Always Laughing: How Demorris Hunter Hid a Serial Killer Behind a Friendly Face

0:00 Everyone who knew Demoris Hunter described him the same way. Nice, respectable, always laughing. He was the guy parents were glad to have around. He was also a convicted killer who murdered two women across two states, stole the identity of a Washington D.C. executive to fund his life as a fugitive and left the 13-year-old boy waiting 24 years for someone to answer for his mother's death.

0:51 At the 2026 trial, when lawyers called witnesses to talk about who Demoris Hunter was as a person, they all reached for the same words. He was respectable, who was very nice, always laughing. His cousin Alfred said that he was like an older brother, never aggressive, a day in his life. His childhood friend, Lenees, talked about how they'd been close ever since the seventh grade, the warmth in him. His neighbor Florence said he was a regular fixture in her home, the kind of young man parents were actively glad to have around their kids. None of these people were wrong, that version of Demoris Hunter was real, and the people describing him knew him very well.

1:31 He was also a man who, by the time that testimony was delivered, had shot three people before he turned 19, served 13 years at Folsom Fort, walked out on parole, and then murdered two more women across two states in the span of about three months. Both of these people lived inside the same body at the same time, and figuring out how that works is basically the entire story. Demoris Andy Hunter was born April 18, 1966 in Oakland. Oakland in the late 60s through the 70s was a city under real economic strain. Industrial jobs were disappearing, communities were contracting, and the crack epidemic was still building towards something that was going to hit neighborhoods like Hunters, especially Hart.

2:17 His friend, Chevron, who was essentially family to him, said the loss of Hunter's mother during his youth left a wound that never really closed, and plenty of people lose apparent young and managed to get through life without hurting anyone else. That's absolutely true. Something else was running in Hunter at the same time. January 1985, Hunter is 18 years old and shoots and kills Cesar Guzman on the streets of Oakland. Guzman is also 18. The following month brings two more separate shootings. He shot Eric Wright, who survived, but was left paraplegic and later died from complications in 1986. He shot Adolphus Williams with a sawdoth shotgun and Williams survived.

3:00 Three shootings and roughly six weeks, two people eventually dead from them. The plea deal handed him 24 years. He served 13 at Folsom State Prison and walked out in November 1997. 13 years for shooting three people and killing two of them, right? And I understand the logic of plea deals I do. Court systems are overloaded. Resources are finite. Things are complicated. 13 years, though, for that body count. He returns to Oakland and for five years, nothing publicly surfaces. And here's what's strange. The people who knew Demoris Hunter from his Oakland years were not performing when they described him.

3:43 His cousin Alfred said he was like an older brother. Playful, never once aggressive and all the time that Alfred knew him. His childhood friend, Lenise, talked about how close they had been and the warmth that he always carried, always laughing. His neighbor Florence said that he was a regular presence in her home and the kind of young man that parents were actively happy to have around their kids. And all of that was real. That version of Demoris Hunter existed and the people describing him did know him very well. He just also had another mode entirely that activated the moment that he felt his freedom was being pulled away from him. March 26, 2002.

4:23 Demoris Hunter was assaulting his girlfriend inside an Oakland residence. A neighbor heard it and came outside. Her name was Avorah Denise Huntley. She was 41 years old. She stepped in and tried to stop what was happening. And that takes a particular kind of nerve and I want to acknowledge that because what she did was exactly what people hope will happen when someone nearby is in danger. Someone step in and try to stop what's going on. Hunter then turned on her. He hit and kicked her and then he left the scene. He walked to a nearby apartment. While he was gone, Avorah did exactly what she was supposed to do. She called the police and stood outside on the street waiting for them to show up.

5:06 Before they got there Hunter came back carrying a 380 caliber semi-automatic pistol. He found her still standing there and asked her one question. Are you going to have me arrested? She told him yes. He aimed the gun at her chin and fired. As she fell, he fired a second time in her neck. The first bullet severed her spinal cord. The second cut through a major artery. Witnesses identified Hunter as he fled. Avorah Huntley died because she refused to walk back inside and mind her own business. She did everything right. Demoris Huntler understood his position very clearly. He was a paroli wanted for murder.

5:48 Coming back to Folsom was not some vague hypothetical. He had already been there. He knew exactly what it meant. That awareness seemed to push him toward a level of operational thinking that is, in the worst possible way, impressive. He stole the complete financial identity of a man named Michael Barry, the chief operating officer of the Independent Women's Forum in Washington, D.C. Barry was a legitimate, well-regarded executive with strong credit and a clean record, which made his identity extremely useful. Hunter opened as many as 15 new credit cards using Barry's information and accumulated over $12,000 in charges. He used those cards to fund life on the run.

6:30 He sent flowers to women under Barry's name. He apparently attempted to purchase a home. In 2002, this was much easier to sustain than it would be now, obviously. Real-time credit monitoring, biometric identity verification, interstate data showing anything close to real-time, none of that existed the way that it does today. A determined person, with a little bit of knowledge, could walk around in someone else's financial life for a long time before the walls closed in. The real Michael Barry was living a specific nightmare through all of this, because Hunter's face was appearing on America's most wanted, tied to Barry's name and financial information. Creditors and law enforcement kept showing up at Barry's actual life, threatening him with a rest.

