William Michale Hayden (born June 24, 1965) is a former American

gunsmith A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very ...

, television personality, former

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, former

gun shop A gun shop (also known by various other names such as firearm store and gun store) is a business that sells firearms, such as handguns and long guns, to individuals in an open shopping format. It may also provide repairs for firearms and their pa ...

owner, and convicted child sex offender. He is known as the star of the 2011–2014

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

reality series '' Sons of Guns''. He was convicted of sex crimes in April and July 2017, receiving three life sentences, and is currently serving those sentences at the

Louisiana State Penitentiary The Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola, and nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South", "The Angola Plantation" and "The Farm"Sutton, Keith "Catfish".Out There: Angola angling. ''ESPN Outdoors''. May 31, 2006. Retrieved on August 25, 2010. ...

Early life

Hayden was born in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; , ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It had a population of 227,470 at the 2020 United States census, making it List of municipalities in Louisiana, Louisiana's second-m ...

. From an early age, he was a firearms enthusiast, and often read about weapons and warfare. Hayden survived a large house fire as a "three or four year old" child. He stated in a 2011 interview that he remembers, "waking up to fire 'eating me up'... burning the bed... the sheets... the room". Hayden also stated that he was abused by his father in a piece titled ''Sons of Guns: Straight-Shootin' Stories from the Star of the Hit Discovery Series''. He says in the article, "Hell, he put me through a wall with a punch when I was five... From that moment on I realized I had to pick my battles carefully. Very carefully. Any battle I could get up and walk away from was a victory. It didn't matter if me or my psyche looked or felt like it'd been run through a meat grinder. Victory is victory." By age 12, he began building firearms. When he turned 18, he enlisted in the

Marines Marines (or naval infantry) are military personnel generally trained to operate on both land and sea, with a particular focus on amphibious warfare. Historically, the main tasks undertaken by marines have included Raid (military), raiding ashor ...

, serving for six years and achieving the rank of

sergeant Sergeant (Sgt) is a Military rank, rank in use by the armed forces of many countries. It is also a police rank in some police services. The alternative spelling, ''serjeant'', is used in The Rifles and in other units that draw their heritage f ...

Career

After returning home from the service, Hayden started his own construction and refrigeration business, while working on guns on the side.

Red Jacket Firearms

His side business began to take off, and in 1999, he sold his main business and officially opened Red Jacket Firearms. The firm's first commercial order was from a large distributor called Manotick Firearms for twenty rifles. From 2011 until 2014, Hayden received nationwide fame when '' Sons of Guns'' - a

reality TV Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 199 ...

program focusing on the specialized firearm builds at Red Jacket - aired on

. On August 26, 2014, it was announced that Red Jacket Firearms had received a legal separation as an entity from Hayden.

Personal life

He resided in the Greenwell Springs area of

Central, Louisiana Central is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, third largest city in East Baton Rouge Parish, and part of the Baton Rouge metropolitan statistical area. Central had a 2020 census population of 29,565. History Long an unincorporated subur ...

. Hayden's daughter Stephanie and former son-in-law Kris Ford also appeared on the show as well as working at Red Jacket.

Juvenile rape conviction

On August 11, 2014, Hayden was arrested and charged with molestation of a juvenile and aggravated crimes against nature. Hayden claimed that the allegations were false and made in retaliation by a vengeful ex-girlfriend, the 12-year-old girl's mother. He was subsequently charged with rape of a child based on the statements of the victim. The charges led to the cancellation of ''Sons of Guns''. Hayden was additionally accused of aggravated rape by his oldest daughter. She told police that she was raped 22 years before when she was 12 by her father, Hayden. She came forward after the allegations were made against Hayden. As a result of this last charge, his bail was raised from $200,000 to $350,000. In January 2015, he pleaded not guilty. In August 2015, the judge relieved Hayden's three private lawyers from the case per the lawyers' request. The lawyers said that confidential conditions for their representation had not been met, but that there was "no bitterness" between them and Hayden. Hayden was represented by a

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Belgium, Hungary and Si ...

at a later court date. On April 7, 2017, Hayden was convicted of two counts of aggravated rape and one count of forcible rape, of two girls over the course of two decades. On May 11, 2017, Hayden was sentenced to two life sentences (mandatory for aggravated rape), to run concurrently, plus 40 years, to run consecutively, in prison. He is not eligible for any parole, probation, or suspension of sentence, and will spend the rest of his life in custody. On July 12, 2017, after pleading no contest to the charges facing him, Hayden was sentenced by Livingston Parish Judge Robert Morrison to a third life sentence for rape. Morrison ordered that the new sentence shall run concurrently with Hayden's previously ordered sentences. Hayden has now been sentenced to three life sentences plus 40 years and was transferred to

References

External links

Red Jacket Firearms official site
(Website dead-403 Feb 02 2018)
'Sons of Guns' star Will Hayden ordered to pay ex partners for secret business dealings
Fox News, 21 January 2015 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hayden, Will 1965 births 21st-century American criminals Living people American people convicted of child sexual abuse American people convicted of rape American people of Choctaw descent American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Gunsmiths Participants in American reality television series People convicted of incest People from Baton Rouge, Louisiana Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Louisiana United States Marines