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>> The McDonald's snack wrap is back. You brought it back. Ranch snack wrap. Spicy
00:00:36
snack wrap. You broke the internet for a snack. Snack wrap is back. Bottom of [Music]
00:01:04
heat. [Music] Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks
00:01:29
for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is a man who is a carbon copy of nobody. He's an original,
00:01:35
ladies and gentlemen. Here is the captain. I am the original douche canoe. It's good to be seen and good to see
00:01:41
you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. This week we are drinking No, Colonel
00:01:50
Sanders, You're Wrong by Trail Point Brewing Company. This is a New England style hazy pale ale rounded out quite
00:01:58
nicely with some hints of fruit. ABV 7.4% Garage Grade 4 and a half bottle caps out of five. Let's give some thanks,
00:02:07
some praise, some cheers to our good friends for helping us fill up the old garage fridge for this week's set of
00:02:14
shows. First up, a big shout out to new friend of the show, Ronald E and Kilgore. And a big we like to chip goes
00:02:21
out to Kristen from St. Mary's County, Maryland. Next up, here's a double fisted cheers to Jenny and Trisha from
00:02:29
Independence, Kentucky. >> Yeah, Jenny from the block. And a big tall talk can hands in the air to
00:02:34
Marissa from Long Island, New York. And last, but certainly not least, we have a
00:02:39
shout out to Catherine Elmore in Quincy, Illinois. Everyone we just mentioned went to trimegar.com
00:02:47
clicked on the pint glass and helped us out with this week's beer fund. And for that, we thank you. Yeah. BW
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beer run. Make sure you go to true crimegar.com. Sign up on the mailing list and we'll
00:03:01
love you forever. Forever. Forever. Ever. And Colonel, that's enough of the business. All right,
00:03:09
everybody. Gather around. Grab a chair. Grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
00:03:15
[Music] [Music] There is a long and disturbing history of homicides occurring at casual dining
00:03:36
and fast food restaurants in the latter half of the 20th century. We can make some pretty good assumptions as to the
00:03:44
reasons why. With the rise and explosive growth of fast food chains in the midentth century, more than blood
00:03:52
pressure and waistlines were expanding. Thanks to the likes of McDonald's, Burger Chef, Taco Bell, and Kentucky
00:03:59
Fried Chicken, fast food became an accessible, appealing option in the 1970s and 80s, especially for busy
00:04:07
working parents who just wanted to feed their hungry families quickly, easily, and on the cheap. As more and more fast
00:04:15
food alternatives began popping up near hightra areas, on highways, near schools
00:04:20
and shopping centers, the likelihood of crime amplified exponentially due to extended hours, cash heavy
00:04:29
operations, and minimal staffing during late shifts. These businesses became attractive targets for robberies.
00:04:37
The danger increased with the advent of 24-hour service and the very nature of fast food jobs, typically performed by
00:04:45
young or even teenage workers, often exposing employees to a greater risk of workplace violence. Typically situated
00:04:54
just off of an interstate, a busy state road, or a highway, these businesses featured a built-in
00:05:00
getaway route for a would-be criminal to take advantage. A fast food restaurant is the very
00:05:07
definition of a crime of opportunity. This is True Crime Garage. [Music] This week we are going back in time to
00:05:34
1983 and to the east Texas town of Kilgore. Kilgore is one of those cities that is divided by two counties. Kilgore
00:05:43
is located in southern Greg County and extends south into Rusk County where over 34s of the city are located in Greg
00:05:53
County. The remainder is in Rusk County. Now, back in 1983, the population is only about 2,000 or so folks, fewer than
00:06:00
it is today. Back then, Kilgore was over 11,000 good, hardworking Texans. And then, of course, like every other city
00:06:08
that's out there, we got a few bad ones. Some other cities in the area that listeners outside of the great state of
00:06:15
Texas may have heard of before or may not have heard of before. Maybe you've visited these places before would be
00:06:22
Tyler and Long View. These will be cities that are mentioned in today's true crime story. In fact, Kilgore is
00:06:29
wedged pretty much right between the two cities of Tyler, Texas and Long View, Texas. Kilgore is just a little over a
00:06:38
hundred miles east of Dallas and is actually closer to Shrivefeport, Louisiana rather than the great big D of
00:06:47
Dallas. Kilgore to Tyler, Texas is 27 to 33 miles depending on the route and Tyler is west of Kilgore. Now Kilgore
00:06:58
captain is primarily known as an oil town. This is a generally wholesome area, familyoriented city where football
00:07:07
reigns supreme as it does in most Texas communities. From September to late November or even into December, should
00:07:16
you be lucky enough to make it to the playoffs, the entire town virtually lives for Friday night. It's the biggest
00:07:24
night of the week with everyone making sure that their schedules are set as so that they do not miss a kickoff. You've
00:07:32
all seen it on TV and it is real, my friends. It's cheering on the whole team. Maybe your kids play for the team.
00:07:40
Maybe it's your alma mater. It's Friday Night Lights. Texas forever. Now, let's hone in on one particular Friday in late
00:07:50
September. It's a mild, pleasant early fall evening. This is September 23rd, 1983
00:08:00
with temperatures a steady mid60s for the bulk of this evening. Perfect football weather in Kilgore. We have a
00:08:07
bunch of restaurants, but the one that we are concerned with for this week's true crime story is located at 800 US
00:08:15
259, US Highway 259. It's the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. >> Fingerlicking good.
