Twelve hours after he was released from jail on a retail theft arrest in May 2019, William Hayes used a ladder to climb into the window of his ex-wife’s home in Bensalem Township, steal her father’s car and run up several of her credit cards.

Hayes, 56, was arrested shortly after and charged with burglary and related offenses, which he ultimately pleaded guilty to in March.   

At his sentencing this June, Bucks County Assistant District Attorney Brittney M. Kern presented a Domestic Violence Investigation Report as part of a sentencing memorandum that showed Hayes deserved an aggravated sentence because of a long history of abusing and terrorizing women.

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The report, compiled by investigator Roberta Kostick, detailed abusive behavior against three women dating back to at least October 1997, three protection-from-abuse orders filed against him and arrests on a slew of crimes in five different counties.

“The defendant has shown through his behavior and criminal history that he will not stop,” Kern wrote. “His crimes have become more sophisticated, more offensive, more terrorizing as he has aged, as he’s been in and out of jail.”

President Judge Wallace H. Bateman Jr. sentenced Hayes to 5 ½ years to 15 years in state prison, exceeding the standard sentencing guideline of 36 to 48 months, and this week denied Hayes’ motion to have the sentence reduced.

Since 2013, Deputy District Attorney Monica Furber has managed the Pre-Trial Domestic Violence Investigation Report program for the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.

Using those reports, Bucks County prosecutors have ensured that the most violent of repeat abusers receive a deserving sentence and their victims get justice and protection.

“The Bucks County DA DVI program is one of our premier public safety programs,” District Attorney Matt Weintraub said. “Too often in the past, serial domestic abusers would get away with their criminal abuse through coercion and intimidation of their victims. Now because of our successful DVI program, we are better able to protect these victims from this serial abuse and this break this cycle of violence.”

The program is funded through a federal grant that permits the office to employ six investigators to compile and author comprehensive reports on domestic violence offenders. 

These investigators include two former county detectives, two former detectives, one presently employed police officer and one part-time assistant district attorney.  

Furber screens the police reports, bail petitions, and cases on information review to ascertain what cases should be assigned to an investigator. 

Once an investigator is assigned to a case, they investigate the offender and compile a comprehensive report which is provided to defense counsel and to the court at sentencing.

The domestic violence reports detail the offender’s prior acts of violence, and contain a detailed criminal history of charged and uncharged conduct; a supervision history when the offender was on parole or probation; a history of PFA orders and violations of those orders filed against the offender; any mental health history; and any social media contacts. 

The reports often also include recorded prison conversations, which can be used in a court proceeding to demonstrate the offender’s culpability and greatly assist in obtaining a conviction, Furber said.   

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In the Hayes case, investigators were able to find that he wrote prison letters to his ex-wife, pleading with her to drop the charges against him. He told her if she dropped the case, he would leave her alone, even moving as far away as Alaska.

It didn’t work.

At his June 10 sentencing, his ex-wife and her father read victim impact statements that, along with the domestic violence investigation, amounted to a lengthy state prison sentence for Hayes.

“Before such investigations, prosecutors were unaware of the full extent of the prior history between a domestic violence victim and the defendant, and therefore, unable to file motions to admit prior criminal conduct by the defendant,” Furber said. “Prosecutors were unaware of a defendant’s history while on supervision; whether PFAs were filed; and whether a defendant contacted the victim to convince her not to proceed with the prosecution. 

“Now, with the benefit of these investigations, prosecutors have this information in hand by the first court proceeding and this greatly strengthens the Commonwealth’s case.”