00:00:04
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Like so many of us, for the Banks family,
Thanksgiving in Vicksburg,
00:00:09
Mississippi is all
about being together. Family is very,
very important to us. [gunshots]
00:00:20
But suddenly,
their joyous holiday season is replaced with terror. She was in the
safety of her own home,
00:00:30
and she didn't even make
it through the door. Everyone started
locking their doors.
00:00:36
It came as a
shock to me to hear that we had a homicide
during the holidays itself leading up to Christmas.
00:00:42
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police
discover a heartbreaking clue. She was pregnant.
00:00:47
She had been shot in the
stomach, told me that somebody wanted her to lose that child.
00:00:54
There's a lot of
rage in this crime. This was some sort
of crime of passion. Thanksgiving is what
set this all in motion,
00:01:02
and six days later,
she was dead. With no clear motive,
everyone is a suspect. [theme music]
00:01:45
Hello. I'm Nancy Grace. Thanksgiving is the beginning
of the Christmas season, and Americans all
across our country
00:01:53
embrace that tradition
with joyful anticipation. We drive long distances
to be together
00:02:00
with family and
friends, and there's always a lot of food, a lot
of fun, family, and laughter.
00:02:08
Thanksgiving, 2006,
it's setting up to be a memorable
holiday for Debra Banks of Vicksburg, Mississippi.
00:02:16
She and her husband travel
all the way to Houston, Texas where the entire
family is gathering
00:02:23
for a traditional turkey dinner. [melancholy music] It was me and my husband,
my daughters, Frederino, Avis,
00:02:35
and we went to LaTonya's house. That's my oldest daughter. [chatter] And it started off real good.
00:02:48
It's me again. Being with family, enjoying
each other's presence, eating all day long.
00:02:56
All day long. It's a beautiful chaos. [laughs] And we were all together. I was very, very happy.
00:03:06
NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): Debra Banks has a good reason to be happy. Her daughter, Avis, is expecting
a baby in the new year,
00:03:13
and she's engaged to be married. She was happy that
she was pregnant. She was going to have a baby,
and she knew that we all
00:03:22
were going to love that baby. As far as Keyon, I don't
even know if he was happy.
00:03:28
I really don't. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Avis
Banks's fiance, Keyon Pittman, is with her at Thanksgiving
dinner, but he seems detached
00:03:36
and he keeps checking his phone. The expression on Keyon's
face told a different story.
00:03:44
[melancholy music] He's just so miserable. Or he was worried about
something, you know.
00:03:56
[phone ringing] And that's when Mr. Keyon
started to get phone calls. We didn't know what
the phone calls
00:04:10
were until after
everything that happened. [melancholy music] [suspenseful music]
00:04:22
NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): Six days after Thanksgiving,
the Ridgeland, Mississippi Police Department
gets a distressing call.
00:04:46
The female caller said
that a male came to her door, frantically beating
on the door, and said,
00:04:53
my fiancee's been shot. She's in the garage. She's bleeding. I need help right away.
00:04:57
Get me somebody here. So at the scene, there was
a Black male there who was identified as Keyon Pittman.
00:05:03
He was pretty frantic. He had a lot of blood
on his clothing as well. He was very, very shaken up.
00:05:11
When I approached the garage,
I see a young Black female on her back. There's a lot of blood.
00:05:17
As I get closer, it
appears to me that she may have been pregnant. No vital signs.
00:05:25
She was gone. NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): The victims are Keyon's fiancee, Avis
Banks, and their unborn baby.
00:05:35
It was quite overwhelming. I'm thinking this is
the most serious crime I've seen in my short career.
00:05:41
[suspenseful music] It came as a shock to me to
hear that we had a homicide. I was informed that the
fiancee had arrived home,
00:05:52
lit up the garage, and
saw his fiancee laying on the garage floor by her car. She was actually
lying on her back.
00:06:00
She had some papers in her hand
which tell us that she had gone to the mailbox, gathered her
mail, gathered her purse,
00:06:08
and exited her vehicle
before she was ambushed. I noticed that her pants
were partially pulled down.
