REOPENED: Friday Night Ghosts

·37 min·2 clips

Four people were found shot in the back of the head or back multiple times; investigators called it “an execution.”

1. Cold Case Files revisits the 1983 KFC murders in Kilgore, Texas, where five people were taken from a restaurant and found dead in a rural Rusk County oil field. 2. Paula Barrows narrates the case, while witnesses and family members identify Mary Tyler, Joey Johnson, Opie Hughes, David Maxwell, and Monty Landers as the victims. 3. The episode asks how a Friday-night robbery in an oil-town KFC became a five-person execution and why the case stayed open for decades. 4. Leanne Raspberry learns from Kilgore police that something is wrong at the restaurant after her shift, and she drives back to a scene where Mary Tyler has not punched out. 5. Family members describe Kim Miller finding the back door wide open, the dining area in disarray, and the register money gone. 6. Police check the missing employees’ time cards and vehicles, then realize that Mary Tyler, Joey Johnson, and Opie Hughes are all missing. 7. David Maxwell’s wife reports him missing too, and investigators learn that Monty Landers is also unaccounted for. 8. An oil-field worker 12 miles away spots four bodies in the weeds, then investigators find Opie Hughes nearby with multiple gunshot wounds. 9. The medical examiner says at least two weapons were used, including a .38 and a .357, and Joey Johnson’s autopsy yields a torn fingernail that investigators treat as evidence. 10. Early investigators focus on Jim Earl Mankins Jr., who is questioned after his middle-finger nail is found torn down to the quick and after rumors tie him to a .38 handgun. 11. The case also picks up theories about a cash robbery and a methamphetamine recipe, and the FBI enters the investigation because of the drug rumors. 12. A separate lead from Star Powers points investigators toward Darnell Hartsfield and Romeo Pinkerton after she recalls two men near the counter when someone said there was $2,000 in the restaurant. 13. A similar grocery-store robbery in Tyler, Texas, and a sheriff’s confidential informants help Rangers focus on Hartsfield and Pinkerton. 14. Pinkerton claims he was in prison at the time, but investigators later check records and determine he was released before the murders. 15. The case stalls when the fingernail evidence is not strong enough for a murder charge against Mankins, and the families keep calling and writing for progress. 16. In 1995, improved DNA testing on the fingernail produces a result consistent with Mankins, leading a grand jury to indict him on five murders. 17. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology later reports that the tested nail is not his, and the charges against Mankins are dropped after six years in custody. 18. Years later, George Keeney reopens the file, tests a blood-stained napkin and a cash-register tape box, and links them to Pinkerton and Hartsfield. 19. New testing also reveals semen stains on Opie Hughes’ pants, and the episode uses a restrained, case-file style with family testimony, forensic detail, and law-enforcement interviews. 20. People who follow cold-case forensics and Texas criminal investigations will want this episode, while listeners who avoid graphic murder evidence may skip it.

As heard by us

A grim Texas cold case told with patience, forensic detail, and a strong sense of place.

Cold Case Files treats the 1983 Texas murders as a careful, almost squarely procedural account of a small-town shock that spread through ordinary routines, football nights, and familiar faces.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a Texas cold case anchored by one tiny physical clue.

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