True Crime with Kimbyr - Pregnant “Bride-To-Be” Gunned Down In Her Own Garage Part 2

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

In the second part of this compelling episode, Kimbyrleigha continues to explore the devastating story of Avis Banks. Once living her dream life—five months pregnant, engaged to the man she loved, and excelling in her career—Avis’s world came crashing down in an instant. As the investigation deepens, more shocking details are uncovered, exposing layers of deception, betrayal, and a cold-blooded murder. Tune in as Kimbyrleigha uncovers new revelations in this heartbreaking case that left a family shattered and a community grappling for justice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Keon was taken back to the station for questioning with Detective Dillard, and it was clear that he was going to put him through the ringer. Keon was experiencing all kinds of emotions, including grief, anger, and denial, and he just kept getting on his phone, calling people, texting non-stop. The detective noticed that Keon appeared remarkably calm and relaxed, which struck him as peculiar, given the gravity of this situation that he had just experienced how could he look so unbothered kian had made a lot of phone calls while sitting in the police car and the waiting room and before the interview started

detective dillard overheard kiann say to someone over the phone quote i don't like this at all these mother effers think that i had something to do with this shit end quote so detective dillard wondered what the issue was i don't like this at all You need a motherfucker think I had something to do with this shit I believe. I know something was up. Kean explained that he felt as though he was being targeted, that he was being looked at as a suspect from the get-go. But Detective explained this was actually a routine interview.

Everyone was going to go through an interview like this if they were close to Avis. He was the one who found her and he was very close to her. It's obvious that he would be questioned and if he cared to find out what happened to his fiance, then he would cooperate with them the best he can. Detective Dillard then started to ask him some easier questions, you know, about his line of work, his outfit. And Keon actually laughed a few times and tried to make a couple jokes. It could have been a trauma response. I know that I sometimes laugh when I receive unexpected news, but it could also be a sign that Keon was emotionally detached from what happened to Avis or didn't really know how to handle it.

Or maybe he just didn't trust detectives. He maybe thought that they were going to imprison him right on the spot without even having evidence that he did anything wrong. I can't even begin to imagine all the thoughts that were running through his head during this interview. But when Detective Dillard heard Keon laughing, he had to actually remind him that he was at the police station because his bride to be an unborn son had been murdered. Detective Dillard noticed that Kian was self-absorbed and turned questions around to talk more about himself every time. He complained about how he was being treated and victim. himself in order to distract from the topics at hand. At one point, Keon said that Detective Dillard wouldn't let him use the bathroom.

Dillard replied to Kian that he was allowed to go use the bathroom and had used the bathroom. Then Kian said he didn't interpret it that way. Again, he was grieving. He's not going to be in the most rational mindset, but it's not really an excuse for being unhelpful, especially when the police were trying to figure out what happened to his fiancé. There were a few things that bothered Detective Dillard. The first was why Kian didn't want to be.

call 911 from his cell phone right away. He not only went into the house, but he hadn't called when he came back outside. When questioned about this, Hean's excuse was that he didn't want to pay for roaming charges. I don't know how many of you remember when cell phone plans only included certain areas, and when you made calls outside those boundaries, you'd incur extra charges. But this was an emergency. It was 911. It was his fiance. So that seemed very odd. Like he'd have to actually stop and think about these roaming charges at a time like that. But he insisted he didn't know where the 911 call would be routed. And he didn't think it would go through and he didn't want to waste time.

Now Dillard wants him to recount what he did that day. He said he spent his day teaching at Chastain Middle School as usual. After getting off, he ran some errands including picking up some groceries to bring home that evening after basketball practice, which began at 5.30. And lasted until about 7.30 p.m. or 7.45 p.m. Now, he didn't want the groceries to spoil. So he asked a fellow coach that lived right near the school if he could put them in their fridge

and retrieve them quickly once practice was over. And that's what he did. He dropped them off at around 5 p.m., left around 5.10 p.m. and even called Avis on the way over to the school gym. And then they talked once again just after practice started when Avis called to ask what was for dinner. He told her he'd be bringing food home. He finished up around 7.45 or so, left to school,

scooped up his groceries, While he drove, he called Davis, but he did not get an answer and he became concerned. That's when he called her mother Deborah and asked her if she'd heard from her and she hadn't. And we know what happened next. The detective had more questions, but Keon refused to talk as soon as he started to read his Miranda warnings. Keon said he was going to need to hire an attorney, especially if they were going to tell him he was innocent, but treat him like he was a suspect. He complained that in the United States, it seems like you are guilty until proven. until proven innocent.

