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00:01:11
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and
00:01:17
with me as always is a man who is waiting like a stalking butler. Here is the captain. Well, if I'm stalking
00:01:24
people, I don't know if it's good to be seen and good to see you, cuz that means
00:01:29
I'm caught. But thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend. Ah, this one is my new summertime
00:01:39
friend. This delicious beer is called No Colonel Sanders, You're Wrong by Trail Point Brewing Company. This is a hazy
00:01:48
IPA with a wave of pineapple, pear, melon, and citrus. ABV, 7.4%. Garage grade four and a half bottle caps
00:01:59
out of five. And here's some cheers to our friends. Thank you for helping us out with this week's show. First up, a
00:02:04
shout out to Marqu and the dude from Casper, Wyoming. >> And a big we like to dip goes out to
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Ratch from Port Arthur, Texas. Here's a cheers to Jessica and Matamoras, Pennsylvania.
00:02:17
>> And a big tall hands in the air goes to Gina from Soma County, California or California.
00:02:24
>> Here's a cheers to Mr. Bestin from Parts Unknown, Colorado. And last, but certainly not least, we have a
00:02:30
triplefisted cheers, which is very hard to do. That goes out to Julie, Monica, and Michaela from Puei, New Mexico.
00:02:39
Everybody we just mentioned went to true crimegar.com, clicked on the pint glass,
00:02:42
and helped us out with this week's beer run for the beer fund. And for that, we thank you.
00:02:46
>> Yeah, BW, are you in? Beer run. If you need more True Crime Garage for your earballs, check us out on Patreon or
00:02:54
Apple Podcast subscription. And Colonel, that's enough of the business. >> All right, everybody, gather around,
00:03:00
grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. [Music] Terry Pequard, president of Fast Stop
00:03:23
Foods and chairman of the Kilgore Chamber of Commerce Retail Merchants Committee, posted a $500 reward for
00:03:30
information leading to the arrest and conviction of the people who killed five people after a robbery.
00:03:38
He had this to say to the Kilgore News Herald. Kilgore has been shocked and horrified by the horrible, senseless,
00:03:46
cruel, terrible, terrible deaths of some of our friends and loved ones. The merciless massacre and slaughter of the
00:03:55
five people at Kentucky Fried Chicken has left our town in the families of Mary Tyler, David Maxwell, Joey Johnson,
00:04:03
Opie Hughes, and Monty Landers terrorstricken, completely deflated and emotionally drained. I am calling the
00:04:12
merchants and citizens of our town to band together and get mad. It's all right and it's normal for us to be sick
00:04:19
right now, but we must absolutely do our part to prevent anything similar from ever striking our town.
00:04:33
[Music] Five bodies, five victims, all taken from the Kilgore KFC the night before
00:04:52
were discovered in a Rusk County oil field about 14 miles south of Kilgore. All had been shot in the back of the
00:04:59
head with a large caliber weapon. Four of the bodies, the men and Mary Tyler were found together, lined up as if they
00:05:07
had been executed one by one. They were laying face down on the ground, side by side with their heads resting on their
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hands in a somewhat relaxed position, although some were found with their hands covering their eyes. It is not too
00:05:24
difficult to imagine the abject terror the last one must have faced once he or she realized the asalants were going
00:05:34
down the line, shooting the victims one after the other. Opie, as we had said in
00:05:41
part one, was found apart from the rest about 20 to 50 yards away. Sources say both distances and in some sources
00:05:50
saying distances between 20 to 50 yards. I've seen reports of 20, 30, 40, 50 yards. It sounds like at minimum it's 20
00:05:59
yards. At maximum probably closer to 50 yards away from the other victims. This was leading authorities to believe that
00:06:06
she found the opportunity to try to escape. She was clutching clumps of dirt and grass in her hand and was still in
00:06:15
her KFC uniform with her name tag on the lapel. All the victims were robbed, their pockets turned inside out, and
00:06:22
each victim had been shot at least once. Reports revealed that the five victims had been shot a total of 11 times.
00:06:30
David, Monty, and Opie were shot twice in the back of the head. Mary was shot in the head and the back, and Joey
00:06:37
suffered gunshot wounds to the head, neck, and lower side. Slugs taken from each victim were sent to ballistics for
00:06:46
analysis. Authorities did not intentionally reveal the type of caliber of weapon at the time, only saying the
00:06:54
victims had been shot with both large and small calibers. Although about $2,000 had been taken from the KFC
00:07:02
restaurant, the nature of the killing suggested overkill and a motive far beyond simple robbery. And that's kind
00:07:10
of where we left things hanging at the end of part one. This is an incredibly complicated case and I think a lot of
00:07:18
this has to do with the complications faced by the time period. It's 1983 and I feel as as much as this investigation
00:07:29
has been criticized over the decades, I personally feel that the investigation was hampered mostly by the lack of
00:07:37
technology to conclusively analyze and give hardcore evidence to the physical evidence that they had at the time.
00:07:48
Evidence that would lead to an arrest and conviction. >> Yeah, I I agree. being in 1983, lack of
00:07:54
technology, but also multiple victims, multiple crime scenes, little to no eyewitness accounts. When we take a look
00:08:03
at this on its surface, and even once you get into the details of this case, it's it's often thought that shares
00:08:14
similarities to some other cases and some that we have covered here in the garage. Some people point out to the
00:08:20
Lane Bryant shooting case. Some point out the yogurt shop case that also took place in Texas. To me, this one most
00:08:29
mirrors the Burger Chef case from Indiana in the greater Indianapolis area. That case to this day is still
00:08:37
unsolved. And the reason why I think this one is very similar, right? Most people say, "Oh, the Browns chicken
00:08:44
massacre from Illinois would be similar." Well, great. They both serve chicken. But here, a big part of this
00:08:52
case and one of the major details here is that the victims were removed from the restaurant. Five victims abducted,
00:08:59
moved, and killed at another location, which is actually the same thing that happened unfortunately at the Burg Chef
00:09:06
case, which still sits unsolved all of these years later. Texas Ranger Stuart Dao
00:09:14
said that at least one of the murder weapons was probably a 38 caliber pistol, but that two guns were used,
00:09:21
implying that there were two, perhaps even three persons, perpetrators involved, three potential murderers.
