S1: Previously on Murder on Music Row.
S2: Still upsets me. So Kevin Hughes, uh, he rolled out
S2: of the car and into our lane, and then this
S2: guy came running around from the other side of the, uh,
S2: of the car, and he started firing at him as
S2: he ran in front of me and then ran back
S2: against traffic behind my car.
S3: We, you know, ran up to the victim. I didn't
S3: know who it was at the time. And I remembered
S3: very clearly that, like, the way the blood was, like
S3: trickling down the the street.
S4: And faith is like, oh, my God. She, you know,
S4: starts running towards the body. And I'm like, trying to
S4: stop her, like, you know, stop. Do not run towards
S4: this crime scene. I think we heard the victim's last breath.
S4: I mean, I think he I heard him kind of exhale.
S5: The all mighty dollar and the lust for worldwide fame
S5: slowly killed tradition. And for that someone should swing.
S1: They finished writing the song Murder on Music Row in
S1: about two hours. Larry Cordle and Larry Shell, this is Cordle.
S5: When we got it done, I said, well, there it is.
S5: And Larry looked at me seriously. He said, pal, it's
S5: what they'll remember me and you for.
S1: Cordle didn't believe shell. This new song didn't fit with
S1: what Cordle was doing. He was busy working on another project.
S1: He had written nine other songs for an as yet
S1: untitled bluegrass album. Then Cordle had an epiphany.
S5: Holy moly, I could call the album this. I could
S5: put a hearse on the front of it. I could
S5: put a steel guitar on the gurney. I could put
S5: chalk men in the street. I could call this thing
S5: Murder on Music Row. It ain't a bluegrass song, but
S5: bluegrass fans love traditional country music. It all worked out
S5: just like that.
S1: It was just a spark of an idea. Then one
S1: night at the Bluebird Cafe, Cordle played it in front
S1: of an audience.
S5: I said, you know, I want to do this thing
S5: tonight that I just wrote. It comes around time to
S5: play it. Uh, it's my turn. Whatever. And that's just
S5: what I decided to play the first time that hook
S5: came around. It was just like a bomb went off
S5: in there. People jumped to their feet, and it was.
S5: I had my eyes closed like I do when I'm singing.
S5: And it was. I nearly jumped out of the chair.
S5: It was shocking to me that it was that kind
S5: of a reaction. I mean, you know, Bluebird, I mean,
S5: people's heard all these great songs and it definitely rung
S5: that bell.
S1: Maybe, just maybe, that song could become something bigger. This
S1: is Murder on Music Row, an investigative podcast. I'm Keith Sharon,
S1: I work for The Tennessean in Nashville. On March 9th, 1989,
S1: a young man named Kevin Hughes was shot twice in
S1: the head in the middle of Music Row. In August
S1: of 2022, my editor handed me a flash drive full
S1: of police files, interrogation reports, coroner notes, crime scene photos
S1: and drawings, phone records and internal memos between Nashville police,
S1: the FBI and law enforcement officials in other states. Somewhere
S1: along the way, I began to feel like it was
S1: our Was our responsibility to tell the story that two
S1: bullets stopped Kevin Hughes from telling. This is episode two.
S1: Who shot Sam? Kevin Hughes grew up in Carmi, Illinois.
S1: It was a town of about 5500 people. His father, Larry,
S1: was a farmer. Soybeans, corn. His mother, Barbara, was a schoolteacher.
S1: They raised their boys in the First Baptist Church of Carmi.
S1: Every Sunday, Kevin loved Jesus and the Chicago Bulls. He
S1: wouldn't live to see Michael Jordan and the Bulls win
S1: a championship. His younger brother, Kyle looked up to Kevin. Today,
S1: Kyle and his wife, Brennan live in a gated community
S1: in South Florida. There were three giant herons in their
S1: yard when I visited Kyle in August of 2023. He's tall.
S1: A former Division one basketball player. After a year of
S1: considering and reconsidering whether to talk to me, he opened
S1: his front door, sat at his dining room table, and
S1: bared his soul. I asked him to tell me about Kevin.
S6: So Kevin loved music. He was a good kid. Great kid.
S6: I learned a lot from him growing up. You know,
S6: he's kind of an idol.
S7: Sorry.
S6: Oh, sorry. It's okay. Pretty hot stuff. Sorry. I'll keep
S6: myself together.
S1: 34 years after the murder, his emotions remained so raw.
S1: We talked about those early years in the 70s and
S1: 80s and how Kevin became his idol. I thought it
S1: was cute when he explained he was four years and
S1: 355 days younger than Kevin. He never wanted to give
S1: his brother the satisfaction of being five years older. The
S1: brothers played pranks on each other.
S6: One time we were while I was coming home from school,
S6: and he had hidden in the bushes, of course, to
S6: scare me, but he'd also put a tripwire as I'm
S6: walking up the the the walkway. So I, you know,
S6: I got off my bike, started walking up, and all
S6: of a sudden I fall. He jumped out of the
S6: bushes and scares the crap out of me. Uh, so
S6: that's just one thing.
S1: One thing they had in common was music. Kevin's love
S1: for music was next level.
S6: He would go and get every record he bought. He
S6: would put it on an index card. Have you know
S6: who who wrote the song Here was put out. Um,
S6: who sang it? Index cards out. We had about a
S6: thousand albums.
S1: Kevin's favorite band. Without question. Kansas. I can't help but
S1: think of the lyric dust in the wind. All we
S1: are is dust in the wind. Kevin wrote letters that
S1: Kyle will never forget.
S6: Anytime he write me, he was asking about me first.
S1: I've talked to several people who kept in touch with Kevin.
S8: He was such a wonderful guy.