00:06:19
Her shirt was pulled up. I wondered if this was
a botched sexual assault that ended in a murder.
00:06:29
It was evident that she
had been shot multiple times. She was about five
months pregnant,
00:06:33
so hearing that she had been
shot in the stomach, you know, basically told me that somebody
wanted her to lose that child.
00:06:44
Her throat had been
slashed, and there was actually a puncture
wound in her neck as well.
00:06:49
I've never encountered
a victim of a homicide who was shot and stabbed. I thought that was
strange, at that point,
00:06:58
to shoot someone and then stab
them and slash their throat. Why is that necessary?
00:07:05
Definitely looked like overkill. Maybe this was a very
personal attack on Ms. Banks.
00:07:11
Avis Banks is a
beloved daycare teacher. Everyone loves her, both the
parents and the children alike.
00:07:19
So why would she be
so viciously attacked? She was extremely
kind, very caring. She wanted to make sure
that everybody was happy.
00:07:34
DEBRA BANKS (VOICEOVER):
Avis's hope in life was to open up a daycare. She was the first to
graduate from college.
00:07:42
She was going for her masters,
and we were so proud of her. NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): Avis Banks
00:07:50
meets Keyon Pittman at a gym
two years earlier in 2004. So Avis and her
sister came over
00:07:56
to my house to let
me know that they had met this guy at the gym. His name was Keyon Pittman and
that he seemed really nice.
00:08:05
He was flirting with
Avis, so she did decide to give him her number. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Keyon
Pittman teaches children as well
00:08:13
at a local middle school. That job convinces Avis the
two have a lot in common, and she is certain he's
the right guy for her.
00:08:22
Their relationship
quickly grows. [melancholy music] And they moved into their
very first home, which
00:08:33
was in Ridgeland, Mississippi,
and then the next big news was that Keyon proposed to her.
00:08:39
[melancholy music] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Now Avis Banks will never have a wedding or share another
Thanksgiving or Christmas
00:08:51
with her family again, and they
will never see the baby alive. [suspenseful music]
00:09:00
Looking at the
crime scene, well, we did see some speckling
on Avis's body which means that the suspect
was in close proximity to her
00:09:09
when they placed the gun to
her head to pull the trigger. That's execution style.
00:09:17
[gunshots] There were no shell
casings recovered, and with that information,
I assumed that she
00:09:26
was shot with a revolver. The backdoor to the residence,
it looked like it had forcibly
00:09:32
been kicked twice, or two
distinct really clear shoe impressions is in
dust on the door.
00:09:40
I knew that that was going
to be some really good evidence for us to collect. [suspenseful music]
00:09:47
It just didn't look right to me. Keyon called me. He said, y'all
better get over here.
00:10:02
Something happened to Avis. When we made it
to the cul-de-sac, we couldn't go no further.
00:10:12
Then here he comes, Keyon. He said somebody broke in
his house and killed my-- killed Avis.
00:10:25
He was crying. He was distraught. He was upset. You know, he appeared to
be someone who'd just lost
00:10:32
their fiancee and unborn son. I couldn't wrap my mind
around someone killing Avis.
00:10:42
That's just the worst because
she was such a great person. To know that she could have
possibly suffered, it hurts.
00:10:52
It was unreal. Who would want to hurt my child? Who would want to hurt Avis? Who would want to
kill Avis, my baby?
00:11:05
And my grandbaby? [melancholy music] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Back at
the scene, the Ridgeland Police,
00:11:28
like Avis's family, are
confronted with questions. Is this a burglary, or is
this just some intense plot
00:11:40
against Ms. Banks? I've got all of these
options going through my head and don't really
know at this point
00:11:51
which one is the right one. [siren wailing] NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): Police are suspicious about the way
Keyon Pittman acted after he
00:11:58
finds his fiancee's body. Why not just call 911
right away while you're staying with the victim?
