Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: It is thought that he put the knife to her
Speaker 2: throat and told her she had to sign that document.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Author Diane Fanning is known
Speaker 1: for covering high profile cases like Casey Anthony and John
Speaker 1: Benet Ramsay, but not with this book. In the summer
Speaker 1: of twenty eleven, Laura Jean Ackerson left to pick up
Speaker 1: her two sons from her ex husband's home, and she
Speaker 1: was never seen alive again. Diane digs into this case,
Speaker 1: which leads us from North Carolina down to Texas. Her
Speaker 1: book is called bitter remains, a custody battle, a gruesome crime,
Speaker 1: and the mother who paid the ultimate price. How did
Speaker 1: you run across Laura Jean Akerson's story because I'm used
Speaker 1: to seeing, you know, Michael Peterson, those kind of really
Speaker 1: bigger cases, Casey Anthony, and this is not a case
Speaker 1: I got a ton of publicity. I hadn't heard of it.
Speaker 2: No, it hadn't gotten a lot of publicity. But I
Speaker 2: think the fact that I was living in Virginia again
Speaker 2: after being in Texas for so long, that I was
Speaker 2: just north of the story. So it stumbled across me,
Speaker 2: or I stumbled across it one of the two, and
Speaker 2: I was intrigued in a way. It's a love triangle
Speaker 2: and that's like an everyday thing, but this one involved
Speaker 2: an actress an artist as a musician. What a creative combo,
Speaker 2: and you usually don't expect creative people to interact and
Speaker 2: it ends up fatally.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that there is a complicated story
Speaker 1: in that everybody's backgrounds and how they're intertwined. And you know,
Speaker 1: you also talked a little tunny bit before we get
Speaker 1: started on the contrast between like a Michael Peterson story
Speaker 1: and this story you know about the victim here and
Speaker 1: the socioeconomic background and why this kind of thing does get,
Speaker 1: you know, so much more attention if it's a Michael
Speaker 1: Peterson than what happened with Aura.
Speaker 2: Well, when you have Michael Peterson, you had his wife
Speaker 2: that he killed, who was a pillar of the community,
Speaker 2: supporter of the arts. She had a high paying, high
Speaker 2: responsibility job. She was someone that garnered attention even before
Speaker 2: she died. When you look at Laura Akerson, she comes
Speaker 2: from much humbler beginnings. She was struggling to make it
Speaker 2: on her own, to set up her own business with
Speaker 2: design work and make a living to support herself and
Speaker 2: her children. And that's a different stratosphere than what we
Speaker 2: were talking about with Michael Peterson.
Speaker 1: So let's start from the beginning. We always want to
Speaker 1: start with the victim. Tell me about what you know
Speaker 1: from Laura. Where she grew up, What was she like.
Speaker 2: Laura grew up in the Upper Midwest, and she was
Speaker 2: a very simple girl as far as her upbringing was concerned.
Speaker 2: There wasn't much complication. There wasn't a force, and that
Speaker 2: is what seemed to have set her loose, and she
Speaker 2: started experimenting with some bad behaviors, but she really wanted
Speaker 2: to get her act back together, so she moved south
Speaker 2: to live with her brother for a while, and she
Speaker 2: was doing a whole lot better. And then one day
Speaker 2: she went to a club and saw this musician and
Speaker 2: his name was Grant Hayes, and she was just drawn
Speaker 2: to him and went to talk to him when he
Speaker 2: was done performing, and before you know it, they were dating.
Speaker 2: And there were so many things the music brought them together,
Speaker 2: but then the fact that they both had a birthday
Speaker 2: on the same day made it all seem like fate,
Speaker 2: and she just kind of fell for him real hard.
Speaker 2: And he liked her in many ways because she looked
Speaker 2: up to him and to his talent, and Grant Hayes
Speaker 2: was someone who liked to be worshiped and she provided
Speaker 2: that role.
Speaker 1: How old was she when she met Grants when he
Speaker 1: was this musician.
Speaker 2: Laura was in her early twenties when she met Grant Hayes.
Speaker 1: What were the impressions of Grant that people had around her? Well,
Speaker 1: she still in touch with her brother at that point.
Speaker 1: Did anybody from her family meet him.
Speaker 2: Laura's brother did not like Grant. He just got a
Speaker 2: weird vibe from him, and he didn't think his sister
Speaker 2: should be seeing him. But what are you going to do?
Speaker 2: I mean, you might be the older brother, but your
Speaker 2: younger sister is not going to take love advice from you.
Speaker 2: And Grant apparently did not care for him at all.
Speaker 2: In fact, I don't really think that he wanted her
Speaker 2: to have anything to do with her brother. He really
Speaker 2: wanted to isolate her as much as he could so
Speaker 2: that he could exert more control over her. She was
Speaker 2: feeling badly about the relationship and was all ready to
Speaker 2: leave and had made arrangements with a friend to leave him,
Speaker 2: But then she found out she was pregnant, and she said,
Speaker 2: how could I leave him when I've got another child
Speaker 2: on the way that's his. So she stuck with him,
Speaker 2: against her friend's better judgment, and then she had two
Speaker 2: little boys, and suddenly she was more dependent on Grant
Speaker 2: than she was before. And when he took off the
Speaker 2: Virgin Island, she went with him. And that was just
Speaker 2: a bad move because he was out all hours of
Speaker 2: the night. He never helped with anything in the house.
Speaker 2: He brought very little money back to the family, and
Speaker 2: he had his friends coming into the house too. Three
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning and playing music and shouting and
Speaker 2: carrying on and doing drugs and drinking, and that's just
Speaker 2: not a good environment for little children. And Laura was
Speaker 2: getting really fed up with it, but she stayed stuck
Speaker 2: it out until her little boy got really sick and
Speaker 2: needed more expert medical care than she could get on
Speaker 2: the island.
