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

The suspect died many years ago, so an arrest is not possible.

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.

The suspect, Devan Riggs, was confirmed through advanced DNA testing and genealogy earlier this year. Riggs died more than a decade ago, so no arrests can be made. Officials say the case is now officially closed.

“This case has just kind of hung over East Texas not being solved for so long, so it’s a relief,” said Jo Lee Ferguson, a longtime reporter for the Longview News-Journal who covered the case for over 30 years alongside her colleagues. “I think there were probably a lot of people who thought this was never going to happen, that there were never going to be final answers about what happened.”

On Sept. 24, 1983, the bodies of 39-year-old Opie Hughes, 37-year-old Mary Tyler, 20-year-old Joey Johnson, 20-year-old David Maxwell, and 19-year-old Monty Landers were discovered in rural Rusk County. Each had been shot execution-style in the back of the head. Hughes had also been sexually assaulted.

Investigators determined the victims were kidnapped during an armed robbery at a KFC in Kilgore the night before. Two men – Romeo Pinkerton and Darnell Hartsfield – were convicted in 2007 and 2008 after DNA linked them to the crime. But one DNA sample from the victim’s clothing didn’t match either man, pointing to a third perpetrator.

In 2023, the Texas Rangers flagged the case for testing under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI), a DOJ-funded program that helps solve cold cases. In July 2024, DNA from Hughes’ clothing was sent to Bode Technologies for advanced testing and genealogy. By May 2025, investigators had narrowed the search to three brothers in East Texas. In November, Riggs was confirmed as the third suspect.

"The police, the crime lab folks, the crime scene investigators, we all have to go on to the next case and the next case and the next case. That doesn't happen for the families. They stay with that one case continually because that pain is there,” said Patricia Eddings, a distinguished senior lecturer in forensics at UT Arlington’s Criminology Department. "I started into police work in 1974. I worked in crime labs in Mississippi and New Mexico and in Texas. And so I have been around so many cases throughout my career. Those cases never leave that family."

Her own students helped solve a high-profile cold case recently involving the 1991 murder of a woman in Arlington.

"Looking to find connections between people, between places, between items of evidence. They were so diligent in everything they did,” she said.

Eddings said finding closure for cold cases shows the power of persistence and technology in solving decades-old crimes.

"How these people that love this person that died, have been impacted by this case and to be able to show that closure and what that means to them – that's amazing,” she said.

For many, the identification in the East Texas case brings long-awaited peace but not all the answers.

"We're still missing the how did this happen and why were these people at the restaurant? Why did they kidnap these people and kill them? I don't think we're ever going to find that out, because as the prosecutors said, the one living suspect has declined to talk to them about what had happened exactly,” said Ferguson. “I think the closure is good. We know who all did it, but there will always be questions.”

The Texas Rangers thanked the Rusk County Sheriff’s Office, Kilgore Police Department, Bode Technologies, and DPS crime labs for their work.