Cause for alarm

Dennis Murphy Correspondent • Profile

It was a warm early June night in Jackson, Miss. Elicia Hughes had just closed up her third-grade classroom for the summer.

The 32-year-old teacher had been over at her parents with her two kids earlier.

Her husband Brian wasn't home yet. He'd gone out to with his brother.

Elicia Hughes: Brian had a very erratic schedule. So it was not uncommon for him to get home late. So I didn't sit up and wait on Brian.

That night, June 3, 2004, she put the two girls — one 3, the other 4 — in the big bed with her.

Now, after 10 o'clock, she could barely stay away as she read in the master bedroom.  

Elicia Hughes: It was like I’m in bed, I’m reading a book and kind of started dozing off.  

Then, a little after 7 p.m., she said she heard a " pop pop pop" noise.

Elicia Hughes: I couldn’t even really figure out if it was inside of the house or outside of the house. And then hearing that alarm sound that made me aware that was the popping sound was probably something pertaining to my house.

Her husband Brian was known as a security conscious guy. And the alarm he'd had installed --the kind you have to arm and disarm on entering and leaving --was blaring.

Elicia Hughes: It wasn’t even the thought of dealing with the pops, it was the thought of dealing with the alarm.

She got up and looked at the bedroom keypad to disarm the horn, she said, but couldn't remember the code. She started walking down the hallway.

Elicia Hughes: I’m looking outside and I don't see anything.  And then I kind of glanced across the foyer and I see Brian laying in the living room.  And his back is to me, and he's facing the couch.  And the first thing I felt was relief because I thought, oh, he is here.  He is at home.  He can handle this.  And it never, it did not enter my mind at that point that he was hurt.

Brian Hughes, her 32-year-old husband, was on the floor near the coach, not moving.

The alarm was still going off and the front door was open.

Elicia Hughes: Worse case scenario: I thought that he was intoxicated.  And one of his friends had brought him home and just laid him on the floor, and I was, okay, you need to get better friends.  So I go over to him, and I’m on the floor beside him.  And I’m touching his back, and I’m saying, "Brian, Brian."  I said, "The alarm is going off.  I need you to help me.  I need to turn it off.  What’s the code?" And at the point, I realized that he's moaning.  And I didn't know what to do.  And as I was touching him, I felt blood and he was there, and he was hurt.  And my mind was racing.

Brian and Elicia had met in high school when they were 17. He spied her through the door of her classroom and made a point of talking to her, the pretty girl who'd been chosen Miss Lanier High.

Elicia Hughes: He was so outgoing. He was such a people person. And he had a way about him that made you feel important.

Early on, they were more friends than a couple.

Elicia had graduated college, taught a little, then worked in insurance before she and Brian finally became engaged.

They married in 1999 when they were both 27.

Brian had served in the Air Force and for the past few years had been working alongside his dad at the Delphi Packard plant where he fabricated moldings for the automobile electrical supply company.

The overtime was good and Brian was pulling in upwards of $60,000 a year.

Two kids.

Two paychecks.

A single-story ranch with plenty of family nearby, always up for babysitting and backyard barbecues.

Now at 11:15 at night, Brian was lying on the floor of his home, not passed out drunk as Elicia first thought, but riddled with multiple gunshot wounds.

Elicia Hughes: I did not realize that he had been shot until I was kneeling on the ground beside him. There were some shell casings that I stepped over going into the living room, and I’m just you know putting these things together. And you know I’m figuring out that he's been shot.

About then the phone rang. It was the alarm company, someone asking what was going on there.

As the alarm company notified the police, Elicia says she took stock the best she could: Husband shot. Who and where was the shooter now?

Dennis Murphy, NBC Correspondent: Do you worry that this guy might be in the house, and maybe has even gotten back to where you were with the children?

Elicia Hughes: I can't remember what I did specifically first.  But I know that I was kneeling beside Brian, and I was trying to comfort him.  And I was still thinking, "Oh god, somebody could still be in the house."  And I was looking around, just kind of scanning around the room that we were in. I remember crawling towards the front door, and kicking the door shut.

Dennis Murphy: You thought whoever shot him might be just outside the door still?

Elicia Hughes: Could have been, I didn't know.  I closed the door, I locked the door. At some point I remember peeking out the window in the living room. And it was just a lot of back and forth.  Because I would like close the door, go back to Brian, peek out the window, go back to Brian. 

Dennis Murphy: Brian's mother, Pat Hughes, was notified by the alarm company that something was wrong at Elicia and Brian's house.

Pat Hughes:  All I could think of, is the house is on fire.  So on my way I call my brother-in-law, who worked with the fire department, I said, "Did you hear anything?   Is Brian’s house on fire?" And then I call my son and he ran and I’m driving' as fast as I can to get over there. 

Brian's mother got to the front door but the police would let her go no further.

Pat Hughes:  One of the policemen at the door told me Brian had been shot so I called his name.  And I called Elicia's name she called back to me.  And I told her, "Elicia, don't have Brian die.  Talk to him.  Hold him.  Please don't let my baby die.

Willie Jr.-- who'd just been dropped off his older brother -- arrived within minutes to the confusion in the front yard.

Willie Jr.:  Fire truck in the road. My mother's car, police cars. It’s a total nightmare. I just hoped that I was dreaming and I had passed out and went to sleep and was in a deep dream. 

The EMTs had raced in with a gurney but walked out with it empty.

Brian didn't make it.

An officer went to tell Elicia. 

Elicia Hughes: One of the detectives came into the kitchen and told me that Brian's injuries had been fatal. It just seemed that everything just seemed kind of surreal and I just kept thinking I don't know what to do. I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whether to sit, to scream to shout or what so I just sat.

Life of the party Brian was gone just like that.

He'd been murdered, apparently, by an intruder who unloaded a gun on him when he opened the front door.

Pat Hughes:  I just knew he was gone and I couldn’t even wrap my mind around who could have disliked him to do that I knew my two boys had been together and I thought if somebody followed him home I guess I was grateful that they didn’t take them both.

Crime scene investigators began their work gingerly because this case was sensitive, almost like a murder in the law enforcement family.

Willie Jr., the brother, was someone they worked with at the crime lab.

The victim's uncle Vernon is the ranking fire chief and a former arson investigator.

Vernon: We met up with a couple of detectives to try to decipher what had actually happened.

Dennis Murphy: Because you are a close family member but you're also a professional crime scene investigator?

Vernon: That is correct.

Dennis Murphy: So you're just trying to put together what is this little bit of evidence I have? What’s the story it is telling me?

Vernon: Exactly.  

The Hughes family was clustered in the kitchen.

By then aunts, uncles and cousins had arrived.

All of them were numb from the sudden violence thrust upon them.

All trying to comfort the new widow.

Bonnie: Elicia was sitting at the kitchen table saying, wringing her hands, saying "what am I going to do, what am I going to do?"

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