2nd trial starts for KFC murder case
By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer

When Darnell Hartsfield saw the inside of a Texas prison cell for the first time in 1984, it was for an aggravated robbery he committed the previous year.

But prosecutors contend the Tyler man was involved in a far more heinous crime just three days before his arrest for the September 1983 robbery that earned him 25 years in prison.

This week, Hartsfield, 47, goes on trial for his part in one of Texas' oldest unresolved mass murder cases — the notorious slayings a quarter-century ago of five people taken from Kilgore's Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

Prospective jurors were to gather Monday at the Brazos County Courthouse in Bryan, where Hartsfield faces trial on five capital murder charges. The trial was moved to Bryan, about 150 miles southwest of Kilgore, because of local publicity.

Hartsfield's cousin and co-defendant, Romeo Pinkerton, took a plea deal midway through his capital murder trial in Bowie County last year, avoiding a possible death sentence by accepting five life prison terms.

Hartsfield is apparently not in any similar negotiations, said State District Judge J. Clay Gossett.

DAVID MAXWELL

Pinkerton's deal did not compel him to testify against Hartsfield.

The five victims were found dead along an oilfield road about 15 miles from the KFC restaurant where they were abducted during a holdup the previous night, Sept. 23, 1983.

Killed were David Maxwell, 20; Mary Tyler, 37; Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey Johnson, 20; and Monte Landers, 19. All but Landers worked at the restaurant about 25 miles east of Tyler. Landers was a friend of Maxwell and Johnson and was visiting them as the restaurant was closing for the night.

At Pinkerton's trial, lead prosecutor Lisa Tanner disclosed for the first time that DNA evidence confirmed that a third person was involved and raped one of the victims was raped, a development that hadn't before been revealed.

Tanner said Pinkerton, in a secretly recorded conversation with a fellow prison inmate, hinted he knew of that third person, but the identity of the man remains unknown.

Following Pinkerton's plea agreement, Gossett said court officials could not discuss whether investigators still were seeking a third suspect.

JOEY JOHNSON

Then last December, the Texas Attorney General's Office announced that KFC Corp. had reinstated a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the third person. The restaurant company issued a similar reward after the slayings but the reward never was claimed.

The attorney general's office has declined to say whether the renewed reward offer has generated tips, citing the continuing investigation of the slayings and Gossett's order barring everyone involved in the case from talking about it outside the courtroom.

Without elaborating, prosecutors said earlier this year they would not be seeking the death penalty for Hartsfield, who since 1995 had been serving a 40-year sentence out of Smith County for drug dealing. He also had a burglary conviction from 1983, at least two parole revocations and then three years ago was convicted of perjury in a KFC-related case and given a life term.

The removal of a possible death sentence should shorten the jury selection process for his so-called "mini-cap" trial, where conviction would merit an automatic life sentence. With no death penalty on the table, attorneys won't be questioning prospective jurors individually, known as voir dire, a tedious process that occasionally can be the longest part of a capital murder trial.

MARY TYLER

"We'll hand out questionnaires and let them fill out the questionnaires," Gossett said.

Once attorneys weed out people who may be ineligible, Gossett said he expected lawyers to question the panel as a group and settle on a jury by the end of the week. The trial could last four weeks.

Hartsfield tried to get Gossett, based in Henderson, removed from the trial, contending the judge was biased after heading earlier grand juries related to the KFC slayings and presiding over his perjury case.

"During my perjury trial I felt Judge Gossett leaned toward the state and let (Tanner) do what she wanted to do," Hartsfield testified at a hearing where his motion was rejected by a visiting judge. "I don't see how (Gossett) could be impartial."

Pinkerton had been to prison at least five times and had been out of prison just two days when the crime occurred.

DNA technology not available until recently showed Pinkerton's blood was found on a napkin at the scene. Hartsfield's blood was found on a box of cash register tapes.

MONTE LANDERS

Pinkerton's lawyers challenged the evidence at his trial, eliciting testimony that showed the crime scene had been contaminated and evidence gathering 25 years ago wasn't as sophisticated as it is today. The few crime scene photos that weren't ruined during faulty processing don't show the napkin or box of register tapes, and testimony from investigators described a crime scene that had been left unprotected and trampled before detectives could preserve it.

A retired Texas Ranger testified at Pinkerton's trial he saw the box and the napkin but didn't collect either. A former FBI agent hired as a special investigator in the long-stalled case found the items among evidence that had been kept. The retired agent, George Kieny, subjected them to DNA testing and those results ultimately led to the arrests of Pinkerton and Hartsfield.

Prosecutors blamed the long delay in bringing the case to trial on tunnel vision of investigators erroneously focused on a broken piece of fingernail found on one of the victims. Years later, DNA testing showed the nail belonged to one of the victims.

OPIE ANN HUGHES

The investigation also was sidetracked by an erroneous assumption that another man was responsible and authorities initially were overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the case, Tanner said.