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Lessons in murder

Avis loved learning, but her teacher fiance had a secret...


Published by: banks
Published on: 18th October 2010

S he loved to learn, my daughter Avis. From the moment she came home from school to the minute her head hit her pillow, she’d have her nose in a book. God knows where she and her sisters Tonya and Freda had got their love of studying from, though. Me and my hubby Frederick weren’t exactly bookworms.
But the girls were so quiet and studious. Instead of them begging me to let them go outside and play, it was me hassling them.
‘Why don’t you girls go out on your bikes?’ I’d suggested one afternoon, watching the three of them huddled around the breakfast table scribbling answers in exercise books. ‘It looks like a gorgeous day out there.’
I remember a 13-year-old Avis had looked up at me, appalled.
‘But… we’ve got homework to finish,’ she’d said in her gentle tone. Her voice soft as a summer breeze, like the rest of her personality. I’d shaken my head, rolling my eyes.
Honestly, anyone would have thought my kids had been brought up in the 1950s, the way they acted!
Yet that was what made me so sure they’d be able to look after themselves as they got older. They were smart girls, always made good choices in life.
Now, watching Avis, 27, sitting at the breakfast table staring intently at the glossy pages of a reference book, I smiled.
She’d always be my little girl, even if she was four months pregnant! Typical her, she was reading up about pregnancy.
‘This book says the baby will be able to hear my voice by now,’ she grinned at me, as I placed a mug of tea on the table beside her. ‘How cute is that?’
She and her fiancé Keyon were expecting a little boy, and she’d come round to talk babies with me while he was at work.
It made sense that she’d ended up going out with a teacher – Keyon taught PE at a secondary school in Jackson, a 45-minute drive away. Before Avis had fallen pregnant, they’d moved there for his job, and she’d found work as a nursery nurse.
Although they’d been together for almost three years, I’d never really got to know my future son-in-law. Of course when I’d met him, he’d been charming and polite, holding doors open for me and flashing that winning smile of his.
On first impressions, he’d seemed like the perfect gentleman.
Despite Avis being utterly besotted with him, though, I’d been more wary.
‘There’s something a little insincere about him,’ I’d admitted to Frederick. ‘He comes across as a bit of a smooth talker… I’m not sure he’s right for Avis.’
‘She’s not a silly little girl, Debra,’ he’d chuckled. ‘She never has been. Let’s give the poor guy a chance before we go saying he’s not right for her, eh?’
I’d shrugged. ‘Suppose so.’
Keyon had done little to win me over, though.
He rarely visited and was always out coaching basketball, or on school trips at the weekends when we went to visit.
Still, Avis seemed happy enough and now, with the baby on the way, she had plenty to be getting on with while Keyon was working.
‘Have you thought of any names yet?’ I smiled, sitting opposite her and sipping my tea.
‘I was thinking Keylen,’ she said. ‘I want him to have a name like his daddy’s, but not exactly the same, it’d be too confusing.
‘I brought a book of colour swatches round, too,’ she added, reaching into her bag. ‘I was hoping you could help me pick the perfect colours for the nursery.’
‘Sure,’ I beamed, nodding.
I couldn’t wait to be a grandma again.
Freda, my youngest, had a one-year-old boy already and was so excited about him having a little cousin to play with.
And this Thanksgiving Day, we’d been invited to Tonya’s for dinner. Maybe it’d be the perfect opportunity for me to get to know Keyon better. After all, he was the father of my unborn grandchild.
The following weekend, we all met at Tonya’s and, while we prepared dinner together, I was cooking up a few questions for Keyon. I was determined to get to know him, to see all the wonderful things in him that Avis clearly did.
Chance would have been a fine thing, though – he spent practically the entire evening out in the garden on his mobile phone.
‘Who’s he chatting to?’ I asked Avis, impatiently.
‘His mum,’ she explained. ‘I think his sister got into a bit of trouble with the law, and his mum’s pretty upset. He’s just being supportive.’
‘Oh,’ I replied, feeling guilty for thinking badly of him.
While I’d thought he was being rude, he was simply being considerate.
Just like Avis, who called me three times a day, every day.
It was good to see he was there for his family, meant he’d be there for Avis and his baby, too.
So when I spotted Keyon constantly checking his phone during dinner, I didn’t let myself get annoyed by it.
Fred was right, I should cut the guy some slack – and, if Avis loved him so much, he must be a decent enough bloke.
And she really did love him, I could see it in the warmth of her eyes every time she reached for his hand, or gave him a peck on the cheek.
Over the next few weeks, I spoke to Avis every day on the phone.
‘How’s the bump looking?’ I asked.
‘Getting bigger,’ she laughed.
When she was five months pregnant, she already knew what stage the baby’s development was at. A huge baby A-Z open on the kitchen table, she lapped up all the facts and figures.
