Rontae Devore Hayes
State prosecutor to seek death penalty against Rontae Hayes
WENTWORTH — For the first time since 1999, the Rockingham County District Attorney’s Office will prosecute a capital murder case.
Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Reese stated during a pre-trial conference on Tuesday in Rockingham County Superior Court that she intends to seek the death penalty against a man charged with killing two and injuring several others during an overnight crime spree in the summer of 2016.
Rontae Devore Hayes, 38, of 4704 Fewell Road in Greensboro, faces 18 felony charges in Rockingham County – including two counts of murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree kidnapping, three counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, violent habitual felon, first-degree burglary and first-degree arson.
According to police, Hayes began a 12-hour crime spree at approximately 9 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, 2016, after showing up unexpectedly at a backyard barbecue taking place in the 100 block of Madison Street in Reidsville.
Witnesses said Hayes allegedly shot Leroy Angelo Blackwell in the leg, shattered a beer bottle over the head of Craig Lee, and drove over Gregory Tyrone Blackwell in the process of stealing Blackwell's car.
Ten minutes later, authorities with the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office responded to a different scene, approximately seven miles away at a residence on Knowles Road, where 49-year-old Kavin Allen Galloway was found with a gunshot wound. They also located the vehicle stolen from Blackwell – ablaze and just two houses away from the new crime scene.
Hours later, at approximately 1:30 a.m. Sunday, firefighters found the bodies of Mike Land and Gilbert Breeze dead inside a burning house on Grooms Road.
An older woman, also at the residence, was also located by police officers with wounds to her head and areas of her face.
Later, when being transported to a local hospital, the woman told paramedics that she had been raped.
An hour after the Grooms Road incident, deputies were dispatched to 121 Jack Trail in Reidsville, where a homeowner spotted Hayes peeping from outside a window, wearing only in his underwear.
The incident was caught on the resident’s security system.
In the following hours, the sheriff’s office issued public text alerts to local residents warning them of their search for an armed and dangerous suspect and to keep their doors locked.
With the help of nearly 50 officers from local and state agencies, Hayes was eventually captured at approximately 9 a.m. near Busick and Grooms Road.
Officers were able to connect the suspect to the line of crime scenes by locating Hayes’ driver’s license in Blackwell’s car and the scattering of dry-cleaning tickets at each crime scene that were also found in Blackwell’s vehicle.
That night of violent crimes took place less than four days after a first-degree murder charge against Hayes was dropped and he was released from jail after being the primary suspect in the shooting death of Larry “Bud” Settle Jr. in Eden on April 26.
Reese said the state was proceeding with the death penalty in the case due to several aggravating circumstances, which stem from Hayes’ long and violent criminal history in the Triad.
Per state statute, Superior Court Judge Julia Lynn Gullet approved the appointment of Forsyth County Assistant Capital Defender William Soukup as assistant council to Hayes, who is represented by fellow Forsyth Assistant Capital Defender Vincent Rabil.
According to previous reports, Hayes went missing for three years as a juvenile, after being charged with assault at the age of 15.
Published reports state that in 1993, Hayes rode on a bike to a bus stop outside of High Point Central High School and shot two students at the end of the school day.
He was later charged with assault in the matter, after police began searching for him when he returned to the area a week later, following the death of his father, who was shot in the back 15 times.
While being lodged at a juvenile detention center in Greensboro awaiting trial, Hayes escaped in 1994.
After clearing an 8-foot fence, Hayes wasn’t seen by law enforcement again until 1997, when he was arrested by the Reidsville Police Department for disorderly conduct.
His was identified as a fugitive after his arrest and later convicted of the high school shooting, before being paroled two years later.
Hayes later pleaded guilty in the shooting death of Gary Steverson, who was one of two brothers convicted of shooting Hayes’ father – 40-year-old Ronnie Lee Hayes – in July of 2000.
He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Hayes was also sentenced to eight years in prison last February on a federal charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. After pleading guilty, pursuant to an amended plea agreement, Hayes appealed the guilty decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in September of 2017.
In early October of that year, three circuit judges concluded that the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina gave Hayes a sentence that is "procedurally and substantively reasonable".
The rule 24 hearing, which stems from Rule 24 of the General Rules of Practice for the Superior and District Court in North Carolina, is mandatory in all cases in which a defendant is charged with a crime that is punishable by death.
According to North Carolina General Statute 15A-2004, “The state in its discretion may elect to try a defendant capitally or noncapitally for first degree murder, even if evidence of an aggravating circumstance exists.”
Currently, 142 convicted murders are on death row in the state of North Carolina, according to information tallied by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
The last execution in the state took place on Aug. 18, 2006, when Samuel Flippen was executed via lethal injection.
At the start of 2007, a moratorium was placed on executions in the state, following legal challenges to execution procedure and whether or not it violates an individual’s constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Since the start or 2010, only eight convicted murderers have been sentenced to death in the state.
Nobody has been sentenced to death row in the last two years.
Clinton R. Rose, who was sentenced to death in December of 1991, is the only killer convicted in Rockingham County that remains on death row.
In recent history, natural death has played the biggest role in a reduction of members on the death row roster.
In 2017 alone, five death row inmates, whose average age was 64, died of natural causes.
Since 2015, 13 offenders have been removed from the state’s death row roster.
Of those, eight were removed after dying of natural causes, according to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.
In the other five cases, a sentence was vacated and a new trial was ordered, or the offender was re-sentenced to life without parole.
The Hayes case is expected to return to the Rockingham County Superior Court Calendar in November.
It’s the first capital case the Rockingham County District Attorney’s Office has handled since the October 2000 conviction of Christene K. Kemmerlin, who was found guilty as a murder-for-hire defendant in the 1999 shooting death of her husband, Wayne Kemmerlin.
Kemmerlin’s execution was vacated by the North Carolina Supreme Court in January 2003 and a life sentence was imposed.
https://www.greensboro.com/rockingha...e70a862c7.html
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