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The third and final suspect in a famous quintuple homicide in Texas has been identified 42 years after the crime, Texas<\/a> DPS announced.<\/p>\n The five victims were killed “execution-style” after being abducted from a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kilgore in 1983.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018KFC murders\u2019 arrest A Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant is seen in Kilgore, Texas, in 1983. The restaurant was the site of abductions that turned into homicides in neighboring Rusk County, Texas. (KDFW \/ FOX Local)<\/p>\n The latest:<\/p>\n Devan Riggs was identified by investigators after the Texas Rangers reopened the case in 2023, leading to continued investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Through the use of advanced DNA technology, investigators found evidence on the clothing of one of the victims in 2024, and identified three brothers in East Texas in May 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n In November, Riggs was positively identified as the origin of the DNA evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to DPS, Riggs has been dead for over a decade. No new arrests have been made.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kilgore \u2018KFC murders\u2019 <\/p>\n The backstory:<\/p>\n Opie Hughes, 39; Mary Tyler, 37; Joey Johnson, 20; David Maxwell, 20; and Monty Landers, 19, were found dead on Sept. 24, 1983, on a remote oil lease in Rusk County. Each had been fatally shot in the back of the head, described by DPS as “execution-style.” Hughes had also been sexually assaulted.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was found that the victims had been abducted the night before from a KFC in Kilgore, miles away from where the bodies were found.\u00a0<\/p>\n The case went unsolved for years, until DNA evidence was used over two decades later to identify two suspects in the crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018KFC murders\u2019 convictions <\/p>\n Romeo Pinkerton and Darnell Hartsfield were convicted in 2007 and 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their identification and ultimate convictions stemmed from DNA evidence found at the KFC.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the time, one piece of evidence from Hughes’ clothing didn’t match Pinkerton or Hartsfield, indicating that a third suspect was still on the loose.\u00a0<\/p>\n Investigators worked for years to identify the third suspect, DPS said, but the case went unsolved until being revived this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this case comes from Texas DPS.\u00a0<\/p>\n Texas<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The third and final suspect in a famous quintuple homicide in Texas has been identified 42 years after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1046,223,27,29,28,216,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-90600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-crime-publicsafety","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-headlines","12":"tag-texas-news","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/kfc-murders-scene.jpg\")
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