Speaker 1: Were there any calls to the police or reports to
Speaker 1: the police about yelling, screaming, domestic violence. Was there a
Speaker 1: report from anybody that he had been physical with her
Speaker 1: before this relationship ends.
Speaker 2: I don't think there were any physical reports, but there
Speaker 2: were a lot of people that were aware of his
Speaker 2: physical abuse, and Laura, in a lot of ways felt
Speaker 2: trapped until she had the excuse of her son to
Speaker 2: get her out of that situation. And she had suspicions
Speaker 2: that he Grant was seeing Amanda, the actress who ran
Speaker 2: an art supplies store, but she didn't know, and he
Speaker 2: kept saying things like, listen, she's just got a lot
Speaker 2: of money. She believes in my talent. She wants to
Speaker 2: help me succeed. But although a lot of that was true,
Speaker 2: there was something else going on between the two of them,
Speaker 2: and it was becoming rather serious.
Speaker 1: What did you know before we start talking about Amanda again?
Speaker 1: What did you know about Grants before he ended up
Speaker 1: meeting Laura. Do we know anything about his background at all?
Speaker 2: He was raised in a very religious household. He had
Speaker 2: been married once before to a ballerina and that didn't
Speaker 2: work out. But he didn't have any children before. And
Speaker 2: he also was seriously delusional. He had a philosophy that
Speaker 2: he could have one hundred children or more with dozens
Speaker 2: of women and be able to build an empire. It
Speaker 2: would rule the world as he knew it. You know,
Speaker 2: it was like it was pretty crazy kind of belief system.
Speaker 2: And he didn't talk to a lot of people about it,
Speaker 2: but he did talk to some and he just he
Speaker 2: wanted to set up his own harem and his family
Speaker 2: of little kids and have them grow up, and as
Speaker 2: they grew up, they would stand beside him and give
Speaker 2: him power that he would go to another world and
Speaker 2: rule there. It was very bizarre.
Speaker 1: Wow. And what was the closest you were able to
Speaker 1: get to Grant as far as a source. Did you
Speaker 1: end up talking to him?
Speaker 2: I never talked to Grant. He was not interested in
Speaker 2: talking to me. His lawyers were not interested in facilitating it,
Speaker 2: and yeah, it was it's impossible to get there.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so they're in the Virgin Islands. One of
Speaker 1: her boys gets sick and she needs to return to
Speaker 1: North Carolina. He stays there. Is she relieved because she thinks, okay,
Speaker 1: well this is it. I mean, now I can kind
Speaker 1: of just be done with this. And or was she
Speaker 1: thinking this is going to have to keep going because
Speaker 1: I've got the sick kid, and I need something to
Speaker 1: sustain us. I need some kind of money. And she's
Speaker 1: dependent on him still.
Speaker 2: She is still dependent on him, and there's probably nobody
Speaker 2: less suited to provide a structure to uphold the family
Speaker 2: than Grant Hayes. But his parents were there in North
Speaker 2: Carolina too, and they gave her a place to stay,
Speaker 2: and she cleaned their daycare center for them as part
Speaker 2: of her way to pay back the rent and board
Speaker 2: for her and the boys.
Speaker 1: She still looped in with him then, I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: she's with her family, so there's not getting away from
Speaker 1: him even if they are separated, because she doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to have any options in North Carolina.
Speaker 2: No, she doesn't. I mean, her brother was there, but
Speaker 2: you know what single mail wants to take in his
Speaker 2: sister and two little boys. Yeah, you know, it's a
Speaker 2: kind of an awkward thing. But his parents were there
Speaker 2: with open arms. I mean, she was the mother of
Speaker 2: their two grandchildren. They felt obligated to help her, and
Speaker 2: they also seemed to really like her. And then things
Speaker 2: just spiraled out of control when Grant came back to
Speaker 2: the United States, but instead of coming back to North Carolina,
Speaker 2: he went to New York, where Amanda had moved back to,
Speaker 2: and he moved into her apartment. She said that she
Speaker 2: did not know if he was coming to her when
Speaker 2: he came back to the States, and by now Laura
Speaker 2: knew that they were having a relationship, but she knew
Speaker 2: that it was serious, and he wanted to bring their
Speaker 2: oldest boy, who was about four, up to New York
Speaker 2: for a commercial opportunity. Laura was hesitant, but she let
Speaker 2: him take the boy up there, and he was only
Speaker 2: supposed to be for ten days, but then he didn't
Speaker 2: bring him back and she kept asking for him to
Speaker 2: come back, and then the next thing she knows, she's
Speaker 2: getting photos online from Las Vegas, and its pictures of
Speaker 2: his wedding with Amanda, and she was in shock because
Speaker 2: she thought she was married until that moment. He told
Speaker 2: her to look at the document and she'd see it
Speaker 2: never had been notarized. It wasn't official, and Laura was devastated.
Speaker 2: So I want to make sure I get the timeline straight.
Speaker 2: When he meets Amanda, he meets her in the Virgin Islands.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: That is correct? Grant Meta Amanda in the Virgin Islands.
Speaker 1: But Amanda was from where was she from? New York State?
Speaker 2: Amanda had been around a lot. She had been most
Speaker 2: recently in New York State, but she'd also been out
Speaker 2: in California, where she had a part in the remake
Speaker 2: of The Stepford Wives. But acting wasn't working well for her,
Speaker 2: so she moved back to Texas. She met someone there
Speaker 2: she got married. He had a horrible accident. He jumped
Speaker 2: into a lake that was not as deep as he
Speaker 2: thought and was severely injured. He was completely paralyzed from
Speaker 2: the neck down, and she was nursing him for a while,
Speaker 2: and when he died, then she decided that, you know,
Speaker 2: she wanted to go to New York. She had some
Speaker 2: money that she inherited from him, and she went to
Speaker 2: New York and ended up going to beauty school, and
Speaker 2: that's what she was doing until she took a vacation
Speaker 2: down to the Virgin Islands and absolutely fell in love
Speaker 2: with the place and moved down to Saint John.
