Textbook Murder | Forensic Files | S14 E9 | FULL EPISODE | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a home invasion turns to murder just extreme overkill crime of passion crime of rage so much
violence and no one with a clear motive as best as law enforcement could establish
she had no enemy that is until police discover a romance gone horribly wrong he was either gonna be a lover or
someone who wanted her out the way so that they could be the new lover i don't know if a love triangle can go good
but this one went really bad [Applause] life couldn't have been better for avis banks
she graduated from college found a job she loved in a day care center and met the man she planned to marry
but an unexpected pregnancy changed some of her plans when i learned abe was pregnant
i wasn't thrilled and i know ava's asked for forgiveness and she was going to make it right back
mary keon her fiance was keon pittman a middle school teacher and basketball coach
mr pittman was excited about the family that they were beginning they had already picked the name out for
the child avis and keon bought a house together in a suburb of jackson mississippi
but tragedy struck just a few months before the baby was due to be born when keon came home from work and found
avis lying on the garage floor in a pool of blood police were called to the scene
[Music] law enforcement immediately orders him away from the body they want to make sure that he's not
possibly the perpetrator in the case keon called us x my wife need to get over here and we
turned the corner and i saw an emergency vehicle and all these police cars but when i saw
that yellow tape i know what that yellow tape means so i knew then you know the day was gone
[Music] avis and her unborn child were pronounced dead at the scene it was obvious that she had been shot in
the head in the chest and possibly in the stomach we weren't totally sure as to how many shots she
had received at that time also it appears though she had been cut with some type of object
it appeared that the killer waited inside the house until avis came home from work
then attacked when she stepped out of her car the point of entry was the back door
where police found two high quality shoe impressions the prints on the glass store were
fairly good prints good clarity they were two dimensional impressions in dirt on the glass door analysts
estimated the prints were made from a man's size eight shoe it appeared the killer tried to kick the
glass in when that didn't work the killer kicked through the door jamb we were surprised in the glass didn't
shatter the dead bolt was still engaged so we knew that back door was locked when entry was made several rooms in the
house had been ransacked immediately suspicious police performed a gunshot residue test on keon's hands i would
expect someone who fired a revolver numerous times to have gunshot residue on their backs
of their hands we did discover particles of gunshot residue on mr pittman mr pittman very well may have fired the
fatal shots that killed ava's banks and keon appeared to be unconcerned he was laughing i had to remind him that
he had a fiance and a baby that were dead and he said at that point uh oh yeah we would expect a lot more uh emotion
out of him when keon called his lawyer his anger was clearly evident anger not towards the
killer but the police i don't like this at all had no criminal record but he wore size
eight and a half shoes consistent with the shoes the killer was wearing when he tried
to kick in the back door and that wasn't all there was blood on the butt down shirt that he had on as well as
blood on the pants dna tests showed the blood had come from avis maybe he didn't want
to settle down and be a father and be a husband maybe he was trying to get rid of her
police in jackson mississippi were determined to find avis banks killer she had been ambushed while getting out
of her car returning home from work avis was five months pregnant [Music] we do take it kind of personal and we
were also tasked with fighting for that five-month-old child who didn't have a chance to live in the world
she's my perfect child i love all my kids but they wouldn't not like avis they were not like davis the autopsy
showed ava spanx had been shot four times with a 38-caliber pistol she had also been stabbed numerous times
there was the facing injuries whoever was doing this was wanting to injure her physically into her appearance and then
with the last and final slash to the throat just extreme overkill at first investigators thought the
motive was robbery but that theory was discarded when police realized that despite the killer taking time to
open drawers nothing had been stolen to us the scene itself appeared to be staged we didn't find anything of value
that was missing from the house when police interviewed avis fiance keon pittman
they found blood on his shirt dna tests showed the blood was avis and the neighbor told police an
interesting detail that keon always parked his car in front of the house and entered through the front door but the
night of the murder was different this particular day he raised the garage door when he got home
we believe he knew that davis was laying in the garage and the background check revealed keon
was a player keon pittman was a womanizer he had other girlfriends as well he had
a lot of girls he was playing at the time one of the women was 30 year old brenda martin the mother of
one of the boys on the basketball team keon coached miss martin and mr pittman were in the early stages of a
relationship that was in the form of flirting telephone calls text messages things of that nature
