After 42 years, investigators close infamous KFC murders cold case in East Texas

5NBC ^ | December 18, 2025 | By Alanna Quillen

[artichokegrower]

A crime that has haunted East Texas for more than four decades has finally found closure.

The Texas Rangers announced this week that they’ve identified the last suspect in the 1983 Kentucky Fried Chicken murders. It was a case that shocked Texas and the nation when five people were abducted from a Kilgore KFC and later found executed on a remote oil lease in Rusk County.

[artichokegrower]

On the evening of September 23, 1983, just before the restaurant closed, armed robbers held up the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore, Texas, United States. The five people in the restaurant at the time (three of whom were restaurant employees and two of whom were friends of one of them and waiting for someone there) were abducted, taken to a nearby field on County Road 232, and each executed with a shot to the back of the head along with shots to the torso.[2] One of the victims, Opie Hughes, was found a short distance from the others and had been raped.[3]

The victims' bodies were discovered by a local resident and were identified as: David Maxwell (20), Joey Johnson (20), Monty Landers (19), Mary Tyler (37), and Opie Hughes (39).

The racial aspect of this crime is being left out

[crusty old prospector]

Here is two of them.

[House Atreides]

“ The racial aspect of this crime is being left out”
***********************************

Of course, I would expect that in today’s “journalism”.

[DownInFlames]

Why am I not surprised!

[Chickensoup]

Spending time on cold cases so we won’t notice all the cases now that are not pursued.

[End Times Sentinel]

The racial aspect of this crime is being left out

I don't know about that. I knew it was "Them" that did it just because of the ignorance in adding on to a robbery, and since three of the victims were gainfully employed, you can be pretty sure they're not members of the EBT Community.

[mass55th]

"The racial aspect of this crime is being left out"

Thanks for filling in that crucial information. When I read the article, I asked myself: "So what was the race of the last perp? and that's because they didn't include the photos of the other two perps in the article.

[ansel12]

For a number of years during the 70s and 80s there was a thing of the blacks executing the people and businesses they robbed, frequently marching them to the coolers and storerooms for execution.

[A_Former_Democrat]

Is it them again, Yogi?

[hal ogen]

Them...avoid them.

[Deaf Smith]

I remember when this happened.

Over the years, young people I am involved with, I always tell them you never want to go to Crime Scene #2. Meaning even at gunpoint, never let people force you to go somewhere else. Run away/ drive away and make noise.

You never want to go to Crime Scene #2.

[logi_cal869]

[MayflowerMadam]

At least this time the perp isn’t black. 😉

[ridesthemiles]

NO WITNESSES LIVING

[boop]

They still haven’t solved the Burger Chef massacre in Indianapolis from that time frame.

[mass55th]

Thanks for the third photo. I just looked up the other two. The only one still alive in prison is Romeo Pinkerton.

[ansel12]

It was somewhat routine, the quick stop clerks were almost always murdered, it led to clerks in many states starting to say they were going to go down fighting, it was a many state trend.

I came to think that it was more than killing witnesses and that it might be some underground black race thing that the media wouldn’t report on, a more generalized black movement similar to the occasional race based black murder cults that would crop up and that the media would avoid uncovering or reporting on.

[TheDon]

[Raven6]

The article referenced the suspects being brothers... But as I looked at their last names, I was confused. Your post with pictures of two of the suspects gave me an “Oh, now I understand!” epiphany.

[Fedora]

This was likely an act of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a Black Panther offshoot linked to the Weather Underground.