Cold Case Files - The Hitmakers

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

A murder on Music Row leads detectives to investigate a crooked business that promises fame and fortune in the country music capitol, Nashville... but instead, delivers lies, extortion and bloodshed. Check out our great sponsors! Purple: Go to Purple.com/coldcase10 and use code coldcase10 to get 10% off any order of $200 or more! Check out Apartments.com - the best place to find a place! Listen to Killer Psyche on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, OR joing Wondery Plus in the Wondery app! Get a quote today at Progressive.com and see why 4 out of 5 new auto customers recommend Progressive!

If someone wants to be a part of the country music scene, they go to Nashville. And in the late 80s, two guys named Sammy Sadler and Kevin Hughes did just that. Sammy sang and played guitar. Kevin wasn't a musician, but he worked for a music industry magazine called Cashbox, interpreting popularity numbers and developing the ratings charts. On March 9, 1989, the two friends visited Music Row, the main strip for recording studios in Nashville. The two men spent some time at Evergreen Records, then headed home.

But they never made it. On their way home, four gunshots rang out. One man was injured, and the other was murdered. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. The police were called a little after 10.30 p.m. after the surviving victim, Sammy Sadler, stumbled into a nearby apartment to call for help. Sergeant William Dyer was one of the first responders. There was a male white laying in the middle of the roadway,

face down, obviously shot. Kevin Hughes was pronounced dead at the scene. The area around where the men had been shot was taped off to prevent the onlookers who had started to gather. Some of the potential witnesses had fairly recognizable names. Here's Sergeant Dyer again.

Johnny Cash was out on the sidewalk and Waylon Jennings was there. I believe Willie Nelson and Chris Christopherson were also there. No one in the crowd of celebrities had witnessed the shooting or the shooter, so the investigators moved on to the crime scene itself. They found a.38 caliber bullet and decided they needed more information from the surviving man, Sammy Sadler, their first-hand witness. The morning after the shooting, Detective Bill Pridemore and Detective Pat Postiglione

visited Sammy while he was recovering in the hospital. They asked him if he could explain what happened. This is Sammy Sadler. Kevin and I started walking across the street to get in his car, and as soon as I sat down in the car, I thought I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye, so I looked up, and this guy was standing between me and the door, and all I could see was his arms out in front of me, and I noticed the gun. I said, oh my God, this guy's got a gun.

The gunman's first target was Sammy, who only saw him coming the instant before he was shot. Here's Detective Postiglione. At that instant, he was able, and this probably saved his life, Sammy was able to lift his arm up and the bullet entered his elbow right here. The person that did the shooting probably thought he killed Sammy because Sammy slumped over this way. Kevin Hughes, upon seeing his friend shot, started to run. The man with the gun followed and shot Kevin in the back. And then, twice more in the head.

The police became convinced that murder was the intended crime, not a lesser crime gone bad. Here's Detective Pridemore. We didn't know who the target was, whether it was Sammy, whether it was Kevin. We really didn't know in what direction to go in. The detectives decided to look into the personal lives of both men, hoping to find out who might want one, or both, of them dead. This is Detective Pridemore again.

Even though we lived in Music City, we were kind of naive about how the country music business worked in this town. Sammy played the guitar and sang. While Kevin worked for Cashbox magazine, his job was to track the amount of airtime a song had and develop ratings. Basically, he crunched the numbers that decided which singers made it onto the charts and which didn't. Kind of a human algorithm. It turned out, though, that his job wasn't as number-based as it sounded. People known as fly-by-night promoters would seek out new and naive musicians, asking them to record a demo tape and then promising they would make it

big. Here's Detective Postiglione again. But these people, you know, coming to Nashville just completely green, had no clues to what was going on, hook up with somebody in the country music business and think for $10,000 to $20,000 I'm going to be a star. Then the promoters would pay the hit makers to make that particular artist go up on the charts and believe they were getting closer and closer to their dreams. Then, when the singer was out of cash, the promoter would dump them and move on to their next victim. Here's Detective Postiglione. We were very disillusioned when we found out how corrupt it was and how much of it was going on, how rampant it was. Cashbox Magazine, Kevin's employer, was at the center of the scam.

This is Wade Jensen. He was the director of the Nashville music charts at Billboard Magazine until 2015. Make no mistake, in its heyday, Cashbox Magazine was a very influential, respected trade publication. But 10, 15 years ago, it was pretty much common knowledge in the music business that the magazine and its charts, specifically were for sale. The detectives speculated that Kevin might have threatened to expose the cash box scam and made the wrong people angry. Here's detective Postiglione. Our theory is that is the reason right there is why they killed Kevin. Not because they could have fired him and just got rid of him, but because even if they did fire him it was real possible that Kevin was

gonna go to the authorities anyway. The detectives had a theory, but no facts. So they went back to Music Row to see if they could uncover any evidence. Here's Detective Pridemore again. We sat there many nights, in the car, rain, outside on the wall, watching people, talking people. We'd see somebody walking down the street, and we'd go over and talk to them, ask if we could check them out.