Speaker 1: Now I'm curious, what are the age differences between these
Speaker 1: three people. Is there a big age difference between the
Speaker 1: women and Grant or is everybody basically the same.
Speaker 2: Laura is the youngest of the bunch, and then comes Grant,
Speaker 2: and then is Amanda. The age bread isn't that much,
Speaker 2: but Amanda was definitely an older woman to Grant.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Amanda's personality based on what you know?
Speaker 1: You know? Is she gregarius? Is she outgoing? Or I'm
Speaker 1: wondering how he kind of gets to her too.
Speaker 2: A Banda did not seem to have a whole lot
Speaker 2: of self confidence, but she put up a good shell,
Speaker 2: and she was one of those women that when things
Speaker 2: got tough, she falled and fell back on the oh
Speaker 2: poor helpless me act. She really got with Grant thinking
Speaker 2: she'd have somebody to take care of her, but it
Speaker 2: ended up she was taking care of Grant.
Speaker 1: So Grant is not living with Laura at this time.
Speaker 1: Laura's in North Carolina, and Grant says that he wants
Speaker 1: the oldest son to come up to New York because
Speaker 1: he has a commercial opportunity. Is that modeling? What kind
Speaker 1: of commercial opportunity does a kid four or have?
Speaker 2: You take a cute kid and you pop them in
Speaker 2: a commercial and people want your product. And that's what
Speaker 2: he wanted for his son, just to be a cute
Speaker 2: little face and get started on a career. That's what
Speaker 2: he envisioned for him. I probably thought even for through
Speaker 2: that one day little Grant might be able to support him.
Speaker 2: He was always looking for people to take care of
Speaker 2: him and to avoid work so he could do drugs
Speaker 2: and drink.
Speaker 1: So he tells Laura, I'm gonna get our kid modeling
Speaker 1: gigs and bring them up to New York and it
Speaker 1: will be just for a little bit, and I'll send
Speaker 1: them back down. Did they have any kind of a
Speaker 1: custody agreement at this point or was it just between
Speaker 1: the two of them.
Speaker 2: No, there was no custody agreement, but that once he
Speaker 2: married Amanda, that all started to change because now Amanda
Speaker 2: wanted her and Grant to be able to go where
Speaker 2: they wanted, but Grant didn't want to go anywhere. Without
Speaker 2: his boys. He wanted his boys with him, and all
Speaker 2: things got very ugly, and he ended up going to
Speaker 2: them and getting one of those judgments you can get
Speaker 2: when someone's life is in danger, so that he could
Speaker 2: get immediate custody of this little boy too. So the
Speaker 2: share of stopped Laura when she's driving down the road
Speaker 2: with the little one and took him from her, screaming
Speaker 2: and crying. He was very traumatic for the child, and
Speaker 2: he was turned over to his biological father.
Speaker 1: What is the reaction of his parents, who she's living
Speaker 1: with and working with, to all of this. She must
Speaker 1: be saying, I don't know what's happening with your son.
Speaker 1: I thought we were legally married. Now he's married to
Speaker 1: this other woman named Amanda, and he's taken off. Do
Speaker 1: you guys know what's going on?
Speaker 2: And they didn't know very much either. Grant wasn't the
Speaker 2: best dis communicating, and when he communicated, he usually lied.
Speaker 2: They were pretty much in the dark too. They didn't
Speaker 2: know what was going on. But by this time Laura
Speaker 2: had gotten her own apartment, she had found someone to
Speaker 2: work with her, She was starting her own business. She
Speaker 2: was doing a business where she sold advertising on those
Speaker 2: place mats you get in small diners in little towns,
Speaker 2: and so she was selling ads on that she was
Speaker 2: doing the designs herself, and things were starting to come together.
Speaker 2: And she also realized that she had not really in
Speaker 2: a way grown up as she should have, and so
Speaker 2: she started She got with someone at church who was
Speaker 2: counseling her and helping her to realize what areas she
Speaker 2: needed to work on, and she was doing everything she
Speaker 2: could to be a better person. But in the meantime,
Speaker 2: now Grant had moved back to Raleigh, was living with Amanda,
Speaker 2: who was now pregnant with their child, and sharing custody
Speaker 2: with Laura, and he had primary custody and she was
Speaker 2: just getting basically visitation rights. And she finally decided that
Speaker 2: she just had to do something. She had to take action.
Speaker 2: She had to take him to court and get this
Speaker 2: all looked at again, because she was not somebody who
Speaker 2: could not be trusted with her children, but she strongly
Speaker 2: believed that Grant could not be trusted with the children,
Speaker 2: and she was gathering evidence. I mean, he would send
Speaker 2: her very hateful emails, he would make hateful comments on
Speaker 2: the phone, and she was recording it all and saving
Speaker 2: she took the emails and a friend of hers stored
Speaker 2: them on her computer so that there would always be
Speaker 2: a record of them, and she took her little record
Speaker 2: device anywhere when she was meeting up for the exchange
Speaker 2: of children. She was doing all the work she needed
Speaker 2: to do to regain custody of her boys. Meanwhile, Amanda
Speaker 2: was thought that Laura was the worst person in the
Speaker 2: world and horrible mother and all of that only because
Speaker 2: that's what Grant told her, and she believed Grant.
Speaker 1: What was his reason and why was the sheriff so
Speaker 1: convinced that the boys' lives were in danger? I mean,
Speaker 1: what could he have possibly say? What evidence was there?
Speaker 1: It seems like there was no evidence. And it also
Speaker 1: seems like in even you know, anywhere in the country,
Speaker 1: that it would be a lot to take away some
Speaker 1: kids from their mother, especially well.
Speaker 2: He claimed that she did drugs and she was a
Speaker 2: sex worker.
