‘Sins of the South’: Detectives Discover a Bloody Scene at a Nashville Recording Studio [Exclusive Clip]

The American South is known for its music, its food, and its hospitality. But beneath that charming surface lurks something darker. Oxygen True Crime’s Sins of the South exposes the shadowy side of life below the Mason-Dixon line. 

In this exclusive clip from the show’s June 30 episode, a retired detective recalls his first impressions of a bloody scene outside of a Nashville recording studio, where a shooting has left one man gravely injured and the other dead.  

Nashville cops confront a scene unlike any other 

When officers arrived at Evergreen Records Recording Studio on March 9, 1989, they were greeted by a brutal and disturbing crime scene. 

“One of the patrol officers, he’d never seen anything like it. There was so much blood,” says writer Jesse Sublett. 

One victim, 21-year-old Sammy Sadler, was still alive and was transported to a local hospital. But it was too late for the other man, 23-year-old Kevin Hughes. He was lying in the middle of the street, dead as the result of multiple gunshots to the head. 

A violent murder and a challenging crime scene 

Detectives on the scene tried to piece together what had happened to the two young men. Their job would not be easy. 

“Kevin Hughes had a hand wound and head wound,” recalls retired Nashville PD Detective Bill Pridemore. “And then naturally we had the bullets from Kevin’s body and the one they found on the ground.”

Unfortunately, the location of the shooting meant there was not a lot of forensic evidence that could help point police to a perpetrator. 

“But there’s no footprints,” Pridemore explains. “There’s no tire marks. It’s on asphalt, all concrete through there. So there’s no place to leave any type of physical evidence.”

People who lived near the crime scene reported seeing Sadler stumble out of a parked car before he made his way to a nearby apartment building, where a resident administered first aid and called the police. Witnesses then watched as the killer, who was wearing a ski mask and had a limp, chased Hughes down the street, fired multiple rounds, and fled.

So, who killed Kevin Hughes? And did his job at a Nashville music magazine have something to do with his death? The answers would take years to emerge – and when they did, the truth would shock everyone. 

Sins of the South airs Sundays at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Oxygen. 

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