Dec 16, 2003 By Jennifer Harr 3 min read

A 1 in 170 trillion DNA match links homicide suspect Brian Keith Hays to the seminal fluid found in the burned body of Danielle Nicole McManus. A report from the DNA test performed on Hays’ blood is included in discovery documents filed in the Fayette County Clerk of Courts office last week. State police have alleged that Hays killed McManus, his 13-year-old cousin, on May 5, then jammed her body into a van at Nichelson Junkyard near the family’s Saltlick Township home and set the van on fire.

Trooper John Marshall suggested in a report filed as part of that discovery that Hays might have forced himself on the teen, and in an ensuing struggle, choked her inside the house and carried her body to the van.

Marshall notes in a report that when McManus’ body was found, she did not have shoes on her feet, something he found unusual since Hays reportedly told police the two of them walked into the junkyard to smoke crack.

“Danielle had no shoes on her feet, and with her living right next to a junkyard, it is very unlikely that she would venture up into the junkyard without shoes on her feet,” wrote Marshall. “One explanation is that Brian Keith Hays forced sexual intercourse on her inside the house with Danielle attempting to stop him and Brian choking her until she was dead.”

The trooper also noted McManus’ position inside the van did not lend credence to Hays’ claim that McManus died after smoking crack cocaine.

“The victim was jammed into the driver’s side door and wedged between the driver’s side door and the driver’s seat.”

A carbine motor on the driver’s seat also made it impossible for anyone to sit there, according to the police report.

Hays, however, reportedly told police that McManus sat in that seat and he sat in the passenger’s seat to smoke crack. After they smoked, Hays reportedly told police that the two had sex and then smoked more crack cocaine. McManus started to convulse, Hays reportedly told police, and passed out.

He reportedly told police he “freaked out” because he did not want people to think he smoked crack, and lit the driver’s seat on fire. Before the two went to the police, McManus and Hays reportedly smoked marijuana at the house, said police.

Medical evidence does not show carbon monoxide in McManus’ lungs, leading to the belief that she was dead before the van was set on fire.

Before police arrested Hays, they took blood from eight men who lived in McManus’ home, or who were around her, to test for a DNA match.

Another report contained in the case file is from Dr. Dennis C. Dirkmat, an anthropologist from Mercyhurst College. Dirkmat’s report indicates that his examination of the bone fragments found at the scene do not show any pre-death blunt force trauma.

Discovery in the case was filed just over a week before Hays will go before a judge and ask that any statements he made the police be suppressed. His attorney, Assistant Public Defender Mary Campbell Spegar, has contended that Hays’ constitutional rights were violated when police talked to him because he was not read his rights.

She has also claimed that there was not enough evidence to bring Hays to trial on charges of criminal homicide, sexual assault and abuse of a corpse.

Spegar wrote that there is no evidence that Hays “acted intentionally, knowingly, reckless or negligently in causing the death of another human.”