7:14 An entirely innocent man repeatedly treated as a suspect, because a fugitive killer had put his identity on and walked out the door. Hunter rode that window all the way to Orlando, Florida. By May 2002, Demoris Hunter had settled into the college park neighborhood of Orlando under a false name and he moved into an apartment building where he met Theresa and Green. Theresa was 38 years old, a secretary at Florida Hospital, and the single mother of a 13-year old son named Octavius Hayes. She was known in that building, she was a part of that community. Memorial Day weekend, the night of May 25th, into the early hours of the 26th.

7:56 Demoris Hunter and Theresa both attended a neighborhood party at the apartment of their neighbors Joyce and Joseph Butler. Around 2.30 that morning, witnesses saw both of them leave together. On the stairs, they stumbled and fell. Nobody was seriously hurt, but it sparked an argument. What happened after that was the center of a mystery that lasted over 24 years. The prosecution's position was that Demoris Hunter followed Theresa into her apartment and then strangled her to death. Then wrapped her body and placed it in the trunk of her own car, then drove it to a Walgreens parking lot in Sanford, Florida and left it there. Theresa's son Octavius had spent the night with friends that night.

8:39 When he came home the next morning, he said he knew immediately that something was wrong the moment he walked through the door. His mother's purse was on the bed. Her gold watch was sitting on the bathroom sink. A wall was damaged. He was 13 years old and he testified to exactly what that morning felt like at the trial in 2026 when he was in his late 30s at that time. The fact that he could still describe every detail with that kind of precision tells you exactly what that morning cost him and kept costing him for the next two and a half decades. The hours after that party ended, Demoris Hunter went back to the Butler's apartment and handed Joseph Butler a set of keys to a white van.

9:20 He asked Butler to follow behind him while Hunter drove Theresa's car to Sanford. Butler did it. When he asked Demoris why the car was being left there, Demoris told him I did something really bad. The butlers kept that to themselves for 24 years. Joyce admitted during the 2026 trial that she had lied to protect Joseph from being implicated and helping dispose of the vehicle. 24 years of silence. Octavius Hayes went from 13 to 37 in the space of that silence. Demoris Hunter was caught on February 23rd, 2003 in Houston, Texas.

10:00 Federal agents working a warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution tracked him down. He tried to run, a K-9 officer named Monroe Gage caught him, a man who had evaded serious accountability across two decades and two states was taken down by a dog in a parking lot. He was extradited to California first, where in 2005 a jury convicted him of Ivorahuntli's murder and sentenced him to 110 years to life. Florida didn't bring him back until February 2015. Then came the delays, defense attorney changes, a heart attack hunter suffered inside Orange County jail, and then of course the pandemic that froze the courts nearly entirely.

10:43 The trial didn't happen until 2026. During the penalty phase, Demoris's daughter testified that even with her father behind bars her entire life, he had been a meaningful presence for her. And she asked that the jury spare him. His elderly neighbors talked about his life, his cousin talked about how playful he was. That version of Demoris Hunter made one last appearance. The jury came back 12-0. Death. Formal synancing is scheduled for June 2026. Ivorahuntli did a noble thing, stepped in when she didn't have to. She protected someone with her life. Teresa Green's son grew from a child to a middle aged man waiting for something that resembled an answer.

11:28 Michael Barry spent years defending himself from accusations connected to someone else's crimes. 12 people looked at 40 years of all of that and decided they had heard enough. Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, bingeable true crime stories. Hello. From Joe, I'm the host, and here's an email, Subject. My dad listens now to. Hey, Joe, I recommended your podcast to my dad thinking maybe he'd try one episode. Bad idea. Now, he texts me theories like he's working cold cases from his recliner in Jacksonville.

12:14 You accidentally created a retired detective. Melissa in Jacksonville, Florida. And Melissa, thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing the podcast with your dad. And I'm sorry, every dinner conversation now is going to be awkward. It's going to be a little bit weird. I don't think there's any coming back from that. You guys are going to be sitting at a nice fancy restaurant one evening, having a nice family meal and he's going to start bringing up cold cases and serial killer files and whatnot. That's the new normal for you, Melissa. And I apologize. I feel like it's kind of my fault. Even though it's not, this one's on you completely, but I still feel like I shoulder some of the blame on this.

12:54 So my bad. Hey, if you're a new listener to the podcast, welcome, put your feet up. And like Melissa's dad, sitting the recliner become a retired detective, an amateur online sleuth. Make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening right now. Also go to 10minuteMurder.com. You'll find links to all the things 10 Minute Murder. And if you're an OG listener and you've been listening for a long time, you've listened to all of the episodes. You've been sharing this podcast with your friends and your family. You've been rating and reviewing it, whatever that's possible, engaging with the content that I put on social media. That's really important too. I know I never mentioned that. But that's a big part of helping this show grow.

13:35 All of those things that you OG listeners are doing, I see it and I appreciate it and I love you for it. And that's going to do it. That's your episode for today. Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder. See you next time. [Music]