texaschickeee
10-30-2007, 10:05 PM
Guilty plea solves 1983 KFC mass murder case
(check these mug shots out too. :eek:
Jurors in the Kentucky Fried Chicken mass murders case have been dismissed but say they won't talk about testimony they heard over the past two weeks.
Convicted burglar Romeo Pinkerton agreed Monday to plead guilty to five murder charges in exchange for life in prison.
State District Judge J. Clay Gossett said a gag order he imposed in Pinketon's case remains in effect because Pinkerton's cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, still must be tried for the five killings 24 years ago that became one of the longest unsolved mass murders in Texas.
The two Tyler men were accused of robbing and abducting five people from a KFC restaurant in Kilgore in 1983, then fatally shooting them about 15 miles away.
Pinkerton, 49, admitted to the deaths as part of a plea bargain offered by the Texas Attorney General's Office. In exchange for the plea, Pinkerton received a life sentence for each of the five deaths.
Judge J. Clay Gossett said in a brief release that the families of the victims approved the plea bargain.
"Romeo Pinkerton's admission of guilt ends decades of uncertainty for the families of five innocent victims," Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a release.
"This guilty plea will not bring back the lives lost in 1983, but today marks a critical milestone on the path to justice," Abbott said.
Pinkerton is the first of two men to face trial in the Sept. 23, 1983, slayings.
He and his cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, were acccused of abducting the victims during a holdup of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore.
The victims were found dead the next morning along a remote oilfield road about 15 miles away in rural Rusk County.
Killed were Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; David Maxwell, 20; Joey Johnson, 20; and Monte Landers, 19.
Four of the victims worked at the KFC, about 25 miles east of Tyler and 115 miles east of Dallas. The fifth was a friend of one of the employees.
The judge gave the families of the victims a chance to make victim impact statements after he imposed the sentence.
During the statements, Pinkerton sat emotionless in the courtroom while relatives talk about how they suffered after the deaths of their loved ones, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported in its online edition.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5255867.html
**this makes me sick. After all this time, they have all this evidenced, and NOTHING screams capital punishment then 5 execution style killings. What a waste, and his rap sheet. OMG... and of course the other is now going to roll over. Just sad, very very sad.
(check these mug shots out too. :eek:
Jurors in the Kentucky Fried Chicken mass murders case have been dismissed but say they won't talk about testimony they heard over the past two weeks.
Convicted burglar Romeo Pinkerton agreed Monday to plead guilty to five murder charges in exchange for life in prison.
State District Judge J. Clay Gossett said a gag order he imposed in Pinketon's case remains in effect because Pinkerton's cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, still must be tried for the five killings 24 years ago that became one of the longest unsolved mass murders in Texas.
The two Tyler men were accused of robbing and abducting five people from a KFC restaurant in Kilgore in 1983, then fatally shooting them about 15 miles away.
Pinkerton, 49, admitted to the deaths as part of a plea bargain offered by the Texas Attorney General's Office. In exchange for the plea, Pinkerton received a life sentence for each of the five deaths.
Judge J. Clay Gossett said in a brief release that the families of the victims approved the plea bargain.
"Romeo Pinkerton's admission of guilt ends decades of uncertainty for the families of five innocent victims," Attorney General Greg Abbott said in a release.
"This guilty plea will not bring back the lives lost in 1983, but today marks a critical milestone on the path to justice," Abbott said.
Pinkerton is the first of two men to face trial in the Sept. 23, 1983, slayings.
He and his cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, were acccused of abducting the victims during a holdup of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore.
The victims were found dead the next morning along a remote oilfield road about 15 miles away in rural Rusk County.
Killed were Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; David Maxwell, 20; Joey Johnson, 20; and Monte Landers, 19.
Four of the victims worked at the KFC, about 25 miles east of Tyler and 115 miles east of Dallas. The fifth was a friend of one of the employees.
The judge gave the families of the victims a chance to make victim impact statements after he imposed the sentence.
During the statements, Pinkerton sat emotionless in the courtroom while relatives talk about how they suffered after the deaths of their loved ones, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported in its online edition.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5255867.html
**this makes me sick. After all this time, they have all this evidenced, and NOTHING screams capital punishment then 5 execution style killings. What a waste, and his rap sheet. OMG... and of course the other is now going to roll over. Just sad, very very sad.