Speaker 1: But there's no proof of that, is there no?
Speaker 2: But this was an emergency custody thing, and emergency is
Speaker 2: they will act fast and look for the proof later
Speaker 2: if they think a child's life is endangered. And he
Speaker 2: presented a good argument that the child children were not safe.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how long did he have the oldest boy
Speaker 1: initially before he came back to North Carolina with Amanda, It.
Speaker 2: Was about six months. And for a little boy, that
Speaker 2: is a long long time to be separated from mom.
Speaker 2: That's just horrible long time, and you know, you don't
Speaker 2: understand what's going on. And so the parent that's not
Speaker 2: responsible for the separation, it ends up shouldering some of
Speaker 2: the blame for abandonment when that's not what really happened.
Speaker 2: So it was very traumatic for little Grant, very traumatic.
Speaker 1: Now, why did he and Amanda come back down to
Speaker 1: North Carolina? Why didn't they stay in New York? Was
Speaker 1: it to be closer to his parents?
Speaker 2: They came down to North Carolina because they had to
Speaker 2: settle this custody thing. That's right, Laura was taking them
Speaker 2: to court. They absolutely did not want her to have
Speaker 2: any kind of custody. They wanted to be able to
Speaker 2: roll around the country with him doing music gigs wherever
Speaker 2: and whenever, and the children were essentially in the way.
Speaker 2: So he and Amanda came down, and there was also
Speaker 2: Shay who was Amanda's early twenties daughter, so she was there.
Speaker 2: She came down to try to help her with the children,
Speaker 2: and that didn't work out too well. Grant just didn't
Speaker 2: want her in their apartment, even though there was room
Speaker 2: for her, But so she got an apartment down the
Speaker 2: hall so that she could be there for her mom.
Speaker 2: But I think, as we're starting to fall apart between
Speaker 2: the two of them, but she was also having a baby.
Speaker 2: So Laura, being the kind of person she was, readily
Speaker 2: agreed to take the boys and keep them full time
Speaker 2: while Amanda was approaching delivery time. And she did that,
Speaker 2: but then the boys went back when that was over,
Speaker 2: and now there are three children in the house, two
Speaker 2: preschool boys and one infant girl, and the situation was
Speaker 2: getting more inflamed. Without Laura really realizing it, she thought
Speaker 2: they were on the way to a solution because the
Speaker 2: court ordered a psychological survey of both of their homes
Speaker 2: and all of the people involved. They did special things
Speaker 2: with testing with the children, like they will put one
Speaker 2: of the children into a room with a bunch of
Speaker 2: toys and see how they acted alone, and then they
Speaker 2: would send in the mother and see how they interacted.
Speaker 2: And both of them they just ran to their mother
Speaker 2: and were so happy to see her. But then when
Speaker 2: the father came in, they might have said hi, but
Speaker 2: then they just went back to what they were doing,
Speaker 2: and that told you a lot about the connection the
Speaker 2: children had. And there were also things that they went
Speaker 2: and saw their houses and the living conditions in them.
Speaker 2: Then they sat down one on one, we'd got an
Speaker 2: in depth interview with Grant and also with Amanda and
Speaker 2: with Laura, and so the psychologists basically came to the
Speaker 2: conclusion that Laura still had a little growing up to do,
Speaker 2: which Laura knew and was working on, but thought that
Speaker 2: she was a good, loving mother, but that Amanda and
Speaker 2: Grant were showing all signs of wanting to wipe her
Speaker 2: out from those boys' lives completely, didn't want her to
Speaker 2: be around them ever at all, wanted them to forget
Speaker 2: she existed. And on top of that, Grant was really
Speaker 2: very demeaning when he talked about her. They found out
Speaker 2: that all those things he was saying about her to
Speaker 2: get custody were lies. And the one that had the
Speaker 2: drug problems they did drug testing, he was the one
Speaker 2: with the problems, the psychological problems, the drug problems, everything,
Speaker 2: And a report came out and this was the explosive
Speaker 2: moment that led to Laura's death. The report came out
Speaker 2: and it laid out the inadequacies of Grant as a
Speaker 2: father and his need to see to get psychiatric help,
Speaker 2: and his need to be monitored for drugs. And they
Speaker 2: knew Grant and Amanda that once they went back into
Speaker 2: the court, that report is what was going to put
Speaker 2: them out of the picture with the children. They would
Speaker 2: only get occasional visits. They would be tied to the
Speaker 2: area where Laura lived. Laura was real upbeat about it
Speaker 2: because she saw it too. Yeah, And one of the
Speaker 2: things that were found in Grant's car was a copy
Speaker 2: of the report with all sorts of notes had been
Speaker 2: written or on it, attacking the psychologist and attacking Laura,
Speaker 2: and it was just invented on that document.
Speaker 1: Did you get the impression that Amanda was a good
Speaker 1: step parent to the boys, and then she's got this
Speaker 1: newborn of course too.
