She Called The Front Desk Twice For Help Before She Was Later Found Murdered In The Bathtub Of Her Hotel Room
In 2004, twenty-eight-year-old Joy Hayward of Jacksonville, North Carolina, had just started a new phase of her life.
After being born and raised in Annapolis, Maryland, she attended Salisbury University. Joy graduated in 2003, at which point she decided to move to North Carolina to live with her fiancé, Mike.
But Mike was a subcontractor and had to travel often for work. So, in February of 2004, he was forced to go on another temporary work assignment in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania. And on February 12, Joy decided to drive to visit him.
Once Joy arrived at Mike’s place that evening, the night started out well. The couple got to catch up and share a few drinks together.
Unfortunately, though, things went awry later on after the pair got into an argument, and Joy left. She ended up deciding to get a room at the Days Inn in Chester, Pennsylvania– a hotel not too far from where Mike was staying.
So, Joy arrived and checked in at about 1:30 a.m. Oddly, though, she did not immediately go up to her room– which had been on the sixth floor.
Instead, Joy left the Days Inn for about an hour and a half. Then, according to the desk clerk, he and Joy exchanged a few pleasantries before she finally got into the elevator and went to her room at 3:00 a.m.
The clerk also recalled seeing a man walking behind Joy toward the elevator and getting in at the same time.
Facebook; pictured above is Joy
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Then, shortly after Joy had supposedly turned in for the night, the desk clerk received two calls from her room. Apparently, she had requested help but did not specify with what. The desk clerk never went upstairs to check on Joy or notified the police, though.
Rather, the next day, February 13, 2004, Joy’s body was tragically discovered by hotel staff at about 4:30 p.m. She was found in the bathtub, which was filled with only about six inches of water and had a washcloth covering the drain.
Both of the queen beds in Joy’s hotel room had been made, and her clothing remained folded and left on the bed. The room’s ice bucket was also filled with water and had both Marlboro Light and Newport cigarette butts floating inside.
The police could see that Joy had been beaten and determined that her cause of death was asphyxiation. However, they could not conclude if she had been assaulted or not.
Then, during interviews with the police, the desk clerk claimed he was unable to go up to Joy’s room at the time she had called. But, he shared how he had seen a Black man following Joy into the elevator when she left the lobby for the last time.
And afterward, investigators were able to collect and run DNA evidence from the crime scene– which came back as belonging to a Black male.
On top of that, the man’s DNA was also tied to another attack on a female victim just a few blocks away from the Days Inn.
This second victim had been waiting at the local bus stop when a man on a bicycle circled her a few times. Then, the victim alleged that the man approached her, said he had a gun, took her into the nearby woods, and assaulted her.
The victim also said the man had tried to strangle her, but thankfully, he fled after hearing people passing by. The man was described as being a Black male who was about thirty years old and stood at around five foot five, with a light mustache and facial hair.
This link between the DNA found in Joy’s hotel room and the DNA from the second victim led police to believe that the same perpetrator had committed both crimes.
Sadly, though, in the over eighteen years since Joy’s murder, the identity of the man has never been uncovered. And the Hayward family has been left searching for answers.
Despite the case going cold for so long, though, Joy’s loved ones have never given up. First, they created a Facebook group to raise awareness about her murder.
And more recently, Grace Hayward, Joy’s youngest sister, created a Change.org petition urging Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf to turn over the DNA recovered in Joy’s hotel room to Parabon Labs in Virginia.
Grace described how governors in Florida and Colorado have begun doing the same thing in hopes of finally getting answers using advanced technology.
“On behalf of Joy Hayward, we demand justice, and new advances in DNA technology can finally make this possible. Joy was not the only one who suffered at the hands of this murderer. There is a woman who was also assaulted a half mile away by the same monster,” she wrote.
“Governor Tom Wolf, you are the one person with enough power and independence in the state to put DNA testing decisions in the hands of a new agency that’s free from Chester with the case. While Joy’s case isn’t being marked a cold case because of the old DNA on file, her case is dead. We need your help!’
The petition has since gained just over two thousand and seven hundred signatures from people throughout the country. And after the petition began to pick up steam, Grace also posted a strange update.
Apparently, Grace had been researching assault and murder cases in neighboring states and came across a man known as the East Coast Rapist. The man is now serving a life sentence in a Virginia jail after being charged in seventeen cases.
And according to Grace, the similarities between the man’s background and modus operandi (M.O.) were striking.
For instance, the man grew up in Prince George County, Maryland– just ten miles away from Joy’s hometown. He was also known to park his work truck and use a bike to prey on women– which Grace believes is a solid link to the second victim’s case.
“And there is a timeline gap in the attacks. Where was he between 2001 and 2006? Was he striking Pennsylvania?” she added.
Finally, Grace noted how the man smoked Newport cigarettes, was known to be very neat, and once made a remark that he “could have just as well been a serial killer.”
“Joy was found in the hotel bathtub. Was she placed in the bathtub to discard evidence, or was she put in the bathtub because the killer thought she was just passed out, added the water, and left? This could have been his first and only murder,” she concluded.
Still, while these similarities appear damning, any perpetrator’s connection to Joy’s case cannot be confirmed without proper DNA testing.
So, to support Grace’s wish of having Joy’s case file DNA transferred to Parabon Labs in Virginia, you can sign the Change.org petition linked here.
And if you have any further information regarding Grace’s case, you are urged to contact the Chester Police Department at (610) 447-7931.
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