:24:30.440
months along. She had probably conceived
in February before Grant took off for the

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00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:37.559
Caribbean. So Laura once again decided
to make her marriage work for the sake

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of her small growing family. She
took little Grant and followed her husband to

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Saint John Island. Their second son, named Gentle Rain spelled r e I

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00:24:48.599 --> 00:24:52.039
g N, was born on Saint
John, two months premature, on August

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00:24:52.119 --> 00:24:57.319
third, two thousand and nine.
Nothing changed in the Hayes marriage. If

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00:24:57.359 --> 00:25:03.119
anything, Grant's drug use worsened and
his career was just as much of a

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00:25:03.200 --> 00:25:07.000
joke. His friend Joseph Harden had
come to find that it wasn't so much

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00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:12.039
that Grant wasn't talented, as it
was that he was lazy. He wanted

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00:25:12.039 --> 00:25:17.279
to play his easy gigs and live
off of a woman, but that wasn't

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00:25:17.319 --> 00:25:19.680
easy. With Laura having two babies
under two years old to take care of,

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00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:26.400
how was she supposed to work.
Harden also witnessed Grant threatening both Laura

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00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:30.759
and her children. Not only was
Laura as miserable, if not more so

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00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:36.599
than when she had been back home
in North Carolina, Gentle had medical issues

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00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:40.880
relating to being born premature that she
preferred to take care of back home.

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00:25:41.400 --> 00:25:47.079
Most importantly, he needed surgery for
a stint to be placed between his bladder

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00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:52.039
and kidney. Laura returned to Kinston
and moved into a rental property owned by

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Grant's parents. It was next door
to Patsy's daycare, and she cleaned it

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00:25:57.680 --> 00:26:02.920
at night and exchanged for rent.
But she would come to regret this agreement.

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00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:08.079
To make money, she started a
freelance business called GoFish Graphic Designs.

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00:26:08.480 --> 00:26:17.440
She was finally using her skills creating
logos and other designs for businesses. Meanwhile,

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00:26:17.839 --> 00:26:22.599
Grant had finally found a sugar mama, a wealthy widow seven years older

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00:26:22.599 --> 00:26:26.960
than him. That widow was thirty
seven year old Amanda Perry Smith. She

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00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:32.519
was born in April nineteen seventy two
in Texas. She had come to the

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00:26:32.599 --> 00:26:37.079
Virgin Islands after her third husband had
died. I'm not here to marriage,

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00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:41.519
shame, Amanda. She had generational
trauma related to her mother's divorces that was

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00:26:41.559 --> 00:26:47.680
somewhat similar to Laura's sad early life. She married at sixteen to get away

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00:26:47.720 --> 00:26:52.240
from her family and had her first
daughter, Shay. Her second marriage didn't

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00:26:52.279 --> 00:26:56.720
work out, so she divorced,
but then struck Gold on her third.

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00:26:56.279 --> 00:27:00.720
He was rich and fourteen years older
than her, but she insisted it was

312
00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:06.359
a love match. She was heartbroken
when he was fatally injured in an accident

313
00:27:06.440 --> 00:27:11.119
on a lake, but she did
get a decent settlement from his estate after

314
00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:17.000
a fight with his brother and grown
children. Amanda had been vacationing on Saint

315
00:27:17.079 --> 00:27:22.359
John when she decided to embrace island
life forever and move there permanently. Her

316
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:26.160
teenage daughter, Shay, who had
lived with her sister back in Texas,

317
00:27:26.519 --> 00:27:30.200
agreed to come and live with her
mom on Saint John and finish high school

318
00:27:30.200 --> 00:27:36.839
there. Back in the States,
Amanda had been a cosmatologist, a real

319
00:27:36.920 --> 00:27:41.319
estate agent, and an actress.
She had even nabbed a few small roles

320
00:27:41.319 --> 00:27:47.079
in the OC the Sopranos and the
Stepford Wives. In the Virgin Islands,

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00:27:47.400 --> 00:27:52.119
Amanda got into painting and opened an
arts and crafts supply store with her daughter.