00:12:05
It seemed kind of odd that
Mr. Pittman would need to go next door and
beat on the door
00:12:10
and ask for help when he
has a cell phone available. Making a 911 call from
somebody else's phone
00:12:16
while you're holding a cell
phone is a major red flag. [suspenseful music] Is Keyon Pittman a
killer, or is there someone
00:12:25
else with blood on their hands? Somebody wanted
to take her life and the life of her unborn son.
00:12:34
The ferocity of the crime really
showed that somebody hated her. [suspenseful music]
00:12:43
["silent night" playing] Welcome back. Thanksgiving spent with
family provides warm memories
00:12:54
that are beloved for years. For Debra Banks,
Thanksgiving, 2006, that she shared
with daughter Avis
00:13:03
must now last her a lifetime. Why? Because six days
later, daughter Avis is brutally murdered
in her own garage
00:13:14
after coming home from work. Now there's crime scene tape
where Christmas lights should
00:13:20
be, and Ridgeland, Mississippi
police have fiancee Keyon Pittman on their radar.
00:13:27
[melancholy music] There are many reasons
to bring Mr. Pittman to the station, and it is
to preserve evidence and get
00:13:40
a good statement from him. And we want to get it
as quickly as possible so we know whether or not
we're looking at Mr. Pittman
00:13:46
or we're looking
for another suspect. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Detective Frank Dillard
00:13:51
leads Keyon Pittman
into an interview room and looks for answers that
may crack this case wide open.
00:14:02
He was making phone calls. He was texting, and I just
thought that was really weird.
00:14:16
The whole time he
was on the phone and talking to his mother
or friends or whoever,
00:14:21
it's all about him. I'm thinking to myself
that please sign a Miranda, the Miranda warning form,
so I can ask the question
00:14:31
I really want to ask. But once we get to
the point to where he's asked to sign that form,
he becomes a different person.
00:14:41
And he said, these MFs think I
had something to do with this. He called someone that was an
attorney, friend of a friend,
00:15:09
and the attorney advised him
not to sign a Miranda form. [suspenseful music] You know, that point, we were
pretty much dead in the water,
00:15:21
with one exception. We in turn contacted a judge
and got a standing order to obtain his
clothing and perform
00:15:30
a gunshot residue kit on him. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Police
test Keyon Pittman's clothing
00:15:35
and his hands for blood and
for GSR, Gunshot Residue, and then he's released. The following day,
detectives receive
00:15:45
Avis Banks's autopsy report. [melancholy music] We learned that
it was a .38 caliber
00:15:55
pistol that the
projectiles came out of. That helps us a lot because now
we know we're looking for a .38.
00:16:02
[suspenseful music] The autopsy of Ms. Banks
also revealed that she was not sexually assaulted.
00:16:14
We're really beginning to
believe that we're dealing with someone who was laying
in wait for Ms. Banks
00:16:21
and that they had staged the
crime scene to appear that this was a burglary, and the
burglar was surprised
00:16:28
by the homeowner coming home. The time of death would have
been from 5:45 to 6 o'clock.
00:16:35
[suspenseful music] So we had about a 15-minute
window that we were dealing with, and it appeared that
she was killed immediately
00:16:46
after arriving home. [gunshots] [suspenseful music] I was at home, and they
had sent the autopsy.
00:17:01
And I didn't know what had
happened to my baby, I didn't. And I seen all them X's and this
and that, how many times she
00:17:13
shot, cut her throat,
cut her up her stomach, you don't butcher
a hog like that.
00:17:24
Crazy. Crazy. It's crazy. There's a lot of
rage in this crime. This was a very violent act.
00:17:34
It was obvious that this was
some sort of crime of passion. [suspensful music] It's an uphill battle for
Mr. Pittman at this point
00:17:46
because we're looking very hard
at Mr. Pittman as our suspect. He fit all the
boxes of someone
00:17:52
that could have done this
and just walked away from it. I went to a restaurant where
Keyon worked part-time.
00:18:00
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Keyon Pittman moonlights as a bartender when
he's not teaching.
00:18:05
I spoke with several
of Keyon's colleagues and they told me that he had
several different girls that
00:18:10
would come into that
restaurant and he would buy drinks
for them, but he had one that hung around a lot.
