East Texas

By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer

NEW BOSTON — A top forensic scientist testified Tuesday that the fingernail found near a KFC murder victim’s pants pocket in 1983 belonged to another victim and not a suspect.

Rhonda Roby, considered to be one of the top forensic scientists in the country, has worked to identify victims of Sept. 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site. She did DNA work with cases including the Branch Davidians in Waco, worked in Operation Desert Storm identifying remains of U.S. soldiers, and has worked many airplane crashes. She is currently working with a team in Portugal to identify the remains of Christopher Columbus.

Roby worked for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology when the lab was asked to perform DNA testing on the fingernail thought to be that of Jimmy Mankins Jr.

During court proceedings in the capital murder trial of Romeo Pinkerton, Roby testified that former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales asked the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology to process the nail, and the lab finally agreed after former U.S. Senator Phil Graham made another request.

Pinkerton and his cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, are accused of abducting five people from the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore on Sept. 23, 1983. The victims’ bodies were found the next day in a rural Rusk County oil field.

During testimony, Roby stated that she and a colleague traveled to the Dallas area in the 1990s to discuss the case with DPS and Gene Screen scientists and pick up the fingernail to be tested.

Roby said that neither she nor anyone in her lab had ever attempted to obtain DNA from a fingernail in a forensic setting, so the KFC case presented challenges with the results being published in a forensic sciences journal. She concluded the nail did not belong to Mankins, but instead belonged to Mary Tyler.

Mankins, who was indicted for the murders in the 1990s, was cleared based on the results of Roby’s testing, and his record was expunged.

The prosecution says after Mankins was cleared, the KFC case then laid dormant for almost six years before a break. It was then they contend that forensic scientists with the Texas Department of Public Safety would use new testing procedures and equipment, not available in 1983, to obtain DNA evidence linking Pinkerton and Hartsfield to the crime scene.

A former co-worker of Roby’s, Dr. William Oliver, a medical examiner and expert in forensic imagery, also testified Tuesday.

Dr. Oliver said he has worked on cases such as Ruby Ridge and has worked for the military in determining through satellite imaging how soldiers have died in war-time conditions.

He testified that Roby asked for his help in the KFC case when she was testing the fingernail. Using his forensic imagery skills, he determined the three pieces of nail matched to create one nail. The nail Roby stated belonged to Mary Tyler.

State District Judge Clay Gossett recessed the jury early Tuesday so he and both the prosecution and defense could travel to Texarkana where they were scheduled to conduct two depositions from out-of-state witnesses via closed-circuit television. The Bowie County Courthouse is not equipped with the technology to hold the depositions in front of the jury. Gossett said the jury would see a video of the testimonies and the prosecution and defenses’ questioning of the witnesses.

Court is scheduled to resume at 8:30 Wednesday morning.

Romeo Pinkerton is charged in the 1983 murders of five people at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore.
(AP file photo)