00:08:22
>> Fingerlicking good. Now, we can assume that it would have been humming with activity on this night and leading up to
00:08:29
this night as residents with little time or patience to cook before the big high
00:08:35
school game would come in in droves. The franchise would have been virtually bursting with patrons grabbing a quick
00:08:42
bite before making their way to the local high school football stadium to show their hometown pride. Restaurant
00:08:48
employees who normally followed standard processes may have been too busy during
00:08:54
the hectic dinner hour to stick to their regular routines. Such was the case on this bustling Friday night when the
00:09:03
afternoon deposit remained neglected. So, cash on hand, still present at the restaurant long after it should have
00:09:12
been dropped off at the bank on that day. At about 900 p.m., we have a young woman, her name is Star Spagano, and her
00:09:22
boyfriend. They enter the Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant. She says before entering, as she would later recall,
00:09:29
that she noticed a white van parked near the dumpster at the rear of the building. And she made note of this
00:09:37
because she thought it was a little strange as there were no parking spaces in the back of that lot. Everybody, all
00:09:44
the spots were marked to the side in the front portion of this lot. She quickly dismissed the thought, however, and now
00:09:53
she's inside and her attention diverted to the menu on the wall. What am I going
00:09:58
to order? But while waiting in line to order, Star overheard a conversation which some sources indicate as a
00:10:06
telephone conversation. Others indicate that it was from personnel to personnel.
00:10:12
The information we have here, Captain states that the conversation was between KFC employee Kim Miller and her mother
00:10:21
Mary Tyler, the assistant manager. So, within an earshot, Kim told her mother that the afternoon deposit still hadn't
00:10:29
been made, and there was now over $2,000 in the register. a little shocked of course at how freely mother and daughter
00:10:37
were discussing the fact that there was a large sum of money on the premises. Star Spagano also noticed that there
00:10:42
were two young men standing behind her in line and she says that there was indication to her that those two men
00:10:51
appear to have also heard or overheard this conversation. Well, and if this conversation happened once and like you
00:10:58
said so freely, you wonder if this conversation has took place many of times at the restaurant or outside of
00:11:06
the restaurant. In regard to the different reports as they stand today over 40 years later, my thought here is
00:11:15
that there's potential that the assistant manager Mary Tyler may have been on the phone with somebody else and
00:11:23
that this is being communicated to her by her daughter Kim Miller and she's relaying it on the phone. So therefore,
00:11:29
that might explain why we have varying accounts of the conversation. Was it from one employee to another in front of
00:11:37
customers or from one employee to somebody on the phone that was heard by the customers? So, let's talk about who
00:11:44
was at the restaurant that night and specifically who was working there that evening. So, we have co-workers Mary
00:11:51
Tyler, who we've already mentioned. We also have Joey Johnson and we have Opie Hughes. They were busy working their
00:11:59
shifts on this Friday football night. So, three employees working. Later in the evening, we have David Maxwell. So,
00:12:08
he actually works at the Kilgore KFC, but he's technically off that night. >> He's just doing the old drop by.
00:12:17
>> Yeah. So, he goes into the restaurant because he's going to give his friend Joey a lift home on a motorcycle that
00:12:26
he, David, had borrowed from Joey's roommate. The roommate's name is Mike Wolf. A friend of Joey's and Davids, his
00:12:33
name is Monty Landers, was also at the restaurant. Now, all three of these young men were students at the local
00:12:40
university, Kilgore College. David and Joey were active members of a fraternity, and Monty was pledging that
00:12:47
fall. The KFC closed that night, like most nights, at 1000 p.m. Assistant manager Mary Tyler's 16-year-old
00:12:56
daughter, Kim, had gone home earlier that night. So, remember we mentioned Kim as that story of Star Spagano
00:13:05
saying, "I overheard one of the employees telling another employee about a deposit that was not made and that
00:13:12
they had over $2,000 in the register." >> Right? >> Anybody that's worked at restaurants
00:13:17
knows how this typically plays out. Usually, the last hour or two of business is much slower than the earlier
00:13:26
business hours. And so you start to, where I come from, we called it cut. You started to cut people and send them
00:13:34
home. You only need a couple of people typically to close up shop for the night. So while Kim was there earlier
00:13:43
that night, she's not there to close. Well, I thought it was a little surprising since it's 1983
00:13:51
that this KFC was open all the way till 1000 p.m., especially with a a town with
00:13:57
such a small population. But you wonder if they're trying to get some business from people leaving the football game.
00:14:05
>> Yeah, I was actually surprised that they weren't open till later because of what
00:14:10
you just said with the football game. I remember attending a lot of high school football games even as an adult and
00:14:15
typically you wouldn't get out of there till about 10:30 or so, >> right? >> But it's also one of those things like
00:14:21
how much are you going to tax and stress your business to hope to catch some people between the minutes of 10:30 and
00:14:30
11, right? Like 11 would be a reasonable time to close. But yeah, you're right. Today I feel like typically on a Friday
00:14:36
night we have restaurants staying open much later than that. Well, heck, we went through that time period before CO
00:14:43
where McDonald's and so many other fast food chains were open 24/7. >> Yeah, and you're right. With only 11,000
00:14:50
people in the population there, 10 p.m.'s probably a very appropriate time to close, especially on a Friday night.
