Kentucky Fried Chicken murders


The Kentucky Fried Chicken murders were an armed robbery and mass murder which took place at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore, Texas, United States, in 1983. For over two decades, it was unsolved.

Robbery and murders

On the evening of September 23, 1983, just before the restaurant closed, armed robbers held up the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore, Texas, United States. The five people in the restaurant at the time were abducted, taken to a nearby field on County Road 232, and each executed with a shot to the back of the head along with shots to the torso. One of the victims, Opie Hughes, was found a short distance from the others and had been raped.
The victims' bodies were discovered by a local resident and were identified as: David Maxwell, Joey Johnson, Monty Landers, Mary Tyler, and Opie Hughes.

Investigation

For 22 years, the case remained unsolved, although several people were arrested. The discovery of a torn fingernail on one of the bodies led to the arrest and charging of James Earl Mankins Jr., a man with prior drug convictions who was also the son of state representative Jimmy Mankins. However, DNA analysis concluded that the fingernail was not his, and he was released after the beginning of pre-trial proceedings.
In November 2005, two men were arrested and charged: cousins Darnell Hartsfield and Romeo Pinkerton. At the time of arrest, Hartsfield, a Tyler resident, was serving a life sentence for aggravated perjury in connection with the case. They were both charged with capital murder and could have received the death penalty if convicted. Investigators also stated that, according to DNA evidence, a third, then-unidentified perpetrator took part in the murders and had committed the rape of Hughes.
In 2023, the Texas Rangers reopened the case. In May 2025, DNA evidence found on the clothing of one of the victims identified three brothers in East Texas. In November, a man named Devan Riggs, who died in 2010, was positively identified as the origin of the DNA evidence.

Convictions

Jury selection in Pinkerton's trial began on August 6, 2007, in New Boston and was completed on September 27, 2007. Pinkerton's death penalty trial was scheduled to start at 9 a.m. on October 15, 2007, at the Bowie County Courthouse in New Boston. An April 2007 article from the Houston Chronicle details Pinkerton's denial of the crime. Despite this, on October 29, 2007, Romeo Pinkerton pleaded guilty to five lesser counts of murder and was sentenced to five concurrent life sentences as a part of a plea deal. He is currently serving his sentence at the James V. Allred Unit in Wichita Falls.
In 2008, Hartsfield was convicted at trial in Bryan, Texas, and sentenced to five consecutive life sentences. On February 4, 2010, the Texas Sixth Court of Appeals upheld Hartsfield's conviction.

Death of Darnell Hartsfield

On May 4, 2022, one of the two suspects, Darnell Hartsfield, died after suffering a massive hemorrhagic stroke in his jail cell at the French M. Robertson Unit in Abilene at age 61. At the time, Hartsfield's next parole hearing had been scheduled for January 2023.

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