East Texas

By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer

BRYAN -- A longtime investigator testified Wednesday he believed the victims of the KFC murders of September 1983 were marched down an oil field road to the location where they were executed.

Rusk County District Attorney William Brown told jurors in the capital murder trial of Darnell Hartsfield that he was at the scene and worked the scene from midmorning the day the bodies were found until late afternoon when evidence was taken to the Rusk County Jail.

Hartsfield is accused in the slayings of David Maxwell, 20; Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey Johnson, 20; and Monte Landers, 19. All but Landers worked at the restaurant. The restaurant was about 25 miles east of Tyler and 115 miles east of Dallas. Landers was a friend of Maxwell and Johnson, and was visiting them as the restaurant was closing for the night.

Romeo Pinkerton, Hartsfield's cousin, is serving five life sentences after he pleaded guilty to avoid a possible death sentence during his trial last fall. Hartsfield is not facing a death sentence after the prosecution removed it as a possible punishment upon conviction.

Brown said he was called by Rusk County Sheriff's dispatch to respond to a report of multiple bodies found at a location in Rusk County on Walker King Road.

Brown said that, when he arrived, he did not know about the five people missing from the KFC in Kilgore, but officers were soon able to piece together that they had found the five missing people.

"Are you aware of any fingerprints that connect Darnell Hartsfield to the oil field scene?" Tyler attorney and co-defense counsel Thad Davidson asked,

"No I am not aware of any fingerprints," Brown said.

"Are you aware of any blood belonging to Hartsfield at the oil field scene?" Davidson asked.

"No I am not," Brown said.

On a redirect, Texas Attorney General prosecutor Lisa Tanner asked Brown if anyone's fingerprints, DNA or blood other than the victims were found at he murder scene, and the investigator said there was not.

Former Kilgore police officer Wayne Reynolds testified he was the first officer to respond to the KFC the night Kim Miller called police about the disappearance of her mother Mary Tyler and the others from the restaurant.

Lead defense counsel Don Killingsworth asked Reynolds if he saw a box lid in the restaurant and the former officer said he did not, but added that his main purpose was to search the building for possible crime victims or suspects who could still be in the building. He added that he did not gather any evidence nor did he take any photographs.

Leann Killingsworth, the former KFC manager in Kilgore, said when she received the phone call after 11 p.m. that "something wasn't right at the restaurant" she had a bad feeling. An emotional Ms. Killingsworth (not related to counsel) told jurors she knew when she saw the conditions at KFC that her worst fears were growing stronger.

She testified several money bags were missing, along with the day's receipts. Looking at the time cards from the restaurant for the employees it showed Mary Tyler did not have time to finish her work, because the time cards showed the employees never clocked out.

Ms. Killingsworth said she learned about the deaths from her cousin, who was an officer, while she was at KFC the next day.

Crying, she testified that she went to Dallas to identify the bodies of the victims and she did so because she wanted to do it for the families.

"It was just something I had to do," she said. Tanner finished for the day with the witness by beginning to talk about a box that held cash register tape in the restaurant that allegedly had Hartsfield's blood on it.

Testimony is scheduled to resume at 8:30 a.m. today.

BRYAN – The defense team of Darnell Hartsfield began its questioning this morning of the former manager of a Kilgore eatery where the abduction of five people in 1983 occurred.

The team’s focus is a box that was allegedly in the restaurant — a box that prosecutors and even the defense say has Hartsfield’s blood on it. However, the sides disagree whether it proves Hartsfield was at a crime scene.

Hartsfield is on trial for the murders of the five people abducted from the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kilgore. The victims’ bodies were found the following day by an oil field worker in rural Rusk County. The case remained unsolved until DNA testing showed there was blood from two different men at the restaurant. Two cousins from Tyler became suspects. One has been convicted of the five murders. He entered five guilty pleas last October.

“You are not saying the box you were shown some 20 years later was the box in the KFC that night?” Defense attorney Thad Davidson asked Leann Killingsworth.

“No, I can’t possibly say that,” she answered.

Davidson then produced a box, not the one in evidence, and began questioning Ms. Killingsworth.

Davidson, who is representing Hartsfield with Tyler attorney Don Killingsworth (not related to the witness), talked about stains on the box and if Ms. Killingsworth remembered if there was a cash register receipt box in the spot prosecutors claim the night of the murders.

“No I cannot say there was a box there that night. It is where a box was typically kept,” Ms. Killingsworth answered.

Davidson continued asking Ms. Killingsworth if she saw the box in the restaurant.

“I just testified that I did not focus on that location,” she said.

Ms. Killingsworth testified that a pool of blood found behind the counter next to the wall did grab her attention the night of the murders, and the box would have typically been about five feet away under the counter.

“When I saw the blood, I don’t think I saw anything else. When I got there I knew things weren’t right, but when I saw (the blood) I lost all hope. It was a turning point,” she said when asked if she noticed anything besides the blood.

The last meal at the restaurant the night of the murders was sold at 9:57 and was a two piece snack meal, all-white meat.

Asked if Kim Miller was a suspect in the theft of petty cash, Ms. Killingsworth said Miller was not a suspect because the theft had been occurring over a period of time before she returned to work.

Davidson asked what Mary Tyler had talked to Ms. Killingsworth about concerning Tyler’s daughter Kim.

“It was mostly about the people she was running with that gave Mary cause for concern,” she said.

Davidson asked if Ms. Killingsworth knew Jimmy Earl Mankins Jr., and she said she did know him and that he had a bad reputation.