S1: Marilyn Bartley Chapman knew him from elementary school until the
S1: day he died.
S9: I mean.
S8: He was friendly to everyone. Unfortunately, I was a victim
S8: of some bullying because of my family was very, very poor.
S8: But he never treated me like that at all. He
S8: was so just such an open person. Never met a stranger.
S1: She saw Kevin start to blossom.
S9: He had really.
S8: Straight hair and glasses in middle school. It was kind
S8: of like. I call it a bowl cut. He would
S8: have agreed. He would have agreed. In high school, he
S8: got contacts and went with a little bit more curly hair.
S8: And you could just tell, like in some of the
S8: pictures that I have is, you know, during junior high,
S8: it was this closed off expression. But by the time
S8: he got to high school, it was he was just
S8: so much more open, so much more friendly.
S1: Kevin made his own music charts. His parents would take
S1: him every week. A 45 minute drive to Evansville, Indiana
S1: to get Billboard magazine. He would read their charts, and
S1: when he disagreed with their choices, he would write out
S1: his own ranking songs was his thing. I got an
S1: email from his friend Clayton Hughes, no relation. Clayton said
S1: Kevin was the go to guy. If you wanted to
S1: hear a certain vinyl album or use his vast record
S1: collection to make a mixtape or learn something about a
S1: singer or a band. Kevin's dad would drive them to
S1: Roberts Municipal Stadium in Evansville to see acts like Styx, Kiss,
S1: and Rick Springfield. Music was Kevin's childhood and his future dreams.
S1: Kevin moved to Nashville in 1983 to start a career
S1: on the business end of drinking and cheatin songs. He
S1: attended Belmont College. Since then, it changed its name to
S1: Belmont University. A Christ centered institution on the edge of
S1: his dream, Music Row. If you stand at the north
S1: end of the Belmont campus, where it intersects with 16th
S1: Avenue South, you're about two blocks from the 1989 crime scene.
S1: Kyle said Kevin's musical tastes stretched from air supply to Metallica,
S1: with lots of Christian rock in between. Triumph, Shooting Star, zebra, Petra,
S1: all his loud power favorites given where he ended up.
S1: There was a gaping hole in Kevin Hughes's go to genres.
S6: Wasn't in Wasn't it a country music? I mean, you know,
S6: he wasn't into country music at all. Um, I don't
S6: know what made him go to Nashville. I think he
S6: just liked the Belmont College. We visited at one time,
S6: and we just. He just really fell in love with it.
S1: Unlike the kids from everywhere. Kevin Hughes didn't come to
S1: Nashville for the country part of country music. Here's what
S1: no one knew. Kevin Hughes came to Nashville with a
S1: long game plan to get hired by the Gospel Music Association.
S1: That was the big dream, his brother said. His first
S1: job at Cashbox magazine was only supposed to be the start.
S1: Marilyn said she thinks about Kevin a lot these days.
S8: He was only 23 when he died. He didn't have
S8: a chance to really live, didn't have a chance to
S8: be married. He didn't have a chance to have children.
S8: I don't think his mom and dad and especially his
S8: mom when she passed away, I don't think they ever
S8: really recovered from Kevin dying and especially the way that
S8: he died.
S1: Marilyn talked to Kevin on the phone during the last
S1: week of his life. Her recollections of the call became
S1: part of the police file.
S8: He just didn't sound like the usual Kevin. I mean,
S8: we exchanged the pleasantries in the beginning of the conversation.
S8: We talked about, you know, things that I might want
S8: to do when I come down and visit. And then
S8: I just kind of said, well, what's going on with you?
S8: You know, tell me, tell me, how are things? You know,
S8: are you dating anybody? Am. Are you? You know, things
S8: like that. And he just says, I've got a lot
S8: of things going on. And I thought, well, what does
S8: that mean? I said, is it inconvenient for me to
S8: come down? And he said, no, I want to see you.
S8: I want to see it. It's been such a long
S8: time since I've seen you. He goes, you know, I
S8: just remember having the conversation is there's just crazy things.
S8: There's a lot of crazy things going on in my life.
S8: And I said, well, do you want to talk about them?
S8: And he said, I can't right now. He says, maybe
S8: when I see you, but I can't talk about it
S8: right now.
S1: Amy Lavelle worked at Cashbox magazine in 1985, while Kevin
S1: was a student at Belmont. Her boss, editor Tom McEntee,
S1: and art director Tony Deantonio, were looking for interns to
S1: work in the office. McEntee asked Amy to make up
S1: some job opening posters. Get some Scotch tape and hang
S1: them at Belmont College.
S10: You know you live near Belmont. Why don't you stop
S10: by there on your way home and set the thing up?
S1: Kevin saw Amy's poster, contacted Cashbox, and got the internship.
S1: It wasn't long before Cashbox hired him full time. Kyle
S1: thought Kevin always intended to go back to school.
S6: I think he thought castles was his way to get in.
S6: And he wanted to go back. You know, he was
S6: going to go back. He wanted to get in. It
S6: was really a proposition. He couldn't overpass. He really wanted
S6: to get in the music industry. When Cashbox offered an internship,
S6: you know, he talked to my parents about it. I
S6: remember them having the conversation. And, you know, I want
S6: to do this. I want to do this. And they
S6: offered me offered me. The job is when I think
S6: you dropped out, then the full time job.
S1: How'd your parents take that?
S6: My parents were always very supportive of Kevin, because we
S6: knew that Kevin would do the right thing, and he
S6: would go back, I think, to finish.
S1: It was a little bit of a strange fit. Kevin,
S1: the straight laced kid, was working for Tony D with
S1: his party. Dude. Gold chain, pinky ring, lothario with the
S1: ladies personality.
