DNA nets break in '83 KFC killings
Posted on 08/21/2002 2:55:56 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
DNA nets break in '83 KFC killings
3 inmates suspected in kidnap-slayings of five in Kilgore
08/21/2002
TYLER - Three incarcerated career criminals from Smith County are now the major suspects in the kidnap-slayings of five people from a Kilgore Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant 19 years ago, authorities say.
DNA testing of blood found at the crime scene and a statement from one of the suspects to other prison inmates has reignited the long-stalled investigation of the 1983 slayings, which is among the state's most notorious unsolved crimes, said officials in the ongoing investigation.
"This case has been worked to death. It's been stayed on incessantly. Finally, after all these years, it looks like all that legwork may be paying off," said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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Five people Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey Johnson, 20; Monty Landers, 19; David Maxwell, 20; and Mary Tyler, 37 were taken at gunpoint from the Kilgore restaurant just before it was scheduled to close on Sept. 23, 1983.
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Their bodies were found the next day more than 10 miles away on a rural oilfield road. Each had been shot repeatedly in the back of the head in what appeared to be methodical executions.
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Authorities focused for years on the son of a former state representative, James "Jimmy" Mankins Jr., at one point indicting him in the mid-'90s after then-Attorney General Dan Morales entered the case and announced publicly that DNA evidence tied Mr. Mankins to a fingernail found at the scene.
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But those charges were dismissed after repeated tests found no match, and DNA experts criticized the attorney general for seeking an indictment even after being warned that the test results on which it hinged were preliminary, inconclusive and flawed.
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Sources close to the Rusk County case said local authorities, including a retired FBI agent who became a special investigator for the Rusk County Sheriff's Department so he could keep working on the case, kept doggedly pursuing leads and got several crucial breaks within the last year.
The sources said comparisons of blood samples recovered from the crime scene with a DNA database kept on inmates serving time in the Texas prison system led authorities to a Smith County man serving a lengthy sentence for burglary.
Earlier this year, officials said, investigators obtained a blood sample from him and confirmed that his DNA matched blood smears left on a napkin at the restaurant.
Further comparisons of bloodstains found on victims' clothing with the DNA database led authorities to place two other prison inmates at the scene of the crime. Like the first, the two men are serving lengthy sentences for convictions in Smith County robberies or burglaries, officials said.
Several officials said some of the victims may have fought back, possibly wounding the robbers before being overpowered.
The assailants may have then dripped blood, tried to wipe it off or smeared it on victims' clothing while searching for money or other valuables, officials said.
In addition to the theft of about $2,000 from the restaurant, the assailants stripped each of the victims' bodies of jewelry and other valuables. Investigators have also said that a puddle of blood was found near the front counter of the restaurant, and a trail of blood droplets led from there to a rear office where cash was stored.
The type of DNA testing that led authorities to begin focusing on the current suspects was unavailable at the time of the slayings.
FILE 1983 / AP Evidence that officials collected in 1983 has led to a break. The type of DNA testing done recently was unavailable at the time. |
At least one of the new suspects was actively pursued for questioning soon after the slayings, but interest in him apparently ebbed after investigators began focusing on Mr. Mankins, a local resident with a history of drug crimes, officials said. Since the investigation began focusing on the three men, officials said, authorities have received information that at least one of them was overheard talking to other prison inmates about previously unpublicized details of the crime.
Authorities have not dropped Mr. Mankins as a suspect. But several officials said no ties have been found between Mr. Mankins, now serving a federal prison sentence related to amphetamine trafficking, and the three Smith County men.
None of the three men, whom officials declined to identify, have been charged in the case. Officials said Rusk County authorities are proceeding cautiously.
The case officially remains in the hands of the attorney general's office, where it was transferred in the mid-'90s just before the indictment of Mr. Mankins.
Investigators met earlier this summer with Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen to bring him in as a special prosecutor.
Mr. Skeen said Tuesday that he had "three or four meetings" to explore the possibility, noting that Rusk County authorities said they were interested in drawing on his experience in death penalty prosecutions.
But Mr. Skeen added that a lead investigator in the case told him Tuesday that Rusk County prosecutors wrote Attorney General John Cornyn last month and asked that his office continue handling the case.
Mr. Skeen declined to discuss details of the case, saying he'd been asked to refer all questions to the head of the attorney general's criminal division. Officials with the attorney general's office could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.
Rusk County District Attorney Kyle Freeman could not be reached for comment. George Kieny, the retired FBI agent and special investigator for the Rusk County Sheriff's Department who has led police efforts, said local authorities are not anticipating any immediate public developments in the case.
"The sheriff said today that he doesn't anticipate any arrests for several weeks down the road," Mr. Kieny said. "The way this case is falling right now is taking its own natural order. It's progressing right along."
E-mail lhancock@dallasnews.com
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