Springfield IL: Lori Hayes murder
Patty
Lash leveled with three charges
Murder, rape and abduction of Auburn woman
By SARAH ANTONACCI and CHRIS DETTRO
STAFF WRITERS
Dale W. Lash marked his 37th birthday Friday in front of a judge,
listening as prosecutors charged him with the Aug. 1 abduction, rape
and murder of Lori Hayes.
Authorities say Lash carjacked the 25-year-old Auburn woman and her
infant daughter, Alexis, raped Hayes and shot her in the head before
dumping her body in a cornfield near Chatham.
He then allegedly drove Hayes' 1994 Jeep Grand Cherokee to the parking
lot of the Parkway Pointe 8 movie theater, where he left 10-month-old
Alexis in the back seat of the vehicle, strapped into a car seat.
Alexis' screaming caught the attention of passers-by, who reported the
abandoned infant to police. It was then that police discovered Hayes
had disappeared. Her body was found the next day.
Lash, whose bond is $7 million, also was charged Friday with raping a
25-year-old apartment rental agent at knifepoint on Dec. 29, 1995. The
rapist in that case posed as a prospective tenant.
In August, Lash was charged with the November 1998 rape of a
Springfield real estate agent in a house on Windsor Road. He has been
in jail since Aug. 23.
If found guilty of killing Hayes, Lash could be sentenced to death.
"I will give that decision the great deliberation that it deserves,"
said Sangamon County State's Attorney John Schmidt.
Schmidt refused to give details of the case, such as where police think
Lash first encountered Hayes or how he got close enough to her to get
inside her car.
"The ethics of my profession prohibit me from discussing the facts of
the case," he said. "It is my job to see that Mr. Lash is brought to
justice fairly."
Schmidt said a trial team consisting of him, first assistant state's
attorney John Belz and assistant state's attorney Jay Magnuson will
prosecute the three cases against Lash.
Lash, a Greenview native who also has lived in Springfield and Loami,
is charged with murder, kidnapping, vehicular hijacking, aggravated
criminal sexual assault and endangering the health of a child in the
Hayes case. He is charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault in
the 1995 rental agent case.
Schmidt had high praise for the multi-agency task force formed to
investigate Hayes' murder.
"They showed dogged determination throughout this investigation," he
said. "Everyone worked together. There were no turf wars, no toes to
step on."
Keeping the task force together to pursue other major crimes is under
discussion, Schmidt said.
"That has to be done with the cooperation of all the agencies
involved," he said. "But the state's attorney's office would certainly
support that."
The State Journal-Register reported more than three weeks ago that
authorities suspected Lash in Hayes' murder because DNA evidence they
collected from her body matched that of Lash. Asked why it took so long
to actually charge him in the crime, Schmidt said it was because
investigators continued to work the case.
And they still do, according to Schmidt.
"I won't get into any specifics," he said when asked if the
investigation was probing Lash's activities in other states. "The task
force continues to work on this case. They reached a point where they
could bring these charges against Mr. Lash, and these charges were
brought."
The fact that he's behind bars brought some comfort to one of Hayes'
friends.
Kelly Cochran, who worked with Hayes in the state Department of Public
Aid's Kid Care program, said Friday evening she's glad Lash is in jail.
"I'm glad the person who could hurt someone that way cannot do this to
someone else - that that possibility has been reduced," she said. "I'm
glad somebody else is not going to be hurt by him."
But nothing will make up for her friend's death, Cochran said.
"It's hard for me that Alexis has inherited a world that would take her
mother so violently," she said. "That's really hard for me, and it
makes it harder that Lori was such a good mother and that she wanted
the world to be better."
Cochran said Hayes doted on her daughter. Alexis was the only child of
Lori and her husband, Brad.
"Your imagination of what happened is always worse than what really
did," she said. "For our own selves, there's folks in the office that
are Lori's age and have little kids. We want to know the chain of
events. We want to know something so that people's imaginations don't
have to re-create it. It's easier to know."
Schmidt said he contacted Lori Hayes' father just before the news
conference Friday morning.
"Mrs. Hayes' father broke down, cried, collected his composure and
talked to Sandra Berry, our victim-witness coordinator," he said.
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