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 http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8S8C9S00.htmlTestimony set to start in infamous Texas KFC mass slayings case  10/13/2007 By MICHAEL GRACZYK  / Associated Press Jurors in a far northeast Texas courtroom this week begin hearing about an infamous mass murder case that left investigators baffled for nearly a quarter-century and will test witnesses and lawyers trying to sort out fact from legend. Opening arguments were set for Monday in the capital murder case of Romeo Pinkerton, 49, the first of two men accused of fatally shooting five people in one of Texas's longest unsolved mass murder cases, known as the "Kentucky Fried Chicken Murders." The five victims were abducted during the robbery of a KFC restaurant in Kilgore in East Texas in 1983 and were found dead the next morning in a remote area about 15 miles away. Pinkerton, with a long burglary history, faces a possible death sentence if convicted. His cousin and alleged partner, Darnell Hartsfield, 46, faces the same charges when he goes to trial likely next year. Early last month, State District Judge J. Clay Gossett summoned 900 potential jurors to the Bowie County Courthouse in two waves over 43 days before prosecutors and defense lawyers settled on 15 of them — 12 jurors and three alternates — to hear the evidence against Pinkerton, who already was in prison when he was charged in this case. Gossett moved the trial to New Boston because of publicity in the Kilgore area, about 90 miles to the south. The judge, who has imposed a gag order on everyone involved in the case, has said he hoped the trial could be finished by Thanksgiving. The five victims were reported missing the night of Sept. 23, 1983, after assistant manager Mary Tyler's daughter arrived to pick her up from work but found the KFC empty and in disarray. Investigators found blood on the floor and a cash register tape showing about $2,000 had been in the cash box. The next morning, Tyler, 37, along with co-workers Opie Ann Hughes, 39; Joey Johnson and David Maxwell, both 20; and Monte Landers, 19, were discovered by an oilfield worker checking on a production site in nearby Rusk County. Investigators determined all had been shot in the head from behind. Prosecutors allege Pinkerton and Hartsfield, both of Tyler, showed up about 10 p.m. to rob the place. A bloodstain on the box containing the cash tape, tested in 2001 using newly developed DNA technology, put Hartsfield at the scene. Prison records show Hartsfield was arrested in Smith County for aggravated robbery three days after the KFC slayings. He was paroled in 1992, had the parole revoked, was released two years later. Hartsfield had been in a Texas prison since 1995 on a 40-year sentence for delivery of a controlled substance and engaging in organized criminal activity. He told a grand jury in 2003 he wasn't at the restaurant, but with the new DNA results, plus earlier witness accounts that put him there that night, prosecutors charged him with perjury. A jury convicted him and he was sentenced to life in prison because of his criminal record, which also includes aggravated robbery, engaging in organized crime, burglary and reckless endangerment. Two weeks later, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced capital murder indictments against Hartsfield and Pinkerton, who also was linked to the scene by DNA. The convicted burglar, paroled at least five times over the years, was arrested in Tyler on a warrant for yet another parole violation. Pinkerton first went to prison in 1981 for a Smith County burglary. He told investigators he was in prison at the time of the slayings, but records show he was paroled two days before the murders. Documentation kept by investigators looking into the case now for almost 25 years gives prosecutors an advantage in a case that's been unresolved for so long, famed Houston criminal defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin said. "The prosecution is far more able to retrieve the information they have because they have records of it," said DeGuerin, whose high-profile clients have included multimillionaire New York real estate heir Robert Durst. "The defense is very limited in that regards. They're starting 25 years in the hole." Both sides, however, face witnesses trying to recall events from almost a quarter-century ago. "You can have a problem one of two ways," said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor who teaches criminal law at Baylor University Law School. "One is if they're not certain any more of what happened. And on the other hand, if they're too certain, that doesn't seem credible. "For most of us, certain events in our mind, our memories of it, they may become more certain at the same time they become less rooted in what actually happened. and there are times jurors are suspicious of that." DeGuerin said defending a client in such a long-cold yet visible case is extremely difficult. "The legend of the case becomes the truth of the case," he said, adding that witnesses long have thought and talked about the event "and before you know it, they're really not reporting about what they saw or heard or know but just what they believe." "They've mixed fact with legend." Osler said successful prosecutions of old civil rights cases recently tried in the Deep South can serve as a "good template" for the KFC case. Osler said DNA would help prosecutors place Pinkerton at the KFC, although DeGuerin noted DNA wouldn't necessarily pinpoint a time. "That means a lot of testimony then will be on the role of each individual at the place," Osler said. "And once you've got DNA evidence in play, then you've got a much greater likelihood of a defense based on someone else did it, I was an observer, it wasn't my idea, I was a secondary player, and, although not in this case, sometimes self-defense." Prosecutors initially had more than 600 names on their witness list. The list was trimmed to just over 100. Prosecution material includes at least 127 CDs. One of those is a DVD that holds the equivalent of more than 30,000 pages of documents. Pinkerton and Hartsfield weren't the first to be charged in the case. In April 1995, James Earl "Jimmy" Mankins Jr., a Kilgore man convicted of federal drug trafficking charges, was indicted for capital murder after a torn fingernail believed to be his was found on the body of one of the victims. Subsequent DNA tests exonerated him and the charges were dropped.