80’s Halloween KFC Killing | 21-Year-Old Manager Found Dead - Death Through The Decades | Robin Hoynes

It was Halloween. Four sisters living in Southern California had been preparing for their favorite holiday all year long. When October finally came, they decorated their house, carved pumpkins, carefully chose their costumes, and got ready to hand out candy and go trick or trading. But that Halloween, one of them wouldn't be pretending to walk among the dead. She would be lying lifeless on a concrete floor waiting to be discovered. This family was about to experience a real living nightmare, and I'm gonna be telling you their story. Today, I'm gonna be doing a double series. Actually, it might be a triple series because I think this one will be a deadly deep dive. This video is part of my Halloween All Hallows Horror series, but it also introduces a brand new series that I'm bringing to this channel called Death Through the Decades. This is where we're gonna explore nostalgic memories of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, as I bring you true crime stories from each decade. I'm really excited about this. This is one of my favorite videos I've ever done in this channel, but I will warn you, the style of this video is a little more casual than my usual, but it's truly about sitting with me like a friend reminiscing about the past. But it is gonna be just as serious as all my other videos and well researched like you are used to. I hope this series brings you back to a simpler time and is reminiscing of your past or you learn something new if you're part of the younger generation. These stories will be a little different as I dive into the culture around the time the stories took place, including what police forces were like, technology, or lack thereof, investigative tools, and of course what living in these decades was like at the time the homicides occurred. If you love how a deep dive into the biography of each victim, I think you're really gonna appreciate this series because it adds an additional layer to connect with them and what their life was like back then. Like I said, this case today is from the 80s I was born in 1982. This is my decade and so's the 90s and the 2000s. It's when I grew up and what a time it was. I think we'll always look at the time that we grew up as the best times, but I feel like the late 70s going into the 80s and the 90s were just so great. And I also created a special Spotify playlist for all of you. I handpicked 80s hits to go along with the story and you can listen to them later and anytime you want to. I listen to these songs when I was researching and writing for this video. You can find the link below to that playlist. I really hope you like it. I thought it would really get you into the moment and bring back memories. The song that I want to dedicate to this story is California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Poppas. It's on that playlist, but of course the most important aspect of today's story is the Horns family. Ethel Marie Titus married Virgil Horns and the couple brought four lovely little girls into this world. Their first daughter was born when Ethel was 25 and Virgil was 27 years old. Kim Marie Horns, sharing her mom's middle name, was born in August of 1960. She had the same birth month as her dad and her mom Ethel had a Halloween time birthday October 20th. And some people think that having a birthday neuro holiday can be fun in other times. Holidays can actually overshadow someone special day, but the Horns made both special Ethel's birthday and of course Halloween. An Ethel was an amazing mother. She was very dedicated not just to her own family, but to others as well. She was the type to make sure everyone around her was taking care of, especially during the holidays. She would embrace friends and consider them her extended family, making sure that they had everything they needed and that they felt loved. Just two years after Kim was born, Robin Lucille Hoynes came along on December 2nd, 1962, just a few days before Christmas, so that's another holiday birthday. Robyn's name fit her so well. She stood out because she had beautiful natural red hair and that's very special. Less than 2% of the world's population are natural redheads, so embrace it if you have red hair and freckles too, because that is what Robin looked like. And I wondered while I was researching this case whether her parents specifically picked that name because of her red hair. Robyn right here, I'm not sure, but it was also a very popular name. For some reason, I always think of cabbage patch kids when I think of red hair and freckles, probably because I had one in the 80s that looked just like that with the bright green eyes and red hair and cute little freckles. The Hoynes family lived in a modest 1300 square foot, three bedroom, two bath home, in a middle class suburb in Los Angeles called Whittier and Southern California. It's an inland city as we call it here, which means it's not close to the beach. It's more affordable inland, obviously, and it would be perfect for a growing family like the Hoynes. Virgil was working as a maintenance man for suburban water systems in West Covena, which is a water utility service providing water to 300,000 residents in California. And their headquarters being in West Covena was quite a tribe from the Hoynes residents. Definitely over 35 minutes or so and that's without traffic. But Virgil, he was a hard worker, provided for his family, which was going to get bigger. Ethel and Virgil's third daughter, Patricia and Hoynes, who went by Trisha, came just four years after Robin in June of 1966. And finally, just two years later, they welcomed their last child, Wendy Sue Hoynes, in April of 1968. She was the closest to being Robin's twin, also having red hair. And they really did look a lot alike. The Hoynes family was finally complete. Four daughters, all close in age, they grew up like friends. It was great. Having these siblings, it was like having built in best friends right at home. Someone to talk to, play with, be entertained by. And it's also great for parents because their children have playmates. And the Hoynes girls were very close. They did everything together. And one thing they look forward to every year was Halloween. It was their favorite time of year celebrating their mom's birthday on the 20th and then of course, doing all the Halloween festivities. Dressing up, carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating, they look forward to decorating their house every year, not just for Halloween, but on every holiday. However, the highlight of Halloween for the Hoynes sisters was undoubtedly the cherished tradition of trick-or-treating. And I'm sure most of us can relate. Dress in their carefully chosen costumes, the girls ventured into the neighborhood, excitingly knocking on doors and collecting their treats. The thrill of receiving candy from friendly neighbors and the anticipation of what awaited them at each house filled them with excitement and sometimes something a little spooky. They went door-to-door to as many homes as possible getting as much candy as they could. Then once their trick-or-treating adventure came to an end, the sisters returned home with their bags filled to the top with a vast assortment of sugary delights. Finally, they would gather around the kitchen table ready to embark on the next phase of their Halloween tradition, which was sorting through their suites. With great care, they'd sump their bags onto the table, creating a colorful and mouth-watering mountain of candy yum. It's getting me really excited for trick-or-treating this year. Each sister would meticulously examine her collection and carefully pick out her favorite, sorting through all the rest, categorizing them and then trading each other for their favorite candies. The room was full of laughter and banter as they compared their treasures and I hate to be like "Me too, me too." But I think a lot of us can relate. It's exactly what I do with my daughter. We sort everything out, we pick our favorites and it's so much fun and I'm so tiny that I can still pass as a trick-or-treater and you know I do. Every year in anticipation for the spooky holiday, the loin sisters picked out costumes to wear to school on Halloween. A tradition they look forward to and would eagerly prepare for in advance, carefully choosing their annual outfit. Since each of the loin sisters went through all four years at Lucerna High School in Whittier, their last name which was unique was recognized by teachers and students alike. With Kim being the first to experience high school life and Robin starting her freshman year in 1978 when her big sister, Kim, was a senior and that feels so cool having a sibling that's not only an upperclassman and knows everyone, but Kim was also a flagster at Lucerna High. I was able to track down her actual senior yearbook, yes I did, and here's little Robin as a freshman with her glasses on and Kim in her senior picture, as well as in her flagster outfit. So flagsters were girls that came out during the halftime shows at football games and they twirled their flags, they entertained the crowd with dance moves, and they just tried to get the school spirit up. They're kind of like cheerleaders and Robin followed in her big sister's footsteps and became a flagster as well when she was an upperclassman. Robin was pretty, she was popular, and she was well-liked in high school and friendly outgoing, and also known to be a very good friend. She was there for others, and there was always a coin sister at Lucerna High, and Robin of course stood out as she always did with her big bright smile and that beautiful red hair. The hair styles back then, for men, they were the long, shaggy hair which I personally love, and the mullet, which is madey comeback, and sometimes I'm not sure whether I like it or not, but since it does bring back memories, I am kind of partial to it. Women were love in the perms, or the ferrofoset feathered hair, which I absolutely love, which is also made of comeback with the fox cut and the curtain bangs. But the coin sisters were definitely in fashion with their cute hairdos. When Robin was a senior in 1981, Trisha was a freshman with Wendy following close by. behind starting high school year later in 1982. Being in high school during the 80s would have been so much fun, especially in California where the beautiful weather stays like this all year round. But I told you we were diving into what it was like growing up back then. California's economy was booming at the time. The entertainment industry, technology and aerospace were all responsible and unemployment was at an all time low. And speaking of which, the horn sisters valued hard work. And as soon as they were old enough, they each got a job. And we'll get into what the sisters were doing in the 80s. But first, let me take you back in time. The 80s and pop culture at the time make it the decade most often associated with nostalgia, including some of the best movies, music, TV shows and toys of all time, many of which are now remade and reintroduced to younger generations so that people can still enjoy them today. Growing up in the 80s was like stepping into a neon-soaked wonderland where the future was as bright as the clothing and the lights. It was the first generation to be raised on science fiction and fantasy, where kids dreamed of a future where anything would be possible. Because if you didn't remember, the 80s was when the movie back to the future was finally made. After the script was rejected over 40 times by every major production company. They'd all echo the same thing. Time travel movies don't make any money, but where they all wrong. And in 1995, it was finally created by Steven Spielberg and it became a movie franchise, a three-part series and get this. Back to the future is actually connected to the Huynes sisters sort of. The Hill Valley High School in Back to the Future was actually filmed at Whittier High School in Whittier, California. The same city the Huynes lived in. It was just 15 minutes away from their house. And of course, I made John drive me there. I had never been there before and here it is. It is so cool getting to stand right in front of such an iconic location. Back in the 80s, the halls of high schools were filled with boomboxes and walkmans with homemade mixtapes, playing music with the sounds of synthesizers and drum machines. And the streets were buzzing with excitement, like teens break dancing, and kids actually playing outside. Parents were not afraid to let their kids be free and roam their neighborhoods playing completely unsupervised until the sun went down. And they got to explore their imaginations without limits because kids had to use their imaginations back then. There were no social media or cell phones or tablets and no computers in the home. Kids spent most of their time outside. Building tree forts, riding their bikes everywhere think stranger things. If you haven't had a chance to watch that show, I highly recommend it. The arcade was popular. Kids would save their coins and play Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. And the local malls had food courts where kids would spend hours hanging out and when they were back at home or at a friend's house, they were playing board games. Robin loved the game of risk. She and her friends would play on the weekends and they would sit at the kitchen table until two or three in the morning. And this told me a lot about Robin. The game of risk is a strategy game. I can see people getting really serious about this game. It consists of things like diplomacy, conflict and conquest, and it's probably responsible for many family feuds. After all, it's a war game. Just look at it. The game board is a political map of the world divided into 42 territories which are grouped into six continents and the players take turns controlling their armies of little playing pieces and attempting to capture territories from other players. This game can be lengthy and often requires hours if not multiple days to finish. So, wow, Robin was a dedicated person. And imagine how much effort she put into more serious things in life if she put that much effort into a game. It also looked like from this photo that Robin loved trivial pursuit, which I also played growing up, who remembers that game. But back to less serious matters, after school was time for kids to tune in to their favorite cartoons like Hey Man, Shira, and Thunder Cats. On the weekends, they would gather around the TV to watch sitcoms like Full House, The Cosby Show, and Family Matters. And I'm still singing. They're reading Rainbow Song. I don't know, it always reminds me of it. But reading is becoming a lost art. Back then, Sweet Valley High Books were super popular. And of course, The Baby Sitters Club, wow. I hope this inspires you to blow some dust off the ones you might still have and read them or have your children read them, or just read any book. But maybe the drop in reading started with the birth of sitcoms and TV. And here's what most of those TVs looked like. This one was really popular if you could afford it. And that's because it was at a price of $500. Which would be a whopping $1,150 in today's money. So for that, you would get a 25 inch floor console model and look at this remote. I'm telling you right now, I can hear and feel these buttons till this day. And I definitely did not have a TV like that in my house, not at all. Mine looked like this with that really big antenna on top. But if you did own this 25 inch TV, you'd definitely be keeping up with the Joneses, which was also a popular phrase in the '80s. And it refers to the constant pressure to keep up with what your neighbors are doing. They're social status, they're wealth, they're popularity. And not much has changed. People are still constantly comparing themselves to others online and striving to accumulate the same material things today. And of course, no childhood in the '80s would be complete without watching classic movies like ET Back to the Future, as I mentioned, and the Goonies. If you haven't watched these movies, do it this weekend. Have an '80s marathon. And speaking of TV, the '80s had some of the most awkward and maybe even controversial commercials of all time. I watched a lot of them. Commercials were themed around the traditional all-American family, consisting of a husband and wife and maybe two kids, a boy and a girl, their station wagon, a white picket fence, and of course, a dog. I watched hours of old '80s commercials while researching and wow. Just look at some of the clips of them. Now, I may have to substitute the music on these commercials because of copyright, but be prepared anyway for some bad audio if you do hear any. Here's the first one. (chanting) Echo waffles. (chanting) We can't hear a thing with those headphones on. Which gives me the perfect opportunity to sneak up and grab that crisp, delicious Echo waffle. ♪ They go my Echo ♪ - Echo waffles from Kellogg's. The things people will do to get their hands on one. - That Echo's commercial and the Walkman brings me back and kids, they are still annoying their parents with listening to music in their headphones. Now, they're just connected to their phones. - Excuse me, this raising brand's Kellogg's. - So? - Well, it's got two scoops. - So? - Well, I don't deserve something this special. - Why not? - Well, I haven't done anything good enough to deserve the two scoops of Kellogg's. - Nothing? - Oh, I want you free to