East Texas

By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer

NEW BOSTON - Testimony in the capital murder trial of Romeo Pinkerton ended abruptly Friday when State District Judge Clay Gossett recessed the proceedings until Tuesday.

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

No reason was given for the recess and prosecutors were tight-lipped, saying they could not discuss the case due to a standing gag order. However, family members of the murder victims were escorted into a courtroom by prosecutors where they remained for almost an hour.

During testimony Friday, a Texas attorney general investigator told jurors that over the past five years she has submitted about 161 samples to be DNA tested.

Missy Wolfe told state prosecutors she became concerned when she did not find Opie Hughes' underwear, and the knowledge of Ms. Hughes being found away from the other victims bothered her.

"I spent a lot of time looking without jumping to conclusions," she said in regard to the underwear.

Ms. Wolfe said she took the brown uniform pants to the Tyler Police Department, where they used a laser to view the pants and found a large stain in the crotch area of the pants. Ms. Wolfe said she took the pants to the DPS Forensic Lab in Garland the next day, where a test proved the stain was semen, but that DNA has not matched any known person.

The DNA profile from the semen stain is in the state and national CODIS (Combined DNA Indexing Systems), but there have been no hits.

She said most of the people did not know that she had collected samples for testing from them.

Wolfe testified that she took discarded envelopes, cups, gum and other items to be tested at the DPS lab.

One individual told Ms. Wolfe no when she requested a sample by mailing her a letter, which he sealed by licking it himself.

Ronald Null said he has been incarcerated in federal prison for facilitating a cell phone in the commission of a felony, and is being held in the Seagoville Unit. But he testified it was while he was in the Smith County Jail recently when he met Romeo Pinkerton.

Null said that while spending time in a holding cell, he read over Pinkerton's case file including the part about a bloody napkin. Pinkerton asked Null if he thought that DNA could still be found on the napkin.

"Trying to keep it light," I told him, "Look you're not O.J., so if that's your blood, then it will still be there," he said. "I told him if he could put himself hundreds of miles away from there, that's what he should do."

Null told assistant state prosecutor Laura Popps that Pinkerton told him that he was not stuck in the Houston area at the time of the murders, but was in Tyler. Null said Pinkerton told him he had told authorities he was in Houston because of bad weather, but confided in Null he was actually in Tyler.

Defense attorney David Griffith, on the cross-examination, asked if it was true Pinkerton never told him that he did anything with the KFC case, but that he felt that he was being brought into the case, because he and his cousin Hartsfield ran around together.

Null said that was correct.

Griffith asked, "Didn't he tell you that the robbery was his cousin's style and not his, and that he didn't like confrontation, right?

Null answered, "That's what he said."

Griffith asked, "Not at any time did he tell you anything about being there (at the restaurant) did he?"

Null replied, "That's right."

Null told Popps that he didn't receive any deal for his testimony.

"I'm getting out in May anyway. I have done my time."

After a brief recess for the two teams to listen to Null's taped testimony, Null testified under direct questioning Pinkerton had told Null he had participated in other robberies with his cousin.

Testimony is scheduled to begin Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. in the Bowie County Courthouse in New Boston.