00:09:28
Here, a piece of broken fingernail was found on the belt loop or waistband. Again, sources vary on that detail. A
00:09:36
victim, Joey Johnson. This is going to play a big role in this investigation and this
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story here. Authorities also agreed that the offenders were likely familiar with
00:09:49
the area, perhaps even somewhat local or lo very local since they appear to be obviously familiar with the winding
00:09:58
rugged roads leading to the remote Royal Oral Field, which of course was the eventual dump site or the kill location
00:10:07
for this particular heinous crime. They theorized, they being law enforcement, that the victims may have even known at
00:10:14
least one of their capttors well and heartbreakingly may have assumed that they would be released after having been
00:10:22
robbed, scared, and roughed up a little. Police felt the relaxed position of the
00:10:27
heads on their hands may have indicated at least some measure of trust. I don't know that. I I I I think that yes, we
00:10:37
can speculate on that and that's all you're left to do when you're law enforcement in this case looking at what
00:10:45
is presented to you. I don't know. I I to me and I guess we said this yesterday. To me, the only reason for
00:10:52
removing these individuals from the location is either one of them identified you or one of the persons
00:10:59
involved in the robbery or you were met with resistance that you did not anticipate. The victims were laid to
00:11:08
rest the following week. We talked about some of the evidence. Let's get into some other findings and maybe some
00:11:15
potential leads here, Captain. So immediately after the discovery of the bodies, searchers on foot and horseback
00:11:22
comb through the murder site at that oil field. They're fanning out for four miles in every direction looking for
00:11:29
clues. All they find was a rag and a shirt, but could not confirm a tie to any of the victims for either of these
00:11:38
items. likely this is probably just debris that one would have found out in this field whether there was a murder
00:11:46
that had taken place or not. As the days wore on, authorities grew frustrated at
00:11:51
the lack of leads in the case when they were at the crime scene. Here's the deal, man. They're they're hoping to
00:11:57
find fingerprints. And I know that sounds like a no duh statement here, but it's
00:12:03
>> you got to factor in that it's 1983. >> Yeah. And the the a fingerprint here is
00:12:10
your DNA essentially, right? What we we would hold that to the same degree as what we would consider DNA evidence to
00:12:18
this day, to current day. A lot of this is you're left with no survivors and no eyewitnesses. So, you are basing the
00:12:27
entirety of your investigation off of physical evidence and what evidence and clues you can find at both of these
00:12:35
scenes. >> In layman's terms, today if you find DNA, you go, "Got him." But back in
00:12:42
1983, you find a fingerprint. Got him. As far as analysis and fingerprints and blood and all that goes with some of the
00:12:50
different information that we've reviewed as the days wore on, the best they could get here is remember we have
00:12:57
that pool of blood that was found inside the restaurant. They did confirm that that blood was human blood. Police
00:13:04
frustrated by the lack of leads in the case called for psychics for their assistance. They even brought physically
00:13:12
brought two psychics out to the oil field to the field where the bodies were found. They were hoping to maybe get
00:13:18
some information, maybe some out of the box thinking or ideas here. They say that that really led to nothing. They
00:13:25
learned nothing new. We know that they were hoping to find fingerprints at the KFC, suspect prints, but the place is
00:13:33
going to be littered with prints, employee prints, customer prints, vendor prints. They're going to be all over the
00:13:39
place. The whole restaurant is one big Where's Waldo? And you're looking for a thumbnailsized piece of barely visible
00:13:46
evidence. >> But we have this blood. Does the blood match one of the victims or is this
00:13:53
blood from one of the killers? >> Well, at the time you're simply going to do blood typing, and what your analysis
00:14:01
will find is that it's type O blood. That's really all they're working with then and there in 1983. But this this
00:14:09
blood is going to play a pivotal role in this case and investigation as it drags
00:14:16
on through the years. And again, we have that van theory to pursue. Remember the
00:14:22
potential that this white van was possibly involved in the robbery abduction homicides. #ban the van. So
00:14:31
early on, one thing that investigators learned was that a white 1981 Ford van had been stolen that Friday night in
00:14:40
nearby Long View, Texas. So, this potentially matches or at least aligns with the description of the van that had
00:14:49
been seen parked at the back of the restaurant. This is going to spark the interest of the detectives for obvious
00:14:55
reasons because police suspected that the five vehic v victims had likely been transported to the field where they met
00:15:02
their fate by a van or maybe a similar large vehicle, large-siz vehicle. However, authorities quickly dismissed
00:15:09
this stolen van as being linked to the actual crime because they learned that the theft happened somewhere between
00:15:16
10:15 and 10:30 p.m., thus ruling it out because it does not allow enough time for the vehicle to make its way from
00:15:24
where it was stolen from to the abduction site. So, you're still looking for a van, just not this one.
00:15:30
Interestingly, yet another van had also reportedly been seen at and near the field where the bodies were discovered.