00:18:18
So now I need to
go to his main job and find out exactly
what they know. He's a school teacher at
a Jackson public school.
00:18:28
I went there and spoke
with the principal. He basically told me that Keyon
have a really high reputation
00:18:35
for being a womanizer. [suspenseful music] Detectives learned about
a woman in Keyon's life
00:18:42
who works at the same school. This other woman
was also a teacher. [suspenseful music]
00:18:49
FRANK DILLARD (VOICEOVER):
Keyon and another teacher were basically having
a relationship.
00:18:55
They were passing love
letters back and forth. [suspenseful music] NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): According
00:19:03
to the medical
examiner, Avis Banks died between 5:45 and 6:00 PM. Her fiancee, Keyon, has an
alibi, but is it airtight?
00:19:16
FRANK DILLARD
(VOICEOVER): He told me that he was at
basketball practice from about 5:30 to 7:30.
00:19:23
I did speak with the head
basketball coach about Keyon and where he was at the time,
and was he actually at the gym.
00:19:31
And he did have an alibi. He was indeed at
basketball practice from 5:30 to about 7:30.
00:19:40
I feel like we just
hit a brick wall. Our true and only
suspect, the one that initially
checked all the boxes,
00:19:49
has just been given an alibi. [gunshots] [siren wailing] [melancholy music] Welcome back.
00:20:04
Ridgeland, Mississippi, 2006,
a week after Thanksgiving, mom Debra Banks is devastated
when her daughter Avis
00:20:12
is found brutally murdered. Instead of a wonderful and
joyous Christmas when they would
00:20:19
all be together again,
the Banks family is forced to say a horrible
and gut-wrenching goodbye.
00:20:27
[melancholy music] Avis's funeral was
really emotional. It was hard for everyone.
00:20:38
No person should have gone
through what Avis went through. Because we rally around
each other as a family,
00:20:52
I think it helped
in a lot of ways. We kind of leaned on each
other to get through that day.
00:20:59
I don't know if I would have
made it without my family. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Fiancee Keyon
00:21:06
Pittman shows up at the church. Avis Banks's family now know
about his other relationships,
00:21:14
and of course, they give
him a cool reception. DEBRA BANKS (VOICEOVER): When I
found out that he was cheating
00:21:21
on Avis, I was shocked. And she didn't know. She didn't know. [suspenseful music]
00:21:32
SHANNON ROYAL (VOICEOVER): Keyon
tried to attend the funeral. He did go in and
sit in the front.
00:21:40
He waited till
everybody got in there, and he went to view the body. And he up there
moaning and groaning,
00:21:53
and my daughter LaTonya, she
started screaming and hollering, what are you doing up there?
00:22:01
And she just went crazy. SHANNON ROYAL (VOICEOVER):
He was escorted out, and we did go on
with the funeral.
00:22:08
[melancholy music] You can't cheat on Avis and
then say that you love Avis. So I saw him as the
enemy at that point,
00:22:20
and I didn't think he deserved
to say goodbye to her. When Avis was laid
to rest, really,
00:22:28
really sad because I can say now
she's gone but never forgotten. [melancholy music]
00:22:42
LACY BATES (VOICEOVER):
The pressure was on for the
detectives because of the depravity of the crime.
00:22:47
It was all hands on deck. There was a murderer
on the loose. Keyon may have wanted Avis dead
so that he could be a free man,
00:22:57
but he had an alibi. BRIAN MYERS (VOICEOVER):
He has a good alibi, and he's not present
at the time of death.
00:23:03
So where do we go from here? We have to figure out who's
responsible for this crime.
00:23:07
Is it someone that
knows Mr. Pittman? Is it someone that
knows Ms. Banks? It's back to the drawing board
for Detective Frank Dillard.
00:23:16
He begins to take a closer look
at the other women in fiancee Keyon Pittman's life.
00:23:22
[suspenseful music] I went to Keyon's school. I spoke to the principal,
and he gave me a name.