00:14:56
So, Kim, when her mother failed to return home, she decides she's going to go back to the restaurant and check on
00:15:04
her. This is around 10:30 p.m. So, real quick here, this is a blended family. Mary Tyler is on her second marriage and
00:15:13
it's actually Kim's stepfather that's like, "Hey, where's mom?" And Kim's like, "I don't know. She should she
00:15:21
should probably be home by now." And that's what prompts Kim to decide to go back to the restaurant to check and see
00:15:28
what's going on. Because typically Mary, who's the assistant manager, she would arrive home shortly after closing. It
00:15:35
was past that time that she would typically arrive home. >> Yeah, that's one of my questions in this
00:15:41
case. When you're in banking, we'd close and sometimes it would take us 10 minutes to settle up and and clean
00:15:48
everything up and get ready for the next day and we're out of there. And then other times it'd be 40ome minutes, maybe
00:15:55
an hour after we close. So, I was kind of curious of what the standard procedure was there. I loved working in
00:16:03
restaurants and when I did it in high school and after high school and different capacities and I loved the
00:16:12
hustle and bustle of it. I loved leaving with cash in my pocket at the end of the
00:16:16
night. But the the one part I did not like was when friends or a girlfriend or somebody be like, "Hey, what time you're
00:16:23
getting off?" You're like, "Yeah, I don't know." There's >> What do you mean you don't know? Well,
00:16:27
people that have never worked at a restaurant, they they don't understand that concept because you typically work
00:16:33
from this hour to that hour every other job. No, it's you're there as you are needed. And and let's say like here the
00:16:41
restaurant closes at 10:00. Well, you just like you said with the bank, if they got nobody coming in, you start
00:16:49
doing all your closing duties when there's nobody there, right? If you're worth your salt, if you're busy, you're
00:16:56
taking customers and filling orders up until the very last minute, and you can't start closing until you lock the
00:17:01
front door. You never really know what time you're going to get out of there. And a lot of it's just simply based off
00:17:06
of how busy you are that day or the hour before closing. >> Yeah. Something I shouldn't feel bad
00:17:13
about, but I do feel bad is let's say um a coffee shop is closing at 10:00 and I
00:17:20
show up and it's 9:30 and they're mopping the floors and doing all their their stuff trying to get ready to close
00:17:28
early. I always feel bad for some reason. I know I shouldn't cuz I'm like I'm not I'm not causing any extra work
00:17:35
and you're open till 10:00. I I should feel okay, but I feel bad every time that they're they're mopping and
00:17:41
cleaning up the store. So, now we have Kim back at the scene, and she says that she finds the front door locked, as
00:17:49
would should be expected. I mean, the restaurant closed 30 minutes prior to this. So, we're now at 10:30 p.m.
00:17:57
roughly, >> right? But she says she finds the back door wide open. This threw her off. She
00:18:03
cautiously steps into an empty restaurant. She doesn't know that it's going to be empty, but finds it empty.
00:18:10
And her trepidation increased greatly when she found a puddle of blood approximately 9 in in diameter on the
00:18:17
floor of the kitchen. >> Not good, >> right? And she also noticed that the money was missing from the register.
00:18:25
Now, she's not panicking at this point. She's quite concerned, but she says that for whatever reason,
00:18:33
her gut was telling her to drive to the nearby hospital. This is Lear Memorial Hospital.
00:18:41
Her thought was maybe somebody had gotten injured and that her mom probably went with the injured employee to the
00:18:49
hospital. >> Well, it makes some sense cuz there's no victims. You see blood, but you see no
00:18:54
victims. and and then you go, "Well, the doors were locked, but the back door wasn't locked. What the what the hell is
00:19:01
going on around here, but you don't, like I said, there's no victims, so then you just start assuming, well, an
00:19:08
accident took place and and everybody rushed off and they accidentally left the back door open." Well, the thing
00:19:15
that would be most alarming to me, I mean, blood number one, obviously, but number two, the the vehicles belonging
00:19:22
to these folks were still in the parking lot. >> Yeah, that's not a good sign. But I
00:19:26
guess you could reason it by going, well, maybe people hopped in the ambulance, but why would everybody go to
00:19:32
the hospital? Some people should leave. The money is kind of strange too because
00:19:37
on one hand they're closing so they would create a deposit. Most of the time when you work at a restaurant at the end
00:19:44
of the night you take the money and put it in a deposit bag so you can deposit that into a bank. So Kim arrives at the
00:19:52
hospital. She's talking to the personnel there and quickly learns that none of the KFC staff, none of her co-workers
00:20:00
had been admitted that evening. So now she's going to jump into a different form of action and contact the Kilgore
00:20:08
Police Department to report that, hey, I'm worried that something very wrong has possibly happened at the KFC
00:20:16
restaurant. This is from the Long View News Journal. They reported that Kilgore police patrolman Wayne Reynolds was the
00:20:24
first person on the scene and upon entering the restaurant, he spotted flour spilled near the back door with
00:20:33
what appeared to be footprints tracking through it. >> In the kitchen area, he noticed a that
00:20:40
there were two fast food workers caps, the little caps that they wear. I don't know how this was determined, but
00:20:47
according to the newspaper, it says one was a man's cap and the other was a woman's. Having not seen these, I don't
00:20:54
know what would be how you would figure that out. >> They could have been styled differently.
00:20:59
>> Yeah. And there was also a piece of paper that was found on the floor near the puddle of blood. I'll go ahead and
00:21:07
give a out a spoiler alert for this piece of paper because later law enforcement were they were hoping to
00:21:16
examine this piece of paper and that maybe it might be some kind of evidence or some kind of clue, but it was simply
00:21:22
a just kind of a cute little love note from one of the male employees to one of the male employees from a girlfriend.