00:15:39
And I've read a few different reports on this other van that was spotted. Some of
00:15:44
them say white van, some of them say light colored van, and at least one report says that they spotted somebody
00:15:52
had seen a blue van. Forget what color it is. Here's what I find incredibly interesting and probably very helpful to
00:16:00
your investigation. It's a van. A van was spotted at the abduction scene and now you have sources telling you that a
00:16:07
van was spotted regardless of what color at the murder scene. >> Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think because
00:16:13
of the eyewitness, you would lean towards Van, but because the the because of the shell casing and because of the
00:16:20
the different caliber of guns, it's it is possible that, hey, meet me at the KFC and we're going to go rob this place
00:16:28
together and you have more than one vehicle. >> Absolutely. It's also possible that uh
00:16:35
yeah, that that a different type of vehicle was used. I but where I don't move on from is when I have multiple
00:16:41
sources telling me that a that a vehicle very similar in description is spotted at two of the crime scenes. Right. So I
00:16:50
I have three crime scenes. I know what two of those crime scenes are. >> The third one I don't know what it is.
00:16:57
That third crime scene could have been a freaking van for all I know. >> Right. So, the Kilgore police, they set
00:17:02
up a tip line to collect information from people who claim to have information about the robbery or
00:17:07
murders. Officially, Rusk County authorities were assigned to investigate the murders since they occurred in their
00:17:13
county. And then, remember, we have Kilgore Police Department officers were charged with investigating the robbery.
00:17:20
Look, this is how [ __ ] worked back then. And I hate this. It seems so damn dumb.
00:17:27
It's like I I don't get it. It's like, oh, the murders. And this is the other problem. We started off at the top of
00:17:35
show one purposely pointing out that one thing that is unique about this city. Most cities aren't this way, at least
00:17:44
where I live anyway, >> but this city resides in two different counties. A portion of it is in Greg
00:17:52
County, a portion of it is in Russ County. The abductions took place in Greg County. The murders took place in
00:17:58
Rusk County. And here you have Kilgore Police Department responding to the abduction site and robbery at the KFC
00:18:06
because it is city of Kilgore and that's who got the call. But you have the murder scene where the bodies are found
00:18:14
where the victims were unfortunately killed in Rusk County and when that was phoned into law enforcement that call
00:18:22
was received by Rusk County Sheriff's Department. >> Right. So you have investigating
00:18:27
agencies. Now the good of that here, Captain, is you have more people power, more man power, more woman power,
00:18:34
whatever you want to call it. Multiple law enforcement agencies and resources available to investigate what is
00:18:41
ultimately an extension of the same crime, >> right? Double the resources. >> But now you're also hoping that the
00:18:49
communication is seamless. And we've seen in many cases that the communication becomes very
00:18:57
muddy. >> [ __ ] I can tell you from life experience, it's difficult to have uh seamless communication with from one
00:19:04
person to another, let alone agency to agency, outfit to outfit when we're talking about multiple people and what
00:19:12
is a complicated investigation. You know, I used to lead teams of people and in one of the companies I worked for it
00:19:20
there was a lot of growth opportunity. They they were quick to promote people which would come with a raise and a
00:19:25
better title, maybe an an office with a window in it, what have you. What I constantly saw because there was so much
00:19:32
opportunity for growth was people squabbbling over credit over oh, you know, I did this, I did that, I made
00:19:38
this achievement, I made that achievement. And what I used to always remind every one of the people that that
00:19:44
work for me on my teams, I go, "That's nice and good, but keep in mind when you're seeking all the credit, you can
00:19:51
also catch all of the blame." >> Right? >> Again, I think they conducted a pretty
00:19:55
good investigation here. But today, this would have been handled differently. You
00:20:01
would have had multiple agencies working hand in hand. They can say they were working handinand in this case. I can
00:20:08
see things obvious signs where things weren't working so great hand to hand. Well, I think what makes it complicated
00:20:19
in 1983 would have made it easier today because you'd have multiple crime scenes that
00:20:27
you could then process and maybe get touch DNA or actual DNA from the killers because you have more locations to be
00:20:38
able to collect that information from. And I know you probably have a hard time communicating with me, but in my
00:20:44
defense, I have what they call a relaxed brain. >> One thing that is of particular interest
00:20:50
to me here is that we never anywhere hear any mention of tire tracks. I would have that would have been huge at the on
00:21:00
my list. that would have been at the top of my list of priorities. Tire tracks regarding the murder scene because we we
00:21:08
get this great description and all of this hypothesis, right? We get this educated guess and evidence indicators
00:21:18
of well, these victims were made to lie down. This victim, we can see evidence that she was attempting to flee. We can
00:21:29
tell by the way that she fell and what the scene is telling us that she had momentum when she went down. The rest of
00:21:36
them didn't. So if you have indicators telling you that off of the weight of a person, you I would expect to find tire
00:21:46
tracks from the weight of a vehicle and or vehicles that transported seven to eight or more people to this
00:21:56
location. But also, didn't you say that there was footprints found at the KFC >> in flour inside the restaurant?
00:22:04
>> So, does that tell us anything? Does that tell is it one set of footprints? Is it multiple footprints? Is it
00:22:09
footprints from the victims? Or is it footprints from suspects? >> That's going to So, and this is So, this
00:22:16
is where I'm going. Same thought with the tire tracks because if the pumper if if Arthur Warlick who arrives on the
00:22:26
scene just a man out there doing his job on a Saturday morning if he pulls in and
00:22:31
goes over top of those tire tracks especially if it's just a single vehicle that made those tire tracks
00:22:37
and tire tracks would be very important to me as an investigator for forget all the obvious reasons why they would be
00:22:45
important like the there's dozens of reasons why they'd be important. But to me, the number one would be to check
00:22:50
that box. There will be certain tires that will be used on a vehicle of that size that will not be used on vehicles
00:22:57
of other sizes. So, that could confirm if you should be looking for a van or not. But if the pumper drives over top
00:23:04
of those tracks, those are gone. And then when you talk about flower, I mean that if you sneeze, you mess up that
00:23:13
portion of the crime scene, right? that if you open a door, if there's any kind of breeze, it's flour. It's It's not
00:23:19
prints into dirt or mud. It's almost like a plaster caster uh sorry, a plaster cast of those tire tracks. This
00:23:28
is sneeze and and the flowers completely disrupted. So, we have to believe that when Kim arrived shortly after 10:30
00:23:36
p.m. to find the back door open and the flower having been spilled near the back
00:23:42
door of the KFC that that she and then the responding officer very likely completely disrupted the flower evidence
00:23:52
that that might tell you the shoe size of persons that tracked through that flower.