But he was ignoring the fact that his behavior made it look like he was guilty. Anyway, he did hire an attorney, Antoine Patrick, who shed more light on how Keon was treated during his interview. Allegedly, police had told Keon multiple times to, quote, sit down and shut up, end quote. And Detective Dillard questioned Keon

until 4.30 or 5 in the morning. That's a long time. This might have been a little bit of an exaggeration, but if you asked me, both parties in this interview, just clashed. Was Keon being difficult because the police were keeping him there so long, or were the police keeping him there so long because he was being difficult? Either way, Keon stopped talking and sought the advice of counsel, which I would recommend everyone does

if there ever being questioned in regard to any crime, especially a murder. Now before letting him go, investigators photographed Keon's clothing. He was wearing a blue and white pinstripe dress shirt. It was a button-down polo, a gold chain, khaki pants, and a white undershirt. There was a blood stain on the top, left, under his shoulder area, and more on his left sleeve. Another spot was on the bottom left closer to his pants, and there was a bunch of blood streaked in between his leg areas of his khakis, as well as on various other places of those pants, like the cuffs by the ankles. There didn't appear to be any on his shoes, though. They were lace-ups with brown leather and blue cloth. They did swabs of Keon's hands, which also had a noticeable amount of blood on them. You can see it

under his fingernails and on his hands, and they wanted to make sure there wasn't any gunpowder residue on them. So they did a GSR test. And this test actually came back positive for gunpowder, but there was only a single particle on each hand. It's highly possible that residue rubbed off from Avis's clothing when Keon held her in his arms. That could also explain why her her blood was on his clothing. Keon left the interview outraged at the way he was treated. Police had taken his cell phone, his clothing, and Avis's car in as evidence. And they got a search warrant for Heon's car, leaving him in a very vulnerable position. He didn't trust Detective Neil and Dillard at all. No matter how many times they reassured him that he was not a suspect,

he didn't believe them. And while Keon was hard for the police's the stomach, there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime. They did find a pair of shoes. in the truck of his car, but they didn't match the tread from the print left on the back door. However, they were a men's size eight, the exact same size of the prince left behind by the perpetrator. So this definitely keeps him on their radar. It didn't matter whether they liked him or not. This wasn't enough evidence to hold him, and maybe he was just grieving in his own way, and that's why he needed to leave town, because that's what he did. It was a detective's job to find out who killed them, be it Keon,

or someone else. Kian ended up leaving Jackson for a while to be with his family. After November 29, he got a substitute teacher to cover his classes and he quit his bartending job at the Mexican restaurant, which could be seen as running away to get the prying eyes off of him, but it didn't matter. Right now, investigators had to put all the evidence together. They spent the next few days going door to door in the neighborhood

and putting together a timeline for Avis' death. They believe from her phone records and her GPS information that Avis called and talked to Kianat at 512 p.m. and again at 5.36 p.m. that evening when she was driving home from work. And she arrived home between 5.50 and 6 p.m. They think she was killed shortly thereafter. They talked to Johnny Colman, Avis's next door neighbor. Now he hadn't been around to call the police that night. He had actually driven his children home from school at 4.30 that day, and they had spent the whole evening indoors trying to ignore the construction workers. The workers stopped a little before 6 p.m. that would be able to be.

that would be around the time that Avis was ambushed coming home from work. When Johnny left for his night shift at 745, Avis' garage door was shut with the Christmas lights on outside her home. Everything looked normal. And I wondered, where the Christmas lights usually turned on at this time? Did Avis turn them on when she got home? Doesn't seem like she would have had time. Or did the perpetrator turn them on? I'm genuinely wondering where the lights were plugged in, and I wasn't able to find any information on that. that. Maybe they were on a timer. I know that I've had ones like that before, but I just got this haunting image in my mind of Avis's murderer turning on the lights to make everything look normal.

