Amanda Smith Hayes to be extradited to Texas for more charges in death and dismemberment of Laura Ackerson
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- A Raleigh woman convicted of second-degree murder in 2014 for the death and dismemberment of a young mother is being sent to Texas to face more charges in the case.
Amanda Smith (formerly Hayes) signed an extradition waiver Friday morning according to court officials.
Smith her husband Grant Ruffin Hayes III were both found guilty in the July 2011 murder of 27-year-old Laura Ackerson. Hayes is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder.
Prosecutors said the couple killed Ackerson at their Raleigh apartment during a long-running custody dispute over Grant's two oldest children.
Ackerson's body was cut up with a power saw, put in coolers, and then driven in a rented U-Haul to Amanda's sister's house in Richmond, Texas, where the body parts were dumped in a nearby creek.
The extradition is related to Smith's participation in disposing of the body. In 2014, a Texas grand jury indicted her on a charge of tampering with physical evidence, which is a second degree felony punishable by two to 20 years.
