DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - A Florida man was expected in court Thursday for his first appearance before a judge since DNA linked him to the deaths of three women more than a decade ago.
Robert Hayes, 37, was booked into the Volusia County Jail on Wednesday, where he is being held without bond. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Hayes already was facing a separate murder charge after his arrest last September in Palm Beach County, where he had been jailed.
The killings in the mid-2000s caused such a panic in the Daytona Beach area that several prostitutes joined together to help investigators, memorizing vehicle descriptions and license plates, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported. Police said the three victims were prostitutes.
The day after Christmas 2005, authorities found the body of Laquetta Gunther, 45, in a gap between an auto parts store and a mostly empty utility building. The next month, Julie Green, 34, was found slain on a dirt road at a construction site. A month later, the body of Iwana Patton, 35, was found on another dirt road.
At the time of the killings, Hayes was a student at the city’s Bethune-Cookman University. He graduated with a degree in criminal justice and he had a security guard license. Police questioned him as a possible suspect in the Daytona Beach killings based on a gun purchase similar to one used by the killer, but he wasn’t arrested.
Hayes is suspected of killing Rachel Bey in 2016 in South Florida. DNA from that case linked Hayes to the Daytona Beach killings, authorities said.
A grand jury in Volusia County indicted Hayes on three counts of first-degree murder late last year.
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