Speaker 2: I take what a Laura said. She trusted Amanda to
Speaker 2: take care of her children. She did not trust them
Speaker 2: with Grant, but she thought with Amanda there they would
Speaker 2: be okay. A problem with Amanda is she brought into
Speaker 2: all of Grant's lies and she really thought that Laura
Speaker 2: was scum, and she treated her very rudely. For example,
Speaker 2: they'd have set up a time when she could talk
Speaker 2: to the boys on the phone, and you know how
Speaker 2: they are when their little guys, they just you know,
Speaker 2: they don't really talk too well on the phone and
Speaker 2: they get distracted easily. Well, she was sitting there next
Speaker 2: to the boys on the phone, doing everything she could
Speaker 2: to distract them away from their mother, and it just
Speaker 2: was bad all around. And nothing that Amanda was doing,
Speaker 2: aside from the domestic chores of clean keeping them clothes clean,
Speaker 2: and keeping them fed and keeping them safe on a
Speaker 2: day to day basis, but the other thing she was
Speaker 2: doing was really detrimental to them. I mean, a divorce
Speaker 2: can be less than a traumatic event if the two
Speaker 2: people getting divorced do not drag the children into the conflict. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, but they were always getting drugged in and
Speaker 2: they were always hearing negative comments about their mother, and
Speaker 2: that that was just it was just bad. And so
Speaker 2: Laura was very excited when she got a call from
Speaker 2: Grant asking her if she wanted to come over and
Speaker 2: see the boys in the middle of the week, because
Speaker 2: she never got to do that. It was just a
Speaker 2: weekend thing. Was all she had, and she was very
Speaker 2: excited about being able to see them during the week,
Speaker 2: and she thought he was being nice to her because
Speaker 2: she'd taken the boys while Amanda was having her baby,
Speaker 2: and so she went over there all excited to get
Speaker 2: in there and see them. But when she came in,
Speaker 2: she didn't see the boys. Both the boys and the
Speaker 2: little baby girl were in a bedroom with a shut door,
Speaker 2: watching a movie. They sat down at the dining table,
Speaker 2: all three of the adults, and they pulled out a
Speaker 2: document and told her she needed to sign it, and
Speaker 2: the document said that for twenty five thousand dollars she
Speaker 2: would give up custody the kids. Now, what was very
Speaker 2: ironic about that was the fact that Grant had already
Speaker 2: spent every penny of Amanda's inheritance from her past husband,
Speaker 2: and that she really had absolutely nothing left. Her daughter
Speaker 2: found her crying on the back the floor because everything
Speaker 2: was gone. All her jewels had been sold. She had
Speaker 2: a lot of expensive jewelry. She's married to a very
Speaker 2: wealthy man, her second husband, but it was all gone,
Speaker 2: and they were worried about being able to pay the rent.
Speaker 2: They're on moving in with his parents because they couldn't
Speaker 2: afford it anymore. They're still saying they're going to pay
Speaker 2: her twenty five thousand dollars. Well, Laura brought along her
Speaker 2: tape recorder, and she had her tape recorder running through
Speaker 2: this whole conversation. And finally, what I think, though we
Speaker 2: don't know with certainty, but Laura had a knife cut
Speaker 2: on her neck and it is thought that he put
Speaker 2: the knife to her throat. He or Amanda and told
Speaker 2: her she had to sign that document. So she signed it,
Speaker 2: confident that she had the evidence to have it thrown
Speaker 2: out in court. So she I think what happened was
Speaker 2: she made the fatal mistake. She got up to leave
Speaker 2: the apartment, and there was a carpet which was later
Speaker 2: found covered with bleach stains, and that is probably the
Speaker 2: spot where Laura died, because she stopped there by the
Speaker 2: door and let them know that she had recorded the
Speaker 2: whole conversation. Oh my gosh, and they could not let
Speaker 2: her leave.
Speaker 1: Well, let me pause real quick and say this, so
Speaker 1: you know, I teached her crime at University of Texas,
Speaker 1: and I talked to my students about this all the time.
Speaker 1: When they say I don't understand, like this would be
Speaker 1: a good example of probably one of them would say,
Speaker 1: why would she have done that? I mean I kind
Speaker 1: of gasped and thought that myself, because you don't think
Speaker 1: the person's capable of that. Yeah, and people are capable
Speaker 1: of anything, you know, And I don't mean for people
Speaker 1: to be paranoid, but but don't underestimate, especially someone who's
Speaker 1: been physically abused of like that. Don't estimate what they're
Speaker 1: capable of. And it's just so sad that she could
Speaker 1: have maybe gotten out of that, you know.
Speaker 2: And Laura was a naive person and she accepted things
Speaker 2: that end people at face value. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 2: that she might have not felt all that safe with Grant,
Speaker 2: but I think she felt safe with Amanda, And because
Speaker 2: Amanda was there, I think she didn't think anything bad
Speaker 2: was going to happen. Well, And so she died there
Speaker 2: and while kids are in the other room, they took
Speaker 2: her body and put it into the guest bathroom off
Speaker 2: the living room. And that was the bathroom that the
Speaker 2: children usually used for their bath because they had tub
Speaker 2: in it, and said, yeah, they put her in the
Speaker 2: tug and they got all the toys out, they got
Speaker 2: the shower curtain out. Eventually they got everything they cleaned
Speaker 2: out that room because evidence and everything went down on
Speaker 2: the dumpster. And that night Grant went out to home
Speaker 2: depot and he bought plastic bags and a saw in
Speaker 2: a blade, and plastic containers and cleaning supplies. And they
Speaker 2: cut up her body in that bathroom, in the same
Speaker 2: apartment where her two little boys were.
Speaker 1: You couldn't at least send them to Shae's apartment, which
Speaker 1: is a couple of apartments down.
Speaker 2: I mean that's they had Shaye take care of the
Speaker 2: boys while they were cleaning the evidence up. Did Shane
Speaker 2: know what was happening, had no idea. She took the
Speaker 2: boys out to a place they liked to go to,
Speaker 2: you know where it had all that kiddy stuff and
Speaker 2: trampolines and games and things, and so she took them there,
Speaker 2: and then you know, she wanted to bring them home.
Speaker 2: Her mother said, no, you can't bring them home yet.
Speaker 2: And she ended up with them all day long, and
Speaker 2: two preschool's little boys can be take a lot of
Speaker 2: energy when they're charged up going places and going out
Speaker 2: for some meals and things, and Shay was tired. She
Speaker 2: wanted to bring them home, and finally she got to
Speaker 2: go ahead to bring them back, and then she found
Speaker 2: out that her mother had made plans to get rid
Speaker 2: of a piece of furniture. There's basically a family heirloom
Speaker 2: kind of piece of furniture. Is a great big wardrobe,
Speaker 2: and Sae thought that Amanda had promised to give it
Speaker 2: to her one day, and now it was going to
Speaker 2: be taken out to Texas to Amanda's aunt so all.
