Police: DNA links man to Daytona Beach slayings

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Three women shot in the head in 2006, each dumped a month apart — the killings scared Daytona Beach’s street people so badly that they memorized suspicious men’s license plate numbers and gave them to police. And then suddenly the slayings stopped.

Ten years later, a prostitute’s body was dumped along a road, 180 miles south in West Palm Beach. DNA and ballistics showed that Rachel Bey’s strangulation and the gun deaths of Laquetta Gunther, Julie Green and Iwana Patton were done by one man, but detectives couldn’t identify the killer — until last week, they said Monday.

Palm Beach County sheriff’s investigators charged Robert Hayes, 37, with murder for Bey’s death and Daytona Beach detectives said he is the prime suspect in their investigation, though he has not been charged there. Detectives also want to know what Hayes was doing between 2006 and 2016 and whether the former college criminal justice major may be responsible for more slayings.

“We believe we took a serial killer off the streets. We’re going to be looking for additional victims,” Palm Beach sheriff ’s Capt. Michael Wallace told a news conference Monday, shortly after a judge ordered Hayes held without bond.

“If we hadn’t put this individual in jail, he would’ve done this again and we would have had another victim,” Palm Beach Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.

The Palm Beach County public defender’s office, which is representing Hayes, declined to comment. A man who answered the phone at a number listed for Hayes’ grandmother did not identify himself, but said, “We have nothing to say.”

Hayes, who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 220 pounds, was arrested Sunday without incident at his apartment just off the Intracoastal Waterway in West Palm Beach.

Neighbors said Hayes is a chef and lived with a woman and their daughter, who is about 2. They didn’t know if Hayes and the woman were married. They said Hayes seemed like a normal person who waved and chatted. They were stunned that investigators say he is a serial killer.

“He was always friendly with me,” Craig Brown said.