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Background

Carla Ann Hughes was born on June 12th, 1981. At six weeks old, her aunt and uncle adopted her, and they raised her in Greenville, Mississippi. She was given almost anything she wanted and enjoyed horseback riding and other hobbies.

She seemed to be on the right path in life; she was an honors student in high school, and by her mid-twenties, she was a schoolteacher holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees and pursuing her doctorate in education.

After starting her career as an elementary school teacher, she transitioned to teaching at Chastain Middle School in Jackson, Mississippi.

There, in 2006, she met fellow teacher and basketball coach Keyon Pittman, who was an Alcorn State graduate.

Pittman had a pregnant fiancée, Avis Banks, at home, but that didn’t stop him from hooking up with Hughes.

27-year-old Banks worked as a daycare worker and couldn’t wait to be a mother, but her dreams never came to fruition.

Crime

On November 29th, 2006, Pittman came home and found Banks fatally shot and stabbed in the garage. She was 5 months pregnant at the time. Pittman called Hughes before contacting authorities.

Detectives learned of Pittman’s affair with Hughes. They also learned Hughes borrowed a loaded gun from a relative before the murder. The relative claimed that when he got the gun back, it was empty.

He handed it over to the authorities, and after forensics, it was determined to be the murder weapon.

They also matched Hughes’s shoes to shoe prints found on a door at the crime scene that had been kicked in.

The final nail in the coffin was cell phone records, putting Hughes near the crime scene around the time of the murder.

Detectives pressured Hughes to say Pittman put her up to it, but she maintained her innocence.

Legal Proceedings

She went to trial in October 2009, facing two counts of capital murder.

The prosecution said she killed Banks so she could have Pittman all to herself.

Hughes’s defense lawyer pointed the finger at Pittman, saying he wanted to get rid of Banks, so he wore Hughes’s shoes to kick in the door so he could frame her for the crime.

However, Pittman had an alibi, and Hughes’s defense could not explain away the cell phone and gun evidence.

After eight hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Hughes of two counts of capital murder.

She was facing the death penalty, but the jury decided against it, and on October 14th, 2009, she was sentenced to two consecutive sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Her numerous appeals have been denied, and the now 44-year-old remains locked up in Delta Correctional Facility in Greenwood, MS.