Darnell Hartsfield, 44, who also was convicted of aggravated perjury in connection with the case, and Romeo Pinkerton, 47, who is in jail on unrelated charges, were arraigned in a Rusk County district court.
The two were indicted by a grand jury on five counts each of capital murder. Bond was set at $5 million at that time for each defendant.
Judge Clay Gossett appointed Tyler attorney Don Killingsworth to represent Hartsfield and Tyler attorney Jeff Haas to represent Pinkerton, said information from the Texas attorney general's office.
"I am heartened by the fact that the court is proceeding in a reasonable manner so that we can move on to trial and seek justice for the families of the victims," Attorney General Abbott said in a news release. The state is prosecuting the case.
Lisa Tanner, the assistant attorney general who has headed the investigation, worked with state, county and local authorities to investigate the murders of David Maxwell, 20, Joey Johnson, 20, Monte Landers, 19, Mary Tyler, 37, and Opie Hughes, 38. Kilgore police and Texas Rangers discovered the bodies shot in the head and back on a rural oil lease on the night of Sept. 23, 1983.
Hartsfield previously told a grand jury he had never visited the fast food restaurant, but DNA evidence from the crime scene placed him there the night of the murders. He was convicted by a jury in October of aggravated perjury and because of his criminal history, was sentenced to life in prison.
Pinkerton is in the Smith County Jail after being arrested by the Attorney General's Fugitive Unit in Tyler in August. He was wanted on a warrant for a parole violation on an unrelated offense.
If convicted on capital murder charges in Texas, defendants can be sentenced to life in prison or death by lethal injection.
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