This is part two of an eight-part series detailing the 1989 murder of Kevin Hughes, a country music chart director whose knowledge may have cost him his life.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A little red Volkswagen was making its way northbound on 16th Avenue South.

Bobby Lyons was driving his friend Allyson Kidd to see a movie. It wasn’t a romantic outing; just a couple of friends taking a shortcut through Music Row to catch “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

They wouldn’t make it to the cinema that night.

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On Thursday, March 9, 1989, George H.W. Bush had just begun his presidency. The San Francisco 49ers, led by Joe Montana, had recently clinched the Super Bowl title. The film “Rain Man,” starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, was gearing up to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Kidd, a student at Belmont College, recalled it being close to 10:30 p.m. and they were running behind schedule.

Lyons, also a student at Belmont, was familiar with the erratic nature of Nashville traffic. Just a week earlier, he had been annoyed to find himself caught in a music video shoot that blocked the streets, a common enough occurrence in the city.

As they drove along 16th Avenue South, they noticed a car door swing open ahead and saw a young man with a mullet tumble out onto the street.

Later, they would identify him as Kevin Hughes, a former Belmont student who was 23 years old and working for Cash Box, a magazine focused on the music industry, situated near Music Row.

They watched Hughes get up and start running in a zig-zag pattern toward their approaching Volkswagen.

A man was pursuing him—wearing a ski mask and appearing somewhat overweight. Lyons noted that the man had a dark revolver in his right hand, and his running style was peculiar, “like he had a board stuck up his backside.”

Lyons observed that the masked man was white, as the holes in the mask exposed his complexion.

At that moment, Lyons thought he had stumbled upon a bizarre music video shoot.

Feeling frustrated, he wondered why the streets weren’t cordoned off. While he understood the appeal of a raw, realistic feel, this was over the top.

He assumed he was merely witnessing actors in a scene running toward and then past his vehicle.

Looking back now, Lyons regrets not taking action when he had the chance.

“I could have saved (Kevin’s) life,” he remarked.

Suddenly, they saw the masked man fire his weapon. One bullet struck Hughes in the back, causing him to fall.

Lyons turned to Kidd, who looked visibly shaken.

This was no music video.

Lyons slammed on the brakes as they watched in horror.

Hughes lay face down on the road, approximately four car lengths behind them, having sprinted 116 feet from his car.

The shooter stood over him and shot Hughes twice in the back of the head.

Then, the assailant hesitated momentarily, presumably to confirm Hughes was dead, before limping away into the darkness behind some apartment buildings.

Kidd jumped out of the car and hurried to the fallen Hughes.

“I remember blood trickling down the street,” she recounted.

Lyons drove a short distance to a bar named Bobby’s Idle Hour and rushed inside to alert patrons about the shooting.

Lyons urgently asked everyone to contact the police.

‘I think we heard the victim’s last breath’

Daniel Hill and his wife had only been married for a short time, less than a year.

At that time, Daniel was working hard to promote songs by various writers to artists.

On a Thursday night, Daniel, then 29, was working late at the Act III building along Music Row. He recalls sitting by his computer at the bay window that overlooked the street. His wife, Faith Hill, had come to see him.

Yes, that Faith Hill, who was seated on the office couch while he busily typed away at his keyboard.

Faith was just 21 at the time and working as a singer, while also selling merchandise for Reba McEntire as her day job.

The Tennessean, part of the YSL News Network, reached out to Faith Hill’s management at Sandbox Entertainment for an interview request. They replied, “Faith isn’t doing interviews right now but thank you for reaching out.”

Suddenly, they heard gunfire and hurried downstairs.

Upon reaching the street, they spotted the body of Kevin Hughes lying on the ground. Faith immediately began running toward the site where the shooting had occurred, despite Daniel urging her to stop.

“Do not run toward this,” he cautioned.

But Faith ignored him and dashed to the body, prompting Daniel to rush after her.