00:24:00
[Music] [Music] All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. Cheers to you, Colonel. Uh, can I just
00:24:25
tell you a little something about me, Colonel, that you might not know? >> Sure. Back in the 70s when I used to go
00:24:32
disco dancing, my nickname was the pumper. >> The plumper. >> I was known to plump and pump on the
00:24:42
dance floor. >> Pump and dump. Shout out to the people in the back. Sorry you had to hear that. Now, look,
00:24:50
I'm I'm thankful that they did get a bunch of other agencies involved. And to let's read through this roster real
00:24:58
quick here before we move on. Captain, >> the who's whos of the crime world. >> Yeah, we already mentioned the Kilgore
00:25:05
Police Department and the Rusk County authorities as well, but we also had Long View who was involved, which which
00:25:13
makes sense. Remember, we have the reported stolen vehicle, stolen van from a dealership in Long View, Texas. We
00:25:20
also have Henderson Police Departments, which Henderson is is quite nearby where
00:25:24
this all went down. Greg County obviously was involved because that's where the abduction and robbery took
00:25:30
place. We have the Texas Attorney General's Office, the Department of Public Safety, Department of Wildlife,
00:25:36
and the Texas Rangers aided in the investigation. Later on, the Tyler Police Department. That's going to
00:25:43
become very obvious very soon why and how they got involved. Plus, you're going to have FBI
00:25:50
with joint efforts in on this as well. And a lot of it has to do with just not only the uh sheer brutality and
00:25:58
heinousness of these crimes, but also the types of crimes committed, robbery, abduction, going across county lines,
00:26:06
things of that nature. Now, less than a week after the murders, the Department of Public Safety asked Texas Ranger
00:26:13
Captain GW Burks to oversee the investigation into the abduction and murders of the five victims. The
00:26:21
coordination between Rusk and Greg County law enforcement officials had it had started to break down quickly,
00:26:28
right? And that's something that I was alluding to earlier when I was talking about my dissatisfaction of divvying up
00:26:36
investigating portions of the overall spectrum of this entire crime and the crimes committed. Burks though went on
00:26:46
record very early on saying that he was confident the case was solvable. A few days later, this is early October, we
00:26:54
get Texas Ranger Glenn Elliott, who interviewed potential eyewitness Star Spao, the
00:27:01
customer who had been at the KFC on the night of the crime. Star reported that while standing in line for her food, she
00:27:07
overheard two of the staff openly discussing the fact that the bank deposit had not been made earlier that
00:27:13
day, leaving $2,000 in cash in the till. She recalled her surprised reaction to overhearing the conversation, adding
00:27:22
that two African-American males, young African-American males, men were in line behind her and also an earshot of this
00:27:32
interesting exchange discussing money inside the restaurant. After interviewing this woman about the men
00:27:40
present at the KFC on the night of the murders, the Rangers reached out to local jurisdictions.
00:27:46
the Smith County Sheriff. This is another city and another county, Smith County at this point. So, the Smith
00:27:55
County Sheriff gets a gets a reach out from the Rangers here on with this bit of information. They soon develop a
00:28:03
lead. This is cousins Darnell Hartzfield and Romeo Pinkerton. So, authorities learned that there was a warrant out for
00:28:12
the arrest of Hartzfeld in connection with a robbery of a Tyler grocery store, Tyler, Texas grocery store. The crime
00:28:20
had occurred just 3 days after the KFC murders, and Tyler was only about 30 miles away from Kilgore. Even today, if
00:28:29
you pop into your map app, your favorite map app, you're going to see depending on route, it's 27 to 33 miles from
00:28:37
Kilgore to Tyler, Texas. >> Right. Wasn't one of these individuals just recently released from prison.
00:28:45
>> Yes, that's how the story goes. Now in this grocery store robbery, thankfully
00:28:51
no one lost their lives, but the crimes were very similar in nature, >> right? >> Both had occurred near closing time or
00:29:01
at closing time. Multiple perpetrators, multiple weapons were used to subdue the
00:29:07
patrons. In both robberies, the register was emptied and the petty cash box cleaned out. But the most chilling
00:29:15
similarity was that before the robbers left the store, the grocery store, they made the women lie on the floor with
00:29:24
their heads on their hands until they had safely gotten away. >> Were they all made to lay in the same
00:29:31
direction? >> That detail, as far as I know, has not been discussed. >> Right. According to an article for the
00:29:39
my imagine I would imagine that unless they were trying to conceal some kind of vehicle, if it was necessary to conceal
00:29:47
some kind of vehicle, you're probably just having them lay wherever they stand. >> Right?
00:29:52
>> If you think about the nature of the oil field murders, you're marching them in
00:29:58
there and you're like, "All right, we've gone far enough. lie down with your put
00:30:03
your put your hands on the ground and lay down. According to an article in the Long View Journal two weeks after the
00:30:09
abduction and homicides, police announced on October 7th that they had developed persons of interest in the
00:30:15
case. They informed the media that they were seeking three, two, three Tyler men
00:30:21
in their 20s for questioning and that one of them was believed to have driven a white van or be driving a white van at
00:30:29
the time. All three of the men wanted for questioning had a history of armed robbery and there was an arrest warrant
00:30:37
out for one of them in relation to the September 26th Tyler convenience store that grocery store robbery that we just
00:30:45
discussed. So they're they're looking for Hartzfeld and Pinkerton for questioning about this grocery store
00:30:55
robbery, but of course they're going to want to question him regarding KFC as well that happened just 3 days prior.