00:21:31
So, it appears like this was just a a piece of paper that he probably folded up and had in one of his pockets uh
00:21:38
during his shift that night. Doesn't really give any clue or idea as to what may have happened to the employees. The
00:21:47
patrolman moved to another room where he observed an open desk drawer. This is in
00:21:52
the manager's office. There was a small amount of blood that was found on files,
00:21:58
the little file folders that are inside the drawer. As said, there was money missing from the drawer. So, it sounds
00:22:05
to me, Captain, that not only do we have money missing from the register, and we we can say
00:22:14
missing, but as you pointed out, at some point, you're taking the money out of that register for the night anyway,
00:22:19
right? But there's no money in the register where they would have kept additional money in the manager's
00:22:25
office. There's no money there either. From my understanding, the key to the register was found in the register
00:22:33
drawer as well. So >> good sign. >> Yeah, the cash register was closed and the key is still inside. Time cards.
00:22:43
This was very smart by the patrol officer. time cards indicated that Mary, Joey, and Obie, the three that were
00:22:50
working that night, that were still on the clock at closing time, they had never punched out on those cards.
00:22:57
Additionally, all the employees vehicles were still parked outside of the restaurant. As we had said earlier, the
00:23:03
front door locked, the key still in the lock, but on the inside of the store. Around midnight, the Kilgore Police
00:23:10
Department notified the restaurant's manager of the incident after they've had time to make notation of everything
00:23:17
that they're observing at the scene. A few hours later, this is around 3:15 a.m., Lana Maxwell, this is David's
00:23:27
18-year-old wife, she is notified of the alarming situation coming from her husband's
00:23:34
workplace from a friend who had gone over to look for him. Lana was pregnant. She had gone to bed hours earlier,
00:23:42
assuming David would be home soon. The store was empty, the office drawer empty, the till empty, the back door
00:23:51
left unlocked and open. The employees vehicles in the parking lot still. And all four employees plus a friend were
00:24:01
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00:29:08
monkeys. Tall can hands in the air. Cheers to you, Colonel. >> Cheers to you, Captain. Let's go to the
00:29:14
next morning. It's 10:00 a.m. So now we're on Saturday. We're less than 12 hours after the initial reporting of
00:29:23
something wrong at the KFC restaurant. Kilgore PD received a call that an oil worker, his name is Arthur Warlick. He
00:29:33
reported stumbling across four bodies in a remote oil field in Rusk County. This
00:29:39
guy Warlick is a pumper. That's his job title. He goes out often. solo checking on these different oil wells for the
00:29:48
outfit that he works for. So, he's out checking oil wells on a Henderson Clay Products lease property near a remote
00:29:58
road off of State Highway 323 between Henderson and Overton. Unable to believe what he's seeing at So, at first
00:30:07
he thought this was some kind of like prank or joke. Okay. So, he the way he describes this is he shows up to this
00:30:14
field as he typically would. And when he's walking in, he sees feet and legs just kind of lying there
00:30:24
in the in the tall grass. Not good. >> And well, at first he only sees one set. So he he thought, "All right, well,
00:30:33
maybe there were some teenagers out here drinking the night before and one of them decided, you know, I'll just lay
00:30:40
down here and sleep it off." But then he sees another set and he's like, "No, this ain't you wouldn't have multiple
00:30:48
people out here just sleeping." On top of that, at some point he starts to think, "Well, maybe the other guys that
00:30:55
I work with are playing some kind of joke or prank on me. like if I panic here, well then then I'll be the butt of
00:31:01
their joke forever and ever. I'll always be that guy. But after finding four, he's still thinking there's potential
00:31:08
that it's some kind of prank. So he actually kicks the bottom of one of the feet. You know, they're all wearing
00:31:15
shoes, but kicks the bottom of one of them and and telling them like, "Hey, you know, get up. Get out of here." That
00:31:22
sort of thing. And there's zero reaction, no movement, nothing. I don't think I'd have it in me to kick. I'd
00:31:31
rather look like I I can be the butt of the joke, right? >> I'm not kicking anything that
00:31:37
potentially is a dead body. >> Back when I worked security, I responded to a dead body call. That's a for a
00:31:44
whole another story. We We'll save that for an off the record. Now he's starting
00:31:48
to panic a little bit. And God bless his honesty because when he describes this, he goes into full
00:31:56
like panic. I'm terrified, afraid mode. He hops on the radio. He and he's like, "Help, help, help. I need some help out
00:32:05
here. I need some help out here." He He's having a hard time putting together what it is that he found other than he's
00:32:11
pretty certain there's dead people out here. And the details from that, you can find that in uh there's a great
00:32:20
book on the case called The KFC Murders, the deadly saga of the infamous East Texas 1983 KFC massacre. This is by Jack
00:32:30
A. Hillburn Simmons and Kenneth Dean. But upon realizing that this is not a joke, Captain. And now knowing that he's
00:32:38
probably looking at dead people, he radios the supervisor who then summoned the Rusk County Sheriff's Office to the
00:32:44
scene. Authorities immediately knew that this was this has got to be their five missing people from the restaurant.
00:32:52
>> Oh, yeah. They have four bodies. >> Yeah. One of them was eventually found a distance away. And it's unclear to me if
00:33:00
Arthur Warlick, the pumper who arrived, if he found four or five, >> right? because some reports state that
00:33:07
he found the four and then other reports state that he called in five dead bodies. And you'll see why there's a
00:33:14
potential for discrepancy there as we go through the the known facts of the case.
