Patriot Brief

• Texas investigators identified the final suspect in the 1983 KFC murders.

• Advances in DNA technology allowed the case to be fully resolved.

• The suspect’s death means the case is closed without further prosecution.

Identifying the final suspect in the 1983 KFC murders doesn’t undo anything, and it doesn’t deliver justice in the traditional sense. The man responsible is dead. There will be no trial, no sentence, no moment where a judge says his name and reads the charges aloud. What it does provide is something narrower, but still necessary: the truth, finished instead of half-answered.

For decades, this case sat with a loose end everyone knew was there. Two men were convicted, but the evidence never fully lined up. One victim was sexually assaulted. One set of DNA didn’t match. That matters. Leaving it unresolved would have meant quietly accepting an incomplete story simply because time passed. Investigators didn’t do that. They kept the evidence, kept the file alive, and waited for technology to catch up.

There’s no heroism here, just persistence. Genealogical DNA didn’t bring a miracle — it brought confirmation. It said what happened that night involved three people, not two, and now the record reflects that reality.

For the families, that distinction isn’t academic. Knowing who did it, even decades later, matters. Names matter. Facts matter. And while accountability ends when a suspect dies, anonymity shouldn’t be the reward for waiting out the clock. This case didn’t end with justice. It ended with accuracy — and sometimes, that’s the most honest outcome available.

From Western Journal:

The Texas Department of Public Safety investigators have identified the third and final perpetrator in the 1983 KFC murders in East Texas, in which five people were kidnapped from a restaurant and killed.

A suspect named Devan Riggs was identified through advanced DNA testing and genealogical analysis.

Riggs, however, has been dead for more than a decade, so no arrests will be made.

But with the identification complete, authorities have officially closed the case. The killings occurred in September 1983 and shocked Rusk County, Texas, and the country.

On the morning of Sept. 24, 1983, the bodies of five victims were discovered on a remote oil lease in a rural area of the county.

Those victims were Opie Hughes, 39; Mary Tyler, 37; Joey Johnson, 20; David Maxwell, 20; and Monty Landers, 19. All but Landers were employees of the restaurant, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Each victim had been shot in the back of the head in what investigators described as execution-style killings.

Hughes was also sexually assaulted, according to DPS and KDFW-TV.

The five victims were killed “execution-style” after being abducted from a Kentucky Fried Chicken in East Texas in 1983. https://t.co/qYR4pxGTWu

— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) December 16, 2025

Investigators determined the victims had been abducted the night before from a KFC restaurant in Kilgore during an armed robbery.

The case remained unsolved for years before advances in DNA technology helped to partially solve the crime.

In 2007 and 2008, Romeo Pinkerton and Darnell Hartsfield were convicted of the murders.

Their convictions were based on DNA evidence collected at the KFC restaurant.

However, one piece of DNA recovered from Hughes’ clothing did not match either man.

Based on the evidence, police believed there was a third perpetrator.

Decades later, the final KFC murders suspect has been ID’d. How it happened: https://t.co/AY5hwwvsGu pic.twitter.com/uE9YGPaBGh

— KLTV 7 (@KLTV7) November 21, 2025

For years, investigators continued working to identify the unknown suspect without any success.

In 2023, the Texas Rangers determined the case qualified for review under the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative.

The program, which was funded through the Department of Justice and Bureau of Justice Assistance, supports investigations into unresolved sexual assaults and homicides.

In July 2024, the remaining DNA evidence was sent to Bode Technologies for advanced testing and analysis.

By May 2025, that work flagged DNA from three brothers from East Texas as potential suspects.

Further research and testing ultimately confirmed Riggs as the source of the DNA last month.

Source

Photo Credit: (KDFW / FOX Local)