And that literally gives me chills. It's so creepy, especially since we know that they were inside of the house. The police ran into a bunch of dead ends with the neighbors since Avis's garage door was shut. So they started digging into Keon's life. First, they looked at his cell phone records. At 6 p.m., his cell phone pinged to a tower near Chastain Middle School. The rest of the evening, he moved around a lot, but none of the messages filtered through the Lake Harbor Drive cell tower, and that's the tower closest to his and Avis' house. Keon was still a suspect, but investigators needed to find a witness who could confirm that Keon was in the area that night or even owned a gun.

When detectives went to the Mexican restaurant where Keon worked, they started asking the other bartenders, the servers, and the... the regulars questions about him. And they cracked open a huge bombshell. According to Keon's co-workers, he was quite the ladies man. Why did I see this part coming? They said that he had regulars coming in all the time to see him. Now, I mean, that's not too uncommon for bartenders, but they go one step further and said they witnessed Keon flirting with women constantly. Still not that out of the norm for a bartender, but it didn't end there. He had a had been seen kissing, not just one woman, but several different women who his coworkers

referred to as his girlfriends. Yeah. So they would come in and visit him and they would leave together at the end of his shifts. It was almost as though he had this side job to meet girls on the side. It was clear that Keon was living a double life. He was a player, and if Avis had any idea, she never told any of her friends or family about it. But it's unlikely that she knew the whole story. When we love someone, it's really hard to imagine that they wouldn't be loyal until it's uncovered somehow. We want to trust them. And Avis didn't go visit Kian at the bar very often, so he could meet up with whoever he

pleased at his workplace. Police were not surprised to hear about Kian's affairs because they overheard him calling someone babe over the phone in that initial interview room. That's right. When he was complaining about the detectives, he referred to the person on the other line as babe. So detectives made a note of it, and now they know why. But Keon cheating on Avis didn't mean that he was her murderer. Maybe he did love her, and maybe he just couldn't handle the commitment. But if you didn't love her, well, that would be a great motive. Avis was pregnant with his child. Did Keon just not want to be tied down? Was he the Chris Watts type of guy? A guy who thought knew what he wanted but met someone else and changed his mind. So he took matters into his own hands

and ended Avis's life so that he wouldn't have to have a kid around. It's a sickening thought, but it happens. This is not nearly enough evidence to charge Keon with anything, so police decided to follow a lead. One of Keon's restaurant co-workers had mentioned the name of one of the women he was seeing. Her name was Carla Hughes. She frequented the bar on the nights that Keon worked, And she also happened to be one of his coworkers at the school. The teachers would go out and hang out together, go eat and nearby restaurants, but Carla would come in on her own to see Keon outside of work-related activities. Now, no one blatantly said they knew Kean and Carla were more than friends.

They just mentioned her coming in regularly over the past few months. Detective Dillard went to Chastain Middle School on December 1st, two days after Avis was killed. He was there to interview Keon's colleagues, especially Carla Hughes. Carla Hughes. And when he asked to speak with her, she immediately burst into tears. She was hysterically crying, and this looked suspicious. Detective Diller asked her if she knew Avis, and that's why she was upset. And Carla said she knew of her, but did not know her personally. She was crying because she and Keon worked together. They both coached together, and she was sad about what he was

going through, something so horrible. Dillard couldn't really conduct a proper interview, because because she was so emotional. So he scheduled a private interview with her later that evening after she was done with work. Then he went around the school asking questions about Kian and Carla. You already know who Kian is, but this is what they learned about Carla.