brenda martin had no desire to talk to police brenda didn't want to have anything to
do with this whole situation because she was married she was married with children
brenda denied any involvement in avis murder and she had an alibi for the time of the
crime we didn't find anything with her that would put her at the scene or phone records or anything brenda
wasn't keon's only love interest another was carla hughes the 25 year old cheerleading coach who worked at the
same school with keon apparently they had been less than discreet with their relationship they've been
seen kissing several times in the restaurant so i knew her to be at least more than a friend carly hughes was the
one that he was the most involved with that he had i guess the most serious relationship and that he was seeing
basically on a daily basis carly hughes was a former beauty pageant contestant and the single mother of a
three-year-old son when questioned by police she adamantly denied the affair he's not a boyfriend
and nothing sexual with him no no nothing i can understand why color youth was lying initially but she didn't
want to be in the mix of someone that just been murdered people may have saw us being affectionate towards each other
but at the most they may have just saw a little kissing but as far as just like this full out
blown romantic love affair that that's not what it was it really wasn't karla denied any involvement in avis
bank's murder and was an unlikely suspect but she didn't have an alibi for the time of
the murder investigators believe the murder took place shortly after avis returned home
from work ava spanx left the day care about 5 15 and went straight home she got home
about 5 45 no evidence shows that she stopped anywhere in between and the murder occurred somewhere
between 5 45 and 6 o'clock that night witnesses said keon was at school running basketball practice at that time
[Music] and his cell phone records confirmed he was at the school between 5 30 and 6 pm we had the witness
statements but this again was independent verification through a separate source that he was in
fact at basketball practice and he was miles away from the crime scene at the time we believed the crime
occurred but carla's cell phone records showed something else those records show that a little after 5
30 and then again at roughly 605 that miss hughes was in that area that she was in the area at the same
time that the murder occurred and who was she calling keon pittman [Music] police had two suspects in the murder of
avis banks her fiance keon pittman had an alibi for the time of the murder but blood on his shirt and gunpowder
residue on his hands raised concerns we believe that the gunshot residue that was
discovered on mr pittman's hands was not placed there because he fired a weapon we believe that that was transfer from
him handling the body of avas banks just as the blood on his shirt it was determined based off
those visual examinations that the blood stains on him was from a touch transfer versus him
actually being there and having evidence spattered on him at the time of the crime
[Music] if he committed the murder there probably would have been some blow back
or some splatter on this clothing the lab didn't find him we have to realize that keong wasn't
around keon probably didn't do this and now we got to start looking at his other lover by being caller hughes
although carla initially denied having a relationship with keon during her second interview with police
she changed her story she did confess that she had lying to me and that they were
sleeping together six days into the investigation police got a call from one of carla's
cousins he tells investigators that he has in his possession a firearm that they believe was used in the death
of avis banks this cousin patrick nash said carla asked to borrow his gun a 38-caliber revolver for protection
she tells patrick that there's been recent break-ins there at her house that she's concerned for her safety
patrick said the three days before the murder he gave carla his gun loaded with five bullets he also gave
her a hunting knife three days after the murder she returned the gun but not the knife and the chamber of the gun
was empty patrick asked caller hey what happened to the bulletin and she told him i went target
practicing the gun was given to ballistics experts and test-fired so that the bullets could be compared to
those recovered from avis body the markings on the three projectiles from the body
did match the markings from the test fires which told me that that weapon was the weapon that
killed davis banks but this didn't necessarily put the gun in carla's hand so investigators looked
again at the shoe impressions from the crime scene they assumed the impression was made by
a man shoe which would have been a size eight but it also could have been a woman's shoe a size 10.
with a warrant investigators searched carla's apartment we didn't expect to find any clothing
there we were hoping we would we didn't expect to find any clothing with blood or gunshot rather
but they did find shoes we went through the master bedroom closet and carla had probably upwards of
100 pair of shoes in that closet that was the needle in the haystack that uh that we really weren't sure was going
to be out there one pair looked promising look at the picture that we bought with
us from a crime scene and it appears to be a perfect match the tread pattern i was relatively certain looking
at the photographs that they were made by the same shoe but visually investigators saw no traces
