New Prosecutor Named in Bernie Tiede Case

EAST TEXAS — A state prosecutor who helped secure convictions in the Kilgore Kentucky Fried Chicken murders is one of two new prosecutors appointed in the Bernie Tiede case. According to the Longview News-Journal, documents from the Panola County District Clerk’s Office show Texas Assistant Attorney General Lisa Tanner, who worked on the KFC case, will take over Tiede’s case from Panola County District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson. Jane Starnes, another Texas assistant attorney general, also will be a prosecutor in the case. Starnes helped convict Eddie Ray Routh earlier this year in Stephenville in the death of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle.

Davidson filed a motion to recuse himself in March, saying he had become a witness in Tiede’s case “through no fault of my own.”

Tiede faces a new sentencing trial in the 1997 shooting death of 81-year-old Carthage widow Marjorie Nugent.

A life sentence Tiede began in 1999 was vacated in May when Davidson agreed with Tiede’s defense counsel that newly revealed memories of childhood sexual abuse could have affected his first trial in 1999. Tiede also still faces a felony theft indictment accusing him of stealing millions from Nugent. The fate of that indictment could be decided at a pre-trial hearing for which no date has been set. It originally was scheduled March 31.