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The upcoming episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered, titled The Night Before Halloween, will explore the spin-chilling murder of 21-year-old Robin Hoynes in-depth. The killer, a former employee of the Kentucky Fried Chicken where Hoynes worked, managed to evade justice for over two decades.
Learn more about the murder, the circumstances that led up to it, and the aftermath faced by the community of Torrance and the victim's family. On Wednesday at 8 pm, the episode will also uncover how a little piece of foam became vital to solving the case after 23 years.
Tune in to the 65th episode of the latest season of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered on August 3, 2022. The official synopsis for the episode reads:
"It takes a special eye to spot the thing that's out of place at a crime scene; in this case, that thing looks so insignificant, no one even knows what it is or what it means; it takes a team of determined investigators almost two decades to find out."
Dateline: Secrets Uncovered - Who was Robin Hoynes, and what happened to her?
Robin Lucille Hoynes was a 21-year-old Whittier native who worked as an assistant manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Torrance, California, in 1984. On October 30, 1984, she was murdered in cold blood by a former colleague named William Charles Marshall.
On the night of the murder, Hoynes let Marshall in after hours while she was doing paperwork on the pretext of him picking up his briefcase and leaving his uniform after he was fired on suspicion of him stealing money. Marshall, who intended to rob the place, killed Hoynes in a surprise attack.
According to the medical examiner in Robin Hoynes murder case, the victim had two stab wounds in the back, one fatal and one potentially fatal. Her throat was slit at or after the time of her death.
Hoynes' body was discovered the following day by Cheryl Fuller, another assistant manager at the fast food restaurant who had traded shifts with Hoynes that night.
How Robin Hoynes' killer was caught
Although William Marshall was the prime suspect in Hoynes' murder, he was arrested and later released because prosecutors did not file any charges at the time. Moreover, Marshall's alibi did not place him at the crime scene that night.
For over two decades, Marshall evaded justice with the help of his girlfriend at the time and due to insufficient evidence to convict him.
It was in 2005 that the Torrance Police Department detectives began taking a fresh look at the cold cases. They tied a seemingly insignificant piece of foam found at the crime scene to Marshall's boots and rearrested him in 2006.
Yvonne Williams, his former girlfriend, also testified against him and provided details of the crime in court. Marshall had told her about the stabbing and asked her to cover for him back in 1984. The couple were drug users and stayed together for three more years after Hoynes' murder.
After four weeks of testimony, in 2007, a jury finally found Marshall guilty of Hoynes' murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