00:23:29
The name that the
principal gave me that Keyon was apparently having
an affair with was Carla Hughes.
00:23:35
[suspenseful music] Carla was the
language arts teacher at Chastain Middle School, while
Keyon was the math teacher.
00:23:46
Carla was a go-getter. She had a great job. She had her master's degree. She was pursuing her PhD.
00:23:52
She was a cheerleading coach. Carla won several
different pageants. She was a beauty queen.
00:23:59
She rode horses. You know, anything she
wanted to do, she could do. As luck would have it, when
I'm talking to the principal,
00:24:10
Carla Hughes, coming
to the school. She sobbed. She's crying. I kind of stand back, and the
principal said, that's Hughes.
00:24:22
And I said, well,
why are you crying? And she said, I'm
crying for Keyon. That kind of took me aback
because I'm thinking,
00:24:28
why are you crying for him? He's OK. It's the kid and the
mom that are dead. So that kind of made me look
at her in a different light.
00:24:38
So I invited her back to the
regional police department for an interview
just to hear her side
00:24:44
of the story of anything. It may be something. It may be nothing. [suspenseful music]
00:24:50
She showed up like
she said she would. So at this point, we
were just talking, and I'm gathering information.
00:24:57
I asked her about
having a relationship or possible
relationship with Keyon. But she eventually told me,
yes, she had kissed Keyon,
00:25:20
or they had kissed each other. But she said it really
didn't mean anything. They were more friends.
00:25:41
I dig deeper into it and
then she eventually told me they had slept together. Detective Dillard asked Carla
Hughes if she saw Keyon Pittman
00:26:00
on the day of the murders. I'm thinking, OK, you got a
real good bond with this guy
00:26:26
if he can drop
groceries at your house and store them
until he gets home. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
After the interview,
00:26:56
Frank Dillard now
starts to dig deeper into Carla Hughes's background. [suspenseful music]
00:27:03
Carla had an
unplanned pregnancy and was getting married, and her
fiancee left her at the altar
00:27:11
the day before the wedding. For whatever reason, the guy
just didn't go through with it.
00:27:15
[suspenseful music] Carla probably resents
Avis because Avis was on a path to getting married.
00:27:24
She was pregnant. She got a house. She got a decent job. She's living her dream.
00:27:30
[suspenseful music] The cell phone
records tell detectives why Keyon Pittman did
not call 911 first when
00:27:41
he found Avis Banks's body. He was on the phone
with somebody else. FRANK DILLARD
(VOICEOVER): We learned
00:27:48
that Keyon was on a cell phone
with a lady and that lady being Carla Hughes. [suspenseful music]
00:28:00
Welcome back. 2006, Christmas
just two weeks away, shopping in full swing in
Ridgeland, Mississippi,
00:28:08
but for police in Ridgeland,
there's also a murder investigation in full swing. They want to know
who savagely murdered
00:28:17
a beautiful young
mom-to-be, Avis Banks. Prime suspect,
fiancee Keyon Pittman, but he's got an ironclad
alibi for his whereabouts.
00:28:32
He also has a nasty secret,
a lover, Carla Hughes. [suspenseful music] What was so important that
he was talking to her about
00:28:43
that he could not
break that call and just make a simple 911 call? And that's big-time suspicious.
00:28:50
That would definitely raise
suspicion that, one, Ms. Hughes is involved in this,
and two, Mr. Pittman
00:28:58
may be involved as well. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Police searched Keyon Pittman's phone
logs, and they discovered
00:29:04
something very strange. When Pittman says he
discovers Avis Banks's body, he calls lover Carla
Hughes before he calls 911.
00:29:16
Why? Keyon eventually came
in for a second interview, and he did admit to having
an affair with Carla.
00:29:23
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): Are
Keyon Pittman and Carla Hughes coconspirators in murder?
00:29:29
He said that he did
go over to Carla's house after he got off
basketball practice,
00:29:35
and he left Carla's
house and went home. And that's where he found Avis
laying on the garage floor.
00:29:40
[suspenseful music] Keyon never admitted that Carla
knew anything about the murder.