be stuck to my windshield wiper. - Well, there you go. You deserve the two scoop raising brand. - Raisin brand from Kellogg's. Everyone deserves two scoops. - Remember Raisin brand? Maybe you still eat it today, I don't know, but here he just said he didn't deserve the two scoops of raisins, not so wholesome. I remember Raisin brand and I remember raisin commercials. - Raisins were like a big thing back then. Does anyone remember this? The California clay raisins? I remember that my grandma would always bring home those little red sun-made raisin containers for me. And they did taste really good, especially like the yellow raisins. I even found an 80s horror movie commercial for Halloween 4. Wow, that is too funny. And I'm ashamed to say I've never watched any of the Halloween movies with Michael Myers. I think that's who it is. I'm not a big fan of horror movies, but this year, I am getting into a new tradition since my daughter is finally old enough. And we're gonna be watching all of the old movies. But going back to the 80s commercials, I have to say the ads seemed actually a lot more scandalous back then, like this one with sweaty men and couples seductively kissing in the rain and doing whatever that is in their car, all for a cologne commercial. You get the picture. And I hope that some of those brought back memories of the 80s. It's also when MTV Music Television launched. On Saturday, August 1, 1981, at 1201 AM Eastern Time, the first broadcast opened with video killed the radio star. And it wasn't for nothing, because that's exactly what video did. And this debut featured footage of the Apollo 11 rocket launch and an astronaut planting an MTV flag on the moon instead of an American flag which became a very well-known image associated with the MTV brand. MTV had landed. They were staking their claim. Instead of DJs on the radio, MTV had VJs serving up the top 40 music videos. And MTV had a huge impact on the music landscape. Kinda how YouTube has impacted podcasting now, we're all doing video podcasts, not just audio. But what was Halloween like in the 80s? The Hoiinsisters favorite holiday. Well, this is the part of the video that I was really looking forward to because it connects me to these women so much, knowing what was popular back then, what they were surrounded by. Halloween in the 80s was more of a family event. People would dress up as their favorite TV characters or wear costumes that they made themselves. No league avenue, sexy made costumes. No, no. I also noticed that kids would like to dress up as their favorite brands, which I thought was kind of funny like this Colgate toothpaste tube costume. But the most popular type of costumes, especially among children, the '80s were these plastic masks by Ben Cooper or knockoff brands. You could hardly breathe or see through the holes they were so small, and the costumes came in a lot of varieties, ghosts, devils, gorillas, you name it. You'd pair them with a matching outfit that came with it, and these came in your favorite characters from TV like He-Man, Superman, Voltron, Smurfs, Madonna, The Hulk, Rainbow Bright, Care Bears, and Alf. By the way, did you know he ate cats? If you know, you know. 80s kids dress for the part, not for practicality, or comfort, and look at these things. I found these dukes of hazards ones on eBay. They're pretty creepy, and the costume included was basically like putting on a colored trash bag. Seriously, you were like walking in a trash bag, and they were really noisy, but back then, this was all new and exciting and fun. And this is such a classic picture with the kids on the striped couch, with their masks on, and their bags in hand, before a night out trick-or-treating. There was also a lot of costumes of cabbage patch kids, Freddy Krueger, Pac-Man, and Barbie, which has definitely made a comeback this year. And Jason Hockey masks, and of course Star Wars characters, which is what I'm named after Princess Leia. But I don't want to leave out the Kooky Spooks costumes. They were popular in the late 70s and early 80s, and they had these inflatable creatures on hats. Look at the way they were packaged. It's said as seen on TV, and the commercials were a riot. I looked at them, and I'm going to show them to you. You just blow up the hat and put them on, and you can still find these today. I found some on Etsy. I'm leaving all these links below, just in case you want to. Wear them this year. There's your costume. You can thank me later. They come with a blow-up air cap. It adjusts to any size head, and an all-weather poncho, because yes, rain or shine. And even if it was below zero, no worries. You just put your costume over your snow suit, because nothing was going to stop you from collecting candy. You may do. These Kooky Spooks costumes even included state-of-the-art, high-glow reflective tapes of the cars could see you at night, and it had water-based makeup in the package. You can see how that turned out on his face. It's a little questionable, but here's some others. And I can see why kids live like these, because they're super funny, and they're easy, and parents like that. Because you could also just use the Kooky Spooks makeup, and make your own costume. Just listen to this commercial. It dries and cracks to make you look old. Add to Cart said no one are a drain out. It's definitely not the look. Unless it's Halloween, and the simplicity of the costumes of the 80s has been overshadowed nowadays, with such extreme and over-the-top decor and pricey outfits that are much more about like who went all out than just having fun. But then again, I want to point out, and I can't forget, Michael Jackson's thriller music video dropped in December of 1983. This was a 14-minute, almost like a movie, music video. And it was full of extremely realistic zombies. And it had a lasting impact on pop culture, especially the famous zombie dance. So that may have inspired more over-the-top costumes, but not right away, because the tradition was simple and more DIY. I definitely don't know how I feel about this 80s couples costume, um, Trojan condoms. I guess the mom's the rapper, and the dad is well, uh, and it even says extra large. Anyway, what do you think the children are? Just take a guess. Wow. That's the 80s. I told you that dressing as brands was the thing. We'll look at this cool kid as in cool brand cigarettes. I doubt that you would see anything like this today. Kids are not dressing as cartons of cigarettes. Maybe they're dressing as vapes. I don't know. The 80s were wild. This teen and the brick costume has a sign on her that says, "Just been laid." Get it? I'm sure she's talking about the bricks. Halloween in the 80s was all about trick-or-treating with friends and attending school parades. Kids would wait all year long for their annual school Halloween party with pizza and games throughout the entire school day. And then after school, they'd run to their local Blackbuster video store and rent a scary movie. And then they would spray shaving cream all over the place as a Halloween prank. Those were the days. Now schools have so many restrictions. You basically need a permission slip just to bring in anything that you expect a child to ingest. Where's the fun in that? I can't forget to mention one other thing. The neighborhood, community, haunted houses. Even churches would create them. All the kids would line up to walk through handmade attractions, followed by Halloween bake-offs and all the fall festival activities. But let's get into the real MVP of Halloween that's still reign supreme today and that is candy. So what was popular back then? Well first of all, you either grabbed these plastic bags or a plastic pumpkin bucket to collect your candy. Maybe that's why it seemed like we got so much more back then. But a lot of the candy would be handed out in these tiny Halloween print paper bags. And people weren't stingy. They didn't like buy a pre-packaged mix full of candy. No. They took their time. They bought them piece by piece and many times they were full size candy bars. Yes. Not those wimpy little bite size ones you see today. That's why you had to get ready and get out there early right when the sun started to set. The most popular candy was, of course, Reese's peanut buttercups. They're still going strong today. And as far as chocolate is concerned, Snickers, Milky Way, M&M's, Butterfinger, and a hundred grand are the top of the list. Bubble gum was also popular, especially this Halloween version, the pumpkin face kind. But what every kid really wanted was wax lips, the ones with bangs. And you could chew them just like, um, I love them. Among other favorites were Runs and Skittles. And Skittles mostly because that is when their Taste the Rainbow campaign launched in 1980. You also had sugar daddies. They were highly coveted as well as pixie sticks, six lits, air heads, fun dip, bottle caps. And all of this was mixed in with the often hated peanut butter kisses. Do you know what they are? They looked like this. They were unmistakable and equally questionable. Their taffy wrapped in black, orange, and I guess that's supposed to be white wrappers. To me, they just always looked dirty. Their peanut butter and molasses taffy. And I think people just add them as filler because nobody seems to like them, but they're still around today, surprisingly. And it's probably because of nostalgia. And speaking of which, if you're ever craving these 80s candies, you can go to your closest cracker barrel because their gift shop has a bunch of Halloween candy from the past. But if you don't have one near you or you just want convenience, I'm going to put a link below to vintage Halloween candy on Amazon. But I didn't want to forget to mention McDonald's and them releasing their own boo buckets, which was kind of like an evolution of the plastic pumpkin buckets. And these were released during October of 1986 for Happy Meals. And they brought them back here and there over the years, but then they were just gone completely for years. Well, guess what? Last year, they came back and I got one. I waited in line for these. You know it. And I got my hands on a few of them and I hear that they're doing it again this year. So look for your local McDonald's. I'm also wearing earrings that are the McDonald's little buckets. So I thought this was really festive, especially for this video. But this just gives you an idea of what the horn sisters were looking forward to every Halloween. And October 1984 was not that much different. Sure they were older with Kim being 24 and now living outside the family home and Robin being 21, Trisha 18, both graduated and now working. And 16 year old Wendy was a junior Alistair Nahai, but they were still looking forward to the Halloween festivities, especially dressing up and getting together. I told you I would let you know all about where the horn sisters were working in the 80s. Well Kim had gotten a job at a local mall, which was down the street from her parents' house and was most likely the Whitwood Center. It's only three minutes away from the horn's residents. Trisha worked as a waitress at Sizzler. There was one 12 minutes away, but I don't see many Sizzlers anymore. And I know it was known as the home of steak lovers. And that's because that's what they serve, along with other traditional American cuisine, like grilled shrimp, popcorn shrimp, french fries, lobster tails, and a self-serve salad bar, which was very popular back then. This place was kind of like Bougie on a budget. It was the fast food of steak houses. And I know that I haven't really touched on the food of the 80s. The fast food was becoming increasingly popular, especially Burger King, Wendy's, Taco Bell, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. And that is where Robin worked as a manager at the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant on Palace Ferties Boulevard, just south of Pacific Coast Highway in the city of Torrance. We drove out there, and this is exactly where it used to be. It's about a 40-minute drive from the horn's family home where Robin's still lived in Whittier with her two younger sisters and their mom and dad. But Robin was dedicated to her job. That's how she gained the title of manager. She was a responsible, reliable, hard worker who took her job very seriously. And I know that sometimes people scoff at fast food jobs, but look, they pay the bills. And these were very popular establishments back then. People were… honored. They were proud to wear their fast-food uniform. Minimum wage was $3.10 in California at the time, and Robin worked hard enough to get her own car at Yellow Dotson. Remember, this is death through the decades, and I'm going to be talking about what things were like in the 80s, and Kentucky Fried Chicken was founded by the good old Colonel Harlan David Sanders, who started selling fried chicken in an old gas station that he acquired, at least two, in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression. Governor Ruby LaFoon loved his fried chicken so much that he made Harlan Sanders an honorary Kentucky colonel. That's how we got that title. And when fast-food restaurants started opening and becoming franchises in the 50s, he saw the potential for Kentucky Fried Chicken to do the same. He opened the first one in 1952 in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was one of the first fast-food chains to expand internationally to Britain, Mexico, and Jamaica by the mid-60s. And it became the very first Western restaurant chain to open in China, believe it or not. By the 80s, Kentucky Fried Chicken was competing with the hamburger, which was popular at McDonald's, Wendy's, and Burger King. And it dominated the fast-food industry. So, Kentucky Fried Chicken had campaigns focusing on their chicken being more of a family meal that was quick, and then everyone could enjoy along with their mashed potatoes and gravy, buttermilk biscuits, and coleslaw. When made Kentucky Fried Chicken the best, according to them, was their original recipe, a special blend of 11 herbs and spices called the Colonel's Secret Formula, which they would brag about in every commercial. And it was said to make their chicken their slogan, which was finger-licking good. I kid you not. I guess you got to get that last drop. And it was apparently pressure-cooked to hold in the flavor. They also used the tagline, "We do chicken right." And it was emphasized that Kentucky Fried Chicken made sense because the Colonel served a good meal, and if it was good enough for him, it was good enough for moms to take home to their entire family. It was advertised as a real meal with quality ingredients served in their signature white and red striped bucket with the Colonel's face on it. That bucket was also their sign, and it used to rotate on a long pole outside their restaurants. This TikTok video says that this is one of the last remaining rotating buckets. I'm going to be calling it Kentucky Fried Chicken because it named and changed to KFC until 1991 when the company rebranded. They wanted to make the name easier to say and to appeal to a health-conscious consumer. Yeah, they're clever. Taking out the word fried was a marketing tactic, and shortening the name also let the customers know according to them that they served more than just poultry. And back in the 80s, it was a deal. For just $9.99, you would get a bucket of 10 pieces of chicken, a large order of mashed potatoes with a large gravy, four hot biscuits, and a large order of their creamy coleslaw. That really can feed a family. I've personally never taken even one bite of anything from Kentucky Fried Chicken. I've been a vegetarian for almost 10 years, but before that, my mom never let us eat fast food. I will eat meat from time to time like if someone cooked something special, I'm not going to say no to that and offend them. But my favorite foods came from McDonald's and Taco Bell, and I always got it at Grant's house. What about you? Tell me what your favorite fast food is or was. And all the fast food uniforms were so much cooler in the 80s. Robin probably wore something like this. A light brown kind of grayish-colored colored shirt with a dark brown vest and a striped tie. And yes, even the women wore ties, especially the managers at the time. Brown pants, along with these very popular, I don't know, boat-looking hats. Tell me what their official name is because I don't know. Or Robin could have worn the signature hat that a lot of females wore. It was a painter style cap or a paperboy hat with the brim in the front and the button on the top. And this would match the shirt and had a red stripe in front. The uniforms were definitely important for branding back then. It was part of the ambiance and the experience. All the fast food places had them. And it's almost like they competed for who had the coolest, most memorable outfits. Here's a few on the screens, you get a feel for what I'm talking about. And I feel like red was an ongoing color scheme, but here's McDonald's. Wow, and it's so professional. The vest and the colored button up shirt, there's that paper hat again too. And then we have the very famous Maroon uniform for Taco Bell. It's almost like a crossing guard uniform. And it seems so off-brand for what the style currently is. They had those visors and the colored shirts with the stripe across them. Then we've got hardies. And again, the red stripes, the hats. But look at Wendy's, the baby blue and white striped outfits. Oh my gosh, and those hats. How fun is that? But last but not least, look at