East Texas

By KENNETH DEAN
Staff Writer

NEW BOSTON — The break needed by investigators in a stagnant murder case came after collaboration between a retired FBI agent and a forensic scientist who had both worked on the case in 1983.

George Kieny took to the stand and told jurors he began working on the Kentucky Fried Chicken Murder case in September 1983 and that he continued working on the case even after he retired from the bureau.

He testified he worked the case for three years nonstop from 1985 until 1988. During that time, he conducted 500-plus interviews in the case, always assisting other law enforcement agencies. Kieny retired form the FBI in 1995 and was asked to work for the Texas Attorney General’s Office because of his knowledge of the case.

Despite retirement, Kieny continued working and, in 2000, was hired by the Rusk County Sheriff’s Department as a special investigator.

Kieny, testifying in the capital murder case of Romeo Pinkerton in New Boston on Wednesday, said that in the spring of 2001 the case was “stagnant.”

Pinkerton and his cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, are charged in the deaths of five people kidnapped from a Kilgore eatery in 1983.

“The thing to do then was to go back and look at everything that had been done in the case,” Kieny said.

Kieny then submitted a sweatshirt to the DPS Garland DNA lab to be checked for any DNA that might be on the item. The testing proved fruitless.

But during a meeting between Kieny and DPS forensic scientist Lorna Beasley, they began to think of other items to be tested. Beasley began testing the items, including a blood-splattered receipt box taken from inside the restaurant. A box that DPS had in its possession since October 1983.

During another meeting with Beasley and members of the Texas Attorney Generals’ Office, it was decided to test other items, including a bloody napkin.

“My feeling was that we were gathering all the blood items for the purpose of DNA and if there was no match then send them on to CODIS (Combined DNA Index Systems),” he said.

After learning there was a DNA match through CODIS on the receipt box, Kieny obtained a search warrant for blood from Darnell Hartsfield.

At that time, Kieny said, he did not know who the blood on the napkin belonged to, but knew that it too had been submitted to CODIS.

In January 2002, Kieny obtained a search warrant for Romeo Pinkerton’s blood after learning his DNA matched the blood found on the napkin.

Kieny said both of the blood samples from Hartsfield and Pinkerton matched the blood found on the napkin and the box.

When asked by lead prosecutor Lisa Tanner if he saw the person he collected blood from in February 2002 in the courtroom, Kieny pointed out Pinkerton.

After the information about the two men and how they were on the original suspect list in 1983, Kieny went to talk to retired Texas Ranger Glenn Elliott, who worked the case until he retired. Elliott retained all of his files on the case and the meeting between Elliott and Kieny proved to be a treasure trove.

It was there Kieny saw a wanted poster of Pinkerton, Hartsfield and Elton Winston, who, according to the flier, were wanted for questioning in the KFC murders. The flier was made up shortly after the murders, but a fingernail thought to belong to Jimmy Earl Mankins Jr. changed the focus of the investigation to Mankins.

Mankins was cleared after DNA proved the nail wasn’t his.

Tanner cut short her questioning of Kieny because the defense team of Jeff Haas and David Griffith filed a motion to suppress some of Kieny’s testimony.

Several forensic scientists testified Wednesday that the fingernail was not Mankins, but instead was one of the murder victims’ nails.

Testimony is scheduled to begin mid-morning Thursday after Judge Clay Gossett rules on the defense team’s motion.

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