“I think we heard the victim’s last breath,” Daniel recalled.

A nurse named Diane Palovich stopped to assist. She tried performing CPR on Kevin Hughes, but her efforts were in vain. Daniel Hill was struck by the disturbing sight of Palovich, covered in Hughes’ blood.

In the midst of the chaos, Hill noticed a dark blue cap on the road. He speculated it might have belonged to the shooter. The cap bore the words: WORLD WAR II VETERAN AND DAMN PROUD OF IT.

From inside the cap, police would later retrieve a single black hair.

Blood trail leads in another direction

David Williams was the first police officer on the scene.

In the police records, this murder case in Music Row is documented as case No. 89-59058.

A body was down, covered by a yellow tarp, outside 1026 16th Ave. S., in front of the Bug Music building. Hughes’ blue Pontiac Sunbird was parked with its doors open in front of a small apartment complex at 1020 16th Ave. S. Police quickly cordoned off the area with tape.

Witnesses reported seeing the shooter flee toward Edgehill Avenue. Some claimed to have seen him leave the scene in a dark gray Nissan with its headlights off.

That’s when Officer Williams discovered there was a second victim.

A trail of blood was found on the sidewalk beside Hughes’ car.

Williams followed the blood trail across a driveway and up the stairs to a third-floor apartment at 1020 16th Ave. S., where he discovered Sammy Sadler, a 22-year-old, bleeding and hiding under a table. Sadler had been sitting in the passenger seat of Kevin Hughes’ vehicle.

Sadler was a polite young man with a distinct Texan twang, much like many aspiring male singers in Nashville, complete with a notable mullet hairstyle.

Sadler recounted that a masked assailant had emerged from the shadows. The man was so close to the car that Sadler couldn’t close the passenger door.

Faced with the masked gunman, Sadler was shot once in the car. The bullet struck his arm between his elbow and bicep.

“I can’t beat a speeding bullet,” Sadler reflected in a later interview. “Only God saved me, or it would have hit me right in the head.”

Sadler’s blood was primarily found on the driver’s side of the Sunbird, indicating he had crawled over the console to escape from the line of fire where the assailant stood.

The shooter then proceeded to chase down and kill Hughes.

After the assailant had left, Sadler heard a voice from an apartment above asking if he was alright. The voice belonged to Phillip Barnhart, who lived with his girlfriend Connie Gaddis on the third floor. Sadler then stumbled upstairs to find a place to take refuge.

When Officer Williams arrived at Barnhart’s apartment, he found Gaddis using a towel to apply pressure to Sadler’s wound.

Determining that Sadler’s injury wasn’t life-threatening, Williams nonetheless recognized he required medical assistance.

He promptly called for an ambulance.

Williams discovered that Sadler had made two phone calls from the apartment: one to his father, Jerry Sadler, back in Texas, and another to his wife, Jeania, with whom he was facing marital difficulties that would ultimately lead to their divorce.

(It’s worth noting in Sadler’s early statements that he identified the shooter as Black and lean, while other onlookers described him as white and stocky.)

The ambulance responded rapidly.

Local news crews followed closely behind.

Sadler was placed on a gurney and taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where Dr. Patrick Meacham performed a surgical procedure called a “saphenous vein graft,” utilizing a vein from Sadler’s leg to repair his right arm.

Dr. Meacham indicated that attempting to extract the bullet would have caused further injury, so it remained lodged in Sammy Sadler, intertwined with his life as a musician.

Shortly thereafter, two detectives from the Murder Squad arrived at the scene. The lead investigator was Bill Pridemore, a lifelong resident of Nashville, who was joined by his partner, Pat Postiglione, a New Yorker by origin.

Pridemore had aspired to be a police officer since childhood. At age 10, his cherished Schwinn bike was stolen, but thanks to a police officer, he was reunited with it, inspiring his career path.

Postiglione was well-dressed and claimed to have a photographic memory. In 2019, he hosted a true crime show titled “Deadly Recall” on the Investigation Discovery network.

