Kentucky Fried Chicken Murders /// Part 1 /// 857

TV's number one drama, High Potential, returns with star Caitlin Olson as the crime-solving single mom with an IQ of 160.

Every week, Morgan uses her unconventional style and brilliance to crack LAPD's most perplexing cases.

It's the perfect blend of humor and mystery.

She's breaking the mold without breaking a nail.

High Potential premieres Tuesday at 10.9 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

I I don't mean to interrupt your meal, but I saw you from across a cafe and you're the Geico Gecko, right?

In the flesh.

Oh, my goodness.

This is huge to finally meet you.

I love Geico's fast-and-friendly claim service.

Well, that's how Geico gets 97% customer satisfaction.

Anyway, that's all.

Enjoy the rest of your food.

No worries.

Uh, so are you just gonna watch me eat?

Oh, sorry.

Just a little starstruck.

I'll be on my way.

If you're gonna stick around, just pull up a chair.

You're the best.

Get more than just savings, get more with Geico.

Welcome to True Crime Garage, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening.

I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, is a man who is a carbon copy of Nobody.

He's an original, ladies and gentlemen.

Here is the cat.

I am the original Douche Canoe.

It's good to be seeing and good to see you.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for telling a friend.

This week we are drinking No Colonel Sanders, You're Wrong by Trail Point Brewing Company.

This is a New England style hazy pale ale rounded out quite nicely with some hints of fruit.

ABV 7.4% garage grade 4 and a half bottle caps out of five.

Let's give some thanks, some praise, some cheers to our good friends for helping us fill up the old garage fridge for this week's set of shows.

First up, a big shout-out to new friend of the show, Ronald E.

in Kilgore.

And a big we like to trip goes out to Kristen from St.

Mary's County, Maryland.

Next up, here's a double-fisted cheers to Jenny and Tricia from Independence, Kentucky.

Yeah, Jenny from the block.

And a big tall hands in the air to Marissa from Long Island, New York.

And last but certainly not least, we have a shout out to Catherine Elmore and Quincy, Illinois.

Everyone we just mentioned went to truecrimegarage.com, clicked on the pint glass, and helped us out with this week's beer fund.

And for that, we thank you.

Yeah, BWRUN, beer run.

Make sure you go to truecrimegarage.com, sign up on the mailing list, and we'll love you forever.

Forever.

Forever, ever.

And Colonel, that's enough of the business.

All right, everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer.

Let's talk some true crime.

There is a long and disturbing history of homicides occurring at casual dining and fast food restaurants in the latter half of the 20th century.

We can make some pretty good assumptions as to the reasons why.

With With the rise and explosive growth of fast food chains in the mid-20th century, more than blood pressure and waistlines were expanding.

Thanks to the likes of McDonald's, Burger Chef, Taco Bell, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, fast food became an accessible, appealing option in the 1970s and 80s.

especially for busy working parents who just wanted to feed their hungry families quickly, easily, and on the cheap.

As more and more fast food alternatives began popping up near high-traffic areas on highways, near schools and shopping centers, the likelihood of crime amplified exponentially.

Due to extended hours, cash-heavy operations, and minimal staffing during late shifts, these businesses became attractive targets for robberies.

The danger increased with the advent of 24-hour service and the very nature of fast food jobs, typically performed by young or even teenage workers, often exposing employees to a greater risk of workplace violence.

Typically situated just off of an interstate, a busy state road, or a highway,

these businesses featured a built-in getaway route for a would-be criminal to take advantage.

A fast food restaurant is the very definition of a crime of opportunity.

This is True Crime Garage.

This week we are going back in time to 1983 and to the east Texas town of Kilgore.

Kilgore is one of those cities that is divided by two counties.

Kilgore is located in southern Gregg County and extends south into Rusk County, where over three-fourths of the city are located in Gregg County.

The remainder is in Rusk County.

Now, back in 1983, the population is only about 2,000 or so folks fewer than it is today.

Back then, Kilgore was over 11,000 good, hardworking Texans.

And then, of course, like every other city that's out there, We got a few bad ones.

Some other cities in the area that listeners outside of the great state of Texas Texas may have heard of before, may not have heard of before.

Maybe you've visited these places before would be Tyler and Longview.

These will be cities that are mentioned in today's true crime story.

In fact, Kilgore is wedged pretty much right between the two cities of Tyler, Texas, and Longview, Texas.

Kilgore is just a little over 100 miles east.

of Dallas and is actually closer to Shreveport, Louisiana rather than the great

Big D of Dallas.

Kilgore to Tyler, Texas is 27 to 33 miles depending on the route, and Tyler is west of Kilgore.

Now Kilgore, Captain, is primarily known as an oil town.

This is a generally wholesome area, family-oriented city where football reigns supreme, as it does in most Texas communities.

From September to late November or even into December, should you be lucky enough to make it to the playoffs, the entire town virtually lives for Friday night.

It's the biggest night of the week with everyone making sure that their schedules are set as so that they do not miss a kickoff.

You've all seen it on TV and it is real, my friends.

It's cheering on the whole team.

Maybe your kids play for the team.

Maybe it's your alma mater.

It's Friday night lights.