Burger King. Those hats are so funny, but they're also really cool. They remind me of strawberry shortcake. So there you have it. The uniforms were a lot different back then. I feel like we've gotten really lazy. Except for maybe in and out. In 1984, 21-year-old Robin was a trusted employee. As a store manager, she held a position of great responsibility. In fact, Robin was one of only three people at that restaurant who had access to the combination and keys for both the safe and the restaurant. It was just her, a general manager named Gregory Rabdow, and one of their newest system managers, Cheryl Fuller. Not only did Robin excel in her role as a manager, but she was also highly regarded by her co-workers, her kindness, and her friendly nature, and dear to everyone on her team. Whether it was helping out a colleague or just simply greeting every single person with a warm smile, Robin always went above and beyond to make others feel valued and appreciated. She was also responsible daughter and sister. She would always keep her family apprised of her plans and her whereabouts. And as I mentioned earlier, there were no cell phones back then. We had to trust someone's word. And that's why in a lot of these cases from the 80s and even the 90s, when someone says a person was responsible and they checked in, they probably knew them as someone with habits that spanned a long period of time. Because parents would have to trust their children to come home from playing outside when the sun came down. If over the years they had a habit of not coming home or coming home late and that extended into their teen years and beyond, you would know that's part of their character. Because even without cell phones, there were ways to keep in touch if you wanted to, but it took some more effort. One was payphones. I know that some of you watching have never actually used a public payphone before. And that is the beauty of these deaths through the decades videos. But they were located at high traffic areas like malls, department stores, street corners. They were public phones that required 25 cents for a local call up to three minutes. And then you would hear this pre-recorded message that would tell you to deposit more money so that you could continue talking. You could use quarters, dives, and nickels, but you couldn't use pennies. And if your call wasn't local within like a certain boundary line, it cost more. I actually found an Instagram account called Payphones of Los Angeles and it's run by a man named Ryan Green who hunts down all of the remaining payphones all over Los Angeles. And to him, payphones are personal. They remind him of his youth and he was running around town those days before cell phones existed and like many of us, he relied on public phones to keep in touch. And that's why he's nostalgic about them. He also said it's part of his life that has died. He said, quote, "I don't see a lot of people singing the praises of payphones and yet they played such an essential role in our society. And these things are disappearing everywhere you look." End quote. It's true. And here are some pictures from his Instagram account. This payphone is outside a laundromat and here's a couple outside of a liquor store. And one, like I said, on a random street corner, it is sad that things change. But back when this case was unfolding, payphones were as Ryan said essential. We always carried change or we could call collect if we were in a bind, but that wasn't until the '90s, so I won't go into that in this video right now. Robin made sure to tell her parents or at least her sisters what she was doing if she wasn't going to be home. She worked either the day shifts or night shifts and was responsible for opening or closing the restaurant. There always had to be one key holder on duty for each shift. Back in late October of 1984, Cheryl Fuller had recently been put in the role of assistant manager at Robbins Kentucky Fried Chicken location. Cheryl was around Robbins age in her early 20s and she had been transferred from another Kentucky Fried Chicken location and had only been working in the Torrance location for two weeks when she reached out to Robin to see if she could get someone to cover her shift on the night of October 30th. Cheryl was supposed to close the restaurant at 9 p.m. that night, but she just started dating a new guy and he invited her to a concert at the last minute. Robin was scheduled to work the opening shift on October 30th and October 31st, but she kindly offered to trade shifts with Cheryl so that she could go out and enjoy herself at the concert. So now Cheryl would be working the morning shift on the 30th and Robin would close and then Cheryl would pick up Robbins' day shift the next morning on the 31st since Robin would have worked late the night before to cover for Cheryl. Made sense, right? Easy. Robin told her family she was going to be working the night shift on October 30th and night before Halloween and then she was going to go over her friend's house and have a sleepover. She'd come back home then. next day in the afternoon on Halloween in time to celebrate with her sisters and her family, handing out candy and just having fun. Jump forward to the morning of October 31st, 1984. Halloween Day. 16-year-old junior Wendy got up early and picked out a costume to wear to school that day. She chose to be a lion. And when she was done styling her costume, she left for school like any other ordinary day. 18-year-old Trisha woke up and did pretty much the same thing. She searched around for a costume that was acceptable to wear to her shift that day at Sizzler. She decided to try looking at her big sisters' closet, and she found Robyn's flags her uniform from back when she was at Listerna High. It was cute. It wasn't too unusual to wear to restaurants, so she was like many other little sisters and decided to borrow it. And then she was off to work. Here's a picture of her at Sizzler that day with that outfit on, and you can see Robyn's name embroidered across the front. Both Wendy and Trisha anticipated the fun that they were going to have a night with Robyn and Kim. Later that afternoon, 24-year-old Kim Hoynes was working at the mall when lunchtime came around. She was suffering from a migraine. So instead of using her lunch hour to eat, she opted to drive the few blocks away to her parents' house and lie down, hoping that she could make it through the rest of her shift as she took a little nap. It was a beautiful fall day, the sun was shining, there was a crisp cool breeze in the air, and Kim parked her car in the driveway and walked up to the festively decorated front door like she had done so many times in the past. Except this time, something was different. There was a note tucked into the front door. Kim grabbed it, opened it, and read these words. "Please contact the Torrance Police Department regarding Robyn Hoynes." It was alarming to Kim who was a very protective older sister. What would the police want with Robyn she wondered? No one was home at the time when she walked in. She was all alone holding the note and wondering what to do. Who should she call first? The police or her parents? Kim decided to call the Torrance Police Department. She had to know what was going on. So she ran to the kitchen phone and called the operator to connect her with Torrance Police. When someone from the department answered, Kim explained that she'd received a note at her home regarding her sister Robyn Hoynes. The person on the other line told Kim that she would need to call back in about 20 minutes because the officers with the pertinent information regarding that matter were not currently at the office. Kim started to get worried. She hung up and she immediately called over to a family friend's house where her mom Ethel was babysitting that day. When she spoke to her and she explained the note on the door, Ethel wasn't that concerned. She told Kim, "Don't worry. Robyn had plans to spend the night at a friend's house. It was most likely related to car trouble." But would police come to a person's house about car trouble? It seemed odd. Did Robyn do something wrong? Because Robyn of all people wouldn't have been the type to commit a crime. She was church-going, responsible, level-headed. So Kim started to think that something bad may have happened to her sister. She hung up with her mother and quickly called the police department for a second time. Detective Jeff Lancaster answered, and it was as though he was anticipating Kim's call. When he picked up, Kim said, "I'm Kim Hoynes. Calling about Robyn Hoynes, is she okay?" The detective responded bluntly with "No. I'm sorry, she's not. She's dead. I can't even imagine what would be going on in someone's mind getting that news. It's just an ordinary day." And then in a second, it turns into the worst day of your life. So what happened to Robyn? Well, let's go back to that morning on October 31st at 9 a.m. Opening time for the Kentucky Fried Chicken Store in Torrance. Cheryl pulled up into the parking lot, picking up Robyn's shift that day, and she was surprised to see Robyn's yellow dots in park outside, and she was confused. She thought, "Why was Robyn here? Did she forget they were switching shifts? Was there some kind of mix-up?" But with her key in hand, Cheryl proceeded to the Andrin's designated for employees. And when she went to unlock the deadbolt that was supposed to be secured every night at a closing time, she noticed it was already unlocked, which could be a sign that Robyn had possibly opened the store that morning and had mistakenly come into work that day. Cheryl opened the door and walked inside the empty restaurant looking around for Robyn. Nothing seemed unusual, except for the fact that it appeared both girls had come in that morning. But once she got to the back of the store in the kitchen area, that's when Cheryl got even more confused. As she was scanning the room, she noticed what appeared to be Robyn sleeping on the floor, and Cheryl's initial thought was like, "What's going on? Why did Robyn spend the night here last night?" But once her eyes adjusted and her mind registered what she was looking at, she realized that Robyn wasn't sleeping. She was dead, and she had been killed. There was blood on Robyn's face and neck. Things were scattered all across the floor, including a lot of paperwork, as well as photographs of Robyn's nieces and nephews that she always kept with her in her purse. Cheryl was terrified. She immediately ran out of the door hysterical, and that's when she saw the cook. He was in the parking lot, and she was frantic. But she was able to quickly explain what she had just seen, and told him to call the police, and that's exactly what he went inside and did. It was clear that this was a homicide. Detective Jeff Lancaster from the Torrance Police Department, homicide division, was one of the first officers sent to the scene, as well as his partner, Detective Cronk, and Detective Dave Crespin, among many others who were tasked with finding out what happened. Here's what I want to point out about policing in the 80s. It was primitive and sure he'd evolved from decades before, but there were no computer systems and police cruisers, and actually police cars were pretty much just like any other car in the road for that matter. There weren't the plastic bucket seats in back or the divider between the cops in the front and the suspects in the back seat. No. There had radios in their cars, but no portable ones yet. And the cop cars were equipped with things like an electric siren, a spotlight that was connected to the driver's side, so they could use it to shine on a suspect, or in addition to the lights on the top of the car. And cops were issued things like books, maps, and 36-inch riot batons that sometimes melted in the sun if you lived in a hot climate before they were changed out for wood. And in most cases, all they had was handcuffs, a flashlight, and a Smith & Wesson model 38 caliber six-shot revolver, so you better be trained to hit your target with precision, because six shots really isn't that much before you need to reload. There were no tasers or pepper spray and only a select few cops carried mace canisters. There were no dash cams or body cams, so no one had any way to know exactly what went down during a traffic stop or when you pulled up to the crime scene. And getting to the crime scene was another thing altogether. There was no GPS. You had to know your way around town, so can you imagine trying to hurry to the scene of a crime? No clue where to go, other than using a big paper map in the car? What if you got lost? Well, most times cops would have to stop at the nearest gas station and ask whoever was out there pumping gas where a certain street was. And if that didn't work, remember when I told you about those payphones? Yeah, cops would have to call their supervisors, and most times they would definitely get yelled at, but at least it would put them in the right direction. Laws were different back then too. There was no law about wearing your seat belt. Our mother's arms. That was our protection as kids in the 80s when she stopped short, so our face wouldn't hit the dashboard and car seats weren't even used either. And all this meant that accidents were much more serious when they happened. And at the time paramedics weren't even a thing. And ambulance, that was pretty much just to transport a patient to the hospital. That's it. No medical attention provided until they made it to the emergency room. Just let that sink in. If you think that the response times are bad now, just imagine it back then. And what's worse is that things like drunk driving, they were socially acceptable. I kid you not. So there wasn't an emphasis on chasing down people with open containers in their car while driving, or who were under the influence if they got pulled over for something else. And I don't want to be like, it was a man's world, but it kind of was like the cops, they wouldn't take certain things seriously, including domestic incidents where a man would be harming his wife because back then, it was acceptable that a woman was supposed to submit to her husband. And if she didn't, a good smacking could be warranted. And also men forcing themselves on women to have intercourse. That was taken a lot more lightly. Almost like, what's the big deal? It's just sacks. But we know that it's much more. And that it's wrong. But times were different. And that's kind of crazy that cops would be more likely to shrug off someone that had been drinking behind the wheel. If you think about the fact that cars were not as safe back then, I just told you seat belts weren't enforced or worn very often. And it was common for blood alcohol levels to be 0.15 to 0.25. Now, if you get caught with a BAC of 0.08% or higher, you get a DUI, like handcuffs you're going to jail. And it's even lower in some states depending on your age. All of this to say, when cops came out to a scene, there wasn't much that they had to assist them besides deduction skills. And most of the stuff they learned was from on the job training. So they just learned as they went along and as they experienced each murder or crime. They did have cameras and video recording devices back then and they did rely on photographs and and videos to document what was at the scene, which was important. cops were usually taking handwritten notes on little notepads, and they wouldn't create a full report until the end of their shifts. So knowing all the facts of a case was hard until all of the officers on scene were done with their reports, and sometimes they never got done at all, unfortunately. This is what the scene looked like in the parking lot of the Torrance Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant that Halloween morning. You can see Robyn's car in the foreground. In behind her car there was a parking lot full of detectives and officers talking about what they knew so far, which was into much. I like to find the exact locations, and I matched this picture of this blue Capri building in the back, and this cement wall that had different levels to it to this exact location, where this compounding pharmacy now stands. You can see the same wall, and there's the Capri building. It's surprisingly still there, and it looks very similar to the way looked almost 40 years ago. Chief Lancaster made his way into the back kitchen area, and this is what it looked like. You can see it's been cleaned for the night. There were steel countertops where food was prepared on the left, and on the right is a workstation. It's also where they kept supplies, including the chicken buckets and containers for other food items. That's where the paperwork was typically done at closing time. You can see Robyn's purse in this shot as well. When Detective Lancaster looked into this area, he observed Robyn fully clothed in her work uniform, lying on the floor. She had on pants, a shirt, vest, bra, underwear, a tie, shoes, and socks on. She was lying face down on the concrete floor right in front of the steel counter on the left. She was parallel to it with a pool of blood under her head and neck. He could see slash marks on the left side of her face, and a neck wound that appeared to be caused by a knife across her throat. He could also see two wounds on Robyn's back. To the right of her body was her purse, which I showed you earlier. So that was a little above her feet. She was laying with like her feet facing towards the back and her head towards the front, and then her purse was to the