Accused parking spot killer had history of violence — and second chances

Lavar Davis, the ex-con accused of gunning down a stranger in the Bronx during a fight over a parking spot, is good at asking for second chances, despite a track record of repeat offenses.

Davis, 46, who has spent most of his life in prison, was first incarcerated at 17 and released after 24 years, only to go back 10 months later, serve another sentence and leave again in 2023.

Less than a year and a half later, he is charged with murder in the parking spot homicide.

“Further incarceration is unnecessary,” Davis wrote to a judge in 2023 as he sought to avoid spending any more time behind bars on a gun-related conviction after being held at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his January 2022 arrest.

“All the time that I spent in jail for this crime thus far was and is more than enough time to deter me from ever doing anything that can cause me to lost (lose) another day of freedom.”

Davis was given a 15-month sentence on the gun charge and released from federal custody to lifetime parole in September 2023.

Now cops and prosecutors say Davis shot and killed 49-year-old father of four Trevor Hughes outside the victim’s Morris Park home on Saturday following a disagreement over a parking spot.

It’s the second time he’s faced murder charges. While serving a 23-years-to-life sentence in the Nov. 9, 1996 murder of Floyd Berkley, 22, in Schenectady and the non-fatal shooting 18-year-old Franklin Hemingway in New York City, Davis was looking for love on a prisoner pen pal website.

“I am a good dude with big ideas, intelligence, jokes and ambition who deserves a good woman who is real and down to earth. You?” reads the post, which includes the hashtag “#chances.”

Davis was arrested less than a year after being paroled in the 1996 case, for felony possession of ammunition after firing a gun into the air outside a Brooklyn building where his ex-girlfriend and her child lived. His presence at the building violated an order of protection, court records show. He asked the judge in that case for a second chance as well.

“Your honor, I appeal to your mercy for this matter,” Davis wrote to Federal Court Judge Margo Brodie as part of a plea for no new sentence, “because prior to the poor decision that I’d made on December 28, 2021 I was released from prison after serving 24 years and was doing well despite the challenges and odds that came with returning to society as a 42 year old man who left life as a 17 year old adolescent.”

Davis added that after being arrested for firing the gun, he lost his jobs, missed his daughter’s promotion to third grade and lost his car after it was towed.

“I submit to you today that any mercy that you give me will not be in vain,” the letter to the judge concluded.

Supporters chimed in asking for leniency for Davis. His wife and mother of his child, would-be employers and mentors and a representative from anti-gun violence program Save Our Streets all wrote letters to the judge.

“I met Lavar a month after he came home from prison through a mutual friend and I asked Lavar could he speak at an upcoming event where there would be gang members and those influenced by them and I felt that they would listen to Lavar,” wrote John Stallings of Save Our Streets to the judge.

“Lavar was asked by my staff to speak at another event and he did. He spoke at four events for us and he is a gifted speaker and has the ability to bring change in society,” continued Stallings, adding that if Davis needed a job or somewhere to stay it would be provided.

At some point during his brief stints of freedom, Davis apparently found work with Services for the UnderServed, a social services organization.  “I remember him taking my documents and stuff,” according to anonymous email written by a client and shared with The News by a Corrections Department source.

“What is going on here!!! Around my kids, a person who killed not one but now 2 times is in this organization.”

When asked about Davis’ work with the group, CEO and President Perry Perlmutter did not comment directly, but said “We are deeply saddened by the tragic passing of Trevor Hughes on Saturday, and our hearts go out to his friends and family. Due to the ongoing police investigation, we are unable to comment further.”

Neighbors in the Bronx believe Davis and his girlfriend were visiting a troublesome club down the block when they parked their SUV blocking Hughes’ driveway Saturday.

Hughes, a native of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands known as “Dread” because of his long flowing dreadlocks, was arriving home from a DJ gig around 2:00 a.m. when he found Davis’ gray Jeep SUV blocking his driveway on Fowler Ave. near Morris Park Ave., leaving him nowhere to park.

Hughes called 311 and the local NYPD precinct to complain. Then Davis showed up with his girlfriend in tow.

According to prosecutors, as Davis argued with Hughes, Davis’ girlfriend Fallon Wise, 43, attacked Hughes’ fiancée, beating and kicking her until Wise fractured her orbital bone, nose and teeth.

Davis then shot Hughes in the ankle and the neck with a .45 caliber gun, according to police, killing the father of four daughters.

Davis has been charged with murder and is being held at Rikers Island. Wise is charged with assault and harassment of the slain man’s 47-year-old fiancée.

Hughes’ brother was on the phone with him during part of the argument over the parking spot.

“He called 311…I told him to call the precinct directly. He did that and within moments after that, that’s when the whole incident happened,” said the brother, who did not give his name.

“That’s why, when the cops came, everything was already done. He had already called,” said the grieving brother. “He didn’t think that he was going to get murdered in front of his house.”

The brother said Hughes’ fiancée was devastated by Hughes’ murder.

“She is struggling like the hardest, because she witnessed it and they were fighting right in front of her and she was basically helpless because she was being beaten by the woman,” said Hughes’ brother.

“Trevor was a wonderful man who was respected in his community,” Hughes’ fiancée, Doris Arenas Carmichael, told the Daily News Tuesday, both her eyes still blackened from being attacked. “He did not deserve this end.”

With Kerry Burke, John Annese, and Rocco Parascandola