Trial Begins in 24-Year-Old KFC Mass Murder Case

NEW BOSTON, Texas – Opening statements are under way in the trial of a man charged in one of the longest-unsolved mass murders in Texas history.

Prosecutors have begun outlining their case in a Northeast Texas courtroom against Romeo Pinkerton of Tyler. He's charged with capital murder in the 1983 slayings of five people from a Kilgore restaurant in what's come to be called "the Kentucky Fried Chicken Murders."

Pinkerton pleaded not guilty five times as a prosecutor read each of the five capital murder counts.

State District Judge J. Clay Gossett ordered the trial was moved from Rusk County to Bowie County to escape potentially prejudicial pretrial publicity surrounding the 24-year-old murder case.