‘According to what I’ve read, my baby should have eyebrows,’ she told me. ‘It’s so amazing to think he’s a real little person in there, just a few more months and he’ll be in my arms.’
No one could have been more excited and devoted to that little boy than Avis.
‘You’re going to be such a great mum,’ I told her, fighting back happy tears.
The next day, I waited for the usual lunchtime call from her, and yet more baby banter.
It never came.
Thinking she’d lost track of time, I waited an hour and called her. No answer.
Finally, at 7.30pm, my phone rang. Only, it wasn’t my daughter’s voice at the other end of the line.
‘Debra, have you heard from Avis today?’ Keyon asked, his voice urgent and panicked.
‘No…’ I started, confused. Before I could ask him what was going on, though, he’d hung up.
I tried calling back, but it rang out. ‘Do you think something’s happened to the baby?’ I turned to Fred, worried. ‘Oh God, what if she’s in hospital…?’
‘Keep trying their phones,’ he said. ‘I’m sure everything’s fine.’
Thirty minutes later, I got a call         back from Keyon. He was hysterical.
‘You need to come over right away,’ he sobbed. ‘Get here as soon as you can.’
We didn’t need telling twice, the 45-minute journey flew by in a blur as my mind raced. ‘It must be the baby,’ I croaked as Fred drove. ‘Avis will be devastated if she loses that little boy…’
As we pulled up outside her house, my breath caught in my throat. ‘No!’ I choked, getting out of the car and racing up her driveway. Police officers and paramedics were everywhere.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ I cried, trying to shove past an officer blocking my entry to the house. ‘I want to see her!’
My head was spinning. I could understand the ambulance parked on the drive, but why were the police here? It didn’t make sense!
‘Mrs Banks, I’m sorry,’ the officer holding me back said. ‘But your daughter and her baby are dead… They were murdered.’
‘Let me in, I need to see my…’ I started to say. Suddenly, his words sank in. ‘No, no, no.’
I felt my chest tighten, my fingernails dug into my palms as I collapsed into Fred’s arms. Questions flooded through me.
‘H-how, w-why…?’ I cried.
I couldn’t imagine a single reason for anyone to hurt my gentle, loving daughter.
‘Where’s Keyon?’ I asked. ‘He’ll be devastated, he’s lost his baby and…’
‘He’s at the station answering a few questions,’ I was told. ‘He was the one who found your daughter’s body. She was shot and stabbed as she walked through the garage.’
My mouth was impossibly dry as I forced myself to ask: ‘Did he have anything to do with this?’
I knew it! I’d always known there was something not quite right about him.
‘We’ve arrested a woman in connection with Avis’s death,’ was all he could tell me.
A woman?! I was baffled. Keyon was innocent.
It wasn’t until later that things became clearer.
The police released Keyon straight after questioning, but they’d arrested a woman called Carla Hughes, 28.
She was a language teacher at the same school Keyon worked for – he’d admitted to having an affair with her. My blood boiled.
‘Just a month after Avis had announced her pregnancy, her fiancé started sleeping with another woman,’ I spat.
‘You’d been right all along,’ sighed Fred, hanging his head in sadness.
One weekend, Keyon had refused to stay in a hotel with Carla because he wanted to get back to Avis. That’s when his lover had hatched a plan to kill my daughter.
Was that the weekend Keyon and Avis had come to dinner and he’d been checking his mobile constantly?
He hadn’t been the doting son at all – he’d realised just how angry Carla was and kept waiting for her to call back.
Well Keyon might not have had any idea what his mistress was planning, but I was still full of loathing for him.
‘Avis hadn’t had the faintest idea what was going on,’ I fumed. ‘She’d loved Keyon, trusted him completely. And this was how he’d repaid her…’
Five days after Avis’s death, we held her funeral.
Even though Keyon hadn’t been the one to pull the trigger on the gun that killed her, none of us could forgive him for what had happened to her.
His lies and deceit had led to the murder of both her and my grandson, I reckoned.
At Carla’s trial in October last year, she refused to speak.
Keyon gave evidence against her, wiping away tears.
‘If I would have stayed faithful to who I was with, if I hadn’t been thinking poorly, making bad choices, or made a bad choice to sleep around and flirt with other women, this chain of events would have never taken place,’ he sobbed.
But they were crocodile tears as far as I was concerned.
I could hardly bear to look at him.
In the end, Carla was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
She’d shot Avis four times and stabbed her in the neck and cheek in a jealous frenzy.
I broke down as I pictured my girl’s last moments.
She must have been so scared, in so much pain.
I knew that her final thoughts would have been how she could protect her unborn son – the little life inside her that was already big enough to hear her soft voice, yet was still too small to survive without her.
It’s been less than a year since my precious Avis was killed, and Keyon has married another woman already.
He’s replaced my daughter so easily.
But for me, she’ll never be replaced.
My little girl, always eager to learn, always keen to do the right thing, has left a hole in my life that can never be filled.
Debra Banks, 54, Vicksburg, Mississippi