GOING ON TRIAL
Who Is Romeo Pinkerton?
The first responding Kilgore police officers, who answered the call of a frantic daughter looking for her mother, noticed the back door was open and inside there was flour and droplets of blood on the floor. In the office, a drawer was open with more blood on some files. The front counter area offered yet more blood on the floor. But where were the Kentucky Fried Chicken employees and two others?

Police immediately secured the restaurant as a crime scene and sent out a teletype to hopefully locate the two mothers and three Kilgore College fraternity brothers.

KFC Timeline
Sept. 23, 1983

Working at the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore are Mary Tyler, 37, Opie Hughes, 39, and Joey Johnson, 20. David Maxwell, 20, an off-duty employee, and Monte Landers, 20, are visiting Johnson. At about 11 p.m., Mrs. Tyler’s daughter, Kim, arrives. A door is open and blood is on the floor. Police begin searching for the missing.

Sept. 24, 1983

An oil field worker arriving about 10 a.m. at a well in Rusk County finds the five victims. Each had been shot in back of the head.

Sept. 28, 1983

DPS appoints Texas Ranger Capt. G.W. Burks of Dallas to oversee the investigation after law officers in Rusk and Gregg counties complain that coordination is breaking down.

March 7, 1995

A Rusk County grand jury begins hearing KFC testimony.

April 27, 1995

The grand jury indicts James Earl Mankins Jr. on five counts of capital murder. Investigators say a fingernail recovered from the clothing of one of the victims matches Mankin’s DNA.

Nov. 13, 1995

A judge drops capital murder charges against Mankins after more tests establish the fingernail was not his.

Dec. 20, 2001

An affidavit names Mankins’ wife, Deborah, as a suspect.

Feb. 22, 2002

Rusk County Sheriff James Stroud says blood samples from a possible suspect will be compared to crime-scene evidence.

Sept. 8, 2003

A new grand jury in Rusk County begins hearing KFC evidence.

Jan. 29, 2004

Grand jury members are released after spending five months hearing testimony in the KFC case.

Sept. 9, 2004

Police officers search for a witness scheduled to appear before another grand jury hearing KFC evidence. Kyle Freeman said the woman is a person of interest who failed to appear before the panel.

Nov. 10, 2004

A Rusk County grand jury indicts Darnell Hartsfield on aggravated perjury charges for allegedly lying about being in the KFC restaurant.

July 30, 2005

Romeo Pinkerton is arrested in Tyler on charges of burglarizing Griffin Elementary School, and evading arrest/detention.

Oct. 9, 2005

Several lawmen familiar with the case tell the Tyler newspaper they believe there is enough evidence to solve the case.

Oct. 26, 2005

A jury finds Darnell Hartsfield guilty of aggravated perjury for lying to a grand jury investigating the KFC case. He had said he was not in the restaurant. DNA evidence indicated he had been there.

Nov. 17, 2005

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announces that a grand jury has indicted Darnell Hartsfield and Romeo Pinkerton each on five counts of capital murder.

June 12, 2006

Romeo Pinkerton convicted of burglarizing Griffin Elementary.

Aug. 6, 2007
Jury selection begins in the capital murder case against Romeo Pinkerton.
The next morning, an oil field worker checking a pumping station 17 miles from the restaurant would stumble across five lifeless bodies - the bodies of the missing.

His phone call to police would spark an intense investigation by multiple agencies that followed thousands of tips and hundreds of what one investigator described as "rabbit trails."

The investigation would span the next two decades and more before two cousins from Tyler would be charged with the crimes.

One of those men, Romeo Pinkerton, is scheduled to face five counts of capital murder when jury selection in his trial begins in the Bowie County Courthouse early Monday morning.