Speaker 2: The only reason it was being done though, which she
Speaker 2: did not realize, was she needed something in the U
Speaker 2: all truck to block the sight of the plastic containers
Speaker 2: that contained Amanda's body parts. Then they packed up everybody
Speaker 2: and took off from North Carolina all the way to Texas. Now,
Speaker 2: I lived in Texas for a while. I drove there
Speaker 2: from Virginia once. I drove back here from Texas once.
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you right now, that is a long drive,
Speaker 2: even without little children in the car, it is long.
Speaker 2: It is arduous. Man, that was a long drive.
Speaker 1: It's a massive state, So it is a long drive, yes,
Speaker 1: and it's often on a pleasant drive, so yeah, I
Speaker 1: can and I can also understand the tension they must
Speaker 1: have felt just hoping they didn't get pulled over or
Speaker 1: something by a cop coming down, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they if they traveled down Route ten, which
Speaker 2: would be logical to go since they were going just
Speaker 2: outside of Houston where ten would have been larger, and
Speaker 2: that goes through Louisiana, goes through a lot of swampy areas.
Speaker 2: And all I could think was, Okay, I'm carrying body parts.
Speaker 2: Why wouldn't I dump them in a Louisiana swamp that
Speaker 2: has no connection with me? But no, they took them
Speaker 2: out to Amanda's aunt's house, and then they were asking
Speaker 2: all sorts of questions that really made people uncomfortable, like
Speaker 2: were they're alligators in the kree? What about those haveolinas?
Speaker 2: What they do they eat bodies? And they also want
Speaker 2: to check on this They had a backyard septic tank
Speaker 2: to know how deep that was, and all sorts of
Speaker 2: nutty stuff that normal people wouldn't ask. Then they asked
Speaker 2: to bar the boat and they took it out at night.
Speaker 2: We're going fishing. Uh huh. They took those two big
Speaker 2: containers with them in the boat and they dumped Lauris
Speaker 2: body parts in that creek, hoping that the alligators would
Speaker 2: eat them. Why would you dump the body parts across
Speaker 2: the street from a house that you were connected.
Speaker 1: To, because you're panicking and you need to know exactly
Speaker 1: how this is going to go, that nobody could find her.
Speaker 1: You know, you need to control your environment. And if
Speaker 1: they go wandering around Louisiana and run across the wrong
Speaker 1: people in the swamp, I mean, I understand, but I
Speaker 1: also can think you could run off the road and
Speaker 1: your car could sing or U hall could sink. I
Speaker 1: could see why they would say, we've got to be
Speaker 1: someplace where we actually know what the environment's like and
Speaker 1: control it. But from a logical standpoint, yeah, it was
Speaker 1: pretty stupid.
Speaker 2: Of course it was stupid. And and they before they
Speaker 2: dumped it in the creek, they tried to to pour
Speaker 2: different chemicals on her body to get her to dissolve it.
Speaker 2: And where they dumped them chemicals, Amanda was caught on
Speaker 2: one of the wildlife cameras dumping off the chemicals. And
Speaker 2: it was just anything they could do wrong they could
Speaker 2: do they did. And yeah, there were reports of Laura
Speaker 2: being missing and the police had gone to her apartment
Speaker 2: and they couldn't find any sign of her, and they
Speaker 2: couldn't find her car, and everybody was all worried about
Speaker 2: where she was, and they started investigating and find out
Speaker 2: where she was going and then find out those people
Speaker 2: are going from their apartment. So they called Grant on
Speaker 2: the phone and he said something about, oh, I didn't
Speaker 2: have a signal when you called a few other times,
Speaker 2: and I do now though, but I'm in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere. And the detective said, well, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't know there was any nowhere around Raleigh, but he
Speaker 2: tried to keep up the fiction that that's where he
Speaker 2: was near home. And ironically, the police officers were heading
Speaker 2: out to the aunt in Texas at the same time Grant,
Speaker 2: Laura and the children were coming back to North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Do they have tracers on those U hauls? They must
Speaker 1: even fifteen years ago when this happened, because this is
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: You know, I do. I do not know how much
Speaker 2: that ate it, But what got him was the GPS
Speaker 2: on the phone, yeah, and that made the connection and
Speaker 2: next thing you know, they're going out there. Texas law
Speaker 2: enforcement gave them support, brought in divers, and it was
Speaker 2: an awful place to dive because you kept getting tangled
Speaker 2: up in the lily pads. Which has have such long routes,
Speaker 2: and on top of that, it was the data summer.
Speaker 2: The temperature were over one hundred degrees in this murky,
Speaker 2: nasty order. I felt so sorry for those divers. They
Speaker 2: found most of her body parts, though it took a
Speaker 2: couple of days of working in that hot, hot sun.
Speaker 2: And when the cops arrived to talk to the aunt,
Speaker 2: she said to them, can I pray first? And she
Speaker 2: spent some time praying, and she said, well, I've already
Speaker 2: talked to my minister, and I think I need to
Speaker 2: tell you what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid they hurt Laura,
Speaker 2: and I think that maybe Amanda is covering up for Grant.
Speaker 1: So they what extradite them back to North Carolina, because
Speaker 1: the murder happened in North Carolina, right.
Speaker 2: They didn't have to extradite them because they were already
Speaker 2: driving back on their own. They were going to try
Speaker 2: to drive back and ptet like nothing happened. And Grant's
Speaker 2: story was, well, we went to the gas station, our
Speaker 2: sheets gas station where we were supposed to meet Laura.
Speaker 2: We went there with the two boys, and Laura never
Speaker 2: showed up. And they really did go there. They were
Speaker 2: called him on camera, going in and out of the
Speaker 2: sheets and yeah.