Texas forever.

Now, let's hone in on one particular Friday in late September.

It's a mild, pleasant, early fall evening.

This is September 23rd, 1983, with temperatures a steady mid-60s for the bulk of this evening.

Perfect football weather.

In Kilgore, we have a bunch of restaurants, but the one that we are concerned with for this week's true crime story is located at 800 U.S.

259, 259, U.S.

Highway 259.

It's the Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant.

Finger licking good.

Finger licking good.

Now we can assume that it would have been humming with activity on this night and leading up to this night as residents with little time or patience to cook before the big high school game would come in in droves.

The franchise would have been virtually bursting with patrons grabbing a quick bite before making their way to the local high school football stadium to show their hometown pride.

Restaurant employees who normally followed standard processes may have been too busy during the hectic dinner hour to stick to their regular routines.

Such was the case on this bustling Friday night when the afternoon deposit remained neglected.

So, cash on hand, still present at the restaurant long after it should have been dropped off at the bank on that day.

At about 9 p.m., we have a young woman.

Her name is Star Spagano and her boyfriend.

They enter the Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant.

She says before entering, as she would later recall, that she noticed a white van parked near the dumpster at the rear of the building.

And she made note of this.

because she thought it was a little strange as there were no parking spaces in the back of that lot.

Everybody, all the spots were marked marked to the side in the front portion of this lot.

She quickly dismissed the thought, however, and now she's inside and her attention diverted to the menu on the wall.

What am I going to order?

But while waiting in line to order, Star overheard a conversation, which some sources indicate as a telephone conversation.

Others indicate that it was from personnel to personnel.

The information we have here, Captain, states that the conversation was between KFC employee Kim Miller and her mother, Mary Tyler, the assistant manager.

So within an earshot, Kim told her mother that the afternoon deposit still hadn't been made and there was now over $2,000 in the register.

A little shocked, of course, at how freely mother and daughter were discussing the fact that there was a large sum of money on the premises, Star Spagano also noticed that there were two young men standing behind behind her in line.

And she says that there was indication to her that those two men appear to have also heard or overheard this conversation.

Well, and if this conversation happened once, and like you said so freely, you wonder if this conversation has took place many of times at the restaurant or outside of the restaurant.

In regard to the different reports as they stand today over 40 years later, my thought here is that there's potential that the assistant manager, Mary Tyler, may have been on the phone with somebody else and that this is being communicated to her by her daughter, Kim Miller, and she's relaying it on the phone.

So therefore, that might explain why we have varying accounts of the conversation.

Was it from one employee to another in front of customers or from one employee to somebody on the phone?

that was heard by the customers.

So let's talk about who was at the restaurant that night and specifically who was working there that evening.

So we have co-workers Mary Tyler, who we've already mentioned.

We also have Joey Johnson and we have Opie Hughes.

They were busy working their shifts on this Friday football night.

So three employees working.

Later in the evening, we have David Maxwell.

So he actually works at the Kilgore KFC, but he's technically off that night.

He's just doing the old drop-by.

Yeah, so he goes into the restaurant because he's going to give his friend Joey a lift home on a motorcycle that he, David, had borrowed from Joey's roommate.

The roommate's name is Mike Wolf.

A friend of Joey's and David's, his name is Monty Landers, was also at the restaurant.

Now, all three of these young men were students at the local university, Kilgore College.

David and Joey were active members of a fraternity, and Monty was pledging that fall.

The KFC closed that night, like most nights, at 10 p.m.

Assistant manager Mary Tyler's 16-year-old daughter, Kim, had gone home earlier that night.

So remember we mentioned Kim as that story of Star Spagano saying, I overheard one of the employees telling another employee about a deposit that was not made and that they had over $2,000 in the register.

Right.

Anybody that's worked at restaurants knows how this typically plays out.

Usually, the last hour or two of business is much slower than the earlier business hours.

And so you start to, where I come from, we called it cut.

You started to cut people and send them home.

You only need a couple of people typically to close up, shop for the night.

So while Kim was there earlier that night, she's not there to close.

Well, I thought it was a little surprising since it's 1983

that this KFC was open all the way till 10 p.m., especially with a town with such a small population.

But you wonder if they're trying to get some business from people leaving the football game.

Yeah, I was actually surprised that they weren't open till later because of what you just said with the football game.

I remember attending a lot of high school football games, even as an adult, and typically you wouldn't get out of there till about 10.30 or so.

Right.

But it's also one of those things, like,

how much are you going to tax and stress your business to hope to catch some people between the minutes of 10.30 and 11, right?

Like 11 would be a reasonable time to close.

But yeah, you're right.

Today, I feel like typically on a Friday night, we have restaurants staying open much later than that.

Well, heck, we went through that time period before COVID where McDonald's and so many other fast food chains were open 24-7.

Yeah, and you're right, with only 11,000 people in the population there, 10 p.m.

is probably a very appropriate time to close, especially on a Friday night.

So, Kim, when her mother failed to return home, she decides she's going to go back to the restaurant and check on her.

This is around 10:30 p.m.

So, real quick here, this is a blended family.

Mary Tyler is on her second marriage, and it's actually Kim's stepfather that's like, Hey, where's mom?