00:31:02
The third man that they're looking for is Elton Winston is his name. I've not been able to confirm this, but I believe
00:31:09
that Winston was a roommate of one of the other individuals. So, keep in mind Hartzfeld and Pinkerton are cousins.
00:31:17
Winston, I believe, is the roommate of one of these individuals. And I've seen several reports that say that the
00:31:26
roommate of one of these individuals owned a white van. So, authorities put together a wanted poster featuring these
00:31:35
characters, announcing that the two, at least Hartzfeld and Pinkerton, were being sought for questioning in
00:31:42
connection with the KFC robbery abduction homicides. Despite their efforts, Hartsfeld was in the wind,
00:31:49
could not be located. They did however catch up with Pinkerton. He, this goes along with what you were saying here,
00:31:57
Captain, seemed to have an airtight alibi for the night of the KFC murders. He said he was in prison on the day of
00:32:05
the crime and had only been released days after the murders. So, he's out in time to,
00:32:13
I guess, potentially be involved in this grocery store robbery. Yeah. I think they even looked into this, too, right?
00:32:18
And and they're like, "Oh, his story checks out. He was in prison." Well, since we're in the second half of the
00:32:25
second episode, I think we can go ahead and burn a bridge and give out a spoiler
00:32:32
alert here. You would hope that they reached out. >> Yeah. >> Because what we would learn here is that
00:32:40
while he says he was in jail or prison and at the time of the KFC murders, look, a couple things happened. either A
00:32:49
nobody checked, B they checked and again there could have been a breakdown in communication information wasn't correct
00:32:59
or C they checked and the information was wrong because what we're going to learn years later is no this was just a
00:33:09
good story that this guy told. Yes, he was in jail. He's a career criminal. He was in jail or prison at one time, but
00:33:20
not on the night of the KFC shootings. But here's where the investigation, I think, gets a little tangled up, right?
00:33:29
Because in addition to that robbery angle, we we know robbery was the motive or at least played a big part in the
00:33:37
motive because the money's all gone. But police were starting to hear these rumors, these local rumors about illegal
00:33:45
drug trafficking as a possible motive for the murder. So the rumors here, as I understand them, captain, are that there
00:33:52
were drugs being sold out of that store, out of the KFC restaurant. The thought was that there was some high-grade
00:34:01
methamphetamine recipe that was being made somewhere. Maybe it was being even made at the store. and that the the
00:34:10
drugs were being sold out of the store and hidden somewhere inside of the restaurant. So, this is going to drive
00:34:16
your investigation. Police then decide we got to round up all these known drug users and
00:34:24
distributors in the area. One of these individuals is a guy named Jimmy Mins Jr. This is a resident of Kilgore,
00:34:33
but he's like this local troublemaker, right? He's got a history of drug distribution. He's got a history of
00:34:40
arrest. So they find this James Earl Makins Jr. and he's questioned by the Texas Rangers regarding his potential
00:34:48
involvement in the KFC robbery and murders. He is the son, however, of Texas State Representative
00:34:56
Jimmy Mins. So Jimmy Min's super great guy, but this apple fell very far from the
00:35:05
tree because his son [ __ ] >> I was just going to say [ __ ] >> Yeah, absolute [ __ ]
00:35:14
>> You took the [ __ ] right out of my mouth. >> But can you figure out if this [ __ ]
00:35:18
is a murderer or not? >> So this dude, he's 30, Junior is 30 years old at the time. As said, he's got
00:35:24
multiple brushes with the law. mostly thanks to his habit of trafficking drugs. And this man, you couldn't the
00:35:34
dominoes, how they fall, right? You start looking at this Mins Jr. guy and here's what you figure out. Let's go
00:35:42
back to jail. You find out he was actually released from jail that Friday, the Friday of the murders. What was he
00:35:49
arrested for? An unlawful weapons charge. But then they figure out not only was he released in time to have
00:35:56
been a part of the robbery and homicides and oh he's a known drug trafficker. So
00:36:01
if drugs were involved and when you 1983 when you're arriving on the scene you got to think something
00:36:09
else is at play. Like you said you were the one that introduced the term overkill to this case and it's spot on
00:36:15
my friend. And so when you're when you're looking at the totality of this case and the crimes committed, you're
00:36:22
going 2,000 2500. This dollar amount, five murders doesn't make any sense. Just doesn't make any
00:36:32
sense. Why the overkill? Why the brutality, the heinousness of this particular crime? And so you're learning
00:36:40
that Min Jr. After you're talking to a bunch of people, you figure out, oh, he's released from prison or jail that
00:36:47
day and he what's one of the first thing he does on that Friday? He borrows a 38
00:36:53
caliber pistol from one of his friends. >> Not good. >> Well, that's the same caliber as one of
00:36:58
the guns used in the KFC shootings. It wouldn't be, Captain, until November 1st that authorities finally track down that
00:37:05
Darnell Hartsfeld. So they track him down and they charge him with the Tyler grocery store robbery. Hartzfeld is
00:37:13
interviewed by the Texas Rangers regarding potential involvement in the KFC murders,
00:37:18
>> right? >> But he passes a polygraph examination. So the investigators chose to move on
00:37:27
and they quit looking at Hartzfeld and now they're back looking at Mins Jr. the drug trafficker. Well, in this, like you
00:37:36
said, this whole area has a problem with drugs and you go the KFC, people working at the KFC would have
00:37:47
something to do with drugs. There's a famous series from 2008 to 2013 called Breaking Bad, and we all should remember
00:37:55
The Chicken Man. I wonder if that's where they they actually got that idea from is is this murder. But now if
00:38:03
you're law enforcement, we have these robberies. They're not that far apart, like you said, 27 to 30 mi away. But if
00:38:11
they're connected, then there's a there's not an escalation in the crimes. There's a deescalation, right? So, I
00:38:18
wonder if that's another thing that played into detective and law enforcement's mind of, well, maybe these