of blood on the shoe which was disappointing the original dna testing showed that there was no dna on
the shoes we then decide to submit those shoes to a second laboratory the examiner takes the shoes places the
shoes under the microscope this time they found several microscopic stains that appeared to be
blood and this time dna testing confirmed what investigators already suspected those shoes do in fact contain dna and
we're later to match the dna of ava's banks it puts her there in the presence of miss banks at the time of her death
the only thing police needed to figure out was whether keon pittman was involved
carly hughes had never broken the law and had no violence in her past no one thought she
was capable of murder she led bible studies she led exercise classes she was a leader and she's also a very
pretty lady somebody who you would never suspect to do something wrong but three years before the murder of
avis banks carla suffered a devastating emotional blow she was two months pregnant and about to
be married to the baby's father the day before the wedding he called it off carla hughes was a lot of things a lot
of people apparently her parents she was their little girl she was a beauty queen at one point
and once she started talking to some of her or at least her cousin found out that she was almost a doormat
for me he did tell me that whenever she falls for a guy she falls hard and most guys
just take advantage of her investigators believe carla saw keon pittman as the answer to
her problems carla wanted to be where avis was she wanted to be the one who was getting
married who the man truly loved her and they were going to have a family together
but that wasn't the case keon was leaving avis for her no one knows what keon did or didn't
promise carla but she did have a motive and she didn't have an alibi carly indicated that she had gone
and done a little workout at a local park walked around jogging trail run a few errands but
nothing that we could verify prosecutors believe carly hughes wanted to eliminate the only person standing
between her and keon and that was her rival avis banks so she borrowed her cousin's
gun and knife and went to the home avis and keon shared she attempted to break into avis home
late in the afternoon by kicking in the glass on the back door leaving remarkably clear shoe
impressions when this didn't work she kicked in the door jamb once inside she pulled out drawers to
make it look like a robbery gone wrong then waited for avis to return from work cell phone records show carla placed her
first call to keon before the murder most likely as she was staging the scene no one knows what was discussed during
that call when carla heard the garage door open and avis car pull in she sprung into action
karla fired three shots the fourth shot from close range close enough to spatter the tiny speck
of blood found on her shoe carla then used the hunting knife to stab avis repeatedly
and cut her throat after the murder carly got rid of the knife and her bloody clothes and placed a
second call to keon shortly after 6 p.m again no one knows what was discussed i'm just
leaving practice now but you know i can't really talk what shocked me the most this woman have a child you know how
could a mother do that to another woman and knew she was expected as for keon pittman he claims he played no part in
planning or instigating the murder and carlin never implicated him in the crime some speculate he
learned about the murders after they happened but before he found avas body we felt like there was probably some
conversation that night prior to keon going home that led keon to know that something had happened
and that carl probably told him you said we couldn't be together we can't be now
i've taken care of what was in our way that's that's what threw the red flag up for keon did you
inflict those wounds on ava's banks no sir did you kill her no sir did you kill your unborn child no sir do
you know who did [Music] no sir we the jury find the defendant carla hughes guilty of capital murder
carla hughes was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole it's a love triangle gone bad i don't
know if a love triangle can go good but this one went really bad carly hughes would have been a suspect
probably anyway just based off the relationship that she had with keon i don't know if we would have ever been
able to tie her to the crime if we didn't have the gun we built our case on the ballistics we
built our case on the shoe print impressions we built our case on the dna evidence
so really without that all we would have had would have been a motive and there would have been nothing that we could
have charged and ever got a conviction on in this case you

Avis Banks and her unborn child were brutally murdered. The body was discovered by her fiancé Keyon Pittman. Police learn Pittman was having affairs with other women and he became the prime suspect.

Brief Summary

A love triangle leads to the murder of Avis Banks, with Carla Hughes convicted based on compelling evidence.

Key points

A Tragic Home Invasion. A home invasion leads to the shocking murder of Avis Banks and her unborn child.
The Unraveling of Keon Pittman. Keon Pittman, the fiancé, becomes a suspect as evidence mounts against him.
The Confession of Carla Hughes. Carla Hughes admits to lying about her relationship with Keon and her involvement in the murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

How could a mother do that to another woman?

19:28WatchMar 13, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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