And Kim's like, I don't know.

She should, she should probably be home by now.

And that's what prompts Kim to decide to go back to the restaurant to check and see what's going on.

Because typically, Mary, who's the assistant manager, she would arrive home shortly after closing.

It was past that time that she would typically arrive home.

Yeah, that's one of my questions in this case.

When you're in banking, we'd close, and sometimes it would take us 10 minutes to settle up and clean everything up and get ready for the next day and we're out of there.

And then other times it'd be 40 some minutes, maybe an hour after we close.

So I was kind of curious of what the standard procedure was there.

I loved working in restaurants and when I did it in high school and after high school and different capacities.

And

I loved the hustle and bustle of it.

I loved leaving with cash in my pocket at the end of the night.

But the one part I did not like was when friends or a girlfriend or somebody be like, Hey, what time are you getting off?

You're like, Yeah, I don't know.

What do you mean you don't know?

Well, people that have never worked at a restaurant, they don't understand that concept because you typically work from this hour to that hour every other job.

No, it's you're there as you are needed.

And let's say, like here, the restaurant closes at 10.

Well,

you just like you said with the bank, if they got nobody coming in, you start doing all your closing duties when there's nobody there.

Right.

If you're worth your salt.

If you're busy, you're taking customers and filling orders up until the very last minute, and you can't start closing until you lock the front door.

You never really know what time you're going to get out of there.

And a lot of it's just simply based off of how busy you are that day or the hour before closing.

Yeah, something I shouldn't feel bad about, but I do feel bad, is let's say a coffee shop is closing at 10

and I show up and it's 9.30 and they're mopping the floors and doing all their

stuff, trying to get ready to close early.

I always feel bad for some reason.

I know I shouldn't because I'm like, I'm not causing any extra work and you're open till 10.

I should feel okay, but I feel bad every time that they're mopping and cleaning up the store.

So now we have Kim back at the scene, and she says that she finds the front door locked, as would should be expected.

I mean, the restaurant closed 30 minutes prior to this.

So we're now at 10.30 p.m.

roughly.

Right.

But she says she finds the back door wide open.

This threw her off.

She cautiously steps into an empty restaurant.

She doesn't know that it's going to be empty, but finds it empty.

And her trepidation increased greatly when she found a puddle of blood approximately nine inches in diameter on the floor of the kitchen.

Not good.

Right.

And she also noticed that the money was missing from the register.

Now, she's not panicking at this point.

She's quite concerned, but she says that for whatever reason, her gut was telling her to drive to the nearby hospital.

This is Laird.

Memorial Hospital.

Her thought was maybe somebody had gotten injured and that her mom probably went with the injured employee to the hospital.

Well, it makes some sense because there's no victims.

You see blood, but you see no victims.

And then you go, well, the doors were locked, but the back door wasn't locked.

What the hell is going on around here?

But you don't, like I said, there's no victims.

So then you just start assuming, well, an accident took place and everybody rushed off and they accidentally left the back door open.

Well, the thing that would be most most alarming to me, I mean, blood, number one, obviously, but number two,

the vehicles belonging to these folks were still in the parking lot.

Yeah, that's not a good sign, but I guess you could reason it by going, well, maybe people hopped in the ambulance, but why would everybody go to the hospital?

Some people should leave.

The money is kind of strange, too, because on one hand, they're closing, so they would.

Create a deposit most of the time when you work at a restaurant at the end of the night you take the money and put it in a deposit bag so you can deposit that into a bank.

So, Kim arrives at the hospital.

She's talking to the personnel there and quickly learns that none of the KFC staff, none of her coworkers had been admitted that evening.

So, now she's going to jump into a different form of action and contact the Kilgore Police Department to report that, hey, I'm worried that something very wrong has possibly happened at the KFC restaurant.

This is from the Longview News Journal.

They reported that Kilgore police patrolman Wayne Reynolds was the first person on the scene.

And upon entering the restaurant, he spotted flour spilled near the back door with what appeared to be footprints tracking through it.

In the kitchen area, he noticed

that there were two fast food workers' caps, the little caps that they wear.

I don't know how this was determined, but according to the newspaper, it says one was a man's cap and the other was a woman's.

Having not seen these, I don't know what would be how you would figure that out.

They could have been styled differently.

Yeah, and there was also a piece of paper that was found on the floor near the puddle of blood.

I'll go ahead and give out a spoiler alert for this piece of paper because later law enforcement were, they were hoping to examine this piece of paper and that maybe it might be some kind of evidence or some kind of clue, but it was simply a, just kind of a cute little love note from one of the male employees to one of the male employees from a girlfriend.

So it appears like this was just a piece of paper that he probably folded up and had in one of his pockets during his shift that night.

doesn't really give any clue or idea as to what may have happened to the employees.

The patrolman moved to another room where he observed an open desk drawer.

This is in the manager's office.

There was a small amount of blood that was found on files, the little file folders that are inside the drawer.

As said, there was money missing from the drawer.

So it sounds to me, Captain,

that

not only do we have money missing from the register, and we can say missing, but as you pointed out, at some point you're taking the money out of that register for the night anyway.

But there's no money in the register.

