Travis Hayes

TRAVIS HAYES IS HOME AT LAST

Travis Hayes is surrounded by media and supporters after leaving the Jefferson Parish Jail on December 20.

On December 20, 2006, Travis Hayes was finally released from prison after serving nearly ten years for a crime he did not commit. The Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against him on January 17, 2007 and Travis celebrated his 27th birthday as a free man two months later.

On April 5, 1997 at around 6:20 pm, Tommy Vanhoose, owner of Comeaux's grocery store in Bridge City, was shot and killed by a masked gunman in a botched robbery.

Ryan Matthews and Travis Hayes were arrested later that night approximately 8 miles away in a car similar to the car witnesses at Comeaux's grocery store described as the getaway. Neither boy was even a month past their 17th birthdays. Both boys lived over 10 miles from Bridge City.

Both boys were interrogated by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and gave similar accounts of their whereabouts that day. After 6 hours of interrogation through the night by Jefferson Parish Sheriffs' Office detectives that was not taped or recorded, just turned17-year old Travis Hayes gave in to the series of events presented to him by the interrogating officers and said he had driven Ryan Matthews to Bridge City to a store. He and Ryan were charged with First degree murder.

Early Problems with the Case

Even at the time they were tried, there were significant problems with the case against Ryan and Travis: 1) 1. DNA testing on the ski-mask worn by the gunman and discarded at the scene of the crime produced a person's DNA profile that was neither Travis nor Ryan's; 2) The murderer was seen fleeing the scene in a getaway car after jumping headlong through the open passenger-side window. According to numerous witnesses Travis Hayes' passenger-side window did was broken and could not be opened; 3) The witnesses in Comeaux's grocery store describe the gunman as 5'4" to 5'7". Ryan Matthews was 6'1".

The Real Perpetrator

Several years after Ryan and Travis were convicted, numerous inmates reported that while they were in the Jefferson Parish jail, they had heard an individual by the name of Rondell Love bragging about committing the murder of Tommy Vanhoose. Love is 5'7" and records show he lived near the grocery store in Bridge City and was serving a prison sentence for a murder committed in Bridge City later that year. Upon learning Love's name, attorneys for Ryan Matthews obtained his DNA profile from his court file. His DNA profile exactly matched the DNA profile found on the ski-mask discarded at the scene of the crime.

The Exoneration of Ryan Matthews

The Prosecution then performed further DNA testing on all the clothing discarded by the gunman, which failed to link Ryan or Travis to the clothes. Ryan Matthews was released in August 2004 after the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's Office agreed to grant him a new trial and then dropped the charges against him. Ryan walked out of prison on August 8, 2004 as a 24-year old man who had spent the previous 7 years in prison for a crime he did not commit - 5 years on death row.

To the amazement of many, Travis Hayes's case was not afforded the same treatment by the Jefferson Parish District Attorney's office and IPNO fought for over two and a half more years to get Travis out of prison too. Finally on December 20, 2006, Travis Hayes came home for the holidays.

Travis Hayes gets an enthusiastic hug from IPNO's
co-counsel, Stephen Singer, upon his release.