Sixteen-year-old Daryl Hayes had no previous record when he was arrested in Bergen County, New Jersey, on March 3, 1976, charged with two counts of murder and four counts of sexual assault. The deceased victims were 36-year-old Ellen Bindman, killed at home in June 1975, and 62-year-Old Esther Perren, murdered in her apartment on February 11, 1976. The teenage suspect's fingerprints matched those recovered from the murder scenes, and he was readily identified by his surviving victims. Convicted of the Bindman slaying in 1977, Hayes was sentenced to an indefinite term of confinement in a youth correctional facility. On conviction of the Perren murder, in 1978, he was handed a mandatory life sentence, with 37 years tacked on to cover the abduction and rape of a surviving victim.