side. And it had looked like it had been dumped out. All of the contents were on the floor beside her. Let's take a look. You can see in this picture, there's the brown purse to the bottom. And there was a hairbrush, pens, juicy fruit flavored gum sticks, some kind of brochure, a checkbook, a packet of tissues, some bobby pins, which looks like a bottle of medicine maybe and miscellaneous papers, an empty wallet, as well as photos of Robyn's family that she kept with her, and also what might be a day planner or a notebook from work, as well as just other random items thrown all around. On the counter to the right, they found paperwork, whiteout, a calculator, pens, receipts. The typical end of shift documents that employees who are closing the store would prepare at the end of the night. It appeared as the Robyn had finished up her shift, completed the cleaning, sent all the employees home, and was standing at the workspace counter in the back kitchen area, balancing the cash register and calculating sales, and then documenting everything when someone attacked her. Because of the fact that her purse was dumped out, the officer suspected that this was probably a robbery, but this investigation had just begun. Here's a video that the detectives took of the scene. It looks like an ordinary storage area with supplies, and here's a shot of the contents of Robyn's purse from a different perspective, along with what looks like paperwork and a work notebook on the floor, among other things. This right here is actually a cash deposit bag that banks provided businesses. It's where employees would put all the money from the shift, and then they would take it to the bank or put it in a safe place on site to be deposited later. That's telling, but was it empty or was there cash inside? Well, we're going to get to that later. There also looked to be a set of keys next to the deposit bag. Here's a better shot of where Robyn was working on the paperwork. You can see a briefcase on the counter and back, and papers scattered all around. All that had been done at this point, as far as the investigation was concerned, was a walkthrough of the scene. The next step was to identify the victim, notify their loved ones, and then find witnesses or anyone with information about Robyn or this Kentucky Fried Chicken store to interview them, and of course, they were there to collect evidence and analyze it if there was anything of value found. So, the detective looked into Robyn's wallet, and he found her driver's license, and that's how he knew her address. So, he sent an officer out there to notify next of Ken, but no one was home at the Hoynes residence. That's why he left that note that was eventually found by Ken. And that is where I left off. Ken had just been notified that her little sister had been killed. She knew that she needed to tell her mother, but she didn't think it was appropriate to have that conversation over the phone. She told Detective Lancaster that she was going to drive over to the house where Ethel was babysitting and tell her in person. Lancaster was worried about Ken driving in that state of mind. It being told that your family member was stabbed to death was a very traumatic event. But Ken insisted that she would be fine, that she had to tell her mother in person. And that's exactly what she did. She drove over to the family friend's house where Ethel was babysitting the afternoon, and she informed her mother that Robyn had been killed. She couldn't bring herself to say the word murder because of the impact that that word had. And it took many years before the Hoines family could use that word to describe what happened to Robyn. But it's true. This was not an accident. Somebody had brutally murdered her. When Ethel heard what Ken said, she immediately started yelling at her, saying, "No, you're lying to me. You're lying to me." And she repeated that over and over again, but Ken was like, "No, Mom." I wish I was. An Ethel couldn't believe this could be true. But she didn't have much time to let it sink in. There were other family members who needed to know what happened and right away. Kim and her mother called Virgil next. He was still at work at the water company when they called him. And being the strong husband and father that he was, he calmly told them that he would meet them at home. Once back at the Hoines residence, Kim and Ethel started calling their other family members, and they sent Robyn's cousin Beth over to Listerna High School. Robyn's younger sister Wendy was in class that day. She was close to the end of the school day at this time, and Wendy was still dressed in her lying costume. And she was finishing up assignments in her sixth period biology class when her substitute teacher answered the door. And an administrator was standing outside. And the two of them talked for Justin Momay before the administrator informed Wendy that she would need to follow him to the principal's office. Wendy wasn't sure what was going on because the only time that she'd ever been in the principal's office was when she attended student government meetings. And as Wendy walked down the hall, she noticed her cousin Beth standing by the door to the office, and she thought, that's weird. What's Beth doing here? And she wasted no time. Beth informed her that Robyn had been stabbed at work the night before. Wendy was in shock. She wasn't sure that she heard her correctly. And the first thing Wendy asked was, did she die? Because she couldn't fathom losing her sister. She won her to be alive. Maybe she was harmed, but alive. And sadly, Beth let her know that Robyn is dead. It makes me so sad for these poor sisters and their family. Wendy immediately began to shake. At 16 years old, this was very overwhelming for her. Emotionally, she wasn't sure how to deal with or express the feelings that were going through her. She didn't know any reason someone would want to hurt Robyn. So she wondered, is their family safe? Was someone after them for some reason? Were they next? It was a lot to take in. But she and Beth finally made their way back to the Hohen's residence. And in all the commotion, no one had reached out to Trisha at Sizzler. They knew that she'd be coming home that evening after her shift. And there was just so much going on with so many family members and friends driving over to the Hohen's home to be with them. But Trisha had no clue what had happened as she made her way down Homeland Avenue towards her house. Horses were parked all along the road, which was not typical for their streets. And as she got closer and parked, Trisha saw Beth and Wendy standing outside in the driveway. And that's when Trisha thought, okay, something must have happened. But her first thought didn't go to her own sister or even a family member. She assumed that maybe they're elderly neighbor who they all considered like a grandma had died. What else could it be? Well, once Trisha walked up, her family gathered around her and she heard one of them tell her that Robin had been killed. And then everything became a blur. Trisha actually collapsed outside. Her loved ones had to pick her up and help her into the house. They got her into her bedroom. And as she came to, she was just sitting there on the floor. And Ethel was yelling, she said, bring her a Pepsi and her cigarettes. I guess her mom figured she had to calm down. And back then, there's nothing a little soda and cigarettes can't help. But as Trisha was sitting there, she looked down and she saw Robin's name on the flagstrial fit that she was wearing. The one that she borrowed from her closet that morning and she just lost it. She started screaming. She was like, get it off me, get it off me. While grabbing at her clothing and she was trying to remove it, she was freaking out thinking that she was now wearing her deceased sister's clothing. And she needed to take them off as fast as she could. It just felt wrong. All of this did. People weren't supposed to die young. No, it's supposed to be old people who lived their lives. And they weren't supposed to be killed. And Robin had so much life to live. Who would have done this? to her, especially on one of their favorite holidays. It was Halloween. And before they knew it, the sun went down, and kids were starting to knock on doors throughout the neighborhood. This was the night that the horns always look forward to. And even though they were dealing with a real nightmare, time didn't stand still. People didn't know that they were sitting in darkness huddled together crying about Robin. Instead, it was a time for most Whittier kids in the area to excitedly run up to the door, banging, ringing the doorbell, and shouting trick-or-treat, and expecting to be greeted with a smile and some goodies as they stood their dressed head to toe as creatures from funny to evil in human form. And the horns couldn't handle it. They turned off all the lights. They brought in the carved pumpkins, and they hoped that no one would venture up to their door that night like Halloween's in the past. It just wasn't the same. It felt scarier, more real, death surrounded them as they were grieving and coming to terms with their loss. Halloween would never be the same for them. And this really goes to show you that you never know what other people are dealing with, the pain that they're experiencing behind those closed doors. And back at the Kentucky Fried Chicken, officers and detectives had been at the scene all day piecing together and he clues that they could find to build a theory of what they believe happened. Forensic investigation was a lot different in the 80s. Detectives didn't even wear gloves. They weren't worried about evidence preservation. Instead, they were using their eyes and their observation skills. What they noticed is that there was no signs of four-century, which to authorities meant either someone had stayed inside this restaurant after closing, and somehow went unnoticed, maybe hiding somewhere until they had a chance to sneak up and attack her, or maybe Robin knew the person who killed her, and she let them inside. Could it be someone she felt comfortable enough with in the restaurant after hours? While she was finishing up her paperwork at the end of the night, was she expecting someone, a friend, a boyfriend, or was this a stranger who somehow gained access to the restaurant? Robin's key ring, which included the keys to the restaurant, the safe, and her car were never found. They were never accounted for anywhere. It was also clear that Robin had been stabbed and no bloody weapon was found on the premises, or any instrument that would have most likely caused these wounds. That made this investigation harder since fingerprints were the number one way that homicides were solved back then. Dusting for prints is one of the first ways to gain insight on who the perpetrator may event. It's much easier if there's a gun or a knife left behind that can be dusted for prints. Our fingers naturally have oil on them, and when they come in contact with certain surfaces, that oil is left behind. Or in some cases, the fingerprints could be left in blood at the scene. The most obvious areas are dusted first like weapons, doors, door handles, locks, things that we would naturally grab, and then they'd move on to dusting other areas where latent prints could be found. And they did this by using a very fine black dust that they still use today, and a soft brush that kind of sprays the dust all over the area, revealing prints that can't be seen with the naked eye. Then tape would be used to transfer these prints to a piece of paper. And then they were examined and compared to ones that were already on file. Back then in the 80s, children as old as five would have their fingerprints taken at school. And this was part of an initiative with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. That way they were already on file in case they were needed if any of them went missing. But most fingerprints came from criminals when they got arrested for violent crimes. So their fingerprints would be on file. And if they weren't known to authorities, the fingerprints at the scene wouldn't be much use unless they could be matched to a known suspect. However, in the early 80s, the Japanese National Police Agency established the first system for matching prints electronically. And that made it easier not only to store prints, but to also locate criminals using fingerprints. It's called the automated fingerprint identification system or AFIS. I'm sure you've heard the acronym before. But of course, at a workplace like this, with a number of employees coming in and going around and doing things, there could be so many fingerprints on the scene. And each one of them would need to be matched to someone and then suspects eliminated. But they had to find those suspects first. And after the initial walkthrough of the premises, it was time for officers who canvassed the nearby areas and also interview family, friends and employees of the Kentucky Fire Chicken. Upon talking to Robin's family, they provided all the information you already know about her character, her work habits and what her plans were the night she was killed. Now detectives move on to her co-workers. Cheryl, who was still on the scene, was being questioned. She had explained that she switched shifts with Robin, and she knew how Robin operated the restaurant. According to Cheryl, she was very cautious. She always told Cheryl to lock the door behind her and other safety measures to take since they were handling large sums of cash during the night shift. The policy when it came to the money collected from registers at the end of the night was to put it in the on-site safe, which I'm going to show you in a moment. However, Cheryl explained that lately, management had been instructing the closing shift managers or assistant managers to put the money into a bank deposit back. The same one that we saw long on the floor in pictures and video. And then to walk across the parking lot, to the first enters that bank deposit drop box, and put the money inside. This is where that bank was located, just a four minute walk or about a minute drive. But if they didn't feel comfortable doing that because it was night time, they could take the money home and make the deposit the next morning. This was because management had become aware of money that was missing from the on-site safe at that location. It happened on October 15th for the first time and then on the 18th. And guess who reported the first theft? Robin did. The second one was reported by one of the other assistant managers. They still hadn't gotten to the bottom of how the money went missing and who was responsible, whether it was a mistake in accounting or if someone had actually stolen it. So they were just trying to cover their bases by not leaving money on site. The detectives at Cheryl, who was one of the people who knew the combination of the safe, if she could come inside and open it. They wanted to see if the money that Robin had collected at the end of the night was inside the safe. Since it was not inside the deposit bag that was lying on the floor nearby. They were trying to put together Robin's last moments. This is what the safe looked like. It was located in the back of the kitchen area on the floor. It was encased in concrete and not removable. There was a cover that went on top, but at the time they found Robin that cover had been pushed aside and it was lying nearby. That's it right there. And this is what prompted the detectives to find out whether the money had been put inside the safe that night or taken by the killer. You needed two keys and a combination to open the safe. It's a very interesting looking safe. I've never seen anything like this before. It's inside the ground, but I guess that's inconspicuous and it makes sense for this type of establishment. And sure enough, when Cheryl opened the safe, the money was inside and she thought that was very odd considering that I just told you their standard operating procedures ever since that money had gone missing was to deposit it that night or take it home with you. It was too risky to leave it behind until they got to the bottom of who was stealing it and why it wasn't accounted for. But there it was. $600, as well as all the receipts from that day's stocked and an organized manner inside a union bank bag and placed inside. I'm showing it to you on the screen. When counted up and compared to the paperwork, all of the money was there. This meant the killer didn't take the money. And this added an extra layer of mystery to Robin's murder. If it wasn't a robbery, why was she killed? The detectives needed more information and that's all the information that Cheryl could provide besides giving them the name of the general manager of the location who I briefly mentioned earlier, 26-year-old Gregory Rabdow. He came to the scene as soon as he was informed of Robin's murder. It was shocking, but a part of him suspected that something bad could happen. And I'll explain more about that in a minute. But detectives want to know the last time he saw Robin and what he could tell them about the way the restaurant operated, who worked there, who had access to the safe, things like that. Greg said that he actually came to the restaurant the night before at 7 p.m. to help Robin with closing. He explained that he needed to complete some paperwork and meet up with a former assistant manager, a guy named William Marshall, who had left his briefcase behind a few days earlier. Remember we saw that in one