00:33:20
And this is from uh newspaper reports here, Captain from the Kilgore News Herald. The headline,
00:33:27
five slain and Kilgore robbery bodies discovered Saturday on oil lease in Rusk County. And the article reads in part,
00:33:37
"The bodies of five people apparently abducted Friday night during a robbery of the Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant
00:33:43
were found Saturday morning on an oil lease north of Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Rusk County. All five had been shot to
00:33:53
death." Officers said that the bodies had not been positively identified as the five
00:33:59
people abducted, but the chances quote are extremely strong. End quote that they are. Doyle Williams, an
00:34:07
investigator for the Russ County Sheriff's Department, said authorities have no leads in the slangs. The five
00:34:13
people abducted were identified as Mary Tyler, age 37, assistant manager of the restaurant, Joey Johnson, age 20, of
00:34:23
Overton. He was a cook. Opie Hughes, 39, of Kilgore, KFC employee. David Maxwell, 20, a Kilgore College
00:34:34
student. And Monty Landers, 20 years old, a visitor to the restaurant. I mean, obviously it's sad because we have
00:34:42
all these victims, but even more sad in some of the situations where you have this guy that just dropped by to see his
00:34:50
buddies or maybe he was just bored and wanted to stop by work just to say, "Hey, what's going on?" or "How was the
00:34:57
night?" or whatever. And then he becomes a victim in this this crime. >> Yeah. When we review these cases that
00:35:06
take place at businesses and sadly if they end up on the garage show, that usually means that one or more of the
00:35:15
employees were killed in the commission of a robbery or whatever took may have taken place at that business. But in
00:35:24
every one of these accounts, we get situations where you have, oh, this person happened to call off that night
00:35:32
and their their life was spared just by pure chance. And then, oh, this other person covered for this person or switch
00:35:40
shift with shifts with this person and they lost their life because they happened to be there that night. And in
00:35:46
this story, it's no different where you have the the one young man was simply there. Yes, he worked there, but he
00:35:54
wasn't scheduled to work that night. And he was there only because he borrowed a
00:36:00
motorcycle from his buddy's roommate who was an employee there. And he's like, "Well, my buddy is probably going to
00:36:07
need a ride home. He doesn't have a vehicle, and I got his roommate's motorcycle. I should be kind enough to
00:36:13
go back and pick him up." In fact, from what I what I understand here, Captain, I believe that's how he was going to
00:36:20
give the motorcycle back, right? To go pick them up, one of them's going to ride on the back, one of them's going to
00:36:25
drive, and they're going to go drop the other one off and then take the motorcycle home.
00:36:32
>> The reverse of that is the people where their lives are spared because they just
00:36:37
so happen not to be at the restaurant. One thing that was good here is that the young man that was riding in
00:36:44
for to return the motorcycle, his young wife, remember we said he she was married and pregnant with their
00:36:52
baby. >> Yeah. >> They were at home together and she actually said, "Hey, let me go with
00:36:56
you." And he's like, "Okay, that sounds great." And then at the last second, he's like, "Wait a second. It's a
00:37:01
motorcycle. We can only fit. We won't be able to take all of us after we pick up
00:37:06
the other guy. You just stay here. I won't be gone very long. And then you have Monty Landers who is a freshman at
00:37:14
the Kilgore University or Kilgore College who knows the other two guys. And he was simply there because he he
00:37:24
went in there because he was going to help his buddy clean up because they were in a rush to get to a college party
00:37:30
that later that night, which of course they they never make it to this party. So, you always have those very weird
00:37:39
scenarios uh that that you sift through in these types of of cases that take place at at businesses. Here's a guy
00:37:46
you're going to like his name. Jy Wolverton >> Jertie Wolver and that's not that's not
00:37:53
>> Walbertton's not bad, but Jy >> I think J is probably some kind of nickname. And I I love the South because
00:38:00
if you get a nickname when you're like three years old, they don't care if you're 50. you still have that nickname.
00:38:06
And so Jody, and this is not me mispronouncing it. It's J E R D Y as reported multiple times in the
00:38:14
newspaper. He's the public information officer for Kilgore Police Department. He said that it probably wouldn't be
00:38:22
until Sunday, so the following day, before positive identification of the slaying victims could be confirmed. And
00:38:29
this was because no identification was found on any of the bodies. All five of these people were adults. None of them
00:38:35
have identification on them. However, he noted that several of the slain persons
00:38:39
wore clothing that matched descriptions of three of the missing people. You can imagine what that is, right? Would be
00:38:47
work uniforms. Wolverton said an unknown number of persons apparently entered the
00:38:53
back door of the restaurant while an employee was carrying out trash after the restaurant closed at 10 p.m. So you
00:39:02
have some indicators at the restaurant to tell you what likely happened. Right? You find the front door locked. That's
00:39:10
an indicator that they successfully closed the restaurant for the night. you find things that they've started their
00:39:17
closing duties for the night. Now, one of those closing duties would be to remove all the trash from the restaurant
00:39:23
and put it in the dumpster outside. This report goes on to say, "The bodies were
00:39:29
found by an oil field pumper on a lease road around 10:00 a.m. Saturday. Quote, "When we got there, we found four bodies
00:39:36
in one location and another body at a location distant from the other four," said Russell Pototts. He's a special
00:39:43
investigator for the Greg County District Attorney's Office. Quote, "These four appeared to be slain
00:39:51
execution style where they were forced to lie on the ground and were shot there." End quote. Police Chief Johnny
00:40:00
Bradley said four of the victims, the three men and one woman, were forced to lie down on the ground and were shot in
00:40:07
the back of the head. One of the women apparently tried to escape and the position of her body, which was 30 to 40
00:40:15
yards from the other four, indicated that she had momentum before she fell. Her body was found face down beside the
00:40:23
lease road with several clumps of dirt and grass clenched in her fist on the corner of Walter King Road and Emory
00:40:31
Lloyd Road located northeast of the Pleasant Hill Cemetery on State Highway 323. Because four of the victims, they
00:40:39
were all facing like the same way, like there was some uniformity to how they were placed.