S10: Tony D, I guess had a hard time getting along
S10: with most females. Now with me, he said. I reminded
S10: him of his daughter. I'm half Italian, he was Italian
S10: and also he knew my husband. At the time he
S10: was just my boyfriend and I don't think he wanted
S10: to get him riled up.
S1: Juanita Butler worked in the office too, with Tony D.
S11: He would flirt with me. I knew he was married.
S11: He was continually asking me out. It's like, you know, no,
S11: I will never go out with you or any promotion
S11: person for that matter. So because they were all kind of.
S11: I can't think of another word other than sleazy.
S1: Tony D often operated in a cloud of marijuana smoke
S1: while Kevin's calling card was his nice smile.
S10: Kevin was a great worker. Tom offered him a full
S10: time job, and I think he left university to take it.
S10: He wasn't just an intern.
S1: She was right. Kevin dropped out of college to work
S1: at Cashbox. He was living his dream. It wasn't a
S1: lucrative dream, but still a dream. Not long before he died,
S1: a coworker felt so bad for him, she loaned him
S1: 100 bucks. I talked to a promoter who said he
S1: wanted to buy Kevin a new pair of shoes because
S1: his were so hacked out. Just keep it filed away
S1: that Kevin had plans to go to a job fair
S1: he wanted out of cash box. The first step of
S1: his dream, it appeared, had turned out to be unsustainable.
S1: In the last few weeks of his life, his dream
S1: had faded fast. We need to talk about Cash Box.
S1: It used to be called the Cash Box when it
S1: got its start in 1942, in New York City. It
S1: was a trade publication for coin operated machines like pinball
S1: and jukeboxes. It was basically a newsletter about equipment. The
S1: literal cash box on a machine was where the coins landed.
S1: On March 3rd, 1951, the Cash Box released its first
S1: national music chart. The nation's top ten juke box tunes.
S1: Number one was My Heart Cries Out for you by
S1: Guy Mitchell and Mitch Miller. By the end of 1954,
S1: The Cash Box had offices in New York, Hollywood, Chicago, London, Boston,
S1: and Nashville. At 804 Church Street. By 1980. Cash Box
S1: had dropped the the from its name, and it was
S1: all charts all the time. They weren't measuring juke box
S1: plays anymore. It was supposed to measure airplay on the radio.
S1: Cash box had a small office on Music Row. 21
S1: Music Circle East. It was owned by a guy named
S1: George Albert who lived in Los Angeles. Here was the
S1: problem for Cash Box in the music chart business.
S2: Billboard was by far the leader. Other publications doing the
S2: chart were. Radio and records. Record. World. Cash box. Gavin.
S2: Just to name a few. So there were at least
S2: five publications doing national charts, and they were all basically
S2: similar methodologies until January of 1990, when Billboard started using
S2: electronically monitored airplay accounting. So he had all those publications
S2: fighting for the same pie right back in that day.
S2: And this is ranked by usage by radio and the industry.
S2: And that was Billboard was probably number 1 in 89.
S2: R&R was number two and then it was probably Gavin.
S2: Record world and Cashbox.
S1: If you recognize that voice, you're a radio listening country
S1: music fan. That's Lon Helton. He's a Nashville legend. He's
S1: the host of Country Countdown. Publisher of country Aircheck. Editor
S1: of the Mediabase country chart. He spent 20 years as
S1: the country editor for radio and records. He's worked on
S1: radio in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Denver. He's a board
S1: member of the CMA and the Country Music Hall of Fame.
S1: I'm a lot smarter after talking to Lon. He explained
S1: the trade publications would get calls or faxes. Remember fax
S1: machines from radio stations every week to report the songs
S1: that played in their markets? Some of the publications had
S1: sophisticated methods of ranking larger stations versus smaller stations, and
S1: weighted their reports accordingly. For drive time airplay, which was
S1: more important versus overnight airplay, which wasn't That's how they
S1: were supposed to rank songs for the music charts. After
S1: all my research, I don't think it always worked that
S1: way at Cashbox.
S11: A friend of mine, Melissa Deal, worked at Don Light Talent,
S11: and she heard about this job at Cashbox.
S1: That's Juanita Butler again. She started as a receptionist at Cashbox.
S1: She talked about the incredible pressure that was on all
S1: the Cashbox employees. Remember, of the five trade publications, Cashbox
S1: was at the bottom when Juanita started the Cashbox chart.
S1: Director was a guy named Tim Steinhardt. He was a
S1: good guy from Iowa. He died April 18th, 1982, in
S1: a single car accident. That always bothered Juanita Butler. She
S1: said there was no investigation.
S11: I did wonder in the back of my mind at
S11: one point, and then I just kind of let it go.
S11: So he was drunk, is what how the story goes.
S11: And he was in a jeep, I guess, and he
S11: kind of clipped the shoulder at Cashbox.
S1: They had to find a replacement. And the editor, a
S1: guy named Jim Sharp, wanted to get a chart manager
S1: with integrity.
S11: That was awful. That was just an absolutely awful period
S11: of time.
S1: Jim Sharp made Juanita Butler an offer.
S11: And that's when Jim came to me and said, Juanita,
S11: I really need you to take this job.
S1: She took the job and it could get a little awkward.
S11: Earlene Greenwood's office was right next door. There were a
S11: bunch of music people in that office, but the reason
S11: I remember Lee Greenwood is because when he got his
S11: first number one record, I was working on the chart,
S11: you know, graph one day, and this guy grabbed me
S11: from behind and kissed me, and it shocked me. And
S11: I turned around and it was Lee Greenwood because he'd
S11: just been told he had his first number one.
