DeFUNIAK SPRINGS — Outgoing calls from a Santa Rosa Beach man authorities believe was killed and burned continued long after his disappearance, jurors heard Wednesday.
The last of those calls from John “Gregory” Hughes was intended for Barry Davis, who is charged with his murder and the murder of his girlfriend, Hiedi Rhodes of Panama City Beach.
Hughes and Rhodes were reported missing about three years ago after May 7, 2012, the date prosecutors say Davis killed them in at Hughes’ home.
Authorities believe Davis, 34, then burned their bodies to cover his tracks and systematically emptied Hughes’ home while allegedly forging checks as moving payments.
During Wednesday’s testimony in DeFuniak Springs, jurors learned that calls from Hughes’ phone nearly dropped off completely after May 7, save for a few attempts to contact his bank, his voice mail and his credit card company before a call May 19, 2012, to Davis’ phone number. Outgoing calls ceased altogether after that.
Prosecutors also tried to reinforce evidence that Davis stole Hughes’ money and possessions after he and Rhodes went missing.
Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore questioned handwriting analyst Kate Butler for much of the morning. The analyst highlighted several striking similarities among characters from Davis’ known handwriting and three checks the prosecution say he forged after Hughes’ death for up to $3,000 each.
However, Hughes regularly would allow people to fill out the body of checks for him because a construction accident had left him disabled, according to family members who testified earlier.
The accident left him with a sizeable settlement and led Hughes to abbreviate his signature to the three letters, “J G H.”
Butler could neither eliminate nor identify Hughes as the signator of the three checks, and claimed the signature appeared “distorted.” She also could not conclude Davis authored the signature, either.
Elmore highlighted that of seven examples of Hughes’ signature, none matched those of the three checks.
Leading up to the trial, investigators asked Davis to provide writing samples of various words containing either J, G or H for analysis. On all the samples, Davis submitted blocked and “unnatural” writing, Butler said. She said Davis willfully changed his natural writing style, and the sample hampered her study.
“Due to the distorted nature of the exemplars, I was not able to use them in the comparison,” she said.
Defense attorney Spiro Kypreos asked Butler questions intended to point out that variations occur in a signature over time.
Kypreos also indicated that he might argue Davis never saw Hughes’ signature. But after a series of objections to a question from Elmore alleging that Davis had control of Hughes’ home and the documents there after killing him, Circuit Judge Kelvin Wells allowed Butler to answer.
“If someone was in my house, they could gain access to my documents and create a forgery,” Butler said.
Prosecutors hope to prove Davis killed Hughes to get the money from his injury settlement.
Davis’ girlfriend, Tiffani Stewart, is expected to testify that she and Davis went to Hughes’ home the night of May 7 for a dinner party, but that Davis had ulterior motives, investigators reported.
After Stewart and Rhodes returned from an errand, they found Hughes bleeding and motionless on the floor. Stewart told authorities that Davis then strangled Rhodes into unconsciousness and submerged the couple’s heads in a bathtub.
Davis later told her he burned their remains, Stewart told investigators.
Davis faces the death penalty if convicted. The trial is expected to continue through next week.