Ex-Cheerleader Convicted Of Killing 3 Sex Workers, Could Be Sentenced To Death

A 39-year-old Florida man could get the death penalty after being convicted in the killings of three women who were working as prostitutes more than 15 years ago.

Former criminal justice major and college cheerleader Robert Hayes, of West Palm Beach, was found guilty of three murder charges Tuesday after a jury deliberated for more than eight hours, The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.

Hayes was accused of killing 45-year-old Laquetta Gunther, 34-year-old Julie Green and 35-year-old Iwana Patton in Daytona Beach between late 2005 and early 2006, when Hayes was a senior criminal justice major at Bethune-Cookman University.

Hayes is also accused of killing a fourth sex worker, 32-year-old Rachel Bey, in Palm Beach County, but this case is being tried separately.

Hayes was arrested in 2019, three years after the fourth woman's murder in Palm Beach County, where he had been working as a chef. DNA evidence linked him to all four crimes, authorities said.

Hayes had been questioned, but not arrested, in the Daytona Beach killings because he had purchased a .40-caliber handgun similar to the one used against the first three victims, Fox 8 reported.

Police said he bought the .40-caliber Smith & Wesson VE pistol from Buck’s Gun Rack in Daytona Beach in 2005, shortly before the first victim was killed.

During his trial, detectives told the jury they had put Hayes under surveillance and secretly confiscated a beer can and cigarette butt he discarded. Prosecutors said the DNA from those items matched the killer's, CBS Miami reported.

The body of the first victim, Gunther, was found in a gap between an auto parts store and a mostly empty utility building around Christmas 2005. The second victim, Green, was found Jan. 14, 2006, on a dirt road at a construction site. The body of the third victim, Patton, was found on Feb. 24 that year along a dirt road.

All three sex workers were nude and lying face down when their bodies were discovered. They had been shot in the head.

The fourth victim, Bey, was found strangled and with her jaw and teeth broken, on March 7, 2016, near Jupiter in Palm Beach County.

Prosecutors will seek the death penalty during the sentencing phase beginning Monday.

If jurors unanimously recommend that Hayes should be sentenced to die, Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano will make the final decision.

If the jurors are not unanimous in their vote, Hayes could receive a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.