The 25-year-old language arts teacher was from Greenville, Mississippi. She was born on June 12, 1981, and when she was only six weeks old, she was adopted by her Uncle Carl and her Aunt Linda Hughes, her biological mother's cousin. Carla went to T.L. Weston High School

and regularly attended Mercy C. Baptist Church. Her parents were school teachers and close friends with the pastor, the mayor, and other big names in town. And let me tell you, Carlo was involved in everything. Tennis, soccer, basketball, band, dancing, cheerleading, key club, the mayor's youth council, the Mississippi state senate, and the list goes on. She excelled in horseback riding and beauty pageants. She finished six in the world in a horse showing competition at the age of 14. She won many awards and was an honor student. She was also voted most likely to succeed in life by her high school graduating class. Carla was a popular cheerleader growing up. She brought enthusiasm and spirit to the

sidelines of every game. She was also a talented musician and played in the school band. Carla's involvement in different activities didn't stop there. She was happily engaged in her community, always seeking opportunities to make a positive impact. Her bubbly personality and her natural charisma made her everyone's favorite. She was well liked by her classmates and teachers alike. Carla earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Southern Mississippi in early 2000. Next, she earned her Master's of Education degree from Belle Haven College in Jackson, Mississippi, and then she began taking graduate coursework in education at Delta State University while she was working at an elementary school. But then she decided to take the job as a seventh grade

language arts teacher at Chastain Middle School in August, right before school started. Her parents were worried because everything happened so suddenly. She actually had to move nearby until she settled in, and this wasn't the best part of town. She actually had a break in less than three months after moving in. This was in early October. Someone actually tried to get into her back door, and she reported it to the Jackson Police Department. She was looking to relocate soon, but she loved her job, which came with a higher salary. She was the cheerleading coach, and she enjoyed making new friends with other teachers, including Keon. Everyone the detectives talked to said they love Carla. She was really popular with the students, as well as her coworkers. They said

that she had a close relationship with fellow teachers, including coach Keon Pittman. They had a habit of having long conversations outside of the office, calling each other, and hanging out after class. When asked if they thought Keon and Carla were more than friends, no one could be 100% certain, but they wouldn't be surprised if they were. Later that evening, Carla and Detective Dillard had an 80-minute interview at the police station, and during Carla's interview, she presented herself as personable, friendly, and helpful. The detectives asked her to recount what she did the day that Avis was murdered. She told them she saw Keon while they were both dismissing their students at the end of the day.

And that's when he mentioned he was going grocery shopping. And he asked her if he could put his food in her fridge while he went to basketball practice. She said yes, and that would be fine. And that's what he did. Kian had gotten groceries after school from Rainbow Whole Foods and dropped the groceries off at 4.40 p.m. in Carla's fridge. Carla's apartment was between Rainbow Whole Foods and Chastain Middle School, so her place was a natural, quick place to stop between errands and going to the basketball practice. She said that Keon dropped off the groceries and he left for practice. Carla went to the gym to work out.

Keon then called her while he was at practice to figure out when he could come back and pick up the groceries and she promised that she was on her way home to take a shower, but he could pick them up at any time. Kian got off basketball practice at 7.30 p.m. and stopped by her apartment for her apartment for her. for the groceries around 7.50. Carla said they chatted for a few minutes, and then she started to get ready for bed and call her mother, and that is when he left to drive home. They asked her the next time she heard from him, although they already knew the answer from Keon's phone records.

She told detectives Keon called her around 8.45 p.m. She was speaking with her mom, and she put her on hold to answer his call. She thought he was just going to say, hey, I made it home and say good night. But instead, he screamed. He was a Oh my God, oh my God, he was saying it over and over again and told her that she needed to come to his house as fast as possible, that someone hurt Avis. And then Carla said that Kian described the scene to her, that it looked like their house had been robbed, that there was stuff everywhere. And Avis was lying unresponsive next to her car and a pool of blood under her head. And there was male scattered all around her body.

