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Supply: copyright free, mugshot from Volusia County Sheriff’s workplace
The conviction this week of 39-year-old serial killer Robert Tyrone Hayes within the homicide of three intercourse employees within the mid-2000s is a chilling reminder that predators can cover in plain sight. Whereas stalking and murdering three harmless ladies, Hayes was a legal justice main and cheerleader at Bethune-Cookman School in Daytona Seaside, Florida.
Then he grew to become the Daytona Seaside Serial Killer. He was solely 22 when he started his killing profession.
Hayes was on nobody’s radar. Police had questioned him twice, just because he had bought a 40-caliber handgun across the time the primary sufferer died; police had been then everybody who had bought an analogous gun. There was nothing else to boost a purple flag; no felony convictions, no nameless suggestions implicating him, no historical past of home violence. He appeared to be a well-adjusted school scholar.
Preying on the Weak
Hayes’ victims had skilled a lot more durable lives. Hayes killed 45-year-old Laquetta Gunther, 34-year-old Julie Inexperienced, and 35-year-old Iwana Patton over three months between December 2005 and February 2006. They had been all discovered deserted, nude, and face down on dust roads in out-of-the-way areas (a garbage-strewn alley, on the sting of a development zone, in a wooded, undeveloped space). Somebody had shot every of them within the head.
A minimum of two of the victims had a historical past of intercourse work. Prosecutors asserted that Ms. Patton didn’t seem to have interaction in common intercourse work however might have carried out so out of a determined want for cash; her niece says in any other case. On the time of her loss of life, her aunt labored two jobs (as a caregiver for an assisted dwelling facility) and was serving to her increase her 5 kids. She denies that her aunt did medication or bought intercourse for cash and does not know the way her aunt crossed paths along with her killer. She suspects he lured her by pretending to want some assist.
Hayes’ protection acknowledged that his shopper had consensual intercourse with all three ladies (he had no alternative as Hayes’ semen was discovered on the scenes) however insisted the defendant did not kill them. If true, this could have been a coincidence of epic proportion. The protection was greedy at straws as a result of that they had nothing else to go on. Sadly for Hayes, he had beforehand contradicted this concept throughout questioning by police, telling them:
- He had by no means had intercourse with a prostitute with out sporting a condom.
- He didn’t use the providers of a intercourse employee earlier than 2012.
- He had by no means had intercourse with a intercourse employee in Daytona Seaside.
DNA finally known as BS on all three. However not earlier than the demons driving Hayes within the mid-2000s got here again. He’s at present awaiting trial for the brutal March 7, 2016 homicide of 32-year-old Rachel Bey, who was strangled and crushed close to Jupiter in Palm Seaside County.
Forensic proof on Ms. Bey’s physique advised a narrative the place the evil villain was identifiable. It was Robert Tyrone Hayes. Hayes was arrested in 2019 after investigators found a cigarette pushed inside a beer can and linked it to the DNA discovered on Rachel Bey’s physique – and, finally, the opposite victims.
Intercourse Staff within the Headlines
If I used to be murdered tomorrow, I anticipate the media would point out that I’m a psychologist. I’m equally certain the identical would occur if I murdered another person. Hopefully, it could additionally come to gentle that I liked my youngsters, fostered animals, and wrote books. It might be good in the event that they neglected the powerful occasions I’ve gone via or the errors I’ve made.
Why do not we do that for crime victims? Sure, the truth that a slain girl engaged in intercourse work or used medication is related in that it created a situational vulnerability {that a} predator pounced on. However ought to that be the headline?
Why is an harmless sufferer described as a intercourse employee and predator Hayes described as a “cheerleader” and school graduate? Ms. Patton attended the identical college her killer did.
I’ve learn tales of survivors as soon as trapped in intercourse trafficking. These are vibrant, profitable individuals who went via powerful occasions and emerged triumphantly. I witness the wonderful work they’re now doing as sufferer advocates.
How unfair it could be if a information article pictured their complete lives via snapshots of their darkest days. Maybe Hayes’ victims would have had an “after,” too. We’ll by no means know.
The Backside Line
I perceive {that a} headline just isn’t a biography, and a information article cannot inform the whole story of somebody’s life. But when an article a few serial killer can lead along with his tutorial credentials or extracurricular actions, we will absolutely do higher in the best way we describe his harmless victims.
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