00:38:25
guys are involved in this one crime, but maybe they're not involved in this other
00:38:28
crime because this crime they killed all the eyewitnesses and and this other one
00:38:33
they didn't. >> Well, I think so. There's a lot of reasons I think why they were looking at
00:38:40
one guy over another, and I think this will clear a lot of that up. So remember we talked about it was November 1st that
00:38:47
they finally tracked down Darnell Hartzfeld. I don't have the exact date on when the polygraph examination was
00:38:53
took place or when they came up with the results of that test, but I do know that
00:39:00
6 days later during an interrogation conducted on their other guy that they liked, Jimmy Mins Jr., he con he
00:39:10
consents to a blood test. Remember, they found blood at the KFC. The blood test comes back as type O,
00:39:16
which was the same blood type as the blood found at the KFC restaurant. Also, during questioning, they noticed that
00:39:23
this drug dealer, Menkins Jr., his middle finger on his right hand has a torn fingernail. I get it. It's a month
00:39:32
and two weeks later, but this of course is going to be of interest to your investigation. They take photographs of
00:39:40
his fingers. They in fact take a mold and a cast of the finger that was missing the fingernails or sorry the
00:39:49
fingernail. And authorities found a sliver of a fingernail under that waistband or belt loop of one of the
00:39:56
murder victims. Remember and the prevailing technology of the day. Their thought was that the fingernail
00:40:04
striations that they were as unique as maybe even a fingerprint. >> So that if if so, right, like if if I
00:40:13
ripped off a portion of my fingernail, if it was large enough that they could compare that to fingernail clippings of
00:40:20
mine and confirm if it belonged to me or not. That's the general thought here. And obviously this is something they'd
00:40:29
have to do in 1983 and not something that they would do today. They could simply just do DNA testing. Here's the
00:40:36
other part of this too. Mins consents to the blood test. He also consents to Sure, let's clip a bunch of my
00:40:43
fingernails. You can have those as well. He consents to them taking a mold and cast of his finger that's missing has
00:40:49
the torn nail. >> Right. They again the blood type matches. They say when they analyze this
00:40:58
at the Southwestern Institute, the lab that we already mentioned, they say, "Yes, this is a match. This this broken
00:41:04
fingernail shard that we found on victim Joey Johnson matches Mkins Jr., our suspect." But it was determined that it
00:41:13
wasn't quite enough to charge and convict this dude with the murder. And all the reports out there say that by
00:41:23
Christmas time, all the leads had pretty much dried up in this case. There was not a whole lot that that happened as
00:41:31
far as to advance this investigation throughout the winter, spring, and summer. And when the first anniversary
00:41:36
rolled around in September of 1984, the murderers were still out there. So time is ticking by. There's no new leads or
00:41:43
breaks in the case. >> Yeah. But if you're in law enforcement, you're you're kind of at the point where
00:41:49
you go, "Well, there's no new leads, but we have these guys that we really think
00:41:54
are involved in the crimes. We just can't prove it." Right? I mean, maybe they moved off of them to to hunt down
00:42:04
other leads, but if I'm law enforcement, I'm not taking these guys off my my my murder board.
00:42:10
>> Oh, absolutely not. I mean, you don't go, "Well, there's not enough to convict
00:42:14
the guy, so we we just remove him." This was I thought this was interesting because this sounded more to me like
00:42:24
something I would suspect to find when we were viewing older cases from the 20s, 30s, 40s,
00:42:30
>> right? >> But, you know, you get a whole year that goes by, no justice for these victims,
00:42:35
no justice for their families. Then you have multiple years that go by, no justice for the victims, no justice for
00:42:41
the families. As the 10th anniversary of the killings neared, there was an increased media attention and press
00:42:48
attention regarding the still unsolved case. On the eve, the night before the 10th anniversary, some family members
00:42:57
asked Russ County DA Kyle Freeman to call in the state attorney general's office in attempt to reinvigorate this
00:43:04
stalled investigation. A month later, he compiled inviting the state attorney general's
00:43:12
office to assume responsibility for the case. Now, the the part of this that I would suspect that you would find in a
00:43:19
much older case was the people of Kilgore. The longer that this drug on and I think because of the brutality and
00:43:29
how many victims were involved, they were like openly getting more and more angry. They were
00:43:36
bloodthirsty to find the the perpetrators and punish them. Not just Texas capital punishment style. A lot of
00:43:45
the locals were like, "When we find these guys, we need to bring back a public execution. They should be
00:43:51
beheaded in the middle of town." So, Captain, it was around this 10-year time that we see that we get uh that
00:44:01
fingernail shard found on victim Joey Johnson. That sample is then sent to a new laboratory. This is Jen uh sorry
00:44:10
Jean Screen in Dallas for testing. Meanwhile, we have the Rusk County that convened a grand jury in March of 1995.
00:44:23
So for this grand jury, we have 15 witnesses that were subpoenaed, some of whom claimed that they had no idea why
00:44:29
they were even called to testify. I think they were just freaking desperate by this point. The grand jury comprised
00:44:34
of seven men and five women. Among the witness list were former state representative Jimmy Mins
00:44:43
and his son Jimmy Mkins Jr. And so he this is all going to go back to the blood and that fingernail clipping that
00:44:53
was found on the on the victim. This grand jury session lasted I believe three hours. Man Jr. testified in front
00:45:02
of the grand jury on in April of 95. Details of his testimony are not shared with the public, but two days after he
00:45:11
testified in front of the grand jury, he was indicted on all five counts of capital murder for these homicides. Got
00:45:18
him. >> So, by this time, it had been 11 years, 7 months, and 4 days since the brutal
00:45:24
slangs in Russ County. They set the bail at $2.5 million, $500,000 for each of the five victims.
