DAYTONA BEACH, Fla — A Florida man convicted of killing three women 16 years ago when he was a college student studying criminal justice at a local university was sentenced to life in prison.
A jury in Daytona Beach, Florida, deliberated for almost seven hours Wednesday before deciding to spare Robert Hayes' life and recommend that he spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Hayes, 39, was convicted last month of three counts of first-degree premeditated murder in the killings of Laquetta Gunther, Julie Green and Iwana Patton.
In order to reach a death sentence recommendation, all 12 jurors needed to agree on the death sentence and that did not happen in Hayes' case, according to The Daytona Beach News-Journal.
Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano sentenced Hayes to three consecutive life terms without parole.
The investigation into the deaths of Gunther, Green, and Patton was rekindled in 2016 after DNA found on the body of Rachel Bey, 32, near West Palm Beach linked their cases. All had worked as prostitutes.
At the time of the Daytona Beach killings, Hayes was a student at the city’s Bethune-Cookman University. Hayes was one of several men questioned in 2006 as a possible suspect based on a gun purchase similar to one used by the killer, but he told police he had given the gun to his mother and he was not arrested. His mother later told detectives he never gave her a gun.
At the time of Bey’s death, Hayes was working as a chef in Palm Beach County.
Hayes is also facing trial for Bey's killing.
