Carla Ann Hughes (born June 12, 1981)[1] is a former middle school teacher and murderer from Jackson, Mississippi, who was convicted of two counts of capital murder for the November 29, 2006 slayings of her lover's pregnant fiancee, Avis Banks, and Banks's unborn child.
[5] Hughes started out her teaching career at an elementary school but then took a job as a 7th grade language arts teacher at Chastain Middle School in Jackson, Mississippi, where she met fellow schoolteacher and basketball coach Keyon Pittman, a graduate of Alcorn State University.
[2][6][7] On the night of November 29, 2006, Avis Banks, a daycare worker, was found shot and stabbed to death in the garage of her Ridgeland, Mississippi home.
[4] Her body was discovered by her fiance Keyon Pittman, and it appeared as if the perpetrator had kicked in their back door.
Pittman testified for the prosecution on October 6, 2009, stating to jurors how he found Avis Banks' body in their garage, and talked about his relationship with Hughes.
[8][13] Cell phone records also showed that Hughes was near Banks’ and Pittman's home at the time of the murder.
The Carla Hughes case and the murder of Avis Banks have been explored and re-enacted on several true-crime television shows that include Criminals at Work, Dateline NBC, Snapped, Forensic Files, Stolen Voices, Buried Secrets, Scorned: Love Kills, Fatal Attraction, A Wedding and a Murder, American Monster: With Honors,[27] Redrum (played by Melissa Joyner), and The Killer Truth (HBO).