CANTON, Miss. — The fiance of a slain pregnant woman took the stand Tuesday to testify against the woman accused in her death.
Carla Hughes is charged with two counts of capital murder in connection with the deaths of 27-year-old Avis Banks and her unborn child. Banks was five months pregnant when she died in 2006, officials said. Hughes sat quiet throughout testimony, biting her lip often.
Authorities said Banks was shot and stabbed in the carport of the Ridgeland home she shared with her fiance, Keyon Pittman. Pittman and Hughes both taught at Chastain Middle School. He admitted they’d had an affair, police said.
Pittman described his relationship with Hughes as a “sexual adventure.” He said he spent a weekend in Memphis with her and admitted to having had sex with her several times at the home he shared with Banks.
Pittman said his relationship with Hughes moved very fast and Hughes asked him several times if he would leave Banks. He said he told her that would never happen.
Pittman looked upset when he first took the stand Tuesday. He began crying when he described his relationship with Banks and had difficulty answering questions from the attorneys.
Pittman was asked to describe what he saw as he pulled up to his house the night Banks was killed.
“Avis was lying on the ground in the garage. I got out of the car fast and ran into the garage,” Pittman said. “Her pants were pulled down and blood was everywhere. I knew at that point something had happened.”
Pittman said he spoke to Banks but she didn’t answer. He said he held and kissed her and “tried to get her to wake up.”
Pittman said he then ran into the house to see if anyone was in there and to try to figure out what had happened. He said there were drawers pulled out and papers everywhere, but no one in the house. Pittman said the back door had been broken in.
“I came back to where Avis was and ran to a neighbor and asked her to call 911,” Pittman said.
Ridgeland police Officer Jason Barnes also testified Tuesday. He described the scene at the Ridgeland home the night Banks’ body was found. He said the garage door was open and Pittman was standing with another officer near Banks’ body. He was “screaming and hysterical,” Barnes said of Pittman.
Barnes said that inside the house, all the lights were on and bedroom drawers were open with undergarments on the floor. The back door had been forced open or kicked in, Barnes said.
A jury of nine women and three men chosen Monday to hear the case is sequestered at a Ridgeland hotel on orders to have no contact with family or friends or access to media of any kind.
Hughes’ attorney spent most of his opening statements Monday trying to point the finger at Banks’ fiance as the person who could have killed her. Hughes’ lawyer told jurors Pittman could have killed his pregnant fiancee and then pinned the crime on Hughes.
“He was never charged. He should have been, that’s all I can say,” Hughes’ defense attorney Johnnie Walls said.
The defense painted the picture that Pittman cared nothing for Banks and planned to leave her once the baby was born.
Prosecutors said Hughes shot Banks in her garage four times and stabbed her in November 2006. Prosecutors said Hughes had the murder weapon around the time of the crime and bloody shoes that match footprints at the crime scene.
Sebrina Coleman, Banks’ next-door neighbor, took the stand Monday, testifying that she called 911 the night of the slaying. Coleman said Pittman banged on her door for help after he discovered Banks’ body in their garage.
Coleman described the knocking on the door as “very loud,” saying, “You could hear somebody screaming.”
Ridgeland police Officer Grady Fischer, the first officer to arrive at the scene, said Pittman was cradling Banks’ lifeless body when he arrived.
The Banks family was in the courtroom Monday. Her mother left the courtroom when crime scene photos were shown. She didn’t return.
“We were doing good before today,” said Banks’ father, Frederick Banks. “We thought we would just fight it out but after some of the things that were said, it just brought back memories.”
Attorneys said the trial could wrap up by Friday, but it’s likely the trial will stretch into next week. Walls said Hughes hasn’t decided if she will testify.
If convicted, Hughes could be sentenced to the death penalty.
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