S1: I asked her how literally she did her job.
S11: George Albert just who owned Cashbox. He would not get
S11: with the times. I mean, you know, the entire time
S11: I was there researching and compiling the charts, I was
S11: working on a manual graph. I mean, I had a
S11: graph that I would create every week that would have
S11: the top 100 singles listed in the top 75 albums.
S11: And I manually graphed out the airplay on this graph. And,
S11: you know, Billboard, they had a computer. They, you know,
S11: they were just far ahead of us.
S1: She was using pencils at the beginning of the office
S1: computer age. She began to feel pressure.
S11: So those independent promoters, I had a specific day of
S11: the week that I used to talk to all the
S11: label promotion people, and that included the independents. And so
S11: Tony D'Antonio was in there and Chuck Dixon, they were
S11: in there every week pitching their records. They tried to
S11: get me to do dirty stuff, the relationships with them.
S11: I didn't want them to think that they could manipulate
S11: me in any way, but there was only one time
S11: that I was asked by my boss to have a
S11: record enter the chart that was not legitimate. And and
S11: I said no. And he was. I could tell he
S11: was scared. And he came back, and he came back
S11: and he said, you've got to do this. And I said,
S11: I'm not doing it. And his words to me were, well,
S11: don't be surprised if your little Toyota blows up in
S11: your face someday when you go to turn it on.
S1: At first I thought the threat she was describing was figurative. Like,
S1: don't be surprised if this independent promoter blows up your
S1: car in a figurative way. She explained she brushed it
S1: off at the time as no big deal. Then, after
S1: Kevin Hughes got murdered, she began to believe she should
S1: have taken that threat more seriously. Juanita Butler said she
S1: never told anyone the name of the independent promoter who
S1: made the threat. I asked her to break her silence
S1: almost 40 years later. She was reluctant to give me
S1: the name because he was very famous in the industry,
S1: and she wasn't sure if he was alive. So she
S1: started searching while we were on the phone.
S4: All right. Well.
S12: If you find out that the guy is dead, text
S12: me his name.
S11: Okay. Okay. All right. Start looking for obituaries.
S1: We talked about how you would search for someone's name.
S1: Then suddenly.
S11: Oh. Oh, I just found him. Wait. What I did
S11: is I keyed in his name and California record promoter
S11: and several things came up. Oh, yeah. I think this
S11: is him. And if it is, He passed away in 2005.
S12: There you go.
S11: Ray! Ruff! Ruff!
S12: Okay. Ray. Ruff! All right, I'll look him up.
S1: I found an obituary for Ray Ruff at iHeartRadio. Juanita
S1: Butler became convinced that Ray Ruff threatened her life over
S1: a chart position in Cashbox magazine. I'll read from Ray
S1: Ruff's obit to promote Debby Boone's You Light Up my life.
S1: He arranged for security trucks to deliver copies of the
S1: single to radio stations across the country, and galvanized a
S1: record that not only spent ten weeks atop the Billboard
S1: pop charts, but became one of the signature songs of
S1: the 1970s. Ruff worked with many of the biggest names
S1: in Nashville. Here's what I found out. Ruff suffered congestive
S1: heart failure and pulmonary edema and died at his home
S1: in Saugus, California, on September 15th, 2005. Juanita Butler quit
S1: as chart director of Director of Cashbox magazine after owner
S1: George Albert cancelled all his employees health care plans that
S1: left the magazine in a tough spot.
S13: I'm the only one who knows all the ins and
S13: outs of how to pull the chart together.
S1: That's Tom Rowland. He was more into writing, but he
S1: helped out on the charts. Listen to him explain how
S1: unscientific the Cashbox charts were.
S13: That's where it gets a little dicey. We knew that
S13: the way that the system was set up, that there
S13: were people who were trying to take advantage of it. And,
S13: you know, the charts at this period in time, it
S13: was before Billboard introduced the whole computerized system. So everything
S13: was done manually. It's like literally radio stations would call
S13: us and give us the numbers that we were wanting
S13: from their charts so we could make decisions about what
S13: things were moving and what were not. You know, there
S13: was an honor system. It's like we were not in there,
S13: you know? They basically made their own local chart and
S13: then would report to us the results from their local chart,
S13: and supposedly their local chart was supposed to be based
S13: on airplay, etc., but we had no way to monitor that. So,
S13: you know, you kind of had to take it for
S13: what it was worth. And I do think most of
S13: the radio guys at that point were on the up
S13: and up, but I know some of them were not.
S13: And I know occasionally we would get phone calls from people,
S13: you know, late on a Friday who said, oh, I
S13: forgot to tell you that we were playing such and
S13: such a record. And, you know, invariably it was a
S13: record that we knew was on the bubble and somebody
S13: was trying to get an extra ad or something, and
S13: we had no way of knowing because we didn't have
S13: the technology to do it. We had no way to
S13: know whether they were playing the record or not.
S1: Tom Roland got out of charts fast. He's now a
S1: distinguished music writer. He won a CMA Award for his
S1: coverage of country music in 2018. People were telling me
S1: that the corruption at Cashbox got absolutely crazy in the
S1: mid 1980s. Earlier you heard from Amy Lavelle, who was
S1: editor Tom Mcentee's assistant when Kevin was hired for a
S1: for a short time, Amy Lavelle was put in charge
S1: of the Cash Box gospel chart. She said she ran
S1: things as straight and true as she could. She would
S1: get radio reports and write down the results so she
S1: could add them up and make her rankings.
S10: This one record kind of kept popping in there, but
S10: I never wrote down what she's saying.