The detectives met two promoters with connections to Cashbox, Chuck Dixon and Richard D'Antonio. D'Antonio worked in conjunction with Chuck Dixon. They worked together doing the same type of business into the same type of corruption. Dixon and D'Antonio were both suspected of paying cash box to bump their clients up in the charts. And if Kevin blew the whistle on them, they would have lost a lot of money. But after following their theory for a year, the detectives couldn't find any hard evidence

linking either man, or anyone for that matter, to the crime. So the case went cold. This music was written by Steve Daniel and Richard D'Antonio. Riding on the road of life, you know it's been one hell of a drive. Winding roads, uphill climbs, one-way streets and detour signs. In the year 1993, the two men tried to sell their music in Nashville. This is Steve Daniel. He was saying, I'm going to get something done with these songs. These are good, you know. So, I'm going to get something done with these songs. These are good, you know. So I was singing

songs. Like lots of people who hope to become the next country music superstar, Steve's music career didn't seem to be taking off. So he decided to try his luck in a different occupation, selling drugs. He was investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, known as the GBI. This is Special Agent Del Thomason. Steve was not, to me, the professional drug person. I think Steve was probably trying to do it to make some money, and he had gotten himself involved in something I really believe was getting pretty much over his head.

In September of 1992, Special Agent Del Thomason showed up at Steve Daniels' house with a warrant. He had enough evidence to do a search for drugs. Here's Agent Del Thomason again. Inside the building, there was approximately five 55-gallon drums with 273 pounds of marijuana inside those drums. And from there, where we were conducting a drug investigation, just a few feet away it became a murder investigation. The transition from drug raid to murder investigation started when Steve told the agent that on the same day that Kevin Hughes was murdered and Sammy Sadler was shot, he had sold a.38 caliber revolver.

The man he had sold it to was Richard D'Antonio, the promoter. This is Steve Daniel. And so I sold it to him for $150. It was a Smith & Wesson. I don't remember what model. And I didn't have any bullets, so I went out and bought some bullets, the cheapest ones I could find, came back, and he shot it in the backyard several times. The information that was provided about the gun by Steve Daniel

sounded convincing to Special Agent Del Thomason, so he contacted National Homicide, who finally had a lead into the murder on Music Row. D'Antonio will say that they were friends, but in reality, numerous other people tell us that Kevin didn't particularly care for Tony. As a matter of fact, he was afraid of him. That was Detective Postiglione with a new lead on the murder of Kevin Hughes. Richard D'Antonio had been a suspect, but prior to Steve Daniels' statement,

there was no way to link him to the evidence. Here's Detective Postiglione again. We immediately went down and spoke with Steve and this agent, and we determined, based on the information he had, that D'Antonio was our man. The detectives convinced Steve Daniel to make a recorded call to Richard D'Antonio. Do you remember something? That's when that boy got killed up there. Somebody got killed up there? recorded call to Richard D'Antonio. He said, well, there's a possibility that two detectives may come down and see you. If they do, just tell them that I was with you. I don't really remember it. What do you want me to say or whatever? Not getting the confession they were hoping for,

the detectives weren't able to arrest Richard D'Antonio. This is District Attorney Tom Thurman. We were all pretty much convinced that Richard D'Antonio was a trigger man, but it was still a very weak, circumstantial case. We could put a.38 in his hand, but we couldn't put the murder weapon in his hand. The case, once again, went cold. Special Agent Del Thomason had moved on since his tip about the murder on Music Row. But in the year 2002, he got a call from the Nashville Cold Case Squad. Here's Special Agent Del Thomason.

We had stayed in touch with him several times over the years. And then there was a period of time that we didn't hear from anyone any longer, so I didn't know what the status was of the investigation. And then eventually I heard from Bill Pridemore again. Detectives Pridemore and Postiglione, now cold case detectives, had been working on the murder of Kevin Hughes since the beginning. They had a new idea, and they wanted to run it by the GBI. Steve Daniel had reported that Richard D'Antonio

had test-fired the gun that was sold to him in Daniel's backyard. Even though it was a long shot, the detectives thought if they could find the bullets from the gun, they might be able to make a forensic link to the ones recovered from the victim. Everyone agreed it was worth a try, so they visited the scene with a crime scene technician. This is the area where myself and the crime scene technician began to use a metal detector. We started down at the bottom and began to find bullets down in this area, all the way up to the top of this bank here.