00:45:33
Texas Attorney General Dan Morales announced that if Mkins Jr. was found guilty of the crimes, his office would
00:45:41
seek the death penalty. His trial was moved from nearby Henderson to Bowmont in July of 1995.
00:45:50
The trial was supposed to start the 24th of July. It was delayed several times. I
00:45:55
think it was delayed several times because I think the prosecution was still trying to build their case.
00:46:00
>> Right. That makes sense. >> So, it actually doesn't start until November of 95.
00:46:07
>> Well, because it's complicated because you have a crime with so many victims and there's evidence that there's not
00:46:16
just one killer. So, I think it'd be hard to put just one killer because basic I mean, am I making any sense?
00:46:25
Because the defense team's going to go, "Yeah, well, you got the wrong guy, and by the way, there's more than one guy."
00:46:30
And we and we know because of the evidence, there's more than one guy. >> Well, think about the time that had
00:46:36
passed. We talked about it been over 11 years between the murders, and now we got somebody who is indicted,
00:46:44
>> right? In this case, I'm I'm thankful that that amount of time took place because technology has advanced and we
00:46:52
have physical evidence that we can test. And what ultimately happens is they determined that that fingernail did not
00:47:01
come from Mins Jr. even though the grand jury said go ahead and charge him and try him for the five murders.
00:47:09
>> Right. So eventually they have to the charges are dismissed. the case is going
00:47:15
to go cold again. Man Jr. does end up going to prison. I believe it was 10 years that he gets,
00:47:22
but this was for something a completely separate crime. This was for a federal drug
00:47:29
charge. >> Well, like you said, he's a [ __ ] bag, so he's eventually going to get caught for
00:47:34
doing something shitty. >> But police and investigators, the FBI, the sheriff's departments, none of them
00:47:40
ever gave up on this case. And we have all kinds of evidence. Again, it's not just the fingernail shard, but we also
00:47:48
have blood evidence that was found at the robbery and abduction scene. These key pieces of evidence. So, you have
00:47:57
blood stain on napkin on a napkin. You also have a box that held cash register tape that contained blood on it. We had
00:48:05
the puddle of blood that was found in the store as well. And we also mentioned that there was a small amount of blood
00:48:12
on some of the file folders that was in the manager's office. It would take until 2001
00:48:19
that they finally turned a major corner on this case when they linked DNA from the blood evidence to Romeo
00:48:31
Pinkerton. >> Old Pinkerton. So, one of your original suspects that you can never really tie
00:48:38
100% to the point of, hey, let's take this guy to court, take him to trial, finally happens all of these years
00:48:46
later. And you don't have to go very far to look for this dude because his ass is
00:48:50
already sitting in prison for a completely other crime. He's he's an inmate of the Texas Department of
00:48:56
Corrections. Well, but I'm guessing law enforcement and prosecutors then threaten the death penalty because
00:49:03
there's five victims. Yeah, this is this is the part of the case that gets really strange for me because he's going
00:49:14
to swear up and down that he's innocent. He's going to face likely face the death
00:49:19
penalty and so then he has a change of heart. remember that it appears they had moved on from him and moved on from
00:49:28
Hartsfeld in part because of a past polygraph. And that's what amazes me that we're 10 years in on this garage
00:49:37
business, this garage thing we're doing here. And we we were talking about don't
00:49:42
move on on polygraph examination results. We were talking about that in the first 15 episodes that we did 10
00:49:51
years ago. This is a similar situation. They they moved on from him for and I think part of that too is not just the
00:49:58
polygraph, but I think they thought they had a better suspect, right, in Manin Jr. And I think the evidence at the time
00:50:05
was suggesting that Minans Jr. was a better suspect. It was just technology needed to catch up to what evidence they
00:50:12
had. >> Also, the narrative that they came up with makes more sense. There's some kind
00:50:17
of drug deal going on. there's some kind of drug operation that that means there's big money involved. Okay. Well,
00:50:25
so what? There's $2,000 missing from the register. But well, how many how many thousands of dollars in drugs are
00:50:34
missing? So, I just think the narrative makes more sense. And and then they're taken out to this o oil field and
00:50:41
they're executed. Like if you're law enforcement on some level, you're going, there's no way somebody's going to do
00:50:48
all this. Not somebody, but somebody's is going to do all this and kill these five people for for what? $1,500,
00:50:57
$2,000. And if you go with that narrative, you go, well, h how many of these people
00:51:03
that worked at the KFC were actually part of this drug operation? So they're not just innocent bystanders that are
00:51:10
being killed. So, I just think the narrative makes a little more sense. >> Yeah. And and to
00:51:18
to clear the deck here a little bit, that drug angle was just wrong. It they were just wrong about that. And I think
00:51:27
that that's where you have the imagination of the civilians in the area going, "But why
00:51:35
would they murder five people? There was hardly any money in the there's only $2,000,
00:51:40
>> right?" And I think, remember, it was local rumor that really started up that
00:51:45
whole idea that there was a big drug angle here. And it's not a far-fetched theory, but I think that that rumor
00:51:54
fueled a some misdirection in the investigation. There was never they were never able to
00:52:02
ever prove any kind of drug angle. The only drug angle that's likely involved here is that your perpetrators of the
00:52:10
robbery, abduction, and homicides were probably drug users. >> Yeah. Or >> and they didn't go there looking for
00:52:18
drugs. They went there looking for money and they found it. And if they were in fact one of the individuals or both the
00:52:25
individuals that were standing in line, they heard that there was a bunch of money there.