Pridemore recalled that he and Postiglione were like “two mules,” using a unique farming term to illustrate their teamwork.

“We gee hawed,” he explained.

In animal training, “gee” means to turn right and “haw” means to turn left, indicating how they coordinated their efforts.

The names of all six Murder Squad members were listed on a dry-erase board in the Metro Nashville Police Department’s detective area.

On this occasion, a red-dot magnet marked Pridemore’s name.

He was the lead investigator for case No. 89-59058.

Stars gather near police tape

On March 9, 1989, it was the final night of recording for the country supergroup The Highwaymen.

They were recording tracks for “Highwayman 2” at Emerald Sound Studio on 1033 16th Ave. S., including songs like “Silver Stallion” and “American Remains.”

Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson were in the studio with producer Chips Moman, while Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings had completed their recordings. Harmonica player Mickey Raphael, who was present that night, mentioned that the soundproofing of the studio made it hard to hear any shots fired.

“The studio is quite isolated,” Raphael noted. “We often take breaks to enjoy fresh air. I went outside for a smoke and saw many police around, having heard a shooting incident.”

Nelson and Kristofferson stepped out onto the street.

News cameras captured footage of them standing by the police tape. Another observer, songwriter Donny Lowery, who penned hits like “Old Flame” for Alabama, also witnessed the events unfold.

From his apartment at 1030 16th Ave. S., Lowery told the authorities he saw the firearm, describing it as “a dark revolver with a barrel length of 4 to 6 inches.”

In the years that followed, the bullets fired from that gun and its origin would become critical to the investigation.

Pridemore surveyed the famous street scene. Hughes’ body was covered by a yellow sheet, and the other victim offered little assistance, while the suspect had escaped with the weapon.

“Oh no, this doesn’t look good,” Pridemore remarked. “Looks like I’m going to be here for quite some time.”

‘All we are is dust in the wind‘

Early in the morning around 3 a.m., police contacted Carmi, Illinois, the hometown of Kevin Hughes.

When Larry and Barbara Hughes received the heartbreaking news, their lives were shattered.

Then, Larry Hughes walked down the hall to awaken his youngest son.

Kyle Hughes, who was just 18 at the time, often joked about being just four years and 355 days younger than his brother. He was determined not to let Kevin enjoy the fact that he was five years older.

He described Kevin as his idol.

“My dad came and told me what had happened,” Kyle Hughes recounted, tears streaming down his face during an interview in his Florida home in 2023.

“It was truly a terrible situation. The police in Nashville contacted us to inform that he had been shot. As we learned more details throughout the night, everything felt like a blur,”

Kyle reflects on his brother and often thinks of Kevin’s favorite band.

Kansas.

They’re well-known for their song, “All we are is dust in the wind.”

“Kevin had a passion for music,” Kyle Hughes shared. “He was a wonderful person, a great kid. I gained so much knowledge from him as I grew up. He was like a role model to me…”

At this point, he became overwhelmed with emotion.

“I apologize,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

As dawn broke the following morning, Pridemore and Postiglione were still investigating the scene.

Seated on a low brick wall close to where Hughes’ car was, they pondered various possibilities. Could it have been a random robbery that turned lethal? Was it a drug exchange that went awry? Perhaps a dispute between lovers?

Or could it have been a more targeted act, with a hint of conspiracy?

When the news reports reached homes in Nashville, displaying images from the crime scene alongside footage of well-known figures, phones began to ring throughout the country music scene, reaching from the heights of fame to the darker elements.

What Pridemore and Postiglione didn’t realize was that many in the industry felt they understood exactly what had transpired.

And they believed they knew the identity of the murderer.

However, these individuals chose not to disclose any information to the detectives, opting for silence instead. Fear gripped them.

It would take more than ten years before some key witnesses decided to come forward.

But before they would speak out, another life would need to be taken.