of the pictures? Greg explained that he had some administrative things to take care of with William. But William never showed up by 9 p.m. So Greg began to help Robin with the nightly task before leaving her alone to close. He told the detectives that the last time he saw her was sometime around 11 or like 11-15 or so, she had all the money out on the countertop and she was doing calculations. He looked over her shoulder to see what she was working on. To calculate an estimation of the time of death or when this attack occurred, the detectives asked Greg to take a look at the paperwork from the safe and let them know if you could estimate how much longer to appear that Robin had continued working after he left. Like, what had she gotten done since you saw the papers last? Greg took a look. And from his memory, it appeared that Robin had probably dedicated at least about 10-12 more minutes of work after he left her. So now they believe the attack happens sometime after 11-30 p.m. or so. There were other things that Greg told the detectives which peaked their interest. For one, he said that when he left, he told Robin to lock the door behind him. Okay, that's not that weird. Then after she did that, he went and checked that the other door was locked and dead bolted. He said that he had an uneasy feeling after he left. He said, "I'm not that kind of person. I don't believe in ghosts, but I had the feeling something was wrong." End quote. He claimed he felt as though he was being watched and was uncomfortable leaving Robin all alone. So instead of driving off right away, Greg claims that he parked his car across the street and kept an eye on the store. He could see it from where he was parked and he could see Robin inside, completing her paperwork. Then he said that after he'd been sitting there for some time, he looked at himself in his rear-view mirror and he talked to himself and said, "You're crazy." After that, he drove away. That's interesting. I mean, was that what really happened? Or was Greg worried that someone may see his car park awkwardly near a restaurant as a woman was all alone inside and he was watching her? That could look pretty bad and telling himself he was crazy? Was he? I don't know. Perhaps he was creating an excuse in case an eyewitness put him at the scene after he was supposed to be gone. Or maybe he wasn't ever in the restaurant helping Robin that night. Maybe he came there later and he attacked her. I mean, why would he need to come help another manager close the store? Robin had done this many times in the past and why even schedule to meet up with a former employee after 7 p.m. Why not earlier in the day? During more normal business hours, it definitely seemed suspicious. He was trying to say that he hung around for five hours on a day that he wasn't scheduled to work. Plus, Cheryl admitted that William, the former assistant manager, had called much earlier in the day while she was working and told her that he might come by to pick up his briefcase and to drop off his uniforms. She even let Robin know he might be by later. It wasn't rock and science. It didn't need a general manager to be there. Robin was capable of handling it herself. She knew William. So it just seemed kind of odd that Greg would have needed to be there. But of course, the plot thickens. And before I get into more of those details, I wanna tell you about the autopsy report. Dr. Margaret Greenwald, a forensic pathologist, performed an autopsy on Robin. The report stated that Robin had died from two fatal stab wounds. However, it shows four wounds altogether. The two fatal wounds were on her back and the other two were on her neck. The only information I had was to actually look at the autopsy documentation and you probably know how hard it is to read a doctor's handwriting, let alone terminology. But from what I gathered, there were two stab wounds on her lower back to the right side and one was very deep. On the report, it mentioned a total depth of nine inches and it perforated the lungs and the heart. The other stab wound was right next to it and it went into more of a side angle. It wasn't as long, but it was also very deep. So these two wounds were very intense and they were both determined to be fatal. They were also consistent with having been inflicted by a single edge knife with a thin blade. The wounds to her face and neck area. There was a slash across her neck from about the midpoint to about the left ear area. So like all across that part of her neck as well as scratches to her left cheek. There was also a wound to the right side of her chin. So this was a very gruesome murder. It took a great deal of force, but Robin was probably ambushed from behind considering that those stab wounds in back were very deep. And it was most likely when she was doing the paperwork because her body was found in that vicinity. Robin didn't have any defensive wounds so she was unable to fight back. And Dr. Greenwald opined that Robin was likely to stab from behind near where she lay 12 feet away from the safe because there was no blood trail between her body and where the safe was. So back at the crime scene, the detectives find a couple drops of blood on that safe. So they asked Cheryl if she could take a look at it. They said does it look any different from the last time you saw it? And she said yeah, it looks banged up her words. There were scratches on it. There was paint chips off of a new combination lock that they'd recently put on. So this evidence suggested that the perpetrator had tampered with the safe and an effort to gain access to its contents after Robin was killed because there was blood present. Robin's body was found like I said 10 to 12 feet away from the safe and there were blood stains on Robin's clothes next to her left elbow near the safe and in several other places. But there was no trail of blood between Robin's body and the safe, which was kind of odd. They just considered that to mean she died where she was laying, that she didn't run from the safe, back to where she was laying or vice versa. The detectives had a working theory. They thought that the person who killed Robin was attempting to rob the store and they believed that Robin saw the person and knew what their intention was or that she felt uneasy. So instead of keeping the money with her which she was supposed to do that was a new policy, she opened the safe that night, possibly trying to hide the money because she was afraid the person would steal it from her. Therefore, putting her in danger so she didn't want it to be on her. Greg had told the detectives that when he saw Robin last, the money was out on the counter and because opening up the safe wasn't exactly something you could do quickly, you'd need at least a couple of minutes or so you had to use two keys and put in a combination. What this suggested to them was that it didn't appear that Robin was being attacked and ran to the safe, opened it and then threw the money inside. Remember no blood trail. And it was stacked in an organized manner. So it made more sense that Robin saw the perpetrator before the attack. They could have even been there while she was working and then ambushed her. Robin was a cautious person. She would not have just let anyone inside that store and we know there's no sign that anyone broke in. So they had to be let in or had a key. So they really needed to speak with Greg again because it was almost as though this killer knew that Robin would be able to identify them so they knew she needed to be killed. But then in the end, they got away with nothing except the cash that was in Robin's purse. And it kind of didn't make sense that it would be Greg because he had the keys and the combination. He could have easily opened the safe at any time and he definitely didn't need to kill Robin to get to it. But if it wasn't him, would he have any idea who else could have done this? Greg of course cooperated, providing more information about the missing money and seemed to be pointing the finger at someone else. Greg explained that he had taken issue with this former assistant manager that I mentioned William Marshall from the very beginning of him working at that location on October 2nd of that year. William had trained over at another location in Fountain Valley a month earlier in September. And after training, William was placed at the Torrance location under Greg's supervision. But what rubbed in the wrong way was that from the beginning, Greg said that William asked for a raise. Just right away asking for more money. And came in late on two occasions. And okay, I mean sure that's a bit bold and a little irresponsible, but not over the top. However, to Greg, it warranted a suspension for four days. He ran a tight ship at his store and he wanted to set a precedent in the beginning that that wasn't acceptable. Then on the morning of the 15th of October, while William was on that four day suspension, money was missing from the safe when Robin opened the store that day. She reported this right to Greg. There were no signs of four century on the restaurant doors or the safe. And the only people who had keys to the store and the safe and the combination to the safe at the time were Greg, Robin, and William. Greg didn't want to jump to conclusions, but before he could really investigate, William called him on the morning of the 18th, just three days later, reporting that $1,120 was missing from the safe. William was the one who was working this shift before in the previous night. He had locked the restaurant at 10 p.m., and then he was the first person to return the next morning. So between the timing left and the morning, someone stole the money. And again, there were no signs of four century. This Kentucky Fried Chicken location had never experienced any thefts before William began working there. So Greg, of course, reported this to the police and thought it was William, has a kind of made sense to him. And then on October 20th, 10 days before Robin was killed, Greg once again suspended William believing that he was the thief, even though he didn't have any concrete proof. And then they installed a new combination lock on the safe and changed the code without telling William. By October 26th, Greg decided to terminate William because he was able to find a replacement by having Cheryl Fuller transfer from another location. At that point, he provided William with a letter setting forth the reasons for his termination, including among other things, his tardiness, and of course, the missing money. William handed over his keys to the exterior doors and to the safe. Then Greg went a step further and changed the locks to the restaurant. After this, he provided new keys to Robin and Cheryl, as well as the new safe code. And all of this is what prompted that change and how the money was handled at the end of the night, not leaving the money in the safe because they still weren't sure how it was going missing. After his termination, William wrote a letter to Greg and he was pleading to please have his job back to reconsider. He really, really wanted to keep his job. He even offered to take money out of his own paycheck and replace what had been taken. Well, Greg assumed that this was an admission of guilt, so it only solidified his decision to replace William with Cheryl. And all of this was being provided to detectives to clear Greg's name and to offer William as a potential suspect. Maybe he had a crudge against Robin for reporting the first 10 minutes. But Cheryl was the one that was supposed to be working the night. So perhaps William wanted to get back at her for taking his position. Plus, he was supposed to come in that day to retrieve his briefcase and return his uniforms. It does sound plausible. Disgruntled employees have killed for revenge. However, every angle needed to be explored. And crime and Los Angeles in the 1980s was at an all-time high. The city was plagued by gang violence, drug trafficking, and many other forms of crime. The crack cocaine epidemic had began in the mid-80s, and it had a devastating impact on the city. It led to a surge in violence and social unrest. And at the time of Robin's murder, Los Angeles had the highest homicide rate in the country. With over 1,000 murders committed, there were four people being murdered every day. Los Angeles also had a high rate of other violent crimes like robbery, carjacking, and assaults. And they experienced a number of high-profile crimes in the 80s, which included murders of celebrities like John Blushy and Natalie Wood, as well as the Hillside Strangler and the Nightstalker serial killings. The city was big, and it's a diverse place, and police officers had to be prepared to deal with a wide range of situations. And the thing is, if you live here in LA like I do, you'll know that there's the city of LA and LA the county. LA the city is where a lot of these crimes were happening. LA County encompasses a much larger area than the city does. And though Torrance is in LA County, it is not the part of LA that was being ravaged with crime. Most of the violent crime was in South Central LA, which is here on the map. 31 minutes away from the beach town, where the Torrance Kentucky Fried Chicken is located. This area is really nice. It's more upscale, and remember I said, Robin lived more inland away from the beach. While she worked about 40 minutes away over by the coast, and as you get closer to the beaches, the more expensive it is to rent or own a home. This area isn't known for a lot of violent crime, so Robin's murder didn't seem to be related to a random act of violence. But they had to keep their mind open. So they went back to basics, combing through the clues at the crime scene. And unfortunately, there were no fingerprints found at this scene. Wow. And to me, that's surprising because so many people would have been working there coming in now, but I guess whoever cleaned that night did a really, really good job. So then they turned to the items that were collected from the back room of the restaurant where Robin was found. And something stood out to them, but they weren't really sure what it meant. Or if it meant anything at all, they were just grasping at straws looking for anything to connect someone to this crime. And this item right here stood out because they couldn't figure out where it came from or what it was. It was an oddly shaped piece of foam rubber, and it was a little curved as you can see in this picture. It could be trash, you know, for me, they were an employee working that day, or even a customer that came in the restaurant and maybe just got swept into the area and back. They weren't sure how it got there, and they weren't sure what its purpose was. They were stumped. I wouldn't know what it was. It kind of looks like an old maxi pad. I mean, it's not. I don't think, but that's what it looked like to me. It was like a fat, thick foam maxi pad. That's what it looked like. Some of the detectives thought it looked like it could be padding, padding on like a backpack strap or a purse handle, because maybe the killer was wearing a backpack, and they got in a struggle with Robin, and it broke. They didn't know. It was all speculation, but they did take note of it since it didn't seem to come from anything that Robin owned at the scene, like her clothing or anything like that. What I noticed right away was the piece of hair that was embedded inside. But again, no one knows where this item came from, but you'd think that that hair would be a huge clue. That's my modern day, you know, DNA brain thinking, but I have to remember the 80s investigative technology or lack thereof, and they weren't necessarily focusing on hair the way that we do now with DNA testing. However, hair was a big deal in the 80s. The forensic technique used was microscopic analysis, and it was done at the renowned FBI crime lab, where there were hair and fiber experts. And they would use these high-powered microscopes to examine more than a dozen physical characteristics from things like pigment distribution to something called scale patterns, even the diameter of the shaft and the length. But then there were more subjective observations like color and texture, because what one person sees as brown could be black to another person's eye. And if a hair is curly, how curly is it? Is it spring-like curl or a wave? Those characteristics were less reliable. And actually the whole science of hair analysis is flawed. But that didn't stop the FBI analyst and the courts from accepting it as a valid evidentiary element to convict thousands of people, even though there were no reliable statistics, jurors would accept what witnesses would say. And with each solved case that used hair analysis to put someone behind bars, it perpetuated this unreliable science. It wasn't until the mid to late 80s when DNA testing of hairs began, and it was still in its infancy. But it blew the mind of a lot of scientists when they realized that two microscopically indistinguishable hairs were not from the same person. It was scientifically invalid to look at hairs under a microscope and compare them and connect them with people. And according to the innocence project, nearly a quarter of the more than 300 people that have been exonerated by DNA had been convicted in part by hair analysis. Another thing is, hair is so easily shed, I mean so much of my hair is everywhere, and it gets embedded on things that could come from all over and anyone. You could be walking on the street and get someone else's hair on your shirt, and they