Speaker 1: So the DA. Now it sounds like it would be
Speaker 1: easy with Grant first agree murder, right, this was planned.
Speaker 1: Now I have to assume that Amanda was a different story.
Speaker 1: How do you well? First of all, what did she say?
Speaker 1: Once this is finally all out and they can't deny
Speaker 1: it's what's their stories? Are they turning on each other
Speaker 1: at all?
Speaker 2: Yes, she's blaming Grant, Grant's blaming her. It was unbelievable
Speaker 2: and Grant where they were tried separately, and at Grant's trial,
Speaker 2: they played this horrible song that he had written to
Speaker 2: Laura talking about how he was going to kill her.
Speaker 2: And while they're playing this song in the courtroom, him
Speaker 2: singing this song or recording, he's sitting there just bopping
Speaker 2: along to all this nasty, hate filled lyrics, as if
Speaker 2: it was just a good song. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Was he going for insanity? Do you think? Or is
Speaker 1: this just narcissism? You know, and he doesn't care.
Speaker 2: This is a malignant narcissism, Yes it is. And probably
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised if there was some psychosis involved,
Speaker 2: because he was whacked he really was. I mean there
Speaker 2: was one time that he had a b begun and
Speaker 2: he told Laura to go get something for him, and
Speaker 2: she came in with it and he starts shooting at
Speaker 2: the b begun. She went out and he had friends
Speaker 2: there watching him shooting here, shooting You're shooting here and
Speaker 2: it hurts, yeah, I mean you might survide it, but
Speaker 2: it hurts.
Speaker 1: So he has charged with first degree murderer. How do
Speaker 1: they decide what Amanda's going to be charged with?
Speaker 2: She's charged his first degree murder too.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I talked to Shay a lot about her her mother's trial,
Speaker 2: and say said, she made me sick.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 2: She got up there and put on her sweet little
Speaker 2: voice act said, my mother's an actress and she's pretty
Speaker 2: good at what she does, and she just oh poored me.
Speaker 2: I am just pitiful, pathetic, and I was afraid of
Speaker 2: him and this, that and the other. And so she
Speaker 2: ended up only getting a twenty year sentence instead of
Speaker 2: life with oparole. I Grant did, and there were a
Speaker 2: lot of people upset about that. But then Texas grabbed
Speaker 2: the ball and they said, well, you know, she disposed
Speaker 2: of a human body in an illegal manner and that's
Speaker 2: another twenty years there. So she got a second twenty
Speaker 2: year sentence in Texas and I think it was well deserved.
Speaker 1: Did she plead with that or what? Or is that
Speaker 1: just she went on another Was there another trial or
Speaker 1: what happened?
Speaker 2: Yes, it was another trial and she just she got
Speaker 2: nowhere with it and it wasn't as sympathetic as the
Speaker 2: first story was to her. Oh for me, and you
Speaker 2: know it's really her putting on an act like that
Speaker 2: really made me angry because there are women out there
Speaker 2: who have been seriously abused and misused and are in
Speaker 2: fear of their lives every minute of the day. And
Speaker 2: when someone gets up there and fakes that, it damages
Speaker 2: the credibility of those other women. And I it just
Speaker 2: angered me, yeah, very much.
Speaker 1: How were they able to untangle though, whether she had
Speaker 1: been abused likew and I'm not saying as far as
Speaker 1: like anything that mitigates what she did, but I mean,
Speaker 1: what was there evidence that that Amanda was also abused?
Speaker 1: She must have been.
Speaker 2: She was taken advantage of, okay, and she was controlled
Speaker 2: a little, but she was not abused like Laura was.
Speaker 2: There was not physical abuse in the same way, at
Speaker 2: least according to Shay and Shae, pretty well knew what
Speaker 2: was going on in a lot of ways in that family,
Speaker 2: and she was a witness.
Speaker 1: Wow. So Amanda gets twenty and then Amanda gets another
Speaker 1: twenty in Texas. Does Amanda ever end up testifying against Grant?
Speaker 1: Does he go first?
Speaker 2: He went first? I don't think she testified against him.
Speaker 2: I think she put all her eggs in her trial's basket.
Speaker 2: She hadn't been tried yet, since he was first. She
Speaker 2: didn't want to run the risk of tanking her own story.
Speaker 1: So he's in North Carolina for life?
Speaker 2: No, yeah, no, no parole.
Speaker 1: And then where is she with these two sentences? You
Speaker 1: know you wrote this book.
Speaker 2: She's in Texas now she's okay, So.
Speaker 1: She's how long do you know how long she served
Speaker 1: in North Carolina?
Speaker 2: I think it was eleven years.
Speaker 3: So she got out for good behavior or whatever, good
Speaker 3: behavior and then they I mean, you know, it was
Speaker 3: probably pretty easy to forget over and good behavior for
Speaker 3: her since she was ready to go to the Texas prison,
Speaker 3: and that good behavior didn't get her a great deal.
Speaker 1: How much longer do you think she has in Texas
Speaker 1: before she's released.
Speaker 2: Texas is really cracked down on letting people out. I mean,
Speaker 2: she might serve as full sentence.
Speaker 1: Did they prove that she participated as in actually did
Speaker 1: any of the stabbing or anything? Or do you think
Speaker 1: it was all grant and she did the cleanup?
Speaker 2: Two? I think that at the minimum she was there
Speaker 2: encouraging him.
Speaker 1: So you think that she was encouraging him and then
Speaker 1: helped with the dismember and the cleanup and organizing you
Speaker 1: haul and all that stuff, But you don't think she actually,
Speaker 1: well how many how aggressive were the injuries on Laura?
Speaker 1: I guess they didn't. They couldn't really tell at that point.