Where they would have kept additional money in the manager's office, there's no money there either.

From my understanding, the key to the register was found in the register drawer as well.

So

yeah, the cash register was closed and the key is still inside.

Time cards, this was very smart by the patrol officer.

Time cards indicated that Mary, Joey, and Obie, the three that were working that night, that were still on the clock at closing time, they had never punched out on those cards.

Additionally, all the employees' vehicles were still parked outside of the restaurant, as we had said earlier.

The front door locked, the key still in the lock, but on the inside of the store.

Around midnight, the Kilgore Police Department notified the restaurant's manager of the incident after they've had time to make notation of everything that they're observing at the scene.

A few hours later, this is around 3.15 a.m., Lana Maxwell, this is David's 18-year-old wife, she is notified of the alarming situation coming from her husband's workplace from a friend who had gone over to look for him.

Lana was pregnant.

She had gone to bed hours earlier, assuming David would be home soon.

The store was empty, the office drawer empty, the till empty, the back door left unlocked and open.

The employees' vehicles in the parking lot

still and all four employees plus a friend were missing.

Protecting your home is more than having good locks and alarm system with loud noises.

Truly protecting your home is having a system that is proactive, not just reactive.

With SimplySafe's new active guard outdoor protection, you get a system that works to prevent that break-in, that violation of your space from ever happening in the first place.

AI-powered cameras plus live monitoring agents detect suspicious activity around your property.

If someone's lurking, agents talk to them in real time, turn on spotlights, and they can call the police proactively deterring crime before it starts this is why we love simply safe they're not just waiting around for something bad to happen they're proactively deterring crime we love simply safe we use it to protect the garage studios we use it to protect our homes protect yourself and protect your loved ones with simply safe visit simply safe.com slash garage to claim 50 off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free.

That's simplysafe.com/slash garage.

There's no safe like SimplySafe.

TV's number one drama, High Potential, returns with star Caitlin Olson as the crime-solving single mom with an IQ of 160.

Every week, Morgan uses her unconventional style and brilliance to crack LAPD's most perplexing cases.

It's the perfect blend of humor and mystery.

She's breaking the mold without breaking a nail.

High Potential Premieres Tuesday at 10.9 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

While you're buying new school supplies and trying to plan a new schedule this season, the last thing you want to factor in is a giant wireless bill.

But with Mint Mobile, you can get the coverage and speed you're used to for way less money.

For a limited time, Mint Mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for $15 a month.

That's right, $15 a month for really great premium wireless service.

I love Mint Mobile.

Why?

Because it's the same great service that I get with other providers that shall not be named at a fraction of the price.

So great service, save money.

That's Mint Mobile.

Get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just $15 a month at mintmobile.com/slash TCG.

That's

slash tcg.

Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month.

Limited time, new customer offer for the first three months only.

Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mint Mobile for details.

With summer in full swing, you start to feel that familiar urge to refresh your closet.

But why waste money on pieces you only wear once or just one season?

That's where quince comes in.

The clothes are timeless, feel luxurious, look elevated, and the quality is beyond what you would expect for the price.

Think 100% European linen tops starting at $30.

Washable silk dresses and skirts and soft cotton sweaters.

Versatile warm weather pieces you'll reach for again and again.

This is why I love quince.

Top shelf quality at affordable prices.

I just picked me up some premium shades, some soft stretch crew neck undershirts, and some bundles.

A bundle of dress shirts and a bundle of polo shirts.

I am ready for the summer season and for many summer seasons to come because at Quince, it's quality.

And there's so many luxury quality styles for the women.

You're going to absolutely love their dresses and their skirts.

Check out everything they have available today at quintce.com slash garage you're gonna love everything you see give your summer closet an upgrade with quince go to quince.com slash garage for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns that's quince.com slash garage to get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns quince.com slash garage

All right, we are back, you silly monkeys.

Tall cans in the air.

Cheers to you, Colonel.

Cheers to you, Captain.

Let's go to the next morning.

It's 10 a.m.

So now we're on Saturday.

We're less than 12 hours after the initial reporting of something wrong at the KFC restaurant.

Kilgore PD received a call that an oil worker, his name is Arthur Warlick, he reported stumbling across four bodies in a remote oil field in Rusk County.

This guy Warlick is a pumper.

That's his job title.

He goes out often solo checking on these different oil wells for the outfit that he works for.

So he's out checking oil wells on a Henderson Clay products lease property near a remote road off of state highway 323 between Henderson and Overton.

Unable to believe what he's seeing at so at first he thought this was some kind of like prank or joke.

Okay, so he, the way he describes this is he shows up to this field as he typically would.

And when he's walking in,

he sees

feet and legs just kind of lying there in the in the tall grass.

Not good.

And well, at first, he only sees one set.

So he thought, all right, well,

maybe there were some teenagers out here drinking the night before, and one of them decided, you know, I'll just lay down here and sleep it off.

But then he sees another set, and he's like, no, this ain't, you wouldn't have multiple people out here just sleeping.

On top of that, at some point, he starts to think, well, maybe the other guys that I work with are are playing some kind of joke or prank on me.

Like, if I panic here, well, then I'll be the butt of their joke forever and ever.