00:29:46
I mean, the only thing he told
us about her was that Carla was being used for sex
and that he really
00:29:51
didn't care a lot about her. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Keyon Pittman tells police his lover, Carla
Hughes, is obsessed with him.
00:29:57
Is this a real-life case
of fatal attraction? Carla really,
really wanted him. She had his picture
by her bedside,
00:30:07
and she had even introduced him
to her family as her boyfriend. Keyon told detectives that
Carla had been putting pressure
00:30:16
on him to leave Avis for her. [suspenseful music] On Thanksgiving Day and
we was all eating dinner,
00:30:31
and Keyon's phone just
constantly was ringing. I say, what's going on? The phone did ring, ring, ring.
00:30:43
Who could be calling
you that like that? What do they want? Can't they wait till
you get back home?
00:30:51
It began to worry Avis because
she even asked, you down here for the holiday, why
you on the phone?
00:31:01
Why do you keep
getting on the phone? NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Remember all those calls
00:31:06
Keyon Pittman keeps making at
Thanksgiving dinner right there at the table with
his fiancee's family?
00:31:13
He tells fiancee Avis Banks
they're from his mother, that his mother wants him to
come see her in Mississippi.
00:31:23
Oh, that's a good story,
but it is not his mother constantly calling him. It's his lover Carla Hughes.
00:31:31
Pittman and Avis Banks head
north to his mother's home. [suspenseful music] Carla actually
followed Keyon and Avis
00:31:42
and rented a hotel room. And she calls Keyon to come
over to see her, which he does,
00:31:48
and they have sex. And then she wants him to stay
the night, but Keyon refuses. And that angers Carla.
00:31:56
She wanted him to be with her. It angered Carla
that he was spending time with Avis and her family
and not her on Thanksgiving.
00:32:05
She tells Keyon that
things are going to change. [suspenseful music] Thanksgiving is what
set this all in motion,
00:32:15
and six days later,
Avis is dead. [suspenseful music] And we did learn that Ms.
Hughes's cell phone was actually
00:32:23
hitting on a tower
and if she was in the area in the
vicinity of the subdivision
00:32:30
where this murder was committed. It showed that she
was within a 2-mile radius of Avis's and Keyon's
home at the time of the murder.
00:32:43
This is a big
piece of the puzzle, to be able to prove that her
cell phone is hitting on a tower
00:32:48
so close to that home. NANCY GRACE
(VOICEOVER): The cell phone records may very well
put Carla Hughes near the crime
00:32:53
scene, but there's
still no evidence she committed the murders. [suspenseful music]
00:33:00
It's frustrating for the
police because at this point, they don't have a murder weapon.
00:33:05
Police need a break in the case. FRANK DILLARD (VOICEOVER):
And out of the blue,
00:33:09
we get a phone call. [suspenseful music] It's an attorney from
Camden, Mississippi,
00:33:16
and he told me that
he has a client that's related to Carla Hughes. And they want to
meet with me to turn
00:33:23
in a gun that might
have been used in the homicide of Avis Banks. The attorney is representing
Patrick Nash, Carla's cousin.
00:33:32
BRIAN MYERS (VOICEOVER):
Patrick Nash came to the police
department with his counsel
00:33:36
and told us that he had
loaned a five-shot .38 caliber revolver to Ms. Hughes
along with a hunting knife
00:33:45
before this murder
was committed. She told Patrick that she
needed the gun because she
00:33:50
was concerned for her safety. She said she was having
some break-ins in her-- in the area where she lived.
00:34:13
Patrick gave a gun to
Carla for protection and had five bullets in it,
and when he got the gun back,
00:34:19
the gun was empty. He asked about the
bullets and the gun, and she said she went
target practicing.
00:34:40
And he said he felt
like something's not going right here. At that point, they were
thinking that the gun is linked
00:34:46
to the homicide of Avis
Banks and that Carla Hughes used the gun. This is the smoking
gun in this situation,
00:34:53
and ultimately, that
weapon was matched to the projectiles that were
taken from Ms. Banks's body.
