DeFUNIAK SPRINGS – Family members of John “Greg” Hughes and Hiedi Rhodes bore witness Thursday as the star witness for the prosecution in the murder trial of Barry Davis described in graphic detail what she’d witnessed and learned of the deaths and dismemberment of their loved ones.
The bodies of Hughes and Rhodes have never been recovered.
Tiffani Steward, who was Davis’ girlfriend on May 7, 2012, was in tears when she testified that on that day she’d witnessed Davis beat and strangle Rhodes while shouting “shut up or you’re next” at her after she started screaming.
Steward testified that both she and Rhodes were taken by surprise when they arrived at Hughes’ house after running out to pick up margarita mix and Davis attacked Rhodes as she came through the door. She said she started screaming.
“He told me to get out of the room so he could think. He was really mad. He was hitting her,” she said. Steward also testified to seeing Davis attempting to strangle a struggling Rhodes.
From the kitchen where she’d retreated that night three years ago, Steward said, she saw Hughes lying prone in a bedroom.
“He was just lying there and there was blood all around him,” she testified.
Steward told the jury that after she’d left to retrieve a backpack on Davis’ orders, she witnessed him tie his victims’ feet and submerge their heads in a bathtub he’d filled. She said she’d heard a noise and told him she thought Hughes or Rhodes might still be alive. He’d told her no.
She’d convinced him to let her leave the house, but testified that Davis followed close behind. She said in the days that followed he’d warned her that he would harm her or her family if she spoke of what she’d seen.
Steward’s testimony painted Davis as a manipulator and a dangerous man, who used threats of what he’d do to her to keep her quiet. Her testimony in that regard matched that of previous witnesses. Even after he was facing murder charges he’d tried to convince her to marry him as a way of keeping her from testifying against him, Steward testified.
Steward also testified that Davis had told her he’d burned the bodies of Rhodes and Hughes. She said she’d heard him running a saw all night at one point not long after he’d killed them and seen him drag a heavy container that smelled horribly toward a burn barrel he kept in his yard. She never saw Hughes or Rhodes again, though, Steward told the jury.
She had intimate details she said Davis shared about his using Hughes' debit card to rob one bank account and forged checks to take money from a second. She testified that she’d sold Hughes’ belongings on Craig’s List to help pay his bond following an arrest.
Late in the afternoon tempers flared as the Assistant State Attorney Bobby Elmore and Defense Attorney Spiro Kypreos had a heated disagreement while speaking to Circuit Judge Kelvin Wells at the bench. After Wells sent the jury out, Kypreos called for a mistrial and he and Elmore accused one another of lacking professionalism. Wells threatened to discipline both men.
The day in court ended with apologies all around. Kypreos will continue his cross examination of Steward, whose story he is attempting to bring into question, Friday morning.