00:52:28
>> Well, I think the only drugs that were at that KFC were in the Colonel's secret
00:52:32
recipe. Pinkerton, even though he swore up and down that he was innocent, maintained his innocence even after he
00:52:39
plead guilty to the crimes, >> right? And you can say all day and night that he was innocent. His blood was
00:52:45
found at the abduction scene. Now, his believed co-conspirator, Darnell Hartzfeld, he too claims he's innocent.
00:52:56
>> [ __ ] number two. >> There are prisons filled with innocent people. filled and filled with all these
00:53:02
every nobody's done anything. They get in 2003, they get a new grand jury to um indict Darnell Hartzfeld,
00:53:11
>> but they have no physical evidence against him, right? >> His blood and DNA was found at the
00:53:18
abduction scene as well. So, his DNA evidence from a spot of blood on the cashier's tape box put him at the KFC on
00:53:26
the night of the murders. He was already facing other charges. He had been arrested, previously arrested in Tyler,
00:53:34
Texas. He was facing charges for burglarizing a Griffin elementary school as well as evading arrest in uh in in
00:53:43
some case. So, he continued to be a [ __ ] after the KFC murders. And blood and DNA evidence put both of these guys
00:53:53
at the scene at the time of the abductions. I again I think that their blood being found at the scene is also
00:54:00
indicative that they were faced with resistance that they didn't expect to find.
00:54:04
>> Yeah. Somebody messed them up. >> Yes, they were messed up and they decided we're going to retaliate and I
00:54:10
if if it were me there and I'm met with any kind of resistance probably using one of the female victims
00:54:19
to try to control and move the herd, >> if you want to call it that. >> Yeah. But good for somebody uh trying to
00:54:27
stop this attack for trying to do something because if they didn't get attacked, if they didn't leave their
00:54:33
blood there, this this crime might never be solved because as time passed, a lot
00:54:39
of this evidence would have just been lost or you could argue it's contaminated and and these tests
00:54:45
wouldn't matter. So, they lock him up on this aggravated perjury charge. He's found guilty of aggravated perjury. This
00:54:52
is in 2005. He's not actually going to face trial for the actual murders until 2008.
00:55:00
And th this is the interesting spin and angle to this this bizarre story because what you have
00:55:10
here is DNA evidence tells us that these guys were both present at the abduction
00:55:14
and robbery, but neither of them are willing to admit that they had done it. Even though even though one plead
00:55:19
guilty, the one that plead guilty refused to. He didn't he wouldn't testify and he didn't tell anybody what
00:55:24
what had happened. He wouldn't even point the finger at his co-conspirator or his cousin.
00:55:29
>> Right. One thing that we would learn, this was like a big mystery that in in kind of a bomb drop was in 2002
00:55:38
they're reviewing they're using a black light to go over the physical evidence that was found at the at the scene and
00:55:45
the victim's clothing. And when they do this with one of the female victims, they find semen
00:55:52
and they test this the semen that was found on her clothing and they determined that she very likely was
00:56:00
raped before being killed. And the DNA from that does not match Pinkerton or Hartsfell. So, you have two guys that
00:56:10
won't talk, two guys that are sent away to prison, >> two guys claiming they're innocent,
00:56:18
>> and a third guy that you have no idea who he is. I'm hoping, look, we're sitting here in 2025,
00:56:25
and I'm hoping that they're going to use genealogy work on on this to figure out
00:56:31
who it is. I do know that >> they ran it through Cotus, right? And there was no match.
00:56:36
>> That's correct. And so my suspicion here is, and good for the state of Texas because they actually
00:56:42
started collecting convicted felons DNA uh well before a lot of other states. I think they started in 1996
00:56:53
and then it was in the early as mids that they actually started using DNA in Totus to go back and clear some of these
00:57:03
old cases. What you could have here though is 83 to 96. You could have that the third perpetrator who's never been
00:57:12
named. He may have died before any of that happened. >> Yeah, this case has many names mostly
00:57:19
called Kentucky Fried Chicken murders or KFC murders. But what a bizarre case. Yeah, both of the cousins,
00:57:30
one plead guilty, the other was found guilty. The prosecutors chose not to seek the
00:57:37
death penalty. Both Pinkerton and Hartzfeld received five automatic life sentences in prison.
00:57:46
Darnell Hartzfeld has faced and been denied multiple parole reviews since his conviction in 2008.
00:57:54
In 2022, with his next parole hearing on the horizon for January of 23, fate stepped in
00:58:05
and he passed away. So he was 61 years old. He suffered a massive stroke in his cell
00:58:13
while being incarcerated for these crimes. So he died at the French Albertson unit in Abalene, Texas. So, he
00:58:24
finally got the death sentence that he he probably deserved here. And as far as Pinkerton goes, he is still around and
00:58:31
his next chance at parole is scheduled for July of 2029. If there was a third person involved,
00:58:42
that man has never been held accountable for these unspeakable crimes. Want to thank everybody for joining us
00:59:01
here in the garage each and every week. Thanks for telling your mother. Thanks for telling your brother. Colonel, do we
00:59:06
have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners? >> Yes, of course. Thank you, Captain. This
00:59:11
week we are recommending The KFC murders, the deadly saga of the infamous East Texas 1983 KFC massacre by Jackie
00:59:19
Hillbornne Simmons and Kenneth Dean. I would also recommend the Cold Case Files with Bill Curtis episode, the old Cold
00:59:29
Case Files episode featuring Bill Curtis on this particular case. It's titled Friday Night Ghost. I think it's one of
00:59:37
the better cold case file episodes that in existence. Check that out. But also check out the book, The KFC Murders, a
00:59:45
news account. You can find that title and many more on our website's recommended page, true crimegar.com.
00:59:53
And >> until next week, >> be good, be kind, don't live. Heat. Heat. [Music]