00:35:00
That was a clear
ballistic match. This was our murder weapon. [suspenseful music]
00:35:06
FRANK DILLARD (VOICEOVER): Her
cousin also gave her a knife, but he never got the knife back.
00:35:11
All this is pointing toward her. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Detectives now have PC, Probable Cause, and
they execute a search warrant
00:35:20
at Carla Hughes's apartment. A positive match will mean
they've got a slam-dunk case.
00:35:27
[melancholy music] Did not find any
bloody clothes. Didn't find a knife. The first pair of
shoes that I saw
00:35:55
were the pair of
treads-safe shoes. BRIAN MYERS
(VOICEOVER): The shoes that we found in Carla Hughes's
home were a perfect match
00:36:02
to the impressions on the
door where the door was kicked at Avis Banks's home. The shoes were matched
by tread pattern
00:36:10
and also the size of the shoe. Individual characteristics
of the actual impression
00:36:16
were also matched. FRANK DILLARD (VOICEOVER):
Looking at the shoes, we saw a couple of
specks of blood.
00:36:23
Now we know we got a smoking
gun and a hot pair of shoes. But the blood
matches, we got her.
00:36:29
You got the shoe treads. You got the blood on the shoes. You got the gun. It's not looking good
for Carla at this point.
00:36:37
Everything's kind of
falling into place right now. I'm more than confident that
the blood on those shoes
00:36:42
is going to match the
blood from Avis's body. [suspenseful music] All we have to do is
send it to the lab
00:36:51
and just wait for them to tell
us, hey, there was a match. So we do that. We send the shoes to the lab
and got our results back.
00:37:01
Our results being-- [suspenseful music] --they were not a match. [gunshots] [suspenseful music]
00:37:15
Welcome back. Ridgeland, Mississippi Police
working through the holidays to solve the murder of Avis
Banks and her unborn baby,
00:37:26
and they are ready to wrap
it up with a positive DNA match of their prime suspect.
00:37:32
Then they get a surprise
result from the lab. The blood on shoes belonging to
the prime suspect, Carla Hughes,
00:37:42
is not a match for the
murder victim, Avis Banks. Detectives wonder,
what did we miss?
00:37:48
[suspenseful music] FRANK DILLARD (VOICEOVER):
We contacted the lab and asked, why didn't
we get a match?
00:37:54
I mean, what's going on? And we learned that they
were informed to stay away from the blood to swab the shoes
but not the actual blood, which
00:38:06
to me, does not make sense. So we send it to a private lab. [suspenseful music] And we got our results
back, our results being,
00:38:20
it was a perfect match, 100%. [suspenseful music] The blood that was on the
shoes is the same blood
00:38:28
that came from Avis's body. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Detectives arrest Carla Hughes, December 8,
2006, charged with two
00:38:37
counts, capital murder. The case goes to trial. FRANK DILLARD (VOICEOVER):
The trial was pretty intense.
00:38:46
Carla's attorney, of course,
accused Keyon of everything. According to the
defense, Keyon killed
00:38:52
Avis because he didn't want to
pay child support or anything. He didn't want the unborn child.
00:38:58
He really didn't want
marriage because he had so many other women. Also one of the big
factors was that Keyon
00:39:05
and Carla wore the same size
shoe which was a size 9. They did say that
he wore those shoes
00:39:10
and took them from her
apartment, committed the murder, took them back to and put
them in her apartment,
00:39:17
and went back to
the basketball game. And where she kept the gun,
that he could have got the gun
00:39:22
and committed the murder,
and put the gun back as well. The gun didn't have Carla
Hughes's prints on it.
00:39:28
Well, we don't know
who cleaned it. I submit to you that the
womanizer cleaned it.
00:39:36
Carla Hughes remains
unusually calm for a person on trial for murder. [melancholy music]
00:39:43
BRIAN MYERS (VOICEOVER):
Ms. Hughes appeared very confident in court. She was very poised.
00:39:47
During the trial, Carla
was very stoic, unemotional. Carla appeared like she thought
she had gotten away with this.