00:40:45
>> Yes. And I wouldn't say placed, I would say ordered to lay down, just as the the
00:40:50
law officers had stated. You're going to when you're finding the victims this quickly
00:40:57
after the abduction, it's going to be obvious to you that these these four victims laid down. And just like without
00:41:04
giving a great description here, we we're not provided with a great description, but you the words that when
00:41:11
they say she's found in a location distant from the other four and saying that she had some momentum before she
00:41:20
fell, right? You're going to see indicators there on the ground in the grass that's going to tell you like she
00:41:27
didn't lay down here in this space like everybody else did over there. She was hunted down in this location where she's
00:41:37
eventually found. Authorities went on to say that robbers apparently forced the victims to step over the cattle guard at
00:41:44
the location where they were found, go beyond the locked gate that blocked the lease road, and walk along the lease
00:41:51
road for approximately 100 yards. Then they were forced to lie down. Bradley said authorities recovered one large
00:41:58
caliber shell and part of another near the scene. Another officer said all of the victims had been shot in the head.
00:42:06
Deputies said the people did not have any identification, but they confirmed that one of the victims was wearing a
00:42:13
Kentucky Fried Chicken uniform. Officers said that since the victims apparently were slain at the point where their
00:42:20
bodies were found, the Rusk County Sheriff's Department will have jurisdiction in that investigation.
00:42:26
However, since the kidnapping and robbery occurred in Kilgore, the Kilgore police are handling that investigation.
00:42:34
The robbers apparently entered the back door while an employee was carrying trash out after the restaurant closed at
00:42:41
about 10 p.m. Friday. And they're basing this because they're stating that some garbage had been taken to the dumpster
00:42:48
and then several other bags of trash were dropped just outside of the back door. So, this is their indicator of how
00:42:55
the robbers probably entered the premises and they may have even taken someone at gunpoint right there at that
00:43:06
back door, whoever was carrying out the trash, and then moved them back inside. There were obvious signs of struggle
00:43:12
inside the restaurant. We went through some of that information already. Some additional information here, Captain.
00:43:18
There was blood found around the counter area around the desk where the money was
00:43:23
kept in the kitchen. There was additional blood found there. As far as what the public is going to be told,
00:43:29
authorities were simply saying that there was an undetermined amount of cash missing from the restaurant. Now, there
00:43:36
were reports that started to leak out rather quickly that this would have been approximately $2,000 in cash that was
00:43:42
missing. >> Obviously, they probably have either records, receipt records, or they also
00:43:48
have just What do we make on average at that point? You have five victims dead by execution style for $2,000. And I
00:44:01
know like this is 40ome years ago, so maybe that's a little bit more money than it is today, but seems like
00:44:07
overkill. Doesn't seem like that's the purpose for this crime. >> Well, and you're going to have a
00:44:14
register with receipts to tell you how much money is is actually missing. So, you'll be able to get that down to near
00:44:22
the penny when you're when you're looking into the case. Now, you're not always going to you don't that is
00:44:30
obvious hold back information, right? You you can say, "Hey, about $2,000 was missing." We've seen plenty of other
00:44:36
cases where 2500 was missing, 3,000 was missing, 1,000 was missing. They they regularly don't tell you to the dollar
00:44:44
amount because if they're trying to pull a confession out of somebody or if they
00:44:48
get false confessions because we do know that when there's these high-profile cases, which this will very much turn
00:44:54
into one, you will have some crazy that will come forward and say that they did this or they know the person that did do
00:45:01
it. So, you have to have your hold back information. Okay. So based off of all the information we've already gone
00:45:08
through, here is what we know or at least we believe to be the case, the simplest facts or indicators of what may
00:45:17
have happened in the case is that sometime between closing and approximately 10:30 p.m. a half an hour
00:45:23
after closing, the four co-workers and their friend were abducted from the restaurant by an unknown asalent. So we
00:45:29
know this for a few reasons. One, we know they closed the store, and we two, we know that when Kim returned to find
00:45:36
her mother at approximately 10:30, she finds the restaurant empty. So, we have a very short little window of time when
00:45:45
this all went down between the robbers entering the restaurant and then removing all the employees and getting
00:45:53
the hell out of the restaurant and parking lot because Kim saw nobody there when she arrives looking for her mother.
00:46:02
We later learned that at least two guns were used when executing those folks out
00:46:07
there in the oil field. One thing that I find odd here, Captain, is that we never
00:46:13
really truly get a definitive number of guns that were used because all of the reports out there are stating that at
00:46:20
least two guns were used, possibly three, >> right? >> I think that they're basing that, well,
00:46:26
I shouldn't say I think I know that they're basing that off of they found more than two kinds of ammunition.
00:46:34
Now, that doesn't 100% mean that there had to be a third gun. But it's an indicator of a possibility
00:46:41
of a third gun. >> Yeah. Because this crime is it's very complex because we have multiple scenes.
00:46:48
We have the restaurant, the KFC. Then we have this murder site. This is where we
00:46:54
believe and I believe everybody believes all the murders actually took place there. So, we have a kidnapping, but
00:47:01
then we have these different shells and these different calibers of guns cuz there's some speculation that there's
00:47:09
two people involved and then some people speculate that there's three people involved. It it becomes pretty complex.