I'll always be that guy.

But after finding four,

he's still thinking there's potential that it's some kind of prank.

So he actually kicks the bottom of one of the feet.

You know, they're all wearing shoes, but kicks the bottom of one of them and telling them, like, hey, you know, get up, get out of here, that sort of thing.

And there's zero reaction.

No movement, nothing.

I don't think I'd have it in me to

kick.

I'd rather look like I can be the butt of the joke, right?

I'm not kicking anything that potentially is a dead body.

Back when I worked security, I responded to a dead body call.

That's for a whole nother story.

We'll save that for an off-the-record.

Now he's starting to panic a little bit.

And God bless his honesty because when he describes this, he goes into full like panic, I'm terrified, afraid mode.

He hops on the radio and he's like, help, help, help.

I need some help out here.

I need some help out here.

He's having a hard time putting together what it is that he found other than he's pretty certain there's dead people out here.

And the details from that.

You can find that in, there's a great book on the case called The KFC Murders, The Deadly Saga of the Infamous East Texas 1983 KFC Massacre.

This is by Jackie Hilburn Simmons and Kenneth Dean.

But upon realizing that this is not a joke, Captain, and now knowing that he's probably looking at dead people, he radios the supervisor, who then summoned the Rusk County Sheriff's Office to the scene.

Authorities immediately knew that this was

got to be their five missing people from the restaurant.

Oh, yeah, I have four bodies.

Yeah, one of them was eventually found a distance away.

And it's unclear to me if Arthur Warlick, the pumper who arrived, if he found four or five.

Right.

Because some reports state that he found the four, and then other reports state that he called in five dead bodies.

And you'll see why there's a potential for a discrepancy there as we go through the

known facts of the case.

And this is from newspaper reports here, Captain, from the Kilgore News Herald.

The headline,

five slain in Kilgore robbery, bodies discovered Saturday on oil lease in Rusk County.

And the article reads in part,

the bodies of five people apparently abducted Friday night during a robbery of the Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant were found Saturday morning on an oil lease north of Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Rusk County.

All five had been shot to death.

Officers said that the bodies had not been positively identified as the five people abducted, but the chances, quote, are extremely strong, end quote, that they are.

Doyle Williams, an investigator for the Russ County Sheriff's Department, said authorities have no leads in the slings.

The five people abducted were identified as Mary Tyler, age 37, assistant manager of the restaurant, Joey Johnson, age 20, of Overton, he was a cook, Opie Hughes, 39 of Kilgore,

KFC employee.

David Maxwell, 20, a Kilgore college student.

And Monty Landers, 20 years old, a visitor to the restaurant.

I mean, obviously, it's sad because we have all these victims, but

even more sad in some of the situations where you have this guy that just dropped by to see his buddies or maybe he was just bored and wanted to stop by work just to say, hey, what's going on?

Or how was the night or whatever?

And then he becomes a victim in this crime.

Yeah,

when we review these cases that take place at businesses, and sadly, if they end up on the garage show, that usually means that one or more of the employees were killed in the commission of a robbery or whatever.

took may have taken place at that business.

But in every one of these accounts, we get situations where you have, oh, this person happened to call off that night and their life was spared just by pure chance.

And then, oh, this other person covered for this person or switched

shifts with this person and they lost their life because they happened to be there that night.

And in this story, it's no different where you have the one young man was simply there.

Yes, he worked there, but he wasn't scheduled to work that night.

And he was there only because

he borrowed a motorcycle from his buddy's roommate who was an employee there.

And he's like, well, my buddy's probably going to need a ride home.

He doesn't have a vehicle.

And I got his roommate's motorcycle.

I should be kind enough to go back and pick him up.

And in fact, from what I understand here, Captain, I believe that's how he was going to give the motorcycle back, right?

The go pick him up.

One of them is going to ride on the back.

One of them is going to drive.

and they're going to go drop the other one off and then take the motorcycle home.

The reverse of that is the people where their lives are spared because they just so happen not to be at the restaurant.

One thing that was good here

is that the young man that was riding in for to return the motorcycle, his young wife, remember we said he, she was married and pregnant with their baby.

Yeah.

They were at home together and she actually said, Hey, let me go with you.

And he's like, Okay, that sounds great.

And then at the last second, he's like, Wait a second, it's a motorcycle.

We can only fit,

we won't be able to take all of us after we pick up the other guy.

You just stay here.

I won't be gone very long.

And then you have Monty Landers, who is a freshman at the Kilgore University or Kilgore College, who knows the other two guys.

And he was simply there because

he went in there because he was going to help his buddy clean up because they were in a rush to get to a college party later that night, which, of course, they never make it to this party.

So you always have those very weird scenarios that you sift through in these types of cases that take place at businesses.

Here's a guy.

You're going to like his name, Jurdy Wolverton.

Change.

Jurdy Wolverton.

And that's not...

Wolverton's not bad, but Jerdy.

I think Jerdy's probably some kind of nickname.

And I love the South because if you get a nickname when you're like three years old, they don't care if you're 50.

You still have that nickname.

And so Jerdy, and this is not me mispronouncing it.

It's J-E-R-D-Y, as reported multiple times in the newspaper.