Carla was overwhelmed. She was confused. She got back on the phone with her mom and told her everything. Carla asked her mom if she should go help Keon and her mom said, no, don't go over there. That's ridiculous. It's a crime scene. So Carla chose not to drive out and support Keon, even though Keon called her a couple more times over the course that evening while he was sitting in the police car and while he was at the station. Detectives think this is really suspicious, especially because they know he didn't call 911. Instead, he's calling another woman. So they asked Carla if Keon usually called her after he got of work. And she said, yeah, they do keep in touch. It makes sense.

They're both coaches. There's basketball and cheerleading schedules and school events. So they may have to call and ask each other questions. But still, detectives want to understand the nature of these calls. But Carla insists they're innocent. As a matter of fact, Keon had even talked to Carla with Avis right there. For instance, when he and Carl's, and Carla and their colleagues were out after work, Keon would call Avis and name off everyone who was there,

including Carla. She said that Davis knew she was one of Keon's friends and co-workers. So the Dillard asked Carla if she had a boyfriend, and she said no, that her last romantic partner had broken up. But now he wants to know if her and Keon had a romantic relationship. And she said, no, they did not. But as he presses her even more, she finally had admits they had sex, but that there was no full-blown romance, not at all, because it wasn't serious. She called the relationship a, quote, special friendship, end quote, and that sometimes they engaged in public displays of affection, but they never really did more than kiss, I guess, except for sex, right? I'm assuming she's talking about what they did in public. Carla told police that she

respected that Keon was engaged to be married, and she didn't want more than a casual fling. She never told him to break up with Avis, she expected Avis as well, even though she didn't know her personally. Carla said she even stored her motorcycle at Keon's house for a while, and Avis didn't have a problem with her doing that. Wow, so this is a lot. And Detective Dillard heard her story and found it plausible since it matched up with everything Keon already told them. But the casual way that Carla was talking about everything really did seem weird. During the interview, she got a phone call from someone, and Detective Dillard noticed right away, she answered it calmly and jumped right back into the interview. At first, Carla had been breaking down crying about Avis's death, and now she's talking about it completely collected.

So Detective Dillard wasn't sure what to think. And let's be real. Carla working out at the time of Avis's death wasn't the best alibi, unless there were cameras at the gym or somebody had seen her. Everyone is a suspect. They can't simply toss out the idea that Keon and Carla being each other's alibis meant that maybe both of them had been involved. So he asked Carla if she owned a gun and she said no, she did not. Then he asked her if she had access to a gun and she said no, but that her dad had a lot of guns because he was a hunter.

Finally, Dillard asked Carla what she thought about the fact that Avis and her child had died. And Carla's response was that it was, quote, very, very unfortunate, end quote. Detectives spent the next couple of days after Carla's interview trying to process all of the evidence and information they received, and then they began interviewing other people in the community. Any tips were welcome. They tried desperately to get in touch with Keon

because they really wanted to interview him now after Carla explained what their relationship was really like, but he had mysteriously vanished off the face of the earth, which was pretty strange. With Carla and Keon acting so suspiciously, the detectives had to wonder if they really were in on this together. Was one of them the murderer and the other an accomplice? And if so, which one? Or was it someone else entirely?

That's what they needed to find out. Their biggest piece of evidence from the crime scene were the 38 caliber bullets that were recovered from Mavis's body and the shoe prints. They'd already searched through Keon's things at his house and they were unable to locate any shoes that had the same tread as the ones that were left on that back door. But remember that they were the right size. So could you have gotten rid of them somehow? Well, before they can even begin to look into that, the police get a tip. But since I haven't even told you about the autopsy, I'm going to quickly tell you what was ascertained from that exam

and then proceed to let you know about the first big break in this case. As I stated, four 38 caliber bullets were recovered from Avis's body. Three of the four gunshot wounds were fatal. One bullet hit her thigh, the other one in her stomach and out her glutes, another in the left side of her chest, and the last to the back of the head execution style. All of the bullets have been fired from very close proximity, suggesting that Avis was ambushed as soon as she got out of her car. A knife or another sharp, bladed object had been used to stab her several times in the head as well as slash her across her throat. But these wounds seem to have been done post-mortem. So after she was already dead, which is so brutal and so cruel,