S1: Is that a record she had never heard of was
S1: ending up in the published chart, which is strange because
S1: she was in charge of the chart. Somebody was writing
S1: this record into the chart after she had gone home.
S1: So she went to her boss, Tom McEntee.
S10: I had to go to Tom and say, what's up
S10: with this? You know, record keeps popping in here and
S10: it's not reported at all by any of the Christian stations.
S10: He said, oh, that's something I inherited. And believe me,
S10: we're going to get rid of it. It was tied
S10: to advertising. It was done before we got here.
S1: That record, which hadn't been playing on Christian stations and
S1: yet miraculously ended up on the chart, was by a
S1: guy named Tony Alamo, who had been advertising in Cashbox
S1: for years. Alamo died in federal prison in 2017 at
S1: the age of 82. Alamo was convicted in 2009 of
S1: sexual abuse after it was revealed he had relations with
S1: several teenage girls, who he considered as his wives. In 2017,
S1: the Southern Poverty Law Center called Alamo a cult leader.
S1: In his obituary, they said his views were anti-Catholic, anti-homosexual
S1: and anti-government. One of his wives was named Suzi when
S1: she died in 1982. He kept her body in a
S1: glass topped coffin and asked his followers to pray for
S1: her resurrection for months after she was dead. Their prayers
S1: were not answered. In happier times, he and Suzi had
S1: opened a store, The Alamo of Nashville, at 325 Broadway.
S1: The store specialized in sequined jackets and some were worn
S1: by Elvis, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty, Prince, and Madonna. Alamo
S1: had an album produced by Porter Wagoner in 1986. Amy
S1: Lavelle finally got Tony Alamo's record off the Cash Box chart,
S1: but she still doesn't know exactly how it got there
S1: in the first place. As Kevin learned about the charting business,
S1: he faced some similar shady shenanigans beginning in 1988. He
S1: would call home and tell his family his dream job
S1: was turning nightmarish.
S6: He always had serious conversations with my mom and dad
S6: and me about things that were happening. Tell me.
S1: Tell me about those what was going on.
S6: He just didn't feel right what he was doing. He
S6: didn't feel right about the music industry. He didn't feel
S6: it was what he wanted to do anymore, almost. You know,
S6: you could tell that he was upset about things. And
S6: then we had conversations about that, you know, he would
S6: do a chart show, would come on the magazine be
S6: completely different than what he would put in his chart sample.
S6: So by the time that he would do a chart,
S6: it would go to press. It was manipulated or changed.
S1: Did he know who was doing that?
S6: He did not know. Um, he felt he knew because
S6: what he was doing then, because he knew Tony had
S6: to look at him. But he would go in after
S6: later on and see the changes and re change him back.
S1: On the day he was shot to death, while a
S1: plot was already in motion to kill him, and unaware
S1: Kevin Hughes, who was then the chart director at Cashbox magazine,
S1: got a phone call from Sammy Saddler. Sammy said he
S1: wanted to hang out. Sammy was a singer with several
S1: independently produced songs on the Cashbox charts in the years
S1: since the murder. Sammy Sadler's life has become a sympathetic
S1: story in Nashville. One of his more recent albums was
S1: called 1989, a callback to the year of the murder.
S1: Sammy put out a book called A hit with a bullet.
S1: He has made a name for himself by being the
S1: guy who survived the murder on Music Row. In his
S1: retelling of the story, that phone call to Kevin was
S1: terribly unlucky for Sami. He has always said he inadvertently
S1: put himself in the middle of the tragedy that was
S1: about to unfold. Sami Sadler ended up with a bullet
S1: in his arm because of that phone call. The story
S1: Sami always tells the media was that he had been
S1: arguing with his wife, and he wanted to get out
S1: of their apartment, so he called Kevin. Sami was 22,
S1: in 1989. He said he wanted to invite himself somewhere else.
S1: Could have been anywhere. So why not go visit Kevin
S1: at the Cash Box magazine office, which had moved to
S1: 1300 Division Street in the Faron Young Executive Building, just
S1: off Music Row. Sami said he and Kevin had known
S1: each other for about seven months. They weren't great friends,
S1: just friendly acquaintances who might have become friends if both
S1: of them had survived that night. You're going to hear
S1: a lot from Sammy in this podcast. He's recorded almost
S1: four hours of interviews with me, my editor, Ben Goad,
S1: and former Tennessean reporter Nate Rao. He's done dozens of
S1: interviews with publications and radio stations all over America. Here's
S1: what you have to know. Some of the things Sammy
S1: Sadler says about the murder of Kevin Hughes are difficult
S1: to pin down. I'll give you an example. That argument
S1: with his wife, which he said happened after they were
S1: both home from work. Genia, his wife, was in her
S1: late teens at the time. Sammy couldn't remember precisely how
S1: old she was at the time of the murder. He
S1: said she worked at a department store. He couldn't remember
S1: the name. He also couldn't remember when they were married,
S1: which might have been difficult for him to sort out
S1: because I found records of three of Sammy's marriages and
S1: he's currently engaged. His divorce from Genia happened sometime shortly
S1: after the murder, but he wasn't sure. I couldn't find
S1: any police reports about interviews with Genia. I checked over
S1: and over again for any reference to an argument with
S1: his wife on the night of the murder in the
S1: police file. It's not their lead. Detective Bill Pridemore said
S1: he didn't remember talking with her. I have reached out
S1: to Genia and family members by phone and messages on
S1: social media. I wrote her a certified letter asking her
S1: specific questions about the night of the murder, but so far,
S1: no luck. I'll let you know if I ever get
S1: a confirmation about the argument. Here's the reason the argument
S1: raises a question. Sammy said it was dark outside when
S1: the argument was happening and he decided to leave. We
S1: know Kevin had gone to a 530 movie with his
S1: friend Sharon Pennington, so he couldn't have been back at
S1: Cashbox to pick up Sammy's random let's hang phone call
S1: until about 730 at the earliest. We know from phone
S1: records Sammy was in his Donelson apartment at 7:44 p.m.