He's the public information officer for Kilgore Police Department.

He said that it probably wouldn't be until Sunday, so the following day, before positive identification of the slaying victims could be confirmed.

And this was because no identification was found on any of the bodies.

All five of these people were adults.

None of them have identification on them.

However, he noted that several of the slain persons wore clothing that matched descriptions of three of the missing people.

You can imagine what that is, right?

Would be work uniforms.

Wolverton said an unknown number of persons apparently entered the back door of the restaurant while an employee was carrying out trash after the restaurant closed at 10 p.m.

So you have some indicators at the restaurant to tell you what likely happened,

right?

You find the front door locked.

That's an indicator that they successfully closed the restaurant for the night.

You find things that they've started their closing duties for the night.

Now, one of those closing duties would be to remove all the trash from the restaurant and put it in the dumpster outside.

This report goes on to say the bodies were found by an oilfield pumper on Elise Road around 10 a.m.

Saturday.

Quote, when we got there, we found four bodies in one location and another body at a location distant from the other four, said Russell Potts.

He's a special investigator for the Greg County District Attorney's Office.

Quote, these four appeared to be slain execution style, where they were forced to lie on the ground and and were shot there.

End quote.

Police chief Johnny Bradley said four of the victims, the three men and one woman, were forced to lie down on the ground and were shot in the back of the head.

One of the women apparently tried to escape, and the position of her body, which was 30 to 40 yards from the other four, indicated that she had momentum before she fell.

Her body was found face down beside the lease road with several clumps of dirt and grass clinched in her fist on the corner of Walter King Road and Emery Lloyd Road, located northeast of the Pleasant Hill Cemetery on State Highway 323.

Because four of the victims, they were all facing like the same way.

Like there was some uniformity to how they were placed.

Yes, and I wouldn't say placed, I would say ordered to lay down, just as the law officers had stated.

You're going to, when you're finding the victims this quickly after the abduction, it's going to be obvious to you that these, these four victims laid down.

And just like without giving a great description here, we're not provided with a great description, but the words that when they say she's found in a location distant from the other four and saying that she had some momentum before she fell, right?

You're going to see indicators there on the ground in the grass that's going to tell you like,

she didn't lay down here in this space like everybody else did over there.

She was

hunted down in this location where she's eventually found.

Authorities went on to say that robbers apparently forced the victims to step over the cattle guard at the location where they were found, go beyond the locked gate that blocked the lease road and walk along the lease road for approximately 100 yards.

Then they were forced to lie down.

Bradley said authorities recovered one large caliber shell and part of another near the scene.

Another officer said all of the victims had been shot in the head.

Deputies said the people did not have any identification, but they confirmed that one of the victims was wearing a Kentucky fried chicken uniform.

Officers said that since the victims apparently were slain at the point where their bodies were found, the Rusk County Sheriff's Department will have jurisdiction in that investigation.

However, since the kidnapping and robbery occurred in Kilgore, the Kilgore police are handling that investigation.

The robbers apparently entered the back door while an employee was carrying trash out after the restaurant closed at about 10 p.m.

Friday.

And they're basing this because they're stating that some garbage had been taken to the dumpster, and then several other bags of trash were dropped just outside of the back door.

So this is their indicator of how the robbers probably entered the premises.

And they may have even taken someone at gunpoint right there at that back door, whoever was carrying out the trash, and then moved them back inside.

There were obvious signs of a struggle inside the restaurant.

We went through some of that information already.

Some additional information here, Captain.

There was blood found around the counter area around the desk where the money was kept in the kitchen.

There was additional blood found there.

As far as what the public is going to be told, authorities were simply saying that there was an undetermined amount of cash missing from the restaurant.

Now, there were reports that started to leak out rather quickly that this would have been approximately $2,000 in cash that was missing.

Obviously, they probably have either records, receipt records, or they also have just what do we make on average at that point?

You have five victims dead

execution style for $2,000.

And I know

this is 40-some years ago, so maybe that's a little bit more money than it is today, but it seems like overkill doesn't seem like that's the purpose for this crime.

Well, and you're going to have a register with receipts to tell you how much money is actually missing.

So you'll be able to get that down to near the penny

when you're looking into into the case.

Now, you're not always going to, you don't, that is obvious holdback information, right?

You can say, hey, about $2,000 was missing.

We've seen plenty of other cases where $2,500 was missing, $3,000 was missing, $1,000 was missing.

They regularly don't tell you to the dollar amount because if they're trying to pull a confession out of somebody or if they get false confessions, because we do know that when there's these high-profile cases, which this will very much turn into one, you will have some crazy that will come forward and say that they did this or they know the person that did do it.

So you have to have your holdback information.

Okay, so based off of all the information we've already gone through, here is what we know, or at least we believe to be the case.

The simplest facts or indicators of what may have happened in the case is that sometime between closing and approximately 10.30 p.m., a half an hour after closing, the four co-workers and their friend were abducted from the restaurant by an unknown assailant.

So we know this for a few reasons.

One, we know they closed the store, and we, two, we know that when Kim returned to find her mother at approximately 10.30, she finds the restaurant empty.