00:47:17
So, let's add the complexities here because when I review this, >> let's do it. >> I think that there's all kinds of
00:47:23
complexities. So, obviously, somebody forced their way in the back door. What it appears to me, we have every person
00:47:31
that's in law enforcement that walked in that restaurant saying the same thing. Obvious signs of a struggle here and
00:47:38
probably multiple struggles in the restaurant. And to me, what that says is these guys went in to rob the place and
00:47:48
even though they had guns, they were met with some resistance most of the time. And you have to play the percentages
00:47:56
just like some Texas, hold them, baby. You got to play the percentages. That's all you have to go off of. And the
00:48:03
percentages are telling you that most of these incidents end in the perpetrator leaving, fleeing the restaurant with
00:48:13
cash. And every person that worked there that was in the restaurant shaken and probably terrified
00:48:24
considering quitting their job but otherwise unharmed alive to tell the authorities what
00:48:34
happened here vanished. So I think they were met with some resistance that they didn't expect.
00:48:42
And when that happened, the only reasonable explanation for them to abduct and murder all five people is
00:48:50
either a somebody in that restaurant could identify one or all of the asalants or they were met with some kind
00:48:58
of resistance and the the robbers thought, you know what, you you want to fight? Oh, we're going to get a fight.
00:49:05
We're going to get a fight here and and we're going to take you out and we're going to and we're going to take you out
00:49:10
into this oil field. Now, of course, nobody knows exactly what happened, the details of what happened because we
00:49:15
don't have any witnesses. We don't have any, unfortunately, we don't have any survivors of this incident,
00:49:20
>> right? And we have blood found at the restaurant. And don't we have like a fingernail or something found at the
00:49:28
restaurant? >> No, we we have a finger nail that's found on one of the victims. So, let's
00:49:33
go back to that white van. Remember the witness, Spagano, said, "Not only did these dudes behind me in line seem to
00:49:42
perk up and pay specific attention to the employees talking about all the money in the restaurant, but when prior
00:49:50
to me going in, I noticed this white van that was parked at the rear of the restaurant, which now police are saying
00:49:56
they think the robbers and asalants came in through the back door. Plus, they're
00:50:02
going to have to they're going to If you have at least two bad guys and five people that are dead,
00:50:11
that's transporting seven people from the restaurant location to the murder scene,
00:50:17
>> right? So, either you have to have multiple vehicles, which they didn't take any of the employees vehicles,
00:50:23
they're all found in the lot, or you have to have a big vehicle. So, this van is looking more and more interesting. I
00:50:30
would say this though, it would seem to me that when Spagano, the witness, and her boyfriend entered the restaurant,
00:50:39
she says that this is just a touch after 900 p.m. The restaurant closes at 10:00,
00:50:45
everything went down, and everybody's out of there by 10:30ish. I don't know that overhearing the employees talking
00:50:52
about how much money was the genesis of the idea to rob this particular store. Because if in fact that white van
00:51:02
belonged to the killers, well, that van was already parked in that weird position prior to them going into the
00:51:09
store. If in fact those guys in line were the perpetrators. Yeah, I think I've seen some internet rumors or
00:51:17
speculation that it's possible that maybe these individuals heard 15,000 as opposed to like $1,500.
00:51:26
And some people go, "Well, they'd have to be stupid to think that the KFC made $15,000 that day." Well, most criminals
00:51:36
are stupid. >> That is true. So, let's go through some background information here real quick
00:51:41
on some of our on on our five victims and what we know about these five victims. Four of the five victims of the
00:51:51
KFC massacre were co-workers. They all worked together at this Kilgore Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. Three of them,
00:51:59
Mary Tyler, Opie Hughes, and Joey Johnson were actually working their evening shifts on that Friday, September
00:52:06
23rd, 1983. David Maxwell was also a Kilgore KFC employee, was there, but he was not
00:52:12
scheduled to work. And as we said earlier, Captain Monty Landers did not work there at all, but was a friend of
00:52:20
and fellow college student with the two staff members, David and Joey. All these people, from what we could
00:52:27
find, they were good, kind people. None of them should have met this tragic fate. Obviously, it was the following
00:52:34
day, Sunday, September 23rd, that a Dallas Forensics lab performed the autopsies on
00:52:41
the five, this is the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences, thus confirming the suspected identities
00:52:49
of the murdered victims. The autopsies also revealed that two guns had apparently been used in execution of the
00:52:56
five victims. A piece of a broken fingernail, this is what you were talking about just a sec ago.
00:53:02
A piece of a broken fingernail is found on one of the victim's belt loops. It's also reported that it was found in the
00:53:09
waistband of the victim's pants. So, this is a piece of broken finger. Now, it's found and it's determined to have
00:53:18
come from someone with typeo blood. So, this is crucial physical evidence, right? Because you're going to examine
00:53:26
the fingers of each one of your five victims and find out very quickly that none of them have a torn fingernail.
00:53:34
This is telling you it came from one of the perpetrators. And just like the blood that's found at the scene, crucial
00:53:41
physical evidence, the blood that was found at the robbery abduction scene at the KFC. So remember though, this is
00:53:47
1983. Had this been July of 2025, this case would have been solved in 2 to 3 weeks time. Mary Tyler was 37 years old.
00:53:58
She was a mother of five who was working as an assistant manager at the KFC on the night of the abduction.
