be out of i just freaked out. time doesn t wait, of course. darkness fell, halloween, laughing kids came to the door. the hoynes sat in the dark and tried to get used to the idea of what grief feels like. policemen buzzed around the kfc all day halloween day looking for something to go on. but all they came up with really was what didn t happen. there was no signs of forced entry. she had let somebody into the business, so we felt she knew somebody, and she felt comfortable enough to be working on her paperwork while that person was in the business. but who killed robin hoynes? a former friend? a customer? a colleague from work? could it be that robin hoynes had been murdered by someone she knew? as police search for clues that would lead them to her killer, robin s co-worker, cheryl, remembers something. coming up
welcome to dateline. it sometimes takes a special eye to look at a crime scene and spot the one thing that s out of place, the clue that will crack the case. in this story, that thing appeared so inconsequential, no one even knew what it was let alone what it meant. it took almost two decades, a team of determined investigators, and a detective with an unusual background to find out. here s keith morrison with the night before halloween. it was the night before halloween, october 30th, late, midnight approaching. it happened in one of the middle-class suburbs that sprawl across the los angeles basin inside a fast food franchise closed for the night. a frantic scrambling, running feet, then silence. the next morning, not far away, the hoynes family daughters prepared for a favorite celebration.
once the hoynes house would have been festive. not anymore. they closed the door, turned out the light. just the word halloween unleashed a wave of grief. the investigation into robin s murder was stalled even though police had a suspect in plain sight. william marshall. and the family groped for solace. we had to take comfort in that because we really were probably never going to see any resolution in this. they didn t have enough evidence. years passed. there were other cases to solve, new priorities, of course, and for detective lancaster, retirement. it there are cases that stay with you after your retirement, probably for the rest of your life, at least for me. this was one of them. the hoynes family struggled to move on without robin. there were high school graduations, marriages, children, but
but this was different. the murder of the kfc halloween 1984. this was certainly not a crime-infested neighborhood, and robin hoynes was a careful, safety conscious, churchgoing young woman, not an enemy in the world. but she was stabbed in the back by someone she might have known. it didn t make sense. the kindest hearted person you probably would ever meet. yeah. so now the four sisters were three. i just was completely lost. at 16 you don t have the capacity to really understand grief let alone to understand grief, let alone to understand grief that comes from your best friend, the person that you you know, she sleeps in the bed next to you every night. and that bed is empty now. is not there anymore because she was murdered.
dinner. yvonne seemed credible, never wavered in supporting marshall s story. it was a solid alibi. so maybe the marshall idea was a dead end. as they were leaving the cops had one more question, though, did she know anything about that mysterious piece of foam found at the crime scene? and they brought out this thing, had a funny shape, funny color, and they said, do you know what this is? i said, no, i ve never seen that before. so what could they do? they let william marshall go. the cops had nothing on him. robin hoynes funeral was a big event in this part of town. and because robin was well known and so well liked, much of the neighborhood attended, and friends and colleagues, except for one, cheryl, the girl who had switched shifts with robin the night the murderer came to call. i had heard that they were