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00:27:53.119 --> 00:27:59.759
Laura was again painfully aware of this
relationship. Grant played it off,

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00:28:00.119 --> 00:28:03.079
saying he was just using Amanda for
the money, which he was, but

324
00:28:03.160 --> 00:28:08.279
he had no intention of getting off
this gravy train. In January of twenty

325
00:28:08.359 --> 00:28:14.519
ten, he followed Amanda and Shay
to New York City. Laura thought it

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00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:18.279
was for a record deal. She
had no idea they were moving there together,

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00:28:18.000 --> 00:28:23.000
or rather that Grant was following his
meal ticket. According to the book

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00:28:23.119 --> 00:28:29.759
Bitter Remains. In February, around
Valentine's Day, Grant came home to Kinston

329
00:28:29.839 --> 00:28:33.519
for a while and talked Laura into
letting Little Grant come to New York,

330
00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:38.839
supposedly to make a baby gap ad. Heidi begged her to not let him

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00:28:38.839 --> 00:28:45.359
do this. She was afraid he
wouldn't return Little Grant when the time was

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00:28:45.440 --> 00:28:48.880
up. The days turned into weeks, and Laura's fears grew. She was

333
00:28:48.880 --> 00:28:52.920
afraid to make legal moves because she
wasn't sure how Grant would react. She

334
00:28:53.079 --> 00:28:57.440
just kept pleading for them both to
come home. Then in March, he

335
00:28:57.480 --> 00:29:03.559
stopped paying child support. Heidi had
been right, he had no plans to

336
00:29:03.559 --> 00:29:07.480
give up Little Grant. At the
end of March, Laura filed a pro

337
00:29:07.559 --> 00:29:12.400
se request for Grant to return her
son. This is a lawsuit filed without

338
00:29:12.440 --> 00:29:17.640
an attorney. Grant promised to send
her a plane ticket to pick up Little

339
00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:22.200
Grant if she dropped the lawsuit.
She did, and he promptly canceled the

340
00:29:22.200 --> 00:29:27.160
ticket. Everything was a game to
him, anything to dodge supporting his children

341
00:29:27.519 --> 00:29:30.839
or having to go to court.
All the while, he had been reassuring

342
00:29:30.960 --> 00:29:37.240
Laura that he was just using Amanda
for her money and their relationship wasn't serious.

343
00:29:38.039 --> 00:29:42.599
He was playing Amanda just like he
was playing Laura. Amanda had not

344
00:29:42.680 --> 00:29:47.960
been planning on taking on a toddler
to raise, but guess what she was

345
00:29:48.039 --> 00:29:52.519
now not only paying for everything,
she was also basically a full time step

346
00:29:52.559 --> 00:29:56.319
mom to a toddler. The only
thing she needed was a marriage certificate,

347
00:29:57.559 --> 00:30:02.640
and in April twenty ten, she
and Grant took his two year old son

348
00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:07.200
to Vegas with them for a quickie
marriage. Grant and Amanda's marriage came to

349
00:30:07.279 --> 00:30:12.079
a huge shock to Laura. Laura
obviously thought she was married to Grant.

350
00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:18.200
After Grant cruelly sent her photos of
his wedding, She said, she dug

351
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:23.640
through her papers and realized that he
had never signed their wedding certificate. As

352
00:30:23.640 --> 00:30:29.559
in Aside, this part is strange
to me. It feels glossed over a

353
00:30:29.559 --> 00:30:33.480
bit. In Diane Fanning's book,
she simply wrote that they went to a

354
00:30:33.640 --> 00:30:37.680
Justice of the peace. There were
no other details about the wedding. Other

355
00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:42.880
media sources just say Grant and Laura
were never married. Court documents say they

356
00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:49.640
were in a domestic relationship but never
married. So what happened? In North

357
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:53.720
Carolina, you need a marriage license
from the county Register of Deeds before the

358
00:30:53.799 --> 00:30:57.920
ceremony. This is much like anywhere
else, though there is not a waiting

359
00:30:57.920 --> 00:31:03.759
period after the marriage. Ceremony must
be conducted by a magistrate or recognized officiant,

360
00:31:04.240 --> 00:31:08.480
and there must be two witnesses who
signed the marriage license. The minister

361
00:31:08.680 --> 00:31:14.319
or magistrate performing the ceremony must sign
the marriage license and return it to the

362
00:31:14.319 --> 00:31:18.160
Register of Deed's office within ten days
of the ceremony. Once you've been married,

363
00:31:18.519 --> 00:31:22.880
you will be able to obtain copies
of your marriage certificate from the Register

364
00:31:22.960 --> 00:31:27.920
of Deed's office or from North Carolina
Vital Records. Sorry to bore you with

365
00:31:27.960 --> 00:31:32.440
all that, but I wanted to
get it straight. So Grant would have

366
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:37.559
signed the license, not the certificate. If the magistrate married them, they

367
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:41.720
would have filed the license right away. So her story just doesn't make sense.

368
00:31:41.400 --> 00:31:45.720
And beyond that, there are simple
questions, who were the two witnesses.

