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Florida police have arrested a former criminal justice student suspected of being a serial killer, linked to the murder of at least four women across the state for a decade. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office has indicted Robert Tyrone Hayes for the murder of 32-year-old Rachel Elizabeth Bey, whose bruised body was found along a Jupiter Highway in 2016. The Daytona Police Beach, about 200 miles north, said Hayes, 37, is also tied by genetic or ballistic evidence to the shooting death of three other women in 2005 and 2006.
Investigators used genealogical genealogy, an emerging and controversial method that compares unknown suspect DNA profiles with genetic information available in genealogy databases, to identify Hayes as a suspect, said the researchers. authorities.
"I can not be happier today to have eliminated this murderer so that no one else can become a victim," said Daytona Beach Police Chief Craig Capri, on Monday.
Hayes appeared briefly in a Palm Beach County court on Monday and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment without trial for first degree murder following the murder of Bey, who had been beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted. A judge appointed a public defender to represent Hayes. Two of Bey's brothers attended the hearing, reports CBS affiliate, WPEC.
WKMG
7th Attorney General R. J. Larizza stated that he intended to indict Hayes later during the murder of La Quinta Gunther in 2005 and the murders of Julie Green and Iwana Patton in 2006 at Daytona Beach. The police had already believed that the three cases of cold were related to the same suspect, known as the "serial killer of Daytona".
Larizza described the murders as "brutal crimes". The three victims of Daytona Beach boarded a car with a stranger and their bodies were thrown into an isolated area, reports WPEC. Capri said all were shot.
Capri did not explain how investigators used genetic genealogy in this case. The technique has gained popularity among law enforcement since it's been used to identify the suspect in the notorious "Golden State Killer" case in California, but it has also raised many privacy concerns. This technique uses public DNA databases. Users who have obtained their own DNA profiles from commercial companies such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe can download them to expand their search for loved ones.
Investigators used unidentified suspect DNA profiles to search public databases of genetic plans in the hope of finding a "partial match" – a parent – and creating a family tree to refine the search for a suspect.
After discussing with Hayes, Palm Beach County investigators recovered one of his cigarette butts and confirmed that his genetic data matched the DNA profile found at the crime scene where Bey had been killed, according to an affidavit obtained with the arrest warrant from CBS in Orlando, WKMG. The DNA profile also matches the evidence found at the scene of two of Daytona Beach's victims, Larizza said. Two of the three victims were also linked to Bey's murder by ballistic evidence, including the victim who was not tied to DNA, Larizza said.
Police believe that a fourth woman also shot and left in a remote area may be related to Hayes, but she is still investigating the case. Stacey Gage, 30, of Holly Hill, a suburb of Daytona Beach, was killed in 2007, reports WKMG. His decomposed body was found only about a month later. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that investigators were unable to discover DNA from the scene but claimed that his death was "strangely similar" to that of Gunther, Green and Patton.
By the time the Daytona Beach women were murdered, Hayes was studying at Bethune-Cookman University. The school confirmed in a statement to CBS News that he was enrolled from 2000 to 2006, when he graduated in criminal justice.
"Although the B-CU community is relieved to know that law enforcement agencies have made an arrest in this case, we are surprised to learn that the suspect was attending our university," said a statement. from the university. They asked other questions to the police, citing the ongoing investigation.
Daytona Beach Police
Hayes was among the hundreds of people surveyed early in the Daytona Beach investigation because he had purchased the same type of weapon used in some of the murders committed in a local weapons store said Capri, but there was no evidence linking him to the murders. The detectives retrieved .40 caliber sleeves for two murders at Daytona Beach, and Hayes had a .40 caliber firearm, according to the WKMG arrest report.
Hayes reportedly told investigators in March 2006 that he had given the gun to his mother, who lives in West Palm Beach, but that in December 2006, he had reported that a .40 caliber firearm was stolen in his car at Riviera Beach.
Palm Beach County investigators said Hayes lived in West Palm Beach, about one kilometer from where Bey's body was found in 2016, according to the station.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, who was the Daytona Beach Police Chief at the time of the on-site killings, said Monday that he had spoken to the families of the victims and that they were "ecstatic." "by this arrest.
"They did not think that they would be alive to see this day come," he said.
Capri said the arrest is a "big step forward for [family members] to begin the healing process and the process of closing, knowing that there is not a murderer in the street who murdered their loved one, that he is in detention now. "
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