Speaker 2: No, they couldn't. Partly because of the camp, partly because
Speaker 2: of being in water. You know, when she was her
Speaker 2: body was cut up, so sometimes with that that can
Speaker 2: conceal injuries. Yeah, if you cut where there's already an injury,
Speaker 2: you know. And Amanda, Yeah, there was enough of her
Speaker 2: hostility towards Laura that was in the evidence. And I
Speaker 2: don't know how much she actually took part in the killing.
Speaker 2: I do think she took part into this membering because
Speaker 2: in a small bathroom like that, it almost calls for
Speaker 2: two people in order to cut the body up, which
Speaker 2: is kind of disgusting, but you know, that's what they did,
Speaker 2: and she helped dispose of the body parts. She rode
Speaker 2: all the way across the country with him, knowing they
Speaker 2: were in that truck. I mean they had to stop
Speaker 2: in places. Did she ever say, oh my gosh and
Speaker 2: take their kids to the bathroom and then tell somebody,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, you got to help me. No, she
Speaker 2: was not being held hostage. She could have gotten away
Speaker 2: with those kids, no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Who has Laura's boys? Now?
Speaker 2: Do you know grantsmother?
Speaker 1: Okay, who she liked?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, seems like that's not perfect justice, but I
Speaker 2: think it's the best the kids could hope for. The
Speaker 2: grandmother loved the children and hopefully it is giving them
Speaker 2: a good life.
Speaker 1: Do you know af at the trial, they stood by
Speaker 1: him when this happened.
Speaker 2: They didn't up to a certain point. They got some
Speaker 2: about what Laura was saying and they were outraged at
Speaker 2: the way she was portraying their son, So they can't
Speaker 2: she the mother came into the trial to testify against Amanda.
Speaker 2: Reading between the lines, it seems like it's possible that
Speaker 2: she thought if Grant had never met Amanda, this would
Speaker 2: have never happened. I don't particularly buy into that, but
Speaker 2: I can understand why a mother would want to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like it could be the other way around,
Speaker 1: like Amanda would have never participated in this.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, but you know, Amanda had her own self
Speaker 2: absorption issues, and she certainly wasn't the malignant narcissist that
Speaker 2: Grant was. But she also was not a particularly giving,
Speaker 2: loving person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I like to be mindful and say there's
Speaker 1: equal you know, equal responsibility. In some cases, it's not
Speaker 1: always the men who control the women in this sort
Speaker 1: of relationship, as far as you know, two criminals working together.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's the women who are manipulating the men. It
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like that's the case necessarily here.
Speaker 2: But I think I think she was really pushing for
Speaker 2: eliminating Laura. However. She wanted to find that. I mean,
Speaker 2: she said things to psychiatrists about that that she just
Speaker 2: wanted them gone. She doesn't want her in her life anymore.
Speaker 2: And there's only one short way of doing that, and
Speaker 2: that's with Laura's dad.
Speaker 1: Who has Amanda's daughter, who has custody.
Speaker 2: Grant's parents have her.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, got it?
Speaker 2: Wow, they got all three of them. Shay, Amanda's daughter,
Speaker 2: was considering going for custody of the little girl, but
Speaker 2: then decided it was best not the separate her from
Speaker 2: her separator, from her half brothers.
Speaker 1: Hmm okay. So ultimately Grant will never get out, we hope,
Speaker 1: unless something happens, and Amanda will be out, presumably sometime
Speaker 1: in the next ten to fifteen years. Will she be
Speaker 1: you know what age that would be. I mean, she'll
Speaker 1: be what in her forties or fifties or some fifties.
Speaker 2: She'll be in her fifties, maybe.
Speaker 1: Sixties, ability to live a long life, you know, reunite
Speaker 1: with her daughter and all of that stuff. So this
Speaker 1: has not been justice seen here. It doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: it's not perfect justice for sure. No it's not, and
Speaker 1: often it's not in the stories that we tell. But
Speaker 1: the thing again we come back to, you know, the
Speaker 1: reason why you were drawn into this story is the
Speaker 1: compelling part of the triangle and the backgrounds of these
Speaker 1: different people. And you know that unfortunate thing that we
Speaker 1: talk about a lot, which is trusting somebody where you
Speaker 1: are just saying, because Amanda's here, he's not going to
Speaker 1: do anything, and that is really really Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: people do call me paranoid by like an abundance of
Speaker 1: caution in a lot of situations like that.
Speaker 2: But you know, I looked at this story and it
Speaker 2: was fascinating at the trio, but I was also drawn
Speaker 2: in because of the children. The children are finally the
Speaker 2: last or usually the last victims. They had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with anything, and yet they will suffer for the
Speaker 2: rest of their lives. Their mother is murdered, their father's
Speaker 2: responsible for those two little boys. That has to be
Speaker 2: a horrible nightmare to carry around, no matter how gently
Speaker 2: the news was given to them. And then you know
Speaker 2: the little baby girl, she was someone who would never
Speaker 2: know her father ever, no experience with him whatsoever. And
Speaker 2: the mother, well, how do you pair up with the mother,
Speaker 2: have a good relationship with a mother who you now
Speaker 2: took part in killing your half brother's mother. Very convoluted
Speaker 2: kind of psychology to deal with for little children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we could only hope that, you know, they're able
Speaker 1: through therapy and for the hopefully for the love of
Speaker 1: these grandchildren, these grandparents that they'll you know, be able
Speaker 1: to have long productive lives, whether or not they're involved
Speaker 1: with Amanda one of them's, you know, the little girl's
Speaker 1: involved with Amanda or not well.
Speaker 2: And you might look at Grant's parents and say, look
Speaker 2: how they screwed up with Grant? Is this really a
Speaker 2: good idea? But then you can also look at grant sister.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's a police officer, she's a regular human being,
Speaker 2: and so it might not have been them. You know,
Speaker 2: it could be predominantly a genetic thing with Grant, and
Speaker 2: that was made worse by it's the drug abuse in
Speaker 2: the alcohol abuse.
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