369
00:31:47.279 --> 00:31:49.519
Did Laura have a wedding ring or
a diamond that she was so thrilled

370
00:31:49.519 --> 00:31:52.960
about, Not that you need a
ring to be legally married, but still

371
00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:57.400
none of this is mentioned in Bitter
Remains or anywhere else that I found.

372
00:31:59.200 --> 00:32:01.599
I know I'm harpy on this,
but it just seems really strange to me.

373
00:32:02.400 --> 00:32:06.759
I don't know how he could have
tricked her If they indeed went to

374
00:32:06.799 --> 00:32:12.480
a Justice of the peace aka a
magistrate, and Heidi said she was so

375
00:32:12.599 --> 00:32:17.000
excited that day they had married on
April thirtieth, their birthdays. It was

376
00:32:17.039 --> 00:32:23.240
symbolic and like fate to Laura,
Heidi certainly believed they were married. I

377
00:32:23.279 --> 00:32:29.160
guess it's possible the license was somehow
never filed, But why would a magistrate

378
00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:37.440
not file the license. Maybe Laura
was ashamed to admit the truth. Maybe

379
00:32:37.440 --> 00:32:42.119
Grant had made some sort of promise
to her that day and told her she

380
00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:46.200
should say that they were already married
to her friends and family because he was

381
00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:51.400
older than her and moving in with
her so fast, Maybe he thought telling

382
00:32:51.440 --> 00:32:57.160
everyone they were married would put her
friends in family at ease, and being

383
00:32:57.200 --> 00:33:00.599
in love and trusting him, Laura
went on along with it, and as

384
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:05.400
time went on, she was too
ashamed to admit the truth to anyone.

385
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:10.119
So when Grant did marry Amanda,
Laura was shocked and hurt, but had

386
00:33:10.119 --> 00:33:15.440
to somehow explain how he suddenly got
married. So she came up with a

387
00:33:15.519 --> 00:33:20.880
story that he had never signed the
certificate, and she told Heidi he had

388
00:33:20.880 --> 00:33:24.559
stopped paying child support, so she
followed the pro se request. It's the

389
00:33:24.599 --> 00:33:30.480
wording and then the legal action that
sounds like she knew they were either divorced,

390
00:33:30.759 --> 00:33:36.279
legally separated, or never married to
begin with. Anyway, It's a

391
00:33:36.279 --> 00:33:39.599
detail that really bugs me and a
rabbit hole I spent way too long on.

392
00:33:40.240 --> 00:33:45.240
I even stopped during this recording and
watched a YouTube video on North Carolina

393
00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:52.519
marriage licenses. Lord, I guess
whatever the truth is, Grant is still

394
00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:55.440
a piece of shit who relished in
sending Laura the photos of his wedding to

395
00:33:55.480 --> 00:34:00.599
Amanda. So there we are and
a man. Enda certainly had fancy wedding

396
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:05.480
and engagement rings, even if she
did have to pay for them herself.

397
00:34:06.920 --> 00:34:10.159
Following their marriage, Grant and Amanda
moved from New York to an apartment in

398
00:34:10.239 --> 00:34:15.159
Raleigh, North Carolina. The newlyweds
wanted to be closer to both of Grant's

399
00:34:15.159 --> 00:34:21.760
sons. They had basically kidnapped little
Grant, but Laura still had physical custody

400
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:28.480
of baby Gentle. So now the
fight was on. I'm going to pause

401
00:34:28.519 --> 00:34:36.760
now for a short commercial break.
Grant fired the first shot in the custody

402
00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:42.480
battle when he managed to get an
emergency EXPARTAI hearing with a judge. This

403
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:47.840
is a legal request for temporary custody
or changes in custody arrangements without providing prior

404
00:34:47.960 --> 00:34:53.079
notice to the other parent or guardian. Ex Partey means that only one party

405
00:34:53.119 --> 00:34:58.599
is involved in the initial hearing without
the presence of the opposing party. It

406
00:34:58.639 --> 00:35:02.360
is usually in cases where a parent
is worried their child is being abused or

407
00:35:02.360 --> 00:35:08.320
neglected. Grant convinced a judge to
sign the temporary order because he said Laura

408
00:35:08.400 --> 00:35:14.559
was an unfit mother who posted a
Craigslist ad for a free roommate implying that

409
00:35:14.639 --> 00:35:19.400
she was offering sex in exchange for
housing. And he said she was having

410
00:35:19.480 --> 00:35:22.199
trouble controlling little Grant, so that's
why he had to come live with him

411
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:28.320
in New York. So he tricked
her twice, and this is also why

412
00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:31.519
he flew to Vegas for the Quaki
marriage, because his attorney warned him the

413
00:35:31.599 --> 00:35:37.719
judge would view his cohabitation with Amanda
as harshly as any alleged Internet solicitation by

414
00:35:37.800 --> 00:35:44.760
Laura. It's hard to believe this
worked, but it did. Laura was

415
00:35:44.800 --> 00:35:49.800
horrified when police officers served her the
papers on June fifteenth, twenty ten.

