The upcoming episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered will be called “The Night Before Halloween,” and it will go into detail about the shocking murder of 21-year-old Robin Hoynes.
The killer, who used to work at the same Kentucky Fried Chicken as Hoynes, stayed out of jail for more than 20 years.
Find out more about the murder, what led up to it, and what the people of Torrance and the victim’s family had to deal with afterward. On Wednesday at 8 p.m., the episode will show how a small piece of foam was key to solving the case 23 years later.
On August 3, 2022, you can watch the 65th episