Summary of Offense:
Royal Kenneth Hayes was convicted and sentenced to death by a California state court for the 1981 murders of Lauren de Laet and Donald MacVicar.
In December of 1981, Donald MacVicar and Lauren de Laet sought to buy cocaine from Hayes. In the presence of de Laet and Diane Weller, one of Hayes’s accomplices who later testified against him, MacVicar gave Hayes $160,000 in cash towards a $250,000 payment for cocaine. Hayes was to deliver the cocaine in a secluded location in Santa Cruz, California.
Weller testified that Hayes told her separately that she was to accompany him to Santa Cruz to kill MacVicar and de Laet.
Two days later, on December 29, 1981, Hayes, Weller, MacVicar, and de Laet drove to Santa Cruz, where they met Debbie Garcia at a doughnut shop. The group got into Garcia’s car and drove to an isolated area in the woods, near two shallow holes that Garcia had dug earlier at Hayes’s request.
Garcia, who disavowed any advance knowledge of Hayes’s plan to kill MacVicar and de Laet, claimed that Hayes told her the holes would be used to hide packages, as they had used similar holes in the past.
According to testimony by Weller and Garcia, Hayes then instructed Weller to wait in the car with MacVicar and de Laet. He walked into the woods with Garcia, purportedly to “check out” the exact location where the cocaine would be exchanged. Garcia returned about ten minutes later to retrieve MacVicar, whom she led to where Hayes was waiting. Hayes told Garcia to frisk MacVicar. As MacVicar leaned against a tree to be searched, Hayes killed him with a single shot to the back of his head. Garcia then retrieved de Laet from the car, and Hayes shot her twice in the head, killing her.
Nearly two months later, a mushroom hunter discovered fragments of what later turned out to be de Laet’s skull, and law enforcement began to investigate. On March 18, 1982, Garcia, fearing for her life and for the safety of her family, informed police about the murders, including the involvement of Hayes, Weller, and herself. Hayes was arrested and charged with murder.
Hayes was sentenced to death in Stanislaus County on August 8, 1986.
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