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Texas authorities have announced that the final suspect in the decades-old case known as the “KFC murders” has been identified.
Devon Riggs was named as the last of the three individuals linked to the horrific murders of In 1983, five people were abducted from a fast-food restaurant in Rusk County, Texas, during an armed robbery.
On the morning of September 24, 1983, the bodies of Opie Hughes, 39, Mary Tyler, 37, Joey Johnson, 20, David Maxwell, 20, and Monty Landers, 19, were found on a remote oil lease in the county.
Apart from landers, All the victims worked in KFC Where the violent incident took place.
According to the Times, Tyler was the mother of four children and was the assistant manager of the restaurant dallas morning news, Hughes was also a mother. Landers, Johnson and Maxwell were all students at Kilgore College.
According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, each victim was fatally shot in the back of the head, execution style, and Hughes was sexually assaulted.
Investigators determined that all five victims had been abducted from a KFC in Kilgore, several miles away, during an armed robbery the night before, but the case remained cold for more than 20 years.
In 2007 and 2008, two men – Romeo Pinkerton and Darnell Hartsfield – were convicted of the murders using DNA evidence collected at the restaurant.
However, another piece of DNA evidence collected from Hughes’s clothing did not match either person, suggesting the involvement of a third person. The investigation continued, but no further arrests were made.
Then, in 2023, 40 years after the original incident, the Texas Rangers identified the case as eligible for testing and comparison through DPS’s Sexual Assault Kit Initiative program – intended to bring historic justice to the victims’ families.
In July 2024, an unidentified piece of DNA evidence taken from Hughes’s clothing was sent for additional advanced DNA testing and genealogy, with results returned in May 2025.
Testing identified one of three brothers living in East Texas as a possible suspect.
In November, further testing confirmed that the DNA matched one of the brothers, Devon Riggs. However, Riggs had been dead for over a decade, and no arrests had been made.
“Cases like this highlight the importance of collaborative investigative work between the Texas Rangers and our law enforcement partners to keep unsolved cases alive and ultimately bring closure to victims’ families and the community,” Texas DPS said in a statement.