416
00:35:50.679 --> 00:35:53.320
They took baby Gentle out of her
arms and turned him over to Grant.

417
00:35:54.440 --> 00:36:00.679
He hadn't even had his surgery yet. Gentle would finally have his surgery a

418
00:36:00.719 --> 00:36:06.199
few weeks later. Laura jumped into
action and got her own hearing on June

419
00:36:06.199 --> 00:36:10.440
twenty fifth, but she appeared unstable
to a judge because she didn't have steady

420
00:36:10.440 --> 00:36:15.360
work and she didn't have a permanent
home. That part pisces me off.

421
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:22.679
I feel like Grant's parents must have
refused to explain their arrangement with Laura,

422
00:36:22.280 --> 00:36:27.840
because honestly, it's not like Grant
or Amanda had jobs. They were just

423
00:36:27.880 --> 00:36:32.119
blowing through her inheritance money and they
were anything but stable. They had just

424
00:36:32.239 --> 00:36:37.480
moved from Saint John to New York
and back to Raleigh, and in the

425
00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:40.480
middle of these moves running off to
Vegas for their wedding, taking a two

426
00:36:40.519 --> 00:36:45.000
year old little boy with them,
And where the hell was Tina, who

427
00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:50.760
had tried to get Laura to foul
charges against her abusive brother. It's just

428
00:36:50.840 --> 00:36:55.440
so shitty to me. I know, family stays with family, but Laura

429
00:36:55.559 --> 00:37:01.039
was still the mother of their grandchildren, had once cared about her enough to

430
00:37:01.079 --> 00:37:06.159
stage an intervention to get her away
from their own son, and now this.

431
00:37:07.519 --> 00:37:10.239
Meanwhile, Laura was trying to take
care of a baby with health problems

432
00:37:10.559 --> 00:37:15.760
and cleaning their daycare at night in
return for living in one of their rentals.

433
00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:21.280
She had apparently thought she was still
married or at least still in a

434
00:37:21.320 --> 00:37:27.039
relationship with Grant Hayes the third with
a stable home that the Hayes family owned

435
00:37:27.480 --> 00:37:32.199
up until less than two months before
this new nightmare began. It's not like

436
00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:36.960
she had much time to find a
new place and get work, but she

437
00:37:37.039 --> 00:37:40.360
had even started her own graphic design
business while taking care of a baby by

438
00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:45.880
herself. To me, on paper, she seemed to be trying a hell

439
00:37:45.920 --> 00:37:51.239
of a lot harder than Grant.
Grant and Laura had both made accusations to

440
00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:54.760
the judge that were disturbing. Only
Laura's were true, but she would have

441
00:37:54.800 --> 00:38:00.800
to prove it to a court ordered
psychologist. At the June twenty fifth hearing,

442
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:04.719
they came to a custody arrangement that
Grant would have the kids during the

443
00:38:04.760 --> 00:38:09.039
week and Laura would have them every
weekend. She hated it, but unfortunately

444
00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:14.000
had little choice. She was about
to start a job that was Monday through

445
00:38:14.039 --> 00:38:19.280
Friday. Grant's music gigs were mainly
on the weekend. It made sense for

446
00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:24.440
now, at least until she could
talk to the psychologist. Since Grant had

447
00:38:24.480 --> 00:38:29.320
pulled this bullshit exparte order, he
had been the one to open the can

448
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:32.760
of worms, accusing his ex of
being an unfit mother, So the judge

449
00:38:32.840 --> 00:38:38.039
ordered Grant to pay for the psychologist
and appointed a woman named doctor Ginger Callaway.

450
00:38:38.960 --> 00:38:45.760
The first two payments were five thousand
each. I'm sure Amanda signed those

451
00:38:45.840 --> 00:38:50.840
checks pretty bitterly. She had wanted
her man and got him, but she

452
00:38:50.960 --> 00:38:54.760
had to pay for everything, including
his custody fight. Maybe in a way

453
00:38:54.880 --> 00:39:00.960
she didn't mind because she was certainly
jealous of Laura. While on Saint John,

454
00:39:00.400 --> 00:39:06.519
Grant's friends saw her as a hostile, jealous little groupie, the type

455
00:39:06.519 --> 00:39:12.039
to pick fights with girls looking at
her man. Her seemingly glamorous life with

456
00:39:12.119 --> 00:39:16.559
Grant had quickly begun to tarnish,
but Amanda would rather die than admit it.