So we have a very short little window of time when this all went down between the robbers.

entering the restaurant and then removing all the employees and getting the hell out of the restaurant and parking lot because Kim saw nobody there when she arrives looking for her mother.

We later learned that at least two guns were used when executing those folks out there in the oil field.

One thing that I find odd here, Captain, is that we never really truly get a definitive number of guns that were used because all of the reports out there are stating that at least two guns were used, possibly three.

Right.

I think that they're basing that, Well, I shouldn't say I think.

I know that they're basing that off of they found more than two kinds of ammunition.

Now, that doesn't 100% mean that there had to be a third gun, but it's an indicator of a possibility of a third gun.

Yeah, because this crime is, it's very complex because we have multiple scenes.

We have the restaurant, the KFC.

Then we have this murder site.

This is where we believe, and I believe everybody believes all the murders actually took place there.

So we have a kidnapping, but then we have these different shells and these different calibers of guns because there's some speculation that there's two people involved.

And then some people speculate that there's three people involved.

It becomes pretty complex.

So let's add to the complexities here because when I review this, let's do it.

I think that there's all kinds of complexities.

So

obviously somebody forced their way in the back door.

What it appears to me, we have every person that's in law enforcement that walked in that restaurant saying the same thing.

Obvious signs of a struggle here and probably multiple struggles in the restaurant.

And to me, what that says is

these guys went in to rob the place.

And even though they had guns, they were met with some resistance most of the time.

And you have to play the percentages.

Just like so, Texas Hold'em, baby.

You got to play the percentages.

That's all you have to go off of.

And the percentages are telling you that most of these incidents end

in the perpetrator leaving, fleeing the restaurant with cash, and every person that worked there that was in the restaurant shaken

and

probably terrified,

considering quitting their job,

but otherwise unharmed, alive, to tell the authorities what happened.

Here

vanished.

So I think they were met with some resistance that they didn't expect.

And when that happened, the only

reasonable explanation for them to abduct and murder all five people is either A, somebody in that restaurant could identify one or all of the assailants, or they were met with some kind of resistance and the robbers thought, you know what?

You want to fight?

Oh, we're going to get a fight.

We're going to get a fight here.

And we're going to take you out and we're going to take you out into this oil field.

Now, of course, nobody knows exactly what happened, the details of what happened, because we don't have any witnesses.

We don't have any, unfortunately, we don't have any survivors of this incident.

Right.

And we have blood found at the restaurant.

And don't we have like a fingernail or something found at the restaurant?

No, we we have a fingernail that's found on one of the victims.

So let's go back to that white van.

Remember the witness, Spagano, said, not only did these dudes behind me in line seem to perk up and pay specific attention to the employees talking about all the money in the restaurant, but when prior to me going in, I noticed this white van that was parked at the rear of the restaurant, which now police are saying they think the robbers and assailants came in through the back door.

Plus, they're going to have to, they're going to,

if you have at least two

bad guys and five people that are dead, that's transporting seven people from the restaurant location to the murder scene.

Right.

So either you have to have multiple vehicles, which they didn't take any of the employees' vehicles.

They're all found in the lot, or you have to have a big vehicle.

So, this van is looking more and more interesting.

I would say this, though.

It would seem to me that when Spagano, the witness, and her boyfriend enter the restaurant, she says that this is just a touch after 9 p.m.

The restaurant closes at 10.

Everything went down, and everybody's out of there by 10:30-ish.

I don't know that overhearing the employees talking about how much money was the genesis of the idea to rob this particular store.

Because if in fact that white van belonged to the killers, well, that van was already parked in that weird position prior to them going into the store.

If in fact those guys in line were the perpetrators.

Yeah, I think I've seen some internet rumors or speculation.

that it's possible that maybe these individuals heard 15,000 as opposed to like 1,500.

And some people go, well, they'd have to be stupid to think that the KFC made $15,000 that day.

Well, most criminals are stupid.

That is true.

So let's go through some background information here real quick on some of our, on, on our five victims and what we know about these five victims.

Four of the five victims of the KFC massacre were co-workers.

They all worked together at this Kilgore Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

Three of them, Mary Tyler, Opie, Hughes, and Joey Johnson, were actually working their evening shifts on that Friday, September 23rd, 1983.

David Maxwell was also a Kilgore KFC employee, was there, but he was not scheduled to work.

And as we said earlier, Captain, Monty Landers did not work there at all, but was a friend of...

and fellow college student with the two staff members, David and Joey.

All these people, from what we could find, they were good, kind people.

None of them should have met this tragic fate, obviously.

It was the following day,

Sunday, September 23rd, that a Dallas forensics lab performed the autopsies on the five.

This is the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences.

thus confirming the suspected identities of the murdered victims.

The autopsies also revealed that two guns had apparently been used in execution of the five victims.

A piece of a broken fingernail.

This is what you were talking about just a sec ago.

A piece of a broken fingernail is found on one of the victims' belt loops.

It's also reported that it was found in the waistband of the victim's pants.

So this is a piece of broken fingernail.

It's found, and it's determined to have come from someone with type O blood.

So this is crucial physical evidence, right?

Because you're going to examine the fingers of each one of your five victims and find out very quickly that none of them have a torn fingernail.