That was Special Agent Del Thomason, who with assistance pulled 13 slugs out of Steve Daniels' former backyard. The bullets were sent to the lab to be compared with the ones recovered from Kevin Hughes' body. Here's Detective Pridemore. They found that out of the 13,

one did match and was without a doubt fired through the same handgun. The marks on one of the bullets found in the yard were an exact one of the bullets found in the yard were an exact match for the ones found in the victim. It seemed that after 13 years, the detectives were able to place the murder weapon in the hands of their main suspect, Richard D'Antonio.

With evidence of the murder weapon now available to them, they needed to determine the motive. Richard D'Antonio had moved to Las Vegas and worked in a casino for a while. But when detectives caught up to him, he was out of work and living in the shadows. The Nevada police picked him up, and D'Antonio just shrugged when police told him that they believed he shot and killed Kevin Hughes. Here's one of the detectives who was present at the interview. I think that tells the story. We're not saying a word. The fact that he doesn't deny anything or ask any questions, he's not outraged that

he's being charged. Richard D'Antonio was returned to Nashville, where District Attorney Tom Thurman was tasked with proving his guilt. It was over last night. Tom Thurman wanted to show how the shady promoters worked, bribing the chart creators and taking the money of singers looking for success, and then crushing their dreams. If the scam was uncovered, it could show motive for Richard D'Antonio to have murdered Kevin Hughes. Here's Tom Thurman.

And again, you know, we're not dealing with major labels and major artists. We're dealing with independent people, people that get off the bus every day in Nashville with their dreams and their life savings sometimes, and there's plenty of people out there ready to take their money. The DA's office ran an undercover operation. Basically we sent an undercover agent in from our office, a female investigator who, let's just say, was not a very talented singer. They filmed the session and everything else and paid so much money. Miracle, miracle, she got on the charts and was moving up with a bullet. Hey, sweetie, can I ask you something?

Will you give me that kind of laid-back, kind of sloppy approach to the, you know, like you did on that last song? It's kind of like a person who's had about one drink and it sounds really good. I'm just trying to tell you that approach is working real well. Hell froze over last night. I'm not a music expert, but even I can tell that the promoter was paying for the undercover agent to be moved up on the charts. Here's D.A. Thurman again. That's what this was. It was really a tragedy for a lot of people. A lot of people's dreams were shattered by this type of thing.

Their money was taken, and they really didn't get an opportunity at all. In 2003, Tom Thurman got his chance to bring the scam to light when Richard D'Antonio was put on trial for Kevin Hughes' murder. He called rival promoters to the stand so they could explain how the scam worked. Here's some audio call the radio. If I went in charge position, all I had to do was get a $750 quarter page ad and call Chuck Dixon and get him on the record as well. He had to be on the record. He got paid as a promoter, and Cash Busch got paid the $750 ad, and we made the charge.

The jury made the connection between the scam and the murders, and Richard D'Antonio was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life in prison. When he was serving time in the Attorney Central Industrial Prison, he made this statement. Am I mad? You're darn right I'm mad. I'm arrested, taken away from my family for something that I didn't do, and I'm serving a life sentence?

That is BS to the max. It is BS. D'Antonio went on to say that Kevin Hughes was killed by a jealous husband who had mistaken Hughes for the man who was having an affair with his wife. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He doesn't have any evidence to support that claim, though. D'Antonio does point out that only one of the bullets found matched his gun. If we would have test fired a gun they would have found more than one bullet or one piece of a bullet. If we were to test fire this alleged weapon that he said that I had, I mean that's common sense. You don't have to be a rocket scientist. As Bill Curtis once said, DeAntonio

then opted for the OJ defense. The police must have planted it. Specifically, Detective Pridemore. He thinks that he has them, but this is going to turn around on him. It's going to, what goes around comes around. It's going to turn around on him. I believe he went down and planted this bullet in Georgia, if indeed they did find a bullet down there. Detective Pridemore doesn't believe anything D'Antonio says, though. That's Tony, see? You know, he's a player. He's leading you on, leading you to believe there's something more, and he's willing to tell you that. Detective Postiglione also shares his opinion about Richard D'Antonio.

To do something like this to someone like Kevin, I mean, just tells us that that person probably doesn't have a conscience, has no ability to understand what they've done. So trying to ask him why he did it and trying to get him to express remorse would just probably be a waste of time. Richard D'Antonio doesn't confess and continues to maintain his innocence. No, no, I'm not a choir boy by no means, no, but I'm not a murderer either. I know in my heart that I'm innocent. God heart that I'm innocent. God knows that I'm innocent.

And he's the one that's going to save me. He's smarter than Thurman. He's smarter than Pridemore. He's smarter than Postiglione. He's smarter than them all. And I'm going to be exonerated from this. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings. Produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Dallamater

our executive producer is Ted Butler our music was created by Blake Maples this podcast is distributed by Podcast One the Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at aetv.com slash realcrime.