457
00:39:17.239 --> 00:39:22.079
They were blowing through her inheritance at
an alarming rate. She had two

458
00:39:22.159 --> 00:39:25.719
hundred and fifty thousand in cash and
assets, but Grant lived like the money

459
00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:30.639
would never run out, and he
certainly never contributed to the cash flow.

460
00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:36.519
Typical Grant never had a real job. His gigs when he had one,

461
00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:43.239
never paid much. Meanwhile, Laura
was thriving. She busted her butt to

462
00:39:43.320 --> 00:39:46.119
prove to the court she was the
stable parent. She had a job working

463
00:39:46.199 --> 00:39:51.039
at a health food store. She
had found an apartment and a bright airy

464
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:54.480
loft in a converted warehouse, space
with a small room for the boys that

465
00:39:54.599 --> 00:40:00.559
she had filled with toys and creative, cheerful decorations. Gentle still had a

466
00:40:00.639 --> 00:40:05.760
crib and little Grant had a small
race car bed. You can see their

467
00:40:05.840 --> 00:40:12.639
small but happy space and sad crime
scene photos. A detective commented on seeing

468
00:40:12.639 --> 00:40:17.480
no evil that he could tell Laura's
whole life revolved around her children. Almost

469
00:40:17.519 --> 00:40:23.119
everything in her apartment was for the
boys, small child tables with little chairs,

470
00:40:23.519 --> 00:40:30.679
art stands, race cars, and
stuffed toys. The apartment was small

471
00:40:30.880 --> 00:40:35.679
but safe, with security cameras and
two keys needed, and a garage with

472
00:40:35.760 --> 00:40:38.440
a remote opener required so that she
didn't have to park on the street.

473
00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:45.000
Laura chose a warehouse loft with safety
in mind, but also full of light

474
00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:50.599
and warmth. Along with her full
time job, she had her two up

475
00:40:50.599 --> 00:40:54.119
and coming graphic design businesses. She
still had go Fish, and she had

476
00:40:54.119 --> 00:40:59.960
started a new advertising agency with her
friend and business partner, Chevon Mastha.

477
00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:05.760
This Laura was even taking classes again, this time at Pitt Community College,

478
00:41:06.079 --> 00:41:09.480
working to improve their new business.
She was meeting clients all the time,

479
00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:16.360
signing new contracts. She and Chaven
were so excited. Laura Akerson didn't just

480
00:41:16.440 --> 00:41:21.719
want a job, she wanted a
career. She wanted to be successful.

481
00:41:22.280 --> 00:41:25.400
She was smart and creative, and
she knew she could do it. Her

482
00:41:25.400 --> 00:41:31.599
confidence and self esteem grew brighter every
day. As far as her custody fight,

483
00:41:32.280 --> 00:41:37.880
Heidi advised her to document everything.
Laura got a diary or a day

484
00:41:37.920 --> 00:41:42.320
planner to do that, and a
tape recorder. She kept every voicemail,

485
00:41:42.440 --> 00:41:46.400
email and text from Grant. She
suspected he had hacked her email, so

486
00:41:46.519 --> 00:41:51.559
she created another email address that she
now used with Heidi and her lawyer.

487
00:41:52.079 --> 00:41:58.199
Grant tried calling child Services on Laura
for small bruises on little Grant and gentle

488
00:41:58.639 --> 00:42:02.559
the normal kind active little boys get. No charges were filed, no case

489
00:42:02.679 --> 00:42:08.320
was opened, and Grant's voluminous emails
were another thing. Long, ranting,

490
00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:15.039
hateful emails, and one he even
brought up her painful childhood, saying you

491
00:42:15.159 --> 00:42:19.000
got a raw deal when you were
their age, and now you are trying

492
00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:23.599
your damnedest to make sure your kids
get one. It was cruel. After

493
00:42:23.639 --> 00:42:29.239
this, Laura told him to stop
emailing her unless it was specifically about their

494
00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:35.320
schedule. Not that it stopped him. She just stopped responding, which for

495
00:42:35.400 --> 00:42:39.679
a narcissist like Grant Hayes would be
worse than arguing he needed her attention.

