Pizza Hut murder -- Lagado Institute Reports

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Date Posted: 17:26:52 11/22/00 Wed
Author: Anonymous
Subject: Pizza Hut murder

RETURN to Arkansas Section / Saturday, November 18, 2000

Police hunt leads in deaths of 2 Pizza Hut workers
JULIA SILVERMAN
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

WEST HELENA -- Krystal Maneus walked into the Pizza Hut on busy U.S. 49 Thursday morning where she, Kim Amos and Karen Stiles worked, and saw a pool of blood on the floor.
Maneus followed a trail of blood back through the kitchen and out to the deep freezer behind the restaurant.
"They were in there, on their sides, and I sort of tickled them and said, 'C'mon, y'all, get up.' I expected Karen to jump out from behind the counter." Maneus said Thursday. "That's when I realized, oh, God, they're dead."
On Friday, a day and a half after Stiles, 20, of West Helena and Amos, 18, of Marianna were shot to death as they were closing the Pizza Hut and were left in the freezer, police had no suspect in the case.
Arkansas State Police special agent Barry Roy said late Friday afternoon that police had spent the day securing the crime scene, tracking down all 22 of the Pizza Hut's employees and talking with friends and relatives of the two women. State police were assisting the West Helena Police Department in the investigation.
"We have a broad range of suspects, but we haven't focused in yet," Roy said. "We are talking to anyone who would know about the daily routine of the business, anyone that can provide information."
A preliminary autopsy report had been completed by the state Crime Laboratory, but details of the report would not be released, Roy said.
Police did confirm Friday that the restaurant had been robbed but would not say how much money had been taken. Maneus, who has worked at the Pizza Hut on and off for the past five years, said that at the end of a day's work, the cash register usually contained about $500 in change, and that additional receipts were taken to the bank by a shift manager.
The store, which is along a well-traveled highway that leads to a strip of casinos in Mississippi, had no alarm system, and no video cameras, Roy said. There was no sign that anyone had forced their way into the store, which has a back exit that locks automatically.
The killings were the only homicides so far this year in West Helena, said Bill Williams, a captain of the criminal investigation division of the West Helena Police Department.
Officers were also considering reports that the killings were similar to recent shootings at a Captain D's restaurant in Smyrna, Tenn., and might try to coordinate investigative efforts with police there, he added.
Stiles and Amos would have locked the restaurant for the evening about 10 p.m. and would have set about their normal closing duties, Maneus said: Taking out the trash, sweeping floors, taking down the salad bar and cleaning the bathrooms.
It's impossible to know what happened next, whether Stiles and Amos opened the door for someone they knew, or if their killer had been hiding in the bathrooms, or found another way into the restaurant. But Maneus said that when she arrived Friday morning for the early shift, the door was locked, and the front lights were on.
When she stepped inside, she said, the first thing she saw was a large pool of what she thought was fake blood, and next to it, the cap Stiles often wore, also soaked with blood.
Later, she said, she would remember that the keys to Stiles' truck and the apron she wore were on a nearby table, indicating that the killer "must have been someone they trusted -- because Karen was caught right at the door."
But Thursday morning, Maneus followed the trail, past another large pool of blood in the back office to the freezer, until she realized the whole thing wasn't some twisted practical joke and hysterically called 911.
Police tape stretched around the perimeter of the Pizza Hut on Friday morning and its windows were dark. A few people who identified themselves as regional managers for the company and refused to comment, moved in and out of the restaurant. Cars slowed as they drove across the parking lot past the darkened building, and faces peered out of passenger windows.
In West Helena and nearby Helena, the deaths were the talk of the towns, from a reporter for the local newspaper, the Daily World, to Johnny Weaver, the mayor of West Helena, who said Friday that he, "wished he had some type of intuition, so that when something is happening here, I could intervene to stop it. I'm as stunned and shocked as everyone else. I wish we could have a policeman posted at all corners."
Amos and Stiles had been working at the Pizza Hut about a year, Maneus said. She described Amos as, "a real happy little girl, bouncing around and cheerful. She will do anything to try and make you feel better."
And Stiles, she said, was a particularly dedicated employee, often staying at the Pizza Hut after her shifts were finished, talking with friends.
Amos and Stiles were good friends outside of work, Maneus said.
She believes, she said, that there was more than one killer because of her perception that Stiles was killed at the front of the restaurant and would have had to be carried to the back to the freezer.
On Friday, Maneus spent the day rearranging her furniture, busy work to occupy her mind so she wouldn't keep replaying what she found Thursday morning.
"They gave me a shot to calm my nerves, but still, every time I close my eyes," she said. "I can't forget about it, can't get it out of my head. I can't pass Pizza Hut without breaking down and crying. If people saw what I saw, they would never go back in there. I was close to those girls."

This article was published on Saturday, November 18, 2000

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