Testimony begins in KFC murders

BRYAN — The trial of the alleged accomplice of a Kilgore man who has already pleaded guilty to the notorious Kentucky Fried Chicken murders began yesterday with opening statements by attorneys from both sides.

Darnell Hartsfield, 47, is charged with five counts of capital murder in the deaths of KFC employees David Maxwell, 20; Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey Johnson, 20; and Monte Landers, 19, who was visiting friends at the restaurant as it prepared to close for the night on Sept. 23, 1983.

Rusk County District Attorney Micheal Jimerson read the five indictments against Hartsfield to a jury of eight women and six men, including alternates, to which Hartsfield responded, "not guilty." He faces five life sentences if found guilty of the crimes.

In her opening statement, Lisa Tanner, assistant attorney general and lead prosecutor in the case, covered the events that occurred the night the employees were abuducted, murdered and their bodies left near an oilfield road. She contends blood found on a cash register tape box inside the restaurant and overlooked for years is key to the state's case.

And though DNA testing later revealed the blood on that box is Hartsfield's, defense attorney Thad Davidson countered that the state's chain of property custody is defective and prosecutors could not prove the box was in the restaurant or that his client's blood was left on the night of the murders. Davidson contends no physical evidence at the murder scene can be connected Hartsfield.

Relatives of the victims were the first witnesses. David Maxwell's widow Lana Dunkerley said her husband and the others would likely not put up a fight if the alleged robbers had guns. Billy Tyler, who was married to victim Mary Tyler, testified that he and his stepdaughter were the first people to show up at the store after his wife did not come home after work.

Last October, Romeo Pinkerton, Hartsfield's cousin, pleaded guilty to five counts of murder, thus avoiding the death sentence. He was sentenced to five concurrent life sentences. Darnell Hartsfield, his cousin, is on trial in Bryan this month, accused of participating in the slayings with Pinkerton.