00:54:05
She was a Kilgore resident for nine years. She had been with the restaurant chain for three years. And in fact, she
00:54:13
had actually met her husband, Billy Tyler, when she was working at the franchise in Long View, Texas. She was
00:54:20
the mother of three bi biological children. Their names Tony, Kim, and Bubba, and stepmom to two bonus
00:54:29
children, Lisa and Denise. and people regularly commented that she regarded her two stepchildren as her own and the
00:54:38
feeling was reciprocal. Mary was known as a good worker, a loving wife, and a mother with a sweet voice and a cute
00:54:45
little laugh. Her co-workers said she was she was more like a regular worker rather than the boss, right? She rather
00:54:53
than the manager. She never bossed anybody around. Then we have David Maxwell. David Wayne Maxwell, 20 years
00:54:59
old. told he had been working at the Kilgore KFC for only a week. Only a week. But he had already made a big
00:55:05
impression on his co-workers. He was the one, although he was not scheduled to work on that night, he was abducted and
00:55:11
slain because he's returning that motorcycle. >> Yeah. >> To his friend. And we already talked
00:55:17
about how his wife, his young wife, Lana Maxwell, she thankfully she ended up not
00:55:24
traveling with him to the restaurant that night. It's also noted that David was taking karate classes at college,
00:55:32
but they also note that he was very much at the beginner stages of this. And so,
00:55:39
while he might have been one of the persons that offered up some resistance on these robbers, clearly he wasn't able
00:55:47
to look a guy with hands and feet and you know karate, the robbers are armed with guns and minus any heart or soul,
00:55:56
you're at a disadvantage. Yeah, but that doesn't stop people. Sometimes sometimes
00:56:02
people see an opportunity and it's very difficult because you go, well, would these would these criminals come
00:56:14
in just to rob from the place and then a confrontation happens and then that causes them to execute everybody? I
00:56:23
don't think so. I think that might have just been the plan all along. I mean, that's they had a van.
00:56:30
They wouldn't need a van if if they weren't going to transport all these people. I think it's really tough
00:56:36
because the longer we do this, the more I feel like people should put up some kind of fight because if you don't, the
00:56:46
outcome could still be execution or murder or rape or whatever the this the sick individual is trying to accomplish.
00:56:57
>> Yeah. I mean, if we want to question everything, we can also say, well, maybe
00:57:01
the van, if it was in fact belong to the asalants, is their only means of transportation. So, it wasn't planned to
00:57:09
bring a van. It's just that's that's their set of wheels. >> Joseph Jerome Johnson, also known as
00:57:15
Joey, was 20 years old. He was a fraternity brother of David Maxwell, and these two were best friends. Joey had
00:57:23
been a senior class president at his high school. He earned the nickname Mr. Overton High School before graduating.
00:57:30
He was listed in the Who's Who in High School athletes for his participation in football, basketball, tennis, and track.
00:57:37
And he also received this prestigious Billy Jack Robersonson Award for outstanding football player at uh
00:57:45
Overton High School in 1982. He was the second oldest of eight children. He was very close with his
00:57:52
mother after his father passed away while Joey was still in high school. He was a cook at the KFC restaurant and was
00:57:59
working his way through school contributing. What a what a young man this guy contributing to the support of
00:58:06
his family. Remember his father died while he was in high school and he was financially helping to support his
00:58:13
mother and siblings. His mother recalled him stopping by every single morning on
00:58:18
his way to work just to check on her and the younger kids. We also mentioned Opie
00:58:24
Hughes. She was aged 39. She was a working mother raising her three children. She was married to Jack Hughes
00:58:32
and she was a Kilgore resident for 11 years prior to her murder. She was quiet and unassuming. And it was her like
00:58:40
nature that her husband, her family, her friends, they were all baffled and devastated as to why anybody would want
00:58:48
to harm somebody as gentle and quiet as Opie was known to be. And then last, we have Monty Landers. His full name
00:58:59
Montgomery Lewis Landers. He was only 19 years old. He was not an employee of the
00:59:04
restaurant but had the terrible misfortune of being there on the night. He was just a freshman in college and he
00:59:11
was as said he was pledging to join the fraternity that the other two boys were a part of. He majored in forestry and
00:59:21
was interested in mechanics but he ultimately wanted to travel the world just like his father working for an oil
00:59:28
company. And when he was when it was announced that he was killed, local authorities had to contact Monty's
00:59:35
father to inform him of his son's murder. And at the time, Monty's father was in Cairo, Egypt, where he had been
00:59:43
stationed. The bodies were discovered in Rusk County in a Rusk County oil field about 14 miles south of Kilgore. So that
00:59:51
gives you some general idea of the amount. Th this is going to add to a lot of the speculation that investigators
00:59:57
are going to have at the time of of why this particular spot and why so far away from the restaurant,
01:00:05
right? It's also weird to me too because you'd think it's this oil field. So it is it just was the idea that it's just
01:00:15
in the middle of nowhere so it'll take some time for people to find the bodies. You would think they would try try to
01:00:20
place the bodies in a place that nobody would find them. >> I think that that is why that's why I
01:00:27
speculate that this was retaliation that this was punishment for being met with resistance
01:00:34
because you could have done exactly what you had just said. If you didn't want them to be
01:00:40
fined, you could have found either you could have gone to greater efforts to do so. I think that to me what I'm seeing
01:00:50
here where they are found and then we know that they are found very quickly. I think to me that is suggestive that well
01:00:58
we just need them to not be found long enough for us to get away. [Music] So much more to get to in this true
01:01:22
crime tale. Stick around for part two. Until then, be good, be kind, and don't linger.
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