it was confirmed that there was no signs of forced sexual activity. So it did seem like that part was staged. They deduced that the murder weapon was a five-shot revolver. And sadly, it was confirmed that Avis was in her second trimester of her pregnancy, and since her unborn child died as a result of Ava. Ava being killed. His death was ruled a homicide like hers. The theory was that the killer was waiting inside the house for Avis to pull up. They could hear the garage door open. They could hear her pulling her car in and then closing the garage door behind her. As soon as she got out of her

vehicle, the killer ambushed her, most likely shooting her in the leg first to stop her in her tracks. And then they proceeded to fire the other four shots. One missed and went through the garage door. the three others made contact and killed Davis. The rest was overkill and very personal. All of it seemed personal, and it was. Avis was lying on that coal concrete ground, dying all alone for three hours until Keon alerted the police that she was dead. It's so heartbreaking to think about what she must have thought in those final moments.

Some say that head wounds like hers would have killed a person right away, but we will never know. We could only hope that she didn't know. suffer too long. I told you that a tip came in while an attorney in the Jackson area called in on December 5th to say that he had information about a gun. He actually had it in his possession and it matched the description of the one that could have been used in Avis's case. He also had a witness who could tie the gun back to the person who they believe committed the crime. Investigators contact this witness and brought him in for an interview.

His name is Patrick Nash. He's Carla Hughes's first cousin. You're hearing her name again. Their mothers are sisters. He and his dad, Carla's uncle James, lived in Jackson. He said that on November 26th, three days before the shooting, Carla came to Patrick's house and asked him to borrow some weapons to protect herself. She lived in a really rough neighborhood, and her apartment had already been broken into several times since August.

Her dad actually had to drive up from Greenville and fix the lock on her door at one point. So Carla told Patrick that she did not feel safe, and it would make her feel better if she was able to defend herself if something like that happened again. At first, Patrick suggested that she get a can of mace, but Carla said that would not be enough and asked him if he had any extra guns that she could hold on to until she moved out of there. For starters, Patrick gave her a four-inch folding hunting knife and then went to look for a gun that he could loan his cousin. He gave Carla a Rossi-38 caliber revolver that held five bullets. He showed her how to use the gun, he loaded it with five bullets, and he sent her on her way.

And he didn't think much of it at the time. But on the evening of December 1st, right after Carla got out of the interview with Detective Dillard, she went back to Patrick's house and she returned the revolver. It was freshly cleaned and the bullets were no longer inside. When Patrick asked Carlo where they were, she said she had used them for target practice. Remember that exactly five bullets were fired at the crime scene. And he never saw that knife again. Patrick already knew Avis had died because Carla told him on the night of Avis's murder.

She called him and let him know. So all the details lined up and Patrick and James honestly didn't know what to do. They talked about it for a couple of days. They both loved Carla and found her to be a really compassionate and peaceful person. They just didn't think she was capable of this violence, capable of a murder. her. Did she even know that the bullets had been used had she cleaned the gun or had someone else used it and not told her? They didn't know, but what they knew was that they needed to come forward. Together, Patrick and James went to a lawyer with the gun and the lawyer went to the police.

The police were so grateful that they'd come forward. Patrick and James were stand-up citizens and they did the right thing by giving the police this information. This is a sign for anyone out there who has ever seen anything sketchy. Tips really matter. They can change the course of an entire investigation. If you see something, say something, please. Even if it's family. Because remember, someone else's loved one has been taken away and you'd want someone to do the same for you.

Investigators sent the revolver to a ballistics company and they conducted some test fires. They determined that, yes, the bullets used in the revolver were a positive match for the bullets used to kill Avis. Since Carla was in possession of that gun on November 29th, it was confirmed that she was somehow involved in this crime and was actively working to cover it up. She lied to detectives not once but twice. First she told them that she was just friends with Keon and then she said that she didn't have access to a weapon. That's not a good

look when you're a suspect.