S1: when he called his father in Texas. All this timing
S1: stuff is important, and it raises a question because police
S1: took a statement from a witness, Kent Crawford, who was
S1: Kevin's friend at Belmont. He said he had called Kevin
S1: in the afternoon of March 9th at 5 p.m.. That's
S1: before Kevin went to the movies. Sunset. That day was
S1: at 5:49 p.m.. It was still light outside. So it's
S1: before Sammy and his wife started arguing. Kent said he
S1: asked Kevin what he was doing later, and Kevin told
S1: him he was going to the movies. Then he was
S1: going to ride around in his car with a friend.
S1: If that friend was Sammy, how did Kevin know about
S1: the plan in the afternoon? If that friend was Sammy,
S1: then a nighttime argument between Sammy and his wife didn't
S1: lead to a random call to Kevin. Here's what Sammy said.
S1: You go home on a normal Thursday afternoon that you
S1: don't even remember. Now. Is your wife there?
S14: I don't know if she was at home then, or
S14: she might have got home later when she got off
S14: of work. I'm not sure.
S1: Was she a teacher?
S14: No. She was working at a some department store, I think.
S14: I'm not, I can't remember.
S1: Okay, so she comes home at home at some point
S1: and you guys start to argue.
S14: At some point. That night we got in an argument
S14: or something. Yeah.
S1: Do you remember.
S14: The. I don't even remember what it was about. You know,
S14: probably something stupid, but it was just at that point,
S14: it's just I wanted to get out of the house.
S14: I didn't want to argue. And so, you know, I
S14: just picked up the phone to call Kevin and see
S14: what he was doing. And it just rang and rang
S14: and rang, and I was going to hang up, and
S14: I thought I heard somebody say hello. I brought the
S14: phone back up to my ear and it was Kevin.
S14: And I said, hey, man, what are you doing? He said,
S14: just working on the charts. I said, well, are you
S14: going to be there for a little while? And he said, yeah.
S14: He said, just come on down. I'll leave the door
S14: open for you. So I went down and when I
S14: went in, he was on the telephone.
S1: I've heard you tell that story before. Did you know
S1: in that file there's a witness who says that he
S1: talked to Kevin before he went to the movies. There's
S1: a 530 showing of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure at
S1: the fountain AMC center, downtown Nashville. Kevin and Sharon go
S1: see that. But before they left for the movie, a
S1: witness says he called Kevin, and Kevin said, I can't
S1: hang with you tonight. I got Sammy coming in later
S1: to hang out with me. No way. Right. Mhm. Couldn't
S1: have happened.
S14: Did he even know he was going to see each other?
S1: We'll get more into the timing of those calls later
S1: in this podcast. One more thing. Kent Crawford, the guy
S1: who told police he made that phone call, was not
S1: available to help police at later points in the investigation.
S1: Crawford got married, moved to Indiana, and he was shot
S1: to death by his wife, Tracy as he slept. She
S1: is serving life in prison. Two Belmont friends, both shot
S1: to death one on March 5th, one on March 9th,
S1: 12 years apart. By the way, there's another Belmont connection.
S1: Pridemore and his partner Pat Castiglione interviewed Leslie Levin, another
S1: of Kevin's friends from Belmont. The interview summary is in
S1: the police file and dated March 15th, 1989. Leslie said
S1: he called Kevin at about 830 on the night Kevin died.
S1: Leslie was working at the Belmont College library and he
S1: needed a ride home. Kevin said he couldn't give him
S1: one because Sammy Sadler was coming. Kevin told Leslie that
S1: Sammy was upset and they had to get their problems
S1: worked out. I asked Sammy if he was upset with
S1: Kevin on the night of the murder.
S14: Kevin, I never had a cross word.
S1: So you being upset with him surprises you?
S14: Yeah. I mean, we never. I don't even know where
S14: that comes from.
S1: Before Sammy arrived at the cash box office that night,
S1: Kevin called his 18 year old brother, Kyle. I talked
S1: with Kyle at length about that phone call. I'll have
S1: more about what they said and the specific way the
S1: call ended in an upcoming episode. Everyone connected to Cash
S1: Box knew Kevin Hughes put in long hours on the
S1: night before a before a publication. Thursday, March 9th, 1989,
S1: was one of those nights. Would you go to the
S1: movies on your busiest night with deadlines? Could he have
S1: been trying to dodge people who were mad at him?
S1: So he goes to the movies, comes back, talks to
S1: his brother, declines to give a friend a ride home.
S1: Sammy shows up. And Sammy suggests they go get something
S1: to eat. Again, despite the deadlines, Kevin agrees. They go
S1: to Captain D's on West End. It was where Bricktop's
S1: is now. Kevin drove them in his sky blue Pontiac Sunbird.
S1: Sammy says they talked about sports and girls. Regular bro
S1: stuff over dinner. Here's what's unusual. What Sammy didn't say.
S1: They talked about on that day. Sammy had a song,
S1: Tell It Like It Is, a cover of the old
S1: Aaron Neville song. It was ranked 46th on the previous
S1: week's country indie chart. Sammy didn't say he asked Kevin
S1: if his song was going was going to appear on
S1: the next chart, which Kevin was working on that night.
S1: Sammy also didn't say Kevin told Sammy the truth. On
S1: that night, he was dropping Sammy's song off the charts.