496
00:42:44.000 --> 00:42:53.199
I'm going to pause now for a
final commercial break. On a Saturday in

497
00:42:53.280 --> 00:42:59.039
September twenty ten, Grant called Laura
at around one o'clock, trying to pick

498
00:42:59.119 --> 00:43:02.159
up the boys a day early.
Not only was she not going to give

499
00:43:02.239 --> 00:43:06.599
up her day, she looked out
her window and saw him sitting in his

500
00:43:06.719 --> 00:43:12.800
car outside her apartment. That made
her uneasy. She refused, saying they

501
00:43:12.800 --> 00:43:15.519
would meet the next day as scheduled, in the public spot that had been

502
00:43:15.519 --> 00:43:21.920
agreed upon during the custody arrangement.
It was a convenience store called Sheets in

503
00:43:21.960 --> 00:43:25.159
the city of Wilson, which is
kind of in between Kinston, where Laura

504
00:43:25.199 --> 00:43:30.960
lived and Raleigh, where Grant and
Amanda were. Each parent had to drive

505
00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.639
an hour to Wilson, but if
they drove straight to each other's homes,

506
00:43:34.679 --> 00:43:37.880
it would be more like an hour
and a half, so it seemed fair

507
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:44.519
and public was best, less chance
of arguing or scenes. If you ask

508
00:43:44.639 --> 00:43:47.800
me, this was Grant's stalking her. He just shows up at her house,

509
00:43:49.119 --> 00:43:52.760
calls her and asks to come in
and get his boys with no advance

510
00:43:52.840 --> 00:43:57.920
warning. The guy that emailed and
texted her all the time, it feels

511
00:43:57.960 --> 00:44:02.960
like he was watching her apartment.
A year passed while Laura suffered through this

512
00:44:04.039 --> 00:44:08.199
abuse, missing her boys through the
week while they were with Grant. Amanda

513
00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:15.199
Sea sawed between picking the nastiest fights
with her over everything to then being kind

514
00:44:15.280 --> 00:44:19.760
enough to invite her to Thanksgiving so
she could spend it with her boys.

515
00:44:20.199 --> 00:44:23.440
Laura politely declined, saying she didn't
want to risk violating the court order.

516
00:44:24.719 --> 00:44:29.880
But despite all the venom from Amanda, Laura actually felt better that she was

517
00:44:29.920 --> 00:44:32.159
in the home taking care of her
boys. She might be a bit to

518
00:44:32.239 --> 00:44:36.039
Laura, but as far as she
could tell, she was good to her

519
00:44:36.079 --> 00:44:39.320
boys. Laura even sent her a
thank you note for being there for her

520
00:44:39.320 --> 00:44:44.519
sons and making an effort to get
along with her, not that she got

521
00:44:44.559 --> 00:44:51.079
a response, but Amanda could be
civil when she wanted to. Then something

522
00:44:51.119 --> 00:44:54.159
would come up and both Amanda and
Grant would be hateful and threatening. Again.

523
00:44:55.199 --> 00:44:59.079
Laura may not have known it,
but it was probably due to money

524
00:44:59.079 --> 00:45:04.719
stresses. Custody battles are expensive,
and like I said, Grant still lived

525
00:45:04.760 --> 00:45:08.559
like a king on Amanda's money.
The problem was the money was dwindling down

526
00:45:08.679 --> 00:45:15.239
fast, and just like Laura,
Amanda also became pregnant during that first year

527
00:45:15.280 --> 00:45:21.000
with Grant, another stresser. Despite
now being pregnant with Grant's child, she

528
00:45:21.199 --> 00:45:27.239
was still jealous of Laura and as
hateful as her husband. So Laura treaded

529
00:45:27.239 --> 00:45:31.559
carefully. She was very formal,
polite, and always positive in her communications,

530
00:45:31.840 --> 00:45:37.079
while Grant and Amanda were mostly rude
and childish. By that December,

531
00:45:37.199 --> 00:45:42.840
Grant and Amanda were selling off Amanda's
jewelry to make the bills, and still

532
00:45:43.159 --> 00:45:47.199
Grant went to Hawaii, supposedly to
find work early that spring. He didn't

533
00:45:47.239 --> 00:45:52.599
come home until May, when Amanda
thought she was going into labor. It

534
00:45:52.639 --> 00:45:57.719
wound up being Braxton Hicks false labor, but now he stayed because the baby

535
00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:02.400
was coming soon. In May twenty
eleven, doctor Callaway was finished with her

536
00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:09.039
evaluation, and it was a beast
of a report. The big succinct takeaway

537
00:46:09.079 --> 00:46:14.679
for me was that she only recommended
some parent coaching for Laura, who we

538
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:20.159
have to remember was still young and
in many ways naive. But for Grant,

539
00:46:20.719 --> 00:46:23.760
she advised him to see a psychiatrist
for mood disorders, which if you

