On this day, Sept. 23, in 1983, in Kilgore, Texas, five people were abducted from a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, driven 18 miles outside town, down an oil field backroad, and executed.
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The KFC massacre was one of the longest unsolved mass murders in Texas history.
It finally turned a corner in 2001, when DNA from a blood spatter recovered from a napkin at the restaurant was tied to Romeo Pinkerton, a convicted burglar who’d been to prison at least five times.
In November 2005, Pinkerton, 47, and his cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, 44, were indicted. Both men were convicted and received five life sentences.
At trial, prosecutors disclosed that DNA evidence showed a third person was involved and also raped one of the slain women. The identity of that person is unknown.
— Scott McCabe
