DeFUNIAK SPRINGS — As investigators sought information on the whereabouts of a missing Santa Rosa Beach man and Panama City Beach woman, the man who later would be accused of their murder told officers the two owed money to dangerous creditors.
Barry Davis, 34, later would be arrested and charged with the deaths of John “Gregory” Hughes and his girlfriend Heidi Rhodes. The couple was reported missing in 2012. However, they were not seen again after May 7 of that year, the last date the couple was heard from by family members.
During Monday’s portion of the “no body” double murder trial, prosecutors presented audio recordings from their ensuing encounters in June with Davis along their investigation. Former WCSO investigator Steve Sunday said he recorded the interviews without Davis’ knowledge because he was not under arrest at that point. Davis told investigators that Hughes was sought by nefarious characters, to whom he was indebted for his drug habit.
“He’s always getting into some (expletive),” Davis said on the recording. “He’ll get strung out, say he quit, and then after a few days he’ll be backsliding.”
Davis told investigators the two men were friends and the last time he saw Hughes was about a week before the first recording. He and a few other people helped Hughes load up a moving truck to get out of town, but where they went after that he didn’t know. However, several neighbors who saw the moving truck said neither Hughes nor Rhodes were there at the time.
In the latter interview — a phone conversation Davis also wasn’t aware was being recorded — he told WCSO that Hughes had mentioned going on vacation.
“He said something about Barbados — he was on vacation in Barbados,” Davis told investigators. “And the sad thing is, he told me he was going to quit.”
In the interviews with Davis were glaring contradictions.
Davis said he had not spoken with Hughes for about a week before the interviews. During that time, though, Davis cashed three checks written from Hughes for upward of $3,000 apiece. Hughes family testified that the signatures on those checks did not belong to Hughes. To add to that, jurors also saw video of Davis using Hughes’ debit card at several different convenience stores following his disappearance.
Sunday said as they interviewed Davis he knew of the checks and video surveillance. He didn’t mention that to Davis.
“I didn’t want to put my cards on the table,” he said.
Authorities also found some of Hughes’ possessions in a storage unit rented in Davis’ name; and Tiffani Steward, Davis’ girlfriend, was later arrested for dealing in the stolen property of Hughes’ on Craigslist.
Steward is expected later in the trial to provide the only testimony from the night of the couple’s alleged death.
Steward has told investigators that she and Davis were invited to Hughes’ Santa Rosa home on May 7. At about 9 p.m. she and Rhodes drove to a grocery store to pick up margarita mix. When they returned Hughes was motionless and bleeding on the floor. Steward said Davis then choked Rhodes until she was unconscious, investigators reported.
Davis then allegedly bound both their hands and feet with duct tape and submerged their heads in the master bathtub where he left them for some time. Steward said he would later tell her that he’d chopped their bodies into pieces and burned them, WCSO said.
Defense attorney Spiro Kypreos has cast doubt on Steward’s story since she faced prison time for aiding Davis after the alleged deaths. He has told jurors that several of the state’s witnesses obtained immunity from prosecution by agreeing to testify. Steward, at least, could have faced prison for her role in helping Davis cover up the murder and thefts he is accused of, he said.
Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore spent a large part of the morning attempting to demonstrate to jurors that Hughes and Rhodes had not simply left the country.
Brian Rhodes, son of Heidi Rhodes, said he spoke with his mother twice a week before the phone calls suddenly halted May 7, the date authorities claim Davis killed the couple. Sunday said cellphone activity dropped off after that date while mail began to pile up in Hughes’ mailbox. No moving companies in the area had leased a truck to either. Border protection authorities also said neither had left the country, Sunday said.
When investigators arrived at Hughes’ home, they found an accumulation of cleaning supplies near the front door. The rest of the house was barren save for a large pool table.
“All the rooms were empty,” Sunday said. “It was bare.”
Davis faces 12 charges of theft and fraud in addition to the murder charges. If convicted, he could face the death penalty. The trial, scheduled for roughly more than three weeks, continues Tuesday.