S1: Kevin was trying to clean up the charts, and among
S1: the last things he did before he died was eliminate
S1: Sammy Sadler's song. Those topics didn't come up. Sammy said.
S1: The last ride of Kevin Hughes's life was supposed to
S1: be from Captain D's Back to the Cash Box magazine office,
S1: where Sammy's truck was parked. Kevin's brother always questioned the
S1: route they took.
S6: I'm not so sure about the logistics of where evergreen
S6: was in relation to where Captain D's was, but I
S6: always heard it was kind of out of the way
S6: to go to Evergreen Records to make a phone call.
S1: Kyle Hughes was right. If you went east on West
S1: End to 17th and made a right, that's the most
S1: direct route. Two miles of driving. But Kevin didn't go
S1: that way. He chose to take the three mile route
S1: toward 16th Avenue South. They took the longer way because
S1: Sammy wanted to make a stop. Sammy said it was
S1: completely random, a spur of the moment decision. Sammy wanted
S1: to stop at Evergreen Records, the studio on Music Row
S1: where he worked. He said he wanted to use the
S1: phone there to call his parents in Texas. It would
S1: be his fifth call to his parents that day. The
S1: second in the last two plus hours if he called
S1: him at his office. Sammy said the call would be
S1: charged to Evergreen Records, not to him.
S14: Popped in my head to use the telephone to call
S14: my parents, and while we were there, I introduced Kevin
S14: to my mom and dad. He never talked to him.
S14: He got on the phone and talked to him for
S14: a few minutes.
S1: When police examined the records, remember a long distance call
S1: would show up on the records, but a local call
S1: would not. There was no long distance call from that
S1: phone that night to Texas. I've got copies of their records.
S1: Pridemore had received a copy of the copy of the
S1: records from the Davidson County District Attorney's Office. They had
S1: gotten a court order and the police records had been obtained.
S1: On April 5th, 1989, almost a month after the murder.
S1: Police had no record of a late phone call to
S1: your dad in the file. I know that came up right,
S1: that you said that at 10:00. That's when Kevin got
S1: on the phone with your mom and dad.
S14: Um, I don't know exactly what time it was, but
S14: he got on the phone and talked to my parents
S14: when we were at evergreen.
S1: Did you make two calls at evergreen?
S14: No.
S1: Only one. Yeah. Okay. If there's no record of that call,
S1: how could that be?
S14: I can't answer those questions, I don't know. I just
S14: know when we called him and he got on the
S14: phone and talked to my parents.
S1: Sammy told police he was still on the telephone to
S1: Texas when he and Kevin heard something near the front
S1: door of evergreen. Sammy told police he asked Kevin to
S1: go check out the noise.
S14: Whenever we heard the rattle at the door, I was
S14: still on the telephone. Kevin got up and he went
S14: out and looked in the front in front of evergreen.
S14: He came back and said, man, what was it? He said,
S14: I don't know. He said, it kind of looked like
S14: maybe a black guy walking down the street. He said,
S14: but I really can't tell because of the lighting.
S1: A black guy, I wouldn't even have included that detail
S1: because there's no way to check. But it comes up
S1: again in another context a little later that night. So
S1: file that detail away. A black guy, Sammy, wraps up
S1: the phone call and they wait 15 or 20 minutes.
S1: Sammy said then he and Kevin are going to leave evergreen.
S1: They're going to get in Kevin's car, which is parked
S1: directly across the street and drive to Cashbox. So Sammy
S1: can pick up his truck. They pause on the porch
S1: of the building, which was once a craftsman house. It was,
S1: and still is, light green with dark green trim. They're alarmed,
S1: Sammy said, because of that rattling they heard at the door.
S1: They checked their surroundings. It looks all clear, so they
S1: walk across the street. It's 10:25 p.m.. Kevin gets in
S1: the in the driver's side. Sammy goes around the front
S1: of the car. He sits in the passenger seat, but
S1: before he can close the door behind him, there's a
S1: man in a ski mask wedged between the passenger seat
S1: and the car door. The killer was so close he
S1: blocked Sammy from closing the door. The car window was
S1: rolled up and the window wasn't shot out, so he
S1: had to be almost literally on top of Sammy, touching knees. Almost.
S1: The first shot hit Sammy in the fleshy part of
S1: his arm above his right elbow. He said he had
S1: raised his arms to cover his head. That's when Kevin
S1: rolled out of the car and ran down the street.
S1: The killer chased him down and executed him. Sammy slumped
S1: for a few seconds in the car. His blood was
S1: found on the driver's side seat. Meaning Sammy reached across
S1: to where Kevin had been sitting. For some reason. Kevin's
S1: keys were found on the street outside the car. Then
S1: Sammy heard a voice from a nearby third floor apartment.
S1: A man called out and told him to run upstairs.
S1: Sammy was hiding under a desk in a third floor apartment.
S1: When police found him.
S14: And I walked in front and opened the door and
S14: sat down and started to close the door, and I
S14: thought I caught something moving out of the corner of
S14: my eye, and I looked up and a guy standing
S14: over me, and I just saw his arms straight out,
S14: and I saw a gun. And I said, oh my God,
S14: this guy's got a gun. I threw my arms up
S14: to cover my head, and that's when he shot. And
S14: they said, Kevin, do like a barrel roll out into
S14: the street running back up 16th Avenue. And all I
S14: heard was shots. After that.
S1: The police made a rendering of the crime scene. It's
S1: got every possible detail and measurement. For example, Sami said
S1: the shooter came out of the shadows in the police,
S1: drawing the only place to hide without being in plain sight.