didn't do anything wrong. So it is very questionable evidence. And without much to go on, they began looking into William Marshall. He was only 23 years old at the time, and by all accounts he was friendly, he was quite religious, he went to church on a regular basis, and was known to be very ambitious. But detectives decided to pay him a visit on October 31st after obtaining all the information from Greg. The detectives visit William's residence where he lived with his girlfriend, Yvonne. When the detectives arrive at William's home and they knock on the door, William answers. When he was informed that a murder had taken place at the Torrance Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant, William remained composed and he cooperated. He willingly accompanied the detectives to the police station for additional questioning. Now during the drive to the station, the detectives were taking note of anything that stood out. First, they noted that William never asked who was killed, instead he waited for them to tell him, and then they made another observation. They noticed that William had a bandaid on his left index finger when he was in the cop car. But later once he was in the interview room, the bandaid was no longer there. But later it was located in the ash tray in the back of the cop car. We don't have those anymore. But that used to be a thing. The cut on his finger looked like it was fresh, and the detectives observed that William was right-handed, and they asked him about the cut, and he was very forthcoming. He said he got it the night before. He provided detailed information about all of his activities on the prior evening. According to a statement, he said he was home at around 7 o'clock p.m. And at that time he left to go to a nearby liquor store, and then he returned back to the house at approximately 8 p.m. Then he helped his girlfriend Yvonne prepare dinner, and that is how he injured his finger. He was cutting garlic. He said he ate dinner with Yvonne and her children, they watched TV, and then they went to bed. William also agreed to provide hair, and fingerprint samples, and permission to search his home, and even call Yvonne telling her to give the detectives permission to search the house, and to give them the clothing that he was wearing the previous night. William also gave them a blood sample. He was honest about having weapons on him as well. The detectives asked him if he had any knives, and William showed a pocket knife that he always carried. The detectives initially confiscated this knife, but it was returned to him because it was too small to be the murder weapon. Now it was time to ask Yvonne a few questions, mostly to secure William's alibi. She agreed to speak with them, and confirmed that William was with her the night before. He had come home around 6.30 p.m., then they made spaghetti for dinner, and he was with her for the rest of the night. However, she did mention that she went to bed around 9.30 and remembered that William was still watching TV or playing a video game, but that he was in bed later, and he was in bed when she woke up in the morning. Since they had Yvonne in front of him at that moment, they decided to show her a few pictures of the items from the crime scene, to see if she'd recognize any of them. And one of those items was that weird piece of foam, remember that thing? So Yvonne took a look, and they asked her if she happened to know what this thing was. Considering, you know, William worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken, maybe it was something related to the restaurant, and Yvonne might have seen it before. But when she looked at it, she was like, "No, I have never seen that before." Yvonne was credible, she was forthcoming, and she was supportive of William. They didn't have anything to hold him on, so he was not arrested, he was like, "No." Meanwhile, I want to let you know what was going on with the Hoynes family. The impact that Robin's death had on all of them. As the oldest child Kim stepped up and helped her parents with Robin's funeral arrangements, she assisted them in choosing the burial plot. At Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, she helped them pick out the coffin, the Robin would be laid to rest in, and what clothing she would wear. It was a very emotional time. One thing they needed to help with was what to have engraved on Robin's tombstone. You never think you're going to be making these things. decisions for your child or your sister. But this was their reality. And fortunately, they had some help with this. Their pastor stepped up with the suggestion. Something that eerily came from Robin herself, just a little while before she was killed. The pastor told her family that she played a Q&A with a church Bible study group. And one of the questions that was posed to Robin was if you died tomorrow, what would you want on your tombstone? Wow, that's actually really chilling. Her Robin's answer was, quote, "Robin's not here. She's gone home," end quote. So that was that. The family had that exact sentence engraved on Robin's gravestone. Here's a picture of it with a teddy bear in the middle. The funeral services were so full, there were people who had to stand outside of the building. And it just goes to show you how many people loved Robin and wouldn't impact her death had on them. Even people that did not know her went to pay their respects to her family, because they heard the news about what happened to her. Except for one person, Cheryl Fuller, the girl that had traded shifts with Robin on the night of her murder. Rumors had spread that the Hoyne's family, they were upset with Cheryl, and they didn't want her to be present at Robin's funeral. When Word got around to Cheryl, she was left feeling really guilty and remorseful and she didn't know what to do. She couldn't help but think that it should have been her that died instead of Robin. If only Cheryl hadn't asked her to pick up that shift, then maybe Robin would still be alive. And that's tough. And honestly, we will never know that, because right now the case was unsolved, so it could very well have been a targeted attack. And even if it wasn't, Cheryl was not responsible. The person who did this was. There hadn't been any new leads in Robin's murder investigation since a few days after Halloween. Detectives were made aware of a report that was filed by a manager of another Kentucky Fried Chicken location that was 30 miles away from the one in Torrance. This one was out in Fountain Valley. And in that report, the manager, Peter Goetz, said he was working the night shift at the Fountain Valley location on November 2nd. And he was the only one left inside when a guy that he did not know and had never met before drove up to the drive-thru window. This was around 11 p.m. after hours. So Peter approached the window and asked the guy if he needed help. All this guy did was ask what time it was. Even though there was a clock right in front of him on the wall that you could clearly see through the drive-thru window, he didn't actually have to knock on there or anything because you could see it through the glass. Then after this, Peter watched this guy park his car and then walk up to one of his employees, John Stumbo. He was still in the parking lot after ending his shift. And then a couple minutes later, the doorbell on the employee door rang. So Peter looked through the people and he saw John. So he opened the door. But then that strange guy was standing right behind him. That's when John asked Peter if this stranger could quickly use the phone. But Peter, per their policy, refused to let him inside. The very next day, Peter filed a police report. But no crime had actually taken place at the Fountain Valley location. For all they knew, maybe this employee John was a friend of this man in the parking lot. But because William was a person of interest in Robyn's case, they decided to put his photo along with ones of other men into a photo array and ask Peter if he recognized any of them as the man that he saw that night. And he picked William's picture out. However, just him being at a place that he formerly worked because remember he was trained there, wasn't a crime. Maybe he was friends with John. And maybe they trained together or worked together and they were just hanging out. But Peter said he found it odd because the guy that he now thinks was William was wearing camouflage pants, a dark jacket, a knit cap, gloves and boots. And he was carrying a blue bag. Well, there was 60 degrees outside. And most of us here, we do tend to wear like jackets and coats and stuff because there is a slight breeze when it gets dark and chilly. So detectives weren't sure if this was suspicious or not. However, it was all they had to go on. So after coming up with a plan, they decide to start surveillance on William Marshall. They began on November 6. They were following him and on marked vehicles and wearing plain clothes, not to tip him off. At one point, they did witness William buying some drugs, but they never saw him using them. But then on November 10th, at around 9 p.m., they followed William back to that fountain valley Kentucky Fried Chicken, where he proceeded to park in a parking lot close to the restaurant, not at the one in the restaurant. But from where William was parked, he could see right inside the restaurant. And there were two men and one woman working inside, completing their closing time routine. The detectives noted that William was wearing a denim jacket and gloves. That's all they could see at this point because he was in his car, which is also what was reported as what the man Peter had seen on November 2nd was wearing. William just sat in his car, watching the employees for a little while. Then he drove off. And when they followed him, they saw him visit a couple other Kentucky Fried Chicken locations. Then he comes back to that fountain valley one. He walks up to one of the windows. And at this point, it's closer to midnight and they observe the William had on camo pants, a denim jacket, a knit cap, gloves, and boots. And again, he's carrying a blue bag, just like what Peter stated in his police report on November 3rd. From what the detectives had observed, it looked as though William was casing the place. So they were concerned for the safety of the employees and they decided to pull William over at 12.45 in the morning, on November 11th as he was getting off the freeway and they arrested him. Now here's the picture of William sitting on a curb following his arrest. Here's another perspective. I mean, to me, those clothes look pretty normal for LA, even the style back then, the jean jacket, the camo pants and boots, even now, that's kind of in style. I was expecting to see a black trench coat and more of a disguise, however, get this. When Detective Gilbert and Cronk searched his car, they opened up that blue bag and inside, they found a five inch long boning knife. This is what it looked like. Then when William was searched during booking, they found three more gloves as well as the same three inch pocket knife in his pants pocket that he showed them during his initial interview. At this point under California law, Detective Lancaster had two days to either charge William for a crime or let him go. So he took everything that they had thus far to the district attorney. They were confident that even though it was all circumstantial, the DA would move forward with this case. So they even informed Robin's family that they had who they believed was the killer in custody. However, the detectives wouldn't provide the hoins with any additional information. It was a waiting game. And Kim was feeling a lot of pressure because she was the one that her parents were really leaning on at this time. She even moved back in with them for a couple weeks so that their whole family could be together. Now they were a family of five instead of six. It was a very hard, this was a grieving process that they had never been through before. And as a young woman, Kim tried to have some sense of normalcy in her life. She even went to Disneyland with her cousins since they were in town for Robin's funeral. But all that did was bring her nightmares. There was one nightmare when Kim was frantically looking throughout Tom Sawyer's treehouse at Disneyland. And she wanted to find Robin, but she was nowhere. She couldn't find her anywhere. And everything reminded the family of the void that her death had created. They missed so many things that Robin did and the things she liked. Like when she would sing the Oscar-Mire jingle in her funny high-pitched voice. Or when she took longer than anyone to say a prayer. It was the little things and they knew it would never be the same. They could no longer cook Robin's favorite meals like pork chops and applesauce. And the holidays would be way too hard without her there. They remembered how it would take Robin forever to open Christmas gifts. And now they would wait a lifetime just to see her face again. It really hit her father harder than anyone else at the time. He was plagued by guilt and inadequacy. He believed that he had not done enough to protect his precious daughter. His remorse was so deep that he often found himself sitting on the edge of his bed lost in thoughts of Robin. He was grieving in his own way, thinking that any second, she might be running down that hallway to say hello to him like she had for 21 years. The family had so many unanswered questions. Things like did Robin let her kill her inside? Did she know them was her death quick? Or did she suffer? Was she sexually violated in any way? And at this point, they still hadn't gotten access to the autopsy report. So they had no idea how she died. And now it was as hard for Ethel and Virgil to allow their other daughters out of their sight. Whenever Wendy or Trisha wanted to go do something that any normal teenager would do, they were met with resistance from their parents. And rightfully so, they wanted to protect them, to hold them tightly to keep them safe within the bubble of their home. They were hoping that convicting Robin's killer would bring them some relief. But instead, Detective Lancaster informed them of some bad news. The DA had completely rejected the case. There just wasn't enough concrete connections between William and Robin's murder. The only solid connection between William and Robin was that they both worked at the Torrance Kentucky Fried Chicken. None of William's fingerprints were found at the scene. And nothing found on him when he was arrested, or in his home. could be connected to the crime scene. Unfortunately, the police had no choice but to let him go. As soon as he was free, his girlfriend picked him up, and that was it. The case was at a dead end. And Robin's family was furious. They truly believed that this was the man that took Robin's life and he gets to walk free? How? It made perfect sense to the detectives that he was guilty. He was working at the same location with Robin. He knew Robin and she knew him. He had the keys to the store and the safe when money went missing two times. And then no thefts happened until the night Robin was killed. And money is a good enough motive for him to kill Robin if she stood in the way of him stealing it like they believed that he had done those two other times. One of which Robin was responsible for reporting. They knew whoever did this didn't break in. Robin was told by Cheryl that William may come by. They think he waited until Robin was alone at closing time and knocked on the door. And since Robin was expecting him, she let him in. However, she also knew that he had been fired for potentially stealing money. So she didn't wanna leave it out on the counter where Greg had seen it last. Instead, Robin took the extra two minutes to hide the money and the safe because she knew unlike him that the combination had been changed. And if he tried to steal it, he wouldn't be able to. I don't think she could have ever imagined he would actually kill her for it. The fact that Robin's keys to the restaurant and the safe were never found shows that he most likely stabbed her to gain access to them. He had already turned his in and he got let in by Robin but needed her keys to unlock that safe. Once Robin was defenseless and lying there dying, he used her keys to unlock the safe. But that's when he realized that there was a new combination lock and code. So he tried but he failed to break into it and then left after at the very least stealing the little money the poor Robin had in her purse which he dumped onto the floor scrambling to find something to make this crime worth it to him. Yeah, it does seem to make perfect sense but some things didn't add up. Like the two knives that were found were only three and five inches in length and the medical examiner noted that the stab wound to Robin's back was nine inches in depth. William had an alibi and none of Robin's things were found at his home or in his car and none of his fingerprints were found at the scene. But what no one knew is that the clue to link the killer to the scene was within the items collected from the Kentucky Fried Chicken on Halloween. Unfortunately, the case had been set aside into a viable lead came which would take years. The Hoines family tried their best to move on but as Halloween approached in 1985, marking a year since Robin's death, it brought with it so much pain and grief. It was no longer a date that they look forward to. They didn't dress up, hand out candy or even decorate anymore. Instead, their home