When asked if Mankins was one of the people Kim was running with, Ms. Killingsworth said she believed Mankins was way out of her league.

Mankins was charged with the murders in the 1990s after some with the investigation focused on a torn fingernail found on one of the bodies. Later Mankins was cleared and his record expunged after the nail was determined not to be his.

Tanner then called former Kilgore Police Department and the Rusk County Sheriff-elect Danny Pirtle to the stand.

Pirtle is set to take office as sheriff of Rusk County in January. He beat incumbent Sheriff Glen Deason and is running unopposed in November.

Pirtle, who was a detective with Kilgore Police Department, said he arrived at the KFC restaurant the night of the murders and noticed the front door was locked so he made his way around to the back door.

As he entered he noticed there were six peace officers in the restaurant and he noticed they were looking around in the kitchen area so Pirtle said he made his way to the front door to look at the front of the building.

Pirtle said he immediately noticed a large pool of blood and an indention in the wall. This was something he considered significant.

Pirtle said the night of the murders no one from the department was put in charge and assigned to the case until three weeks later when his superiors put him in charge.

He also testified that Kilgore Police did not have a crime scene unit during the time period and blood was not considered real important because all blood could show was a blood type.

Pirtle said Texas Ranger Glenn Elliott worked the KFC restaurant scene the next morning until they were called to respond to a scene where the five bodies were found.

Pirtle talked about all of the roles of film he had taken of both crime scenes and how a policy from his superiors to use the Kilgore Fire Department for processing.

“The film did not develop. Nine out of 10 rolls,” he said when asked.

Pirtle said he did not know the film had any problems until the scene had been released three days later.

Pirtle said several days later that he went with Ms. Killingsworth and another person to make the identifications of the victims.

Pirtle said he did not see the napkin or box in the restaurant and did not collect either one of the items.

He said he did not learn of the existence of the two items for about three weeks.

On redirect Tanner asked about the box and testimony Ms. Killingsworth gave before saying she would have noticed the box not being under the counter.

Tanner then produced photos of the bodies at the scene, asking Pirtle if any of the victims tried to get up.

Killingsworth objected, saying the witness would only be speculating to answer and Judge Clay Gossett sustained the objection.

As Pirtle described how the bodies were found the victims families listened. Several members of Opie Hughes' family left the courtroom and two others comforted each other.

There is no KFC evidence log because the log was lost years ago, but Pirtle said there is a Kilgore evidence log that was retained.

In the Kilgore log, there is no mention of the napkin or the box that the department worked on in any other case during a time period one year before the KFC murders to two months after KFC.

Tanner then showed Pirtle a Department of Public Safety submission form that he filled out and delivered to the Tyler DPS lab.

Tanner showed Pirtle a section of wood paneling that Pirtle and Glenn Elliott cut out of the wall in the KFC where they believed someone’s head may have hit the wall during the abductions.

Pirtle testified the case against Mankins was that of the FBI and the Texas Rangers, and he was not involved.

After a lunch recess, Tanner began questioning Pirtle again about the counter and if he ever looked behind the counter at the KFC and he said he had not.

On the cross-examination, Pirtle told Killingsworth he never saw a bloody napkin on the kitchen floor, he did not look under the cash register and he did not see a blood-covered box while he was in the restaurant.

"When did you become aware of the fingernail found at the autopsy?” Killingsworth asked Pirtle.

“About a week or so (later) I guess,” he said.

Pirtle testified again that he did not know about the box or napkin until three or four days after the murders.

Those close to the case have said the agencies involved at the time of the murders did not share information with each other, causing serious problems with the investigation.

Killingsworth asked when the special KFC evidence log came up missing.

“Sometime after I left in 1991,” Pirtle said.

"No personal knowledge, no,” Pirtle answered if he had knowledge of Hartsfield murdering anyone.

Lynetta Ashley, former KFC employee, told jurors on the night of the murders she had worked the front counter and her mother picked her up shortly after 10 p.m.

Tanner asked the witness if she had ever been called "Lucky Lynetta" because she left moments before the five were abducted.

“Yes I have,” Ashley said.

She said she was called by police to see if she was at home. That was her first indication something was wrong.

As she looked at photos, Ashley said the counter was not how she had left it the night of the murders, because it would have made the managers mad.

Tanner then asked Ashley if there would have been a cash register tape box under the counter. She testified there would be because it was something they would need in the course of a shift.

Davidson began cross-examining Ashley by asking if she could state without a doubt that a box was in the space under the counter on the night of the murders.

“There should have been. There was no reason to remove the box, but that was years ago, so I would have to say no,” she answered.

Davidson asked if she remembered any black men being in the KFC the night of the murders.

“I don’t remember, but I am not going to say there wasn’t,” Ashley said.

Tanner asked if there should have been a box in the spot under the counter, and Ashley said there should have been.

Tanner asked if it was Ashley’s responsibility to replace supplies such as cash register tape if needed, and she answered yes.

Ashley also testified that she did not notice any stain on the floor or counter, and if she had, it would have been cleaned before she left for the night.

Davidson asked Ashley if she saw any other vehicles in the parking lot when she left that evening.

“No I did not,” she replied.

HARTSFIELD TRIAL: Rusk County District Attorney Michael Jimerson, Tyler attorney and co-defense counsel Thad Davidson and Attorney General Prosecutor Lisa Tanner confer during media day in the Darnell Hartsfield trial.
(Staff File Photo By Jaime R. Carrero)