00:39:55
She was doodling his name. We found out that she
was planning her wedding. She was writing.
00:40:03
They gave her a
tablet and a pencil. She was planning her
wedding with Keyon. Carla thought Keyon was in
love with her, that they
00:40:14
was going to get married. They was going to have a family. I really think, in
her mind, she thought
00:40:22
that after Avis was
gone, that Keon and her were going to be together. There's nothing
that anyone could
00:40:31
have told her that would have
made her think any differently. NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Carla Hughes's
00:40:36
confidence begins
to slip when lover Keyon Pittman takes the stand. When Keyon testified and he
said that their relationship was
00:40:49
purely sexual and that he
was not in love with her, that's when you saw
emotion on Carla's face.
00:40:54
NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER): The
jury quickly reaches a verdict. JUDGE: As to count one,
the verdict or the sentence
00:41:00
says, we, the jury,
find that the defendant should be sentenced to life
imprisonment without parole.
00:41:05
As to count two, the
sentence says, we, the jury, find the defendant should be
sentenced to life imprisonment
00:41:13
without parole. [suspenseful music] When I heard the verdict
of guilty, guilty on both,
00:41:25
thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. That was the
greatest news ever. I feel like justice
had been served
00:41:37
and that Avis would be
able to rest in peace. BRIAN MYERS (VOICEOVER):
This was a calculated crime.
00:41:43
Carla had a plan. She put that plan into action,
and she took two innocent lives.
00:41:51
And she's paying for it now. FRANK DILLARD
(VOICEOVER): I believe Carla wanted Avis's life.
00:41:59
LACY BATES (VOICEOVER):
She wanted the husband, the baby, the house, the life. She wanted Keyon.
00:42:05
FRANK DILLARD (VOICEOVER):
But she had to eliminate Avis in order to have that life.
00:42:10
She would do whatever it
takes to get what she wants in a bad way, in a evil way.
00:42:16
SHANNON ROYAL (VOICEOVER):
The most reasonable thing in her mind was to get rid of
the problem, and in her mind,
00:42:23
the problem was Avis. LACY BATES (VOICEOVER): I think
Carla seeing Keyon with Avis
00:42:28
on Thanksgiving, when she
wanted to be with him, really set her off. [gunshots] Thanksgiving probably
pushed her over the edge.
00:42:39
During the holidays, the
families are coming together. Who does she have? The one person she really
wants is with somebody else.
00:42:47
[melancholy music] LACY BATES (VOICEOVER): Carla
wanted Avis out of the way. She wanted Keyon for all
her future Thanksgivings.
00:42:57
BRIAN MYERS
(VOICEOVER): Honestly can't imagine what
it's like to lose a loved one and a grandbaby.
00:43:12
[melancholy music] I can't imagine what the Banks
family experiences, especially
00:43:21
through the holidays and how
close this was to Thanksgiving, and then having to experience
that first Christmas
00:43:29
without her. [tense music] NANCY GRACE (VOICEOVER):
Carla Hughes now serving life
00:43:36
behind bars at the Central
Mississippi CI Correctional Institute for Women. Fiancee Keyon Pittman, not
charged with any involvement
00:43:49
in Avis's murder,
is determined Carla Hughes acted completely alone. [melancholy music]
00:44:02
DEBRA BANKS (VOICEOVER):
Thanksgiving was the last time that we seen Avis alive.
00:44:15
Avis will always
live inside of me. I think about her every day. I talk to Avis because her
pictures are everywhere.
00:44:27
I love you, Avis. [melancholy music] Our love for Avis to be
remembered for who she was,
00:44:36
which was this light,
kind-spirited person. [melancholy music] DEBRA BANKS (VOICEOVER): Avis
will not ever be forgotten.
00:44:47
Ever. [melancholy music] Obsession, revenge,
and finally, murder. The tragic case of Avis Banks
really does turn out to be
00:45:13
a real-life fatal attraction. I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for joining us here
on "The Christmas Killings."
00:45:22
[theme music]