This is telling you it came from one of the perpetrators.

And just like the blood that's found at the scene, crucial physical evidence.

The blood that was found at the robbery abduction scene at the KFC.

So remember, though, this is 1983.

Had this been July of 2025, this case would have been solved in two to three weeks' time.

Mary Tyler was 37 years old.

She was a mother of five who was working as an assistant manager at the KFC on the night of the abduction.

She was a Kilgore resident for nine years.

She had been with the restaurant chain for three years.

And in fact, she had actually met her husband, Billy Tyler, when she was working at the franchise in Longview.

Texas.

She was the mother of three biological children.

Their names Tony, Kim, and Bubba, and stepmom to two bonus children, Lisa and Denise.

And people regularly commented that she regarded her two stepchildren as her own, and the feeling was reciprocal.

Mary was known as a good worker, a loving wife, and a mother with a sweet voice and a cute little laugh.

Her co-workers said

she was more like a regular worker rather than the boss, right?

Rather than the manager.

She never bossed anybody around.

Then we have David Maxwell, David Wayne Maxwell, 20 years old.

He had been working at the Kilgore KFC for only a week, only a week, but he had already made a big impression on his coworkers.

He was the one, although he was not scheduled to work on that night.

He was abducted and slain because he's returning that motorcycle to his friend.

And we already talked about how his wife.

His young wife, Lana Maxwell, she, thankfully, she ended up not traveling with him to the restaurant that night.

It's also noted that David was taking karate classes at college, but they also note that he was very much at the beginner stages of this.

And so while he might have been one of the persons that offered up some resistance on these robbers, clearly he wasn't able to.

Look, a guy with hands and feet.

And you know, karate,

the robbers are armed with guns and minus any heart or soul.

You're at a disadvantage.

Yeah, but that doesn't stop people sometimes.

Sometimes

people see an opportunity,

and it's very difficult because

you go, well,

would these criminals come in just to rob from the place and then

a confrontation happens and then that causes them to execute everybody?

I don't think so.

I think that might have just been the plan all along.

I mean, that's

they had a van.

They wouldn't need a van if they were going to transport all these people.

I think it's really tough because

the longer we do this, the more

I feel like people should put up some kind of fight because if you don't, the outcome could still be execution or murder or rape or whatever that this the sick individual is trying to accomplish yeah i mean if we want to question everything we can also say well maybe the van if it was in fact belonged to the assailants is their only means of transportation so it wasn't planned to bring a van it's just that's that's their set of wheels joseph jerome johnson also known as joey was 20 years old he was a fraternity brother of david maxwell these two were best friends joey had been a senior class president at his high school he earned the nickname Mr.

Overton High School before graduating.

He was listed in the who's who in high school athletes for his participation in football, basketball, tennis, and track.

And he also received this prestigious Billy Jack Roberson Award for Outstanding Football Player at Overton High School in 1982.

He was the second oldest of eight children.

He was very close with his mother after his father passed away while Joey was still in high school.

He was a cook at the KFC restaurant and was working his way through school, contributing,

what a young man, this guy, contributing to the support of his family.

Remember, his father died while he was in high school, and he was financially helping to support his mother and siblings.

His mother recalled him stopping by every single morning on his way to work just to check on her and the younger kids.

We also mentioned Opie Hughes.

She was aged 39.

She was a working mother raising her three children.

She was married to Jack Hughes, and she was a Kilgore resident for 11 years prior to her murder.

She was quiet and unassuming, and it was her nature that her husband, her family, her friends, they were all baffled and devastated as to why anybody would want to harm somebody as gentle and quiet as Opie was known to be.

And then last, we have Monty Landers.

His full name, Montgomery Lewis Landers.

He was only 19 years old.

He was not an employee of the restaurant, but had the terrible misfortune of being there on the night.

He was just a freshman in college, and he was, as said, he was pledging to join the fraternity that the other two boys were a part of.

He majored in forestry and was interested in mechanics, but he ultimately wanted to travel the world just like his father, working for an oil company.

And when he was, when it was announced that he was killed, local authorities had to contact Monty's father to inform him of his son's murder.

And at the time, Monty's father was in Cairo, Egypt, where he had been stationed.

The bodies were discovered in Rusk County, in a Rusk County oil field, about 14 miles south of Kilgore.

So that gives you some general idea of the amount.

This is going to add to a lot of the speculation that investigators are going to have at the time of why this particular spot

and why so far away from the restaurant.

Right.

It's also weird to me, too, because you think it's this

oil field.

So

is it just was the idea that it's just in the middle of nowhere, so it'll take some time for people to find the bodies?

You'd think they would try to place the bodies in a place that nobody would find them.

I think that that is why, that's why I speculate that this was retaliation, that this was punishment for being met with resistance.

Because

you could have done exactly what you had just said.

If you didn't want them to be fined, you could have found either

you could have gone to greater efforts to do so.

I think that to me, what I'm seeing here, where they are found, and then we know that they are found very quickly, I think to me, that is suggestive that, well, we just need them to not be found long enough for us to get away.

So much more to get to in this true crime tale.

Stick around for part two.

Until then, be good, be kind, and go for it.