540
00:46:23.840 --> 00:46:30.440
remember would make sense as he had
been diagnosed as bipolar years before and had

541
00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:36.679
taken lithium. She also thought he
lacked credibility with his accusations about Laura and

542
00:46:37.079 --> 00:46:44.239
was manipulative, and she said he
had polysubstance abuse problems and needed regular drug

543
00:46:44.280 --> 00:46:51.440
testing. Doctor Calloway also felt that
both Grant and Amanda wanted to quote obliterate

544
00:46:51.880 --> 00:46:57.400
Laura from the children's lives. They
both talked about moving out of state to

545
00:46:57.480 --> 00:47:01.679
Nashville for Grant's career or back to
the career Ribbian. They didn't see Laura's

546
00:47:01.760 --> 00:47:07.239
rights as the boy's mother at all
in their big plans. Doctor Calloway included

547
00:47:07.280 --> 00:47:13.800
Grant's parents in this evaluation quote.
It's critical that the court be informed regarding

548
00:47:13.840 --> 00:47:20.920
the insensitivity of Grant and Amanda and
the paternal grandparents regarding the children's deep need

549
00:47:21.320 --> 00:47:27.360
from an unalterable bond with Laura.
I was right about Patsy and Grant Junior

550
00:47:27.599 --> 00:47:30.880
leaving Laura out in the cold.
Now that Grant was with Amanda, they

551
00:47:30.880 --> 00:47:37.480
didn't care about Laura's rights anymore.
That whole family just wanted to erase Laura

552
00:47:37.519 --> 00:47:44.280
from the picture entirely. But despite
all the negative disturbing things in the report

553
00:47:44.360 --> 00:47:50.320
about Grant. Doctor Callaway recommended the
custody arrangement to be changed to a shared

554
00:47:50.360 --> 00:47:55.159
fifty to fifty arrangement, a two
three two schedule, like Laura gets the

555
00:47:55.239 --> 00:47:59.320
kids for two days, then they
go to Grant for three days, then

556
00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:02.199
back to Laura for two, then
the next week they would switch. Grant

557
00:48:02.199 --> 00:48:06.960
would get them for two days at
a time and then Laura three, which,

558
00:48:07.480 --> 00:48:12.400
geez, talk about unstable. I
don't get that lady's thinking. She

559
00:48:12.480 --> 00:48:15.639
seemed to recognize not just the mental
health issues of Grant Hayes, but his

560
00:48:15.760 --> 00:48:22.000
drug abuse and his manipulative nature.
She worried that he and his entire family

561
00:48:22.360 --> 00:48:28.199
were trying to remove Laura from her
children's lives, and yet she recommends fifty

562
00:48:28.239 --> 00:48:34.159
to fifty. This is a literal
quote about Grant and her report. It

563
00:48:34.239 --> 00:48:38.480
is disturbing that his intense rage serves
as an anchor for his disturbed thinking.

564
00:48:40.119 --> 00:48:46.239
Seriously, Doc, what the fuck? Laura was disappointed by the recommendation,

565
00:48:46.719 --> 00:48:52.079
but she had not lost hope.
She was still elated about the psych evaluation.

566
00:48:52.719 --> 00:48:55.920
She had a stable home and job. She had completed the required paperwork

567
00:48:57.000 --> 00:49:02.039
immediately shown up on time and interacted
lovingly with her sons. Her sons behaved

568
00:49:02.079 --> 00:49:08.320
better in her care, and it
showed in the evaluation. She felt pretty

569
00:49:08.360 --> 00:49:13.440
sure that Grant knew he was about
to lose, so did her attorney.

570
00:49:14.719 --> 00:49:20.719
Her mood over the next few weeks
was buoyant. Amanda wound up having a

571
00:49:20.719 --> 00:49:24.320
c section on June ninth, twenty
eleven. The couple had a baby girl.

572
00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:30.079
Laura took the kids for the week
that Amanda had the baby, because,

573
00:49:30.280 --> 00:49:34.440
as Diane Fanning put it, Grant
could be very reasonable and polite when

574
00:49:34.480 --> 00:49:38.039
he wanted something, and he needed
Laura to take the boys because Amanda was

575
00:49:38.119 --> 00:49:43.760
due any day. Laura even brought
the boys up to the hospital to meet

576
00:49:43.800 --> 00:49:46.920
their new sister. She was able
to work out her schedule with Chavon,

577
00:49:47.440 --> 00:49:52.039
sharing her car so Chavonne could meet
with clients while she had the boys,

578
00:49:52.639 --> 00:49:57.719
and she offered to take the boys
whenever she could during the week to give

