KFC Murders Timeline

Sept. 21, 1983: Convicted burglar Romeo Pinkerton of Tyler is paroled.  Sept. 23, 1983: Five people — four employees and one friend of a worker — are reported missing at 11:30 p.m. from the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore. The restaurant was to have closed at 10 p.m. A Rusk County couple reports hearing gunshots about 11 p.m.  Sept. 24, 1983: An oilfield worker at 10:20 a.m. finds the bodies of the five missing people along an oil lease road near a well off Rusk County Road 231 just northwest of Henderson, about 15 miles south of Kilgore. All had been shot in the head.  Sept. 26, 1983: Pinkerton’s cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, commits burglary in Smith County, according to prison records.  Sept. 27, 1983: Reward for information about the slayings reaches $50,000, half of the total offered by the restaurant chain. It is never claimed.  Feb. 13, 1984: Hartsfield is sentenced to nine years for burglary and 25 years for robbery.  May 8, 1984: Pinkerton is sent to prison for 25 years for January 1984 Smith County burglary while on parole.  Jan. 27, 1988: Pinkerton paroled.  June 8, 1989: Pinkerton parole revoked for April 1988 burglary while on parole. He gets 50 years.  March 1995: Rusk County grand jury begins hearing KFC testimony.  April 27, 1995: James Earl Mankins Jr., son of a former state legislator, indicted on five counts of capital murder after fingernail recovered from clothing of KFC victim said to match Mankins.  Aug. 11, 1995: Hartsfield taken to prison with 40-year sentence from Smith County for delivery of controlled substance and engaging in organized criminal activity.  Nov. 13, 1995: Charges against Mankins dropped after fingernail evidence determined to not be his.

Dec. 1, 1998: Pinkerton paroled.  Dec. 2000: Rusk County Sheriff James Stroud hires a former FBI agent, George Kieny, to work on the KFC case. He finds evidence scattered at labs from Austin to Dallas.  Sept. 11, 2001: Kieny requests DNA test on blood-stained box that held cash register tape rolls at KFC restaurant. The splatter on the white box, about the size of a dress-shirt gift box, had never been tested. Hartsfield’s blood is identified.  Sept. 2003: Rusk County grand jury begins hearing KFC testimony. Five months later, grand jurors released.  Nov. 10, 2004: Hartsfield indicted on aggravated perjury charges for lying about whether he was in KFC restaurant the night of the abductions in 1983.  Dec. 8, 2004: Pinkerton paroled.  July 30, 2005: Pinkerton arrested in Tyler for burglary of school.  Oct. 26, 2005: Jury convicts Hartsfield of aggravated perjury; sentenced to life because of six earlier felony convictions.  Oct. 26, 2005: Jury convicts Hartsfield of aggravated perjury; sentenced to life because of six earlier felony convictions.  Nov. 17, 2005: Texas attorney general announces capital murder indictments against Hartsfield and Pinkerton for the KFC slayings.  Aug. 5, 2006: Pinkerton’s capital murder trial moved from Henderson to New Boston on change of venue approved by State District Judge J. Clay Gossett.  Aug. 6, 2007: Jury selection begins in New Boston.  Oct. 15, 2007: Scheduled opening arguments and start of testimony.

Original location map from Tyler Morning Telegraph of where the bodies were discovered.

The bodies of the five missing people were found along an oil lease road near a well off Rusk County Road 231 (Walker King Road) just northwest of Henderson, about 15 miles south of Kilgore.