S1: While Kevin and Sami were walking across the street would
S1: have been the space between two buildings across the street
S1: from evergreen. That spot, according to the graph they provided me,
S1: is about 47ft from Sami's passenger door. There is a
S1: brick column which appears too thin and too exposed to
S1: hide behind. That's 11ft, nine inches from Sammy's passenger door.
S14: Yeah, I mean, he was right on top of me.
S1: And I'm guessing that you went away and got hit
S1: in the elbow.
S14: All I did was when I saw the gun, I
S14: just said, oh, my God, this guy's got a gun.
S14: And just out of reaction, I just threw my arms up,
S14: and I can't beat a speeding bullet, you know? Only
S14: God was there to save that or to hit me
S14: right in the head.
S1: He was shooting at you.
S14: He was right on top of me. How could you not?
S1: But Kevin was the target.
S14: That's what they say. That's what. That's what.
S1: As you're as you're sitting here right now, though, 100%.
S1: That gun, that bullet was going to hit you in
S1: the head.
S14: If I hadn't have thrown my arms up, that's exactly
S14: where it hit me.
S1: Police talked to several witnesses on the street that night.
S1: They said the eyeholes of the ski mask were so
S1: big they could see the shooter's skin. White guy, kind
S1: of chubby, with a strange, limping, side to side way
S1: of running. Here's Bobby Lyons, who we met in the
S1: first episode, the guy who thought he had driven into
S1: a music video.
S2: And I could tell he was white. It was a
S2: white guy because I could see the around his eyes.
S1: In one police report, Sammy Sadler's description of the shooter
S1: is noted because it doesn't line up with the accounts
S1: of the other eyewitnesses. Sammy said the shooter was a
S1: thin black guy. As I write this, I'm reading from
S1: detective Pat Castiglione's March 13th, 1989 report, four days after
S1: the murder. Postiglione was Pridemore's partner on the case. Pridemore
S1: said Postiglione was the good looking one. Postiglione is the
S1: star of the streaming cop show Deadly Recall. He says
S1: he has a photographic memory. In the show, he recounts
S1: cases from his long career. His report says, quoting now
S1: Sammy's description of the suspect is different from all the eyewitnesses. Unquote.
S1: He concludes. Sammy must not have had a good look
S1: at the at the suspect I have to mention here.
S1: Like I've said, I've read and seen lots of interviews
S1: with Sammy Sadler. He invariably says he was rushed to
S1: Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he underwent. He says every
S1: time he's interviewed.
S15: An operating on me 18 hours, 18.
S14: Hours. That night, I underwent 18 hours of surgery under
S14: the microscope.
S1: 18 hours of surgery. That seems like a lot of surgery.
S1: And if true, it wouldn't have ended until about 6:00
S1: the next evening. I interviewed Doctor Patrick Meacham, the guy
S1: who performed the surgery. He didn't have his notes from
S1: 1989 in front of him, and he didn't remember precisely
S1: how long the surgery took, but he remembered performing a
S1: vein graft. Am I pronouncing that right? He took a
S1: vein from Sammy's leg and put it in his arm.
S1: He left the bullet in Sammy's arm because taking it
S1: out would have been too dangerous. The surgery normally takes
S1: between 3 and 6 hours, and that makes sense, because
S1: the because the next morning after the shooting, Sammy had
S1: visitors at 9:30 a.m.. Pridemore and Postiglione interviewed him in
S1: his hospital bed. I can 100% say Sammy Sadler did
S1: not have 18 hours of surgery on his right arm
S1: on March 9th and 10th of 1989. The headline on
S1: the front page of The Tennessean read Music Row becoming
S1: murder Row gunmen, stalks victims, kills one, wounds second, television
S1: news stations broadcasted images of police investigating the murder on
S1: Music Row. They had footage of Willie Nelson and Kris
S1: Kristofferson along the crime scene tape, and an irresistible story
S1: about an up and coming country star. Sammy Sadler, who
S1: had been transported to Vanderbilt Medical Center for surgery. As
S1: those images beamed into living rooms, more than a few
S1: telephones in Nashville started to ring More than a few
S1: people thought they knew exactly what happened and who the
S1: shooter was, but most of them kept their mouths shut.
S1: Another person would have to die before several of them
S1: came forward. Next time on Murder on Music Row.
S16: I think everybody was pretty, pretty afraid of what went on.
S14: I came to this town. I was just a naive kid,
S14: you know? I didn't know how any of this business worked,
S14: how things happened.
S2: The promoters were getting money to promote their record, and
S2: then they were requiring them to buy ads.
S4: I don't make any sense. That's total corruption.
S6: Kevin. Big old church thing that he would work on.
S6: You know, we had those charts of the house with
S6: dates on them, and you could see when I saw
S6: what's in the Cashbox magazine.
S4: At that point. Now, I don't think anybody.
S17: You know, had a lot of respect for, for Cashbox.
S17: And I think just the buzz that was going around
S17: after the after the murder of Kevin Hughes. You know,
S17: I think that that had a huge impact on the
S17: negative impact on Cash Box, for sure.
S1: Murder on Music Row was reported written and narrated by me,
S1: Keith Sharon. The executive producers were Gannett's vice president of
S1: local news and Tennessean editor Michael Anastasi, and Tennessean news
S1: director Ben Goad. The project editor was Duane Gang. The
S1: sound editor was Amanda Rosman. Our reporting on the legacy
S1: of the murder on Music Row doesn't end with this podcast.
S1: If you've been duped by an unscrupulous promoter in Nashville,
S1: we want to hear your story. Please send an email
S1: to Kay Sharon at tennessean.com. That's the letter k s
S1: h a r o n at tennessean.com. Include some details
S1: of what happened to you and how you can be reached.
S1: Thanks for listening.