Bio

Antoine D’To Hayes was born in 1960 in the United States. Parole proceedings indicate that he described a troubled upbringing and said he had experienced abuse and instability at home. At the time of the crimes, Hayes was a teenager in Bergen County, New Jersey. Court records describe him as being fifteen and sixteen years old when he committed a series of violent crimes that included two murders, kidnapping, robbery, breaking and entering, assault with intent to rape, and atrocious assault and battery.

Older true-crime summaries state that Hayes had no previous criminal record when he was arrested on March 3, 1976. He was charged with two counts of murder and multiple sexual assault-related offenses after investigators connected him to attacks on women inside their homes.

The case was unusual because of Hayes’s age. His first murder case was handled in juvenile court, while the later charges were waived from juvenile court and tried before a jury. He was still a teenager when he received a life sentence and additional consecutive terms.

Hayes spent nearly thirty years in prison before being released to a halfway-back program in 2005. He remained under parole supervision after release and was required to register as a sex offender under New Jersey’s Megan’s Law. In later parole proceedings, he described the difference between who he was as a youth and who he claimed to be as an adult, but the Parole Board denied his request to end parole supervision early.

Murder Story

On June 21, 1975, Hayes broke into a woman’s residence in Bergen County, New Jersey, and killed her by strangulation. Older true-crime sources identify the victim as 36-year-old Ellen Bindman. Later parole records refer to this victim as Hayes’s teacher, although they do not name her in the published opinion.

The first murder case was resolved in juvenile court. Older summaries state that Hayes was convicted in 1977 for the Bindman killing and sentenced to an indefinite term in a youth correctional facility.

On October 16, 1975, Hayes committed another violent home attack. Court records state that he broke into the home of an elderly woman and brutally attacked her. The victim survived. The attack included kidnapping, robbery, assault with intent to rape, and severe physical assault. This crime later became important in determining that Hayes had committed a sex offense for Megan’s Law registration purposes.

On February 10, 1976, Hayes broke into the residence of another woman in Bergen County and waited for her to return home. Older true-crime sources identify the victim as Esther Perren. When the victim arrived, Hayes tied her with a telephone cord and drowned her in her bathtub. Older summaries list her age as 62 and the murder date as February 11, 1976, while the later court record describes the victim as 64 and gives the event date as February 10, 1976.

Hayes was arrested on March 3, 1976. He was sixteen years old. Investigators linked him to the crimes through fingerprints recovered from the murder scenes and through identification by surviving victims.

After the first murder case was handled in juvenile court, Hayes faced trial for the later murder and related crimes. In June 1978, a jury convicted him of murder, breaking and entering, robbery, kidnapping, and assault with intent to rape. He received a life sentence for the murder conviction, another life-related sentence for kidnapping, and an additional seven-to-ten-year sentence for assault with intent to rape. The sentences were ordered to run consecutively.

Hayes remained imprisoned for decades. In August 2005, he was released from prison to the Delaney Hall Halfway Back program. By 2007, he had completed the halfway-back program and continued on parole supervision with electronic monitoring.

In 2007, the New Jersey Appellate Division upheld the Department of Corrections’ decision that Hayes had to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law because his earlier assault-with-intent-to-rape conviction was comparable to aggravated sexual assault under the later New Jersey criminal code.

Hayes remained under parole supervision for many years. In 2021, he requested early discharge from parole supervision. The New Jersey State Parole Board denied that request, and in 2024, the Appellate Division affirmed the denial. The court found that the Board’s decision was supported by the record.

Daryl Hayes, later identified in court records as Antoine D’To Hayes, was not executed and is not publicly confirmed to be deceased. His most recently confirmed legal status is released from prison but still under parole supervision.