Significance marked events for 2008

A number of significant events marked our calendars and our memories in 2008, including the apparent end of a murder case 25 years old.

Darnell Hartsfeld was convicted of capital murder for his role in Kilgore's Kentucky Fried Chicken murders.

"We the jury find the defendant, Darnell Hartsfeld, guilty of capital murder," J. Clay Gossett, Rusk County district judge, said five times, following the name of each of the five victims abducted from the KFC restaurant 25 years ago and then shot to death along a remote oilfield road.

David Maxwell. Opie Hughes. Mary Tyler. Joey Johnson. Monte Landers.

The guilty verdicts, following a three-week-long trial, came after jurors in a Brazos County court deliberated just under two hours. Gossett, who moved the trial to Bryan from Rusk County because of publicity there, then sentenced Hartsfeld to five life prison terms — to be served consecutively.

Hartsfeld's cousin, Romeo Pinkerton, agreed to plead guilty a year ago to five murder charges midway through his trial and accepted life in prison. He could have received the death penalty if convicted.

The notorious killings, which became one of the longest unresolved mass murder cases in Texas, occurred the night of Sept. 23, 1983, when the victims were taken from the Kilgore restaurant during an apparent robbery. Their bodies were found the next morning. One of the women had been raped, but that wasn't known for many years.

A box recovered from the restaurant had a blood spot on it that was identified through DNA testing years later as Hartsfeld's blood. It led to his indictment, although he denied being in the restaurant. Blood on a napkin was tied to Pinkerton.

Jurors said the scientific evidence was the key to the conviction.

Defense attorneys never challenged whether the blood was Hartsfeld's but suggested it may have been mixed up with Hartsfeld's other crimes or that it was planted by investigators. He already was serving a life prison term for aggravated perjury in a KFC-related case because of six earlier felony convictions.

Maxwell was 20; Tyler, 37; Hughes, 39; Johnson, 20; and Landers, 19. All but Landers worked at the KFC. Landers was a friend of Maxwell and Johnson and was visiting them as the restaurant was closing for the night.

The investigation was stymied for years by leads that went bad and haunted by what investigators at both trials have described as a circus crime scene.

ALSO IN 2008, the Kilgore City Council unanimously approved the issuance of $5.4 million in Certificate of Obligation bonds, primarily to finance Chandler Street construction, which the council hopes will improve traffic flow around Chandler Elementary, Kilgore Intermediate and Maude Laird Middle School. It will also help pay for the downtown streetscape project, which the council hopes will help to increase tourism, "curb appeal" and sales tax revenue.

According to Jeff Howell, city manager, work downtown is expected to begin this month while work on Chandler Street will likely begin in June in order to minimize disruption of school traffic.

As 2008 came to an end, city officials accepted bids on the downtown streetscape project set to begin Monday. Bids were submitted to KSA Engineers, of Longview, for consideration. Project funding approved by the city council was $1,865,520.

The scope of the project is three full intersections and two full city blocks — intersections being at North Street and North Kilgore Street, East Main Street and Kilgore Street and East Main Street and Rusk Street.

Project details include intersection "neckdowns" with Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant ramps, as well as complete replacement of sidewalks, added lighting and landscaping.

Sidewalks are to remain 15 feet wide and will be edged with brick pavers and another row of pavers breaking up the concrete at each new lamp post.

Street lamps — all 48 of them — are 25 feet tal, each with a decorative globe on top and another pedestrian globe on a 10- foot arm. One of the main ideas behind the extra-tall lights is the ability to string colored lights across the streets at measured intervals. With eight new posts per block, 12 more strands could be added for next year's Holiday Trail of Lights.

Landscaping includes trees on all four corners of intersections accompanied by low-growing bushes and mid-block plantings. The foliage should be maintenance free, with the installation of a drip system for watering.

During construction, Fallon Burns, Main Street manager, asks that pedestrians and shoppers excuse the dust and continue to support downtown merchants. In an effort to keeps shops open, ramps will be built to traverse construction areas and sidewalks will be demolished and re-built in sections.

In preparation for the project, all utilities are being routed to alleyways. Burns said this part of the project would be more difficult along Main Street than Kilgore Street, because most of the hanging wires on Kilgore Street are not even hot.

KSA estimates that only one parking place will be lost per block, per side. Burns said she hope by the end of the project downtown will be so beautiful that pedestrians will no longer mind the short walk from shop to shop.

According to Howell alternative plans include replacing old water lines and increasing the size of downtown storm drains. Among plan alternatives are trash cans and city benches.

Michael Graczyk, Associated Press writer, contributed to this story.