remained as dark as it was the night that they found out about Robin's murder. No lights on, no celebrations. They couldn't even say the word Halloween and any time they heard it, all it did was bring back painful and haunting memories. The family had resigned themselves to their new reality that Robin's case would probably never be solved. So they tried to take comfort and believing that a higher power would get justice some way, some day on their own. Life had to go on and in June of 1985, Wendy was honored in the Los Angeles Times for being an A student at La Surna High School, doing her best to throw herself into her studies. She finally graduated in 1986, but Robin wasn't there to see it. She wasn't there to see Trisha get married. She was now Trisha Van Vores, and Trisha's children who came a couple years later would never meet their auntie Robin. It was heartbreaking. And then in the midst of all their pain, Virgil got sick. He was struggling with emphysema, which is a debilitating and progressive lung disease. And in his case, it was terminal. For years, he had battled not only the physical limitations, but also the weight of all the emotional pain he felt and the grief from Robin's untimely passing. It continued to haunt him, leaving a deep scar emotionally and in 1995, in the face of such immense suffering, Virgil made the heartbreaking decision to take his own life. The Hawaiians had to face another family tragedy. They said that it was absolutely devastating. Even though they knew he was dying of a deadly disease, the real reason they believed he chose to leave this world was because he was dying of grief. I noticed on Virgil's tombstone, the family decided to engrave, quote, "Dad's not here, he's with Robin," end quote. Years passed, and detective Lancaster retired, and Robin's case had become very cold, but he never forgot about her. And then 19 Halloween's later, in 2003, a new deputy district attorney named John Lewin had created a cold case task force. Their job was to go through unsolved cases. He was obsessed with solving unsolved cases. So much so, he said that even if he won the lottery, he would still be spending time trying to get justice for these victims. And he eventually began to focus on Robin's case. And as he delved into the details, there was no doubt in his mind that William Marshall was responsible. He just had to figure out how to prove it. He assigned Torrance Police Detective James Wallace, a cold case homicide detective to the case. Detective Wallace had a unique background. He was an architecture and a degree in design, which made him a very visual person with a keen eye for detail. And that helped him when he was looking through evidence. And that's what he was spending hours doing in Robin's case. He began going back through all the evidence that they had from all the way back in 1984, all the pictures, videos, and items that I've shown you. And finally, he believed that he found a break in the case. What he called an anomaly in the room at the crime scene. What is it you may ask? Well, I think some of you may be able to guess. It was that mysterious piece of foam. In his mind, after attempting to figure out where it came from, he concluded it didn't belong there. It didn't come from anywhere in the restaurant. So that meant it had to come from either Robin or the killer, because no one else they interviewed knew what it was. Wallace examined everything left behind that Robin owned. They went through her car and all her other possessions. And this piece of foam didn't match anything belong to her. So Wallace concluded it had to come from the killer. They left it behind. So if you could figure out what it was and where it came from, he thought that he could crack this case. Wow, I get so excited when I hear things like this, because I would be filled with so much adrenaline trying to figure it out. And he didn't have much to go on. There were only a few pictures of William, his mug shot, and the ones taken of him on the side of the road the night he was pulled over, arrested, and his car was searched. So from head to toe, Wallace examined every article of clothing the William was wearing that he could see. Could this piece of foam had fallen out of his jacket or his pants or his boots? And that's when he noticed something. In one of the pictures of William, the one of him sitting on the curb wearing these boots, the angle of the picture and the way it was shot showed what appeared to be a foam cushioning part. Could it be? Could the foam had fallen out from one of his boots? Here's what these type of work boots look like. This isn't the best example, but you see this cushiony part around the back of the heel. Most of us know, I think my shoes even have that today. That's what we're talking about. Most of us wouldn't even know that it was there. But if we were to take a part or shoe, we would find that there was a foam type of material. Well, what was so awesome is that these boots had been taken in as evidence during William's arrest. And here's another picture of them in inventory, but this picture didn't provide more information. So Wallace wondered, could they possibly still be in storage? Well, they were almost two decades later, and I got to thinking, well, I wonder how much stuff is stored at these evidence lockers and police departments, and I'm so glad that they don't throw it away. Because once Wallace located the boots, he noticed that one had the casing where the foam would have been, but it was so worn out that the foam had fallen out. And the other one was still intact. He could not believe it. So we call the deputy DA with this news, but because they had to do things professionally, they remember this isn't the '80s anymore, there are new policies in place. They had to send both pieces of foam to the FBI crime lab for testing. They needed this for extra confirmation, but they were sure that they were a match. So much so that in October of 2003, Detective Wallace called Ethel Hoynes to tell her the news. She was no longer in good health, and as a matter of fact, Kim had recently moved back in to help her. When Ethel heard that this was a Torrance Cole case detective on the line, she screamed for Kim to come take this call. They detect every laid the information about the foam, and it matching to William's boots. But he warned her that this was just the beginning of them building their case against him. There were still a lot of work to do, and there was no guarantee that they could convict him. While Kim didn't waste any time passing the news along to her sisters, she called Trisha right away. Trisha had two teenagers of her own. owned by them. And even with all the years that have passed, getting this news opened up a floodgative emotions, it brought her back to the way that she felt on Halloween in 1984 when she found out that Robin had been killed. She actually always thought the William Marshall had done it, and from time to time she wondered if he would ever confess. Or if you just walked around every day without guilt and that he had seemingly gotten away with it. Wendy was the next to hear the news. She was now in her 30s, not a teenager anymore. But she said that in so many ways she was emotionally still 16. She had so much trouble going through the rest of her teenage years after losing her sister, her best friend, and being so young, she wasn't equipped with the emotional maturity to truly come to terms with Robin's death. She lived in a state of fear, imagining that William would come kill the rest of their family. And now it seemed like there was hope, but that would again be shattered. And I'm not stringing you along. This is exactly what was happening, and I know it's very frustrating. But after weeks of waiting, the FBI had those results from the testing on the two pieces of foam, and they were not chemically a match. The boot foam taken from the boot that was inside the evidence tote had the same texture and color as the foam that was at the crime scene, but it contained phallates. And the loose piece of foam did not. And phallates are the group of chemicals that are used to make plastic more durable and flexible. And the forensic examiner concluded that she could not say whether or not the piece of foam came from either one of these boots. This inconclusive evidence left the detective's questioning whether they had enough proof to charge William with his crime. Detective Wallace came up with a theory about the phallates. Maybe they formed on the boots because they'd been stored in a plastic container for as many years as they did, which also contained phallates, while the other piece of foam was stored in a paper bag. But it didn't matter. The conclusion was that the science says they aren't a match. And that was all they had to connect William to the crime scene. It was now 2004. They didn't want to give up, so they had to take a different avenue. They wanted to track William down to see what he was up to. What was his lifestyle like? Was he living a life of crime? Maybe he was in jail. But actually, they found the total opposite. William Charles Marshall was living in a quaint rustic community known as Mountain Center out in the San Jacinto Mountains. I would describe this area as very out in the middle of nowhere. Look at it. There's nothing but mountains and it's almost three and a half hours away from where heat and robin used to work at the Torrance Kentucky Fried Chicken. There's only about 35 people who live out here. And that's today. I don't know how many were out there in 2004. It's a two square mile community. It's a really pretty area, and it's perfect if you don't want to be found. He had a pretty two story home with a nice big yard, but why would he move so far away? Well, as it turns out, William had been working as a firefighter for several years. And eventually, he became the fire captain in the year 2000 for the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection at the Riverside Fire Department, which is only about 40 miles away from Mountain Center, where he finally settled down. But he wasn't known as William. In this close knit community, people affectionately referred to him as Bill. He was now in his mid-40s, a dedicated serviceman, hard worker, who risked his life to save others. That's wild. That's not what they were expecting. It's definitely made the detectives question whether or not they had the right guy. He was very unassuming, ordinary, he wore glasses, had a mustache, even a receding hairline. He no longer looked like the younger version of himself. He was a respected member of the community. He'd done very well for himself, especially in the past 15 years with the fire department and the residents. They trusted him. They were friends with him. And they said he was a really great guy. But when the detectives dug deeper, they pulled up criminal records from back in the late 80s, early 90s, a few years after Robin's murder. And sure enough, William had been convicted of burglary. And he was sentenced to two years in prison. That didn't seem like a coincidence. He was a thief, or at least had been, but that still didn't prove he was a murderer. And what about the alibi that his girlfriend gave? Well, they were about to track Yvonne down in the state of Ohio. And they had a plan. Detectives were going to be dispatched out to Ohio to speak to Yvonne on the same day that other detectives would locate William and his residents in Mountain Center. They would interview them at the same time so that neither one could speak to one another about the murder or their interviews. I'm going to start with what happened with Yvonne. It was April of 2005, and upon arriving at Yvonne's residence, the detectives located her in her driveway and they informed her of their intention to discuss an incident that happened two decades earlier. The murder of Robin Hoynes at the Torrance Kentucky Fried Chicken. And Yvonne was taken aback to say the least. This was a very unexpected visit, but she expressed her willingness to cooperate. However, she mentioned that her recollection might be hindered by all the years that have gone by, as well as a head injury that she sustained back in 2001. This injury, it had a lasting impact on her memory. It made it very difficult for her to recall details from the past. Nevertheless, she proceeded to tell them the same account she had shared with Detective Lancaster back in 1984. According to her statement, the night before Halloween, William Marshall was by her side the entire time. The alibi was still as solid as it was 20 years earlier, which would mean it would be impossible for William to have committed Robin's murder. Now let me tell you what was going on at Williams at the same time. When they came to his door, not only did he cooperate with them, but he invited the detectives inside. And he was calm and respectful and willing to talk. When asked if he had any involvement in Robin's murder, he denied having anything to do with it. And when they asked if he was at that location on October 30th, he said he was not at the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant that night. He also told them when they knocked on his door that day, they opened up a chapter of his life that he thought he had closed. Well, since Wallace thought this might be the only opportunity to ask him this, he started to build a rapport by talking to him about everyday things. William's life, being a fire captain, just positive things, and eventually, Wallace gently began inquiring about the boots that were collected during William's arrest. He mentioned that they had a very interesting wear pattern. And he made this remark very casually, kind of like saying, man, how in the world would you wear out some boots like that? Almost like it was funny. And William was quick to explain that all of his shoes still look like that because he had a habit that he formed a long time ago where he never untied any of his shoes. He would just kick them off, you know, like one foot steps on the heel of the other while he's pulling the foot out of the shoe. And over time, his shoes would get very worn in the back. He even let the detective look at some of his shoes that he had right there, and all of them had the same wear pattern. Detective Wallace observed at least 15 pairs of shoes, and many of them were worn very badly in the same way. And this was in a very messy closet. He also noticed a pair of van shoes with thick padding at the back cuff area, which had the same pattern of wear in the collar as the boots in evidence. And he thought he was on to something. And what William wasn't expecting was what Wallace revealed to him next. He told William about that piece of foam that was found at the crime scene, and how interestingly, when they checked those boots in evidence, one of them was missing the same piece of foam. They even showed William a picture of what he was talking about. And William was like, "Okay, so you're trying to tell me that you think that this piece of foam from the crime scene came out of my boots?" And he was like, "Yeah." And at that point, Wallace had even attempted to get some video footage of these worn-out shoes. But William stopped him. He told the detectives, "You know what? I've already had a lot of very negative experiences in regard to this case. His words were, quote, "I feel like I'm going down. I'm spiraling away here quick." End quote. And then he said, "Maybe I should speak with my attorney before we get into anything else." So that's when the interview came to an end. They really hadn't gotten much further, and nothing transpired at Yvonne's interview either, until they were just about to wrap up and leave. When the detectives told her, "Please contact them if she happened to remember anything else." That's when she stopped them. She was like, "Wait, wait. There was something that stood out." She said that something stood out to her when she went to pick him up from the police station after he was released back in 1984. I would be holding my breath, waiting for this woman to reveal it. Yvonne said, "She thought it was very odd that William was overly emotional when he got into the car. He was crying, and he kept repeating how he's never going to get to heaven. He's never going to get to heaven. He's never going to get to heaven." Sure, he was going through a lot, but to her was like, "Why would he be concerned with not going to heaven if he was innocent?" However, this wasn't really a confession. If it was true, it was merely another interesting piece of information. So Wallace decided to get a search warrant for William's house. And he went back there about a month later, hoping to get his hands on all of those worn-out shoes. But instead, he didn't find that messy closet? No. Now it was all in order, with a shoe rack and several shoe boxes with brand new pairs of shoes. The badly worn older shoes, including the vans, are all gone. Well, that's suspicious, but Wallace was able to find one pair of badly worn shoes on William's back porch that he must have forgotten about. You can see them in this picture if you're watching and not just listening. But they're, like, spares, and not only is the heel all torn and worn out, but even the front head holes in it will look at the heel. They're worn in the same way as the boots. You can even see the yellow foam pad inside almost falling out. So it stands to reason. This was exactly how that foam piece of the crime scene got there. It's more than just a coincidence. It's a connection, but it's still a circumstantial one. So detectives move to the other items that were collected, like blood swabs that had been taken back at the scene in the '80s. Back then, they could only do blood typing and antigen tests to see if the blood was human. They did not have the ability to test for DNA. And back in 1984, when the knife was collected, it was checked for any substances on it that were clear to the naked eye, and there were none. But David Sugiyama, a criminalist in the Los Angeles crime laboratory, tested the blood collected near the safe, and it was positive for human antigen at the time, which was to be expected. However, he also scraped the knife and recovered some tiny flakes from where the blade and the wooden handle met. These little flakes also tested positive for human antigen. Meeting human blood had been present on that knife at one time. You know that boning knife I showed you? That one. But in 2004, the technology had advanced. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's senior criminalist, John Bachrath, reviewed David's findings from back in 1984, and he subjected the blood from the knife to DNA testing. The result, unfortunately, no human DNA was detected. He also tested for DNA with the blood that was collected near the safe and on the floor near Robin's body, and it was a match to Robin's DNA. But none of the blood found at the scene matched Williams DNA, and there was no blood found on the pocket knife that he carried, any of his clothing items, his boots, his gloves, or anything that was in his possession when he was detained by police. I hope I'm not losing you here, but I also want to mention that there were several different expert opinions on whether that five-inch boning knife in Williams' bag could be the murder weapon. It is a single blade, thin knife. But initially, the medical examiner, Dr. Margaret Greenwald, she reported that Robin's back wound was at a depth of nine inches. And if you were thinking when I said that, that was odd, stay with me. In 2005, criminalist Deborah Carwell wrote a report that excluded Williams' boning knife as the murder weapon based upon Dr. Greenwald's depth measurement of nine inches on that autopsy report, because that's all she had to go on. Robin's was only the third stab wound autopsy that Dr. Greenwald had ever done. But after she performed hundreds in her career, hundreds of knife wound autopsy, she realized she never again had one that deep. So she concluded, through having so much more experience, the depth can only roughly be estimated. And any stab wounds that penetrate the chest are problematic, especially in cases like Robbins, where you have a person a very slender built. That would mean there would be less depth needed to inflict as much damage. So because of this, Dr. Greenwald said that despite the nine inch depth measurement in her report, the knife taken from Williams' back, which only had a blade of five inches, could have been used to inflict the two stab wounds. And it makes sense, because skin, organs, and tissue, it moves. It's not solid. So a shorter knife can potentially go deeper than its own length, and we kind of know that. The detectives needed another expert opinion. So they had Stephen Dowell, a criminalist with LA County Corners department come in, and he worked in the same lab as Deborah did, who said that it could have view Williams' knife. He was asked to review that report, and I know this is getting confusing, but just another person reviewing the report, whether or not Williams' knife could have done this. And he examined that single edge bony knife with the five and three quarter inch blade, and after speaking with Dr. Greenwald, the original ME, he discounted the finding in her report that the depth of one of those wounds was nine inches. He said the depth measurements are so unreliable that most doctors don't even take them. He concluded that Williams' knife could not be excluded as the murder weapon. So far so good. But it still wasn't enough. Meanwhile, after that interview Yvonne had with the detectives, she started to think about the entire situation, all the years that have gone by. So much had changed since she was a young woman, and something began to weigh on her conscience. She was currently in college at the time, and one of her professors happened to be a lawyer. So she pulled him aside for some friendly advice. When their conversation was over, Yvonne picked up the phone and called the Torrance Police Department, and she told them that she had some information they needed to know. She said that she had been so scared to tell the truth back in 1984 because Williams had beat her up so badly that she was scared he might kill her, so she didn't want to say anything. She didn't know what could happen to her. And now after all these years, she no longer has contact with him, and she feels like she needs to come clean. She lied. Not only back then, but also when detectives came to speak with her in Ohio. For one thing, she never had a brain injury, it wasn't true. And neither was Williams' alibi. The truth is, he wasn't with her on the night of October 30th, 1984. He told her to cover for him not telling her what it was in reference to. So his rock solid alibi was all of a sod, and that's not all. She went on to admit that Williams was addicted to crack cocaine back in 1984 when the murder occurred, and that he was living in poverty trying to get by, so she was letting him stay at her place. And at some point, between the day after the murder, so October 31st, and the time that she picked him up from jail, he was ranting and raving about the Bible, saying he wasn't going to go to heaven, and she finally asked him why he thought that. And that's when she said William confessed to her that he went out to that torrents Kentucky fried chicken, hoping to get his hands on that money that night, and that the female manager was there. He said that she had let him in, and he did not say that he stabbed or killed her, but instead. He made it appear as though at some point he left and came back or something, and somehow he saw her on the ground stabbed. So it was as though he just stumbled upon her body. And he said at that point, he slit the young ladies throat. Because if she woke up from her quote, original injury, unquote, that at this point, he wasn't claiming responsibility for that she could write his name in blood. What? That is so confusing, but that is when William admitted to Yvonne, I stabbed the young lady referring to slitting her throat. He added that the woman never gave up the money. It was dropped down the shoot. Whatever that meant, because Yvonne wasn't sure, and the police had never released any details about the restaurant, the safe, and what the procedure was when you needed to deposit the end of night funds. Sure sounds like exactly what happened. And this was a lot to take in, but Yvonne wasn't done yet. Remember when Detective showed her that photo of the piece of foam? Well, it's true. She didn't have a clue what it was or where it came from until a couple days after that interview. William wanted to know, what did you tell the police? What did they ask you? And she explained that they showed her a picture of an object. William asked her to describe it, and when she did, he pointed to his boot, and then he had something in his hand. Something that looked exactly like the object, and he said, is this what they showed you? And Yvonne was like, oh my god, how did you get it? William was like, I didn't get it. This is the other one. What you described came out of one of my shoes, and what I'm showing you is the other one out of the other shoe. Then she said he threw the foam out on the freeway. Yvonne was nervous, but she was tired of keeping William's secrets. He felt a feeling of relief letting all of this out after keeping it for so long. After Yvonne recanted her original statement, William Marshall was left without an alibi. So a felony warrant was out for his arrest. And Detective Wallace made his arrest in September 2006, while William was working at his fire station. The news that the man suspected of killing Robin had worked for years as a firefighter for 15 years, shocked her family and the people of the town that he served. A grand jury indicted him, and the 45-year-old was arraigned on September 29th. He sat emotionless. Except for when the judge read, the allegation of a special circumstance of robbery, that's when he jerked his head back like he was shocked. And I can't help but think of that, toge a cat meme. You're shocked? Don't be shocked. You're shocked? You're shocked? But what's not shocking is that he pleaded not guilty. In October of 2007, 23 years after Robin was killed, William Marshall found himself in a courtroom facing trial for her murder. Throughout the duration of the trial, William made a striking impression. He appeared in court every day, clutching his Bible in his hand. However, his physical appearance was a stark contrast to his demeanor. [BLANK_AUDIO] legs and arms were shackled, which was a clear indication of the seriousness of the allegations against him. One of the key witnesses, of course, was Yvonne Williams, who had flown in from Ohio to testify against her former boyfriend who she hadn't seen in so many years. Yvonne recounted the statement that William had made her, she testified, quote, "He said that if I was contacted by anyone, he didn't specifically say who, that I was to tell them, he was with me," end quote. And then she told the jury about what he told you he said about slitting Robbins' throat. Cheryl Fuller, the woman who switched shifts with Robin on the night she was killed, and who also discovered her body testified as well. Her emotional distress was evident during her testimony, because as she recounted the events from Halloween 1984, the judge had to call for a break to allow Cheryl to gather her composure again. However, despite the weight of the situation and all of her guilt, Cheryl received some unexpected solace. After the trial concluded, Cheryl learned that Robin's family did not blame her, they never said she couldn't come to the funeral. And this revelation provided some much-needed relief for Cheryl. She had carried the burden that guilt for so many years, and we don't always think about survivor's guilt, or even what it's like to witness someone dead. Or who's been brutally murdered. Cheryl's life was forever changed. The prosecutor told the jury that it was obvious how cold blooded this crime was, William knew that Robin knew him. He knew if he went in there to commit this theft, he would have to kill her. And he proceeded anyway for drug money. Nothing was going to stand in the way of his next fix, not even an innocent young girl. William had been arrested before Robin's murder for possession of PCP, so that was on his record it wasn't just an assumption. The jury took only five hours to convict William Marshall for murdering Robin. And then her sister spoke at a sentencing, and I really wanted to end with this, because it's so important to allow the words to be heard and their feelings expressed. They had 23 years to think about Robin and her killer, and what her absence has done to them. Kim began taking notes the last few weeks of the trial trying to find the right memories to talk about and the right words to say to convey what a special person Robin was. For that moment, she wanted to paint a picture of her sister that would bring her back to life in the minds of the people in the courtroom, and I hope that I did that today, that I painted a picture of her that you can imagine, and you can take with you, so that she can live on in our minds. The foreman told the Wayne's family that his birthday was October 30, 1984. He was born the day they got the heartbreaking news that Robin was dead, and now he was there as a juror. He grew up and was sitting on a jury that found the man that killed Robin, guilty. Kim said that that was God working, as her mother Ethel held up a framed 8x10 picture of Robin. Kim took a deep breath, and she turned to William, and she asked him, "Do you know what murder means?" She said from that moment, when you hear that you wondered did she die right away, did you know what was happening, where she sexually violated, and she said that her mom and dad worried about that until they were able to read that autopsy report weeks later. William didn't even flinch. She said, "William, you are responsible for this." When it was Trisha's turn, she expressed how hard it was to watch William Marshall day after day during the trial show no remorse for what he did to her sister. Trisha had never believed that Robin died quickly. She imagined that she suffered lying there all alone. And when she had to sit through all the testimony and the crime scene photos for the very first time, it was clear in her mind all of the pain that her sister went through. She was stabbed in the back. She never had a chance to fight back because Trisha knew she would have, if she would have known that she was being attacked, but William cowardly embraced her. Trisha hoped that if he didn't feel anything for her family, he at least had sympathy for his loved ones, saying, "Now as you sit in yourself, day after day, year after year, I hope you spend a great deal of time thinking about the pain that you've caused your own loved ones." End quote. And there was Wendy, the youngest of the horn sisters. She had just gotten married three weeks before the trial had begun. She wished that Robin and her father could have been there. She referred to the previous four years of her life as a season of deep healing. And she addressed the court saying, quote, "My grief would come like a thief in the night with no warning of coming or going. Like an unpaid debt, my pain accrued tremendous interest over the years and often overwhelmed me. Knowing the whole truth of Robin's murder would eventually set me free." End quote. And now she knew. But she went on to say, "The truth is you never make restitution for your actions because you can never bring Robin back." Robin's mom Ethel had written a letter to the prosecutor, which he read, and in part, it said, "That a day never went by, that she didn't miss her precious, freckle-face Robin, and she wished she was there." At the end, Kim thanked everyone on the case for their hard work. And she said that years don't make the whole disappear. Torrent superior judge Mark Arnold called William Marshall evil, and said that the way he stabbed Robin in the back was cowardly, and he showed a lack of humanity by his willingness to try to commit the same crime days later. Remember, he went to that "Fountain Valley Kentucky Fried Chicken" location? They know what was him, and the judge said that he should be housed in a maximum security prison. The sentence was life in prison without the possibility of parole, case closed, but for the horns, it never is real closure. However, that Halloween, in October of 2007, the same month William was put away. Ethel turned to Kim and said, "I guess we need to buy some Halloween candy." And that actually made my heart sink a little bit, but at the same time I understand that to many people who don't know the story, it wouldn't seem that important. But the last 23 years of their lives, after Robin was killed, they never handed out candy at the wine's residence in Whittier. And now Ethel was ready to, because Justice had been served, and the monster was no longer walking the street among trick-or-treaters who were merely pretending to be as evil as he really was. For the first time, in over two decades, Ethel felt a glimmer of hope, and she decided to embrace the spirit of Halloween once again. The front porch was illuminated with bright lights, coming from carved pumpkins, proudly displaying their toothy grins. The Huyne's family even sent a thank you letter to Yvonne for coming forward against William, and that she was instrumental in getting justice, but interestingly, I saw the post on Reddit that asked why nothing happened to her for lying all of those years, and basically aiding and abetting him. And that's a valid question. And there were a lot of answers on Reddit, some of which were like, you know, she's a victim too. She was afraid of him. She didn't know what to do or what was going to happen to her. You're dealing with a killer. But unless there was an evil motive on her part to hide it, like she had something to do with the crime, that would be one thing. But a lot of times police want to encourage people to come forward. And if they believe that telling the truth is going to put them behind bars, they're unlikely to do so, so good Samaritan laws do exist. And of course, I don't know the details they could have made a deal with her. There are so many reasons why she wouldn't have been considered guilty of a crime. As the night fell, on October 31, 2007, Ethel and Robin Sisters awaited the arrival of trick-or-treaters. The sound of children's laughter echoed through the one silent halls, filling the house with a renewed sense of life and joy. Ethel and her family happily handed out candy to the eager youngsters cherishing every smiling face that crossed their path. Year after year, the tradition of decorating the house and handing out candy continued as a reminder of Robin's spirit and the strength that it propelled Ethel, Kim, Trisha, and Wendy through the darkest time in their life. I think all of you so much for being here. And I hope that you think of Robin and her family, especially on Halloween from now and going forward. I will see you in my next video. Bye.