Crime Time

DNA frees one, implicates two others, but they remain free

A man sent to prison more than 15 years ago has been freed after DNA testing concluded he was innocent.

Patrick Waller was behind bars since late 1992 for aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping -- until DNA testing conducted late last year proved his innocense.

But here's an odd twist:

The DNA evidence that freed Waller also eventually implicated the two actual perpetrators of a 1992 robbery and kidnapping.

But those two men — now tied to the crime by their recent confessions in front of a grand jury — are free men and can’t be tried because the statute of limitations has long since expired.

Read more here.

-- Bill Miller

Mass murder trial under way

Defense attorneys for Romeo Pinkerton, the first of two men being tried on capital murder charges in the 1983 Kentucky Fried Chicken slayings in Kilgore, are trying to discredit DNA evidence that prosecutors say ties Pinkerton and his cousin, Darnell Hartsfield, to the slayings.

The case is considered one of Texas' most notorious and longest-unsolved mass murder cases, according to The Associated Press. The trial is under way in New Boston.

Killed were KFC assistant manager Mary Tyler, 37; and three employees, Opie Hughes, 39, and Joey Johnson and David Maxwell, both 20. Monte Landers, 19, a friend of Johnson and Maxwell, was visiting as they closed the store and was also killed.

Attorneys for Pinkerton, 49, a convicted burglar with a long prison record, are trying to show that the investigation was botched.

-- Bill Miller