579
00:49:57.760 --> 00:50:01.760
Amanda breaks. She obviously wanted to
see her sons, but she also always

580
00:50:01.800 --> 00:50:07.519
tried to show kindness to Amanda,
not that it really mattered. You would

581
00:50:07.559 --> 00:50:10.960
think Amanda might have appreciated the time
to herself and her new baby, but

582
00:50:12.079 --> 00:50:17.639
her attitude towards Laura stayed the same. The fight wasn't over. Laura was

583
00:50:17.679 --> 00:50:22.639
going to get full custody of her
sons, and it seems like Grant and

584
00:50:22.679 --> 00:50:27.280
Amanda could feel it too. She
wouldn't stop until she had her boys.

585
00:50:27.800 --> 00:50:31.000
Armed. With the psych evaluation,
her new career, her home, and

586
00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:36.599
of course, all of her meticulous
record keeping. She was ready for her

587
00:50:36.639 --> 00:50:40.639
next court date. Grant and Amanda
were almost out of money, had no

588
00:50:40.760 --> 00:50:46.760
serious jobs, and were about to
be evicted. Unfortunately, Grant's parents didn't

589
00:50:46.800 --> 00:50:52.159
have any rental properties open for him
at the time. He and his family

590
00:50:52.239 --> 00:50:58.559
would be moving home with Mama and
Papa Hayes. Laura and Grant had a

591
00:50:58.599 --> 00:51:02.840
hearing scheduled for all August fifteenth,
and her lawyer felt like she had a

592
00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:10.880
realistic chance at getting full custody despite
Callaway's recommendation, which meant that Grant Hayes

593
00:51:12.159 --> 00:51:15.599
had lost control. He was about
to lose his home, and he was

594
00:51:15.639 --> 00:51:21.320
out of money, he was about
to lose custody of his sons, and

595
00:51:21.440 --> 00:51:27.480
he had lost control of Laura,
which made him a very dangerous man.

596
00:51:31.679 --> 00:51:37.440
Southern Fried True Crime is hosted and
produced by me Erica Kelly. Part two

597
00:51:37.559 --> 00:51:42.159
of Erasing Laura Akerson is coming out
in a couple of days. God Willin

598
00:51:42.239 --> 00:51:45.800
and the Creek Don't Rise. Today's
episode was researched and written by me and

599
00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:51.159
Andrea Marshbank. As usual, any
editorial comments and opinions are my own.

600
00:51:51.639 --> 00:51:54.280
Southern Fred's original music is by Rob
Harrison of Gamma Radio and the original graphic

601
00:51:54.360 --> 00:51:59.920
art is by Colely Horner. Today's
episode was edited and mixed by Brendan Schacksnyder,

602
00:52:00.159 --> 00:52:04.239
Southern Gothic and Dereka Kelly. Thank
you to Marsha for suggesting this case.

603
00:52:04.639 --> 00:52:07.079
If you have any case suggestions,
please go to my website, Southernfred

604
00:52:07.119 --> 00:52:13.119
True Crime dot com and click on
the listener's suggestion tab or email SFTC Research

605
00:52:13.239 --> 00:52:15.559
at gmail dot com. This is
the best way for me to get those

606
00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:20.239
little known cases. Y'all always send
me. Please remember that I do not

607
00:52:20.360 --> 00:52:23.840
accept suggestions on social media private messages, but please do come join our Facebook

608
00:52:23.880 --> 00:52:29.320
group, Southern Fred Truecrime Fans Discussion
Group, where we swap recipes, worship

609
00:52:29.360 --> 00:52:32.159
Dolly Partner, and share memes.
We do, of course discuss true crime,

610
00:52:32.199 --> 00:52:35.800
not just Southern Fried, but all
kinds but it is still very much

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00:52:35.800 --> 00:52:38.400
a Southern lifestyle group. Our group
is a safe and fun corner of Facebook,

612
00:52:38.400 --> 00:52:40.960
and by God, we mean it
when we say no shit asays allowed.

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00:52:42.239 --> 00:52:45.199
It's not just a motto, it's
how we run the group. If

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00:52:45.199 --> 00:52:47.880
you enjoyed today's show, don't forget
to subscribe and please tell a friend or

615
00:52:47.960 --> 00:52:52.000
rate and review. I'm also on
all large platforms like iTunes, iHeart,

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00:52:52.039 --> 00:52:57.760
Spotify, Amazon, Audible, and
YouTube. Until next time, thanks so

617
00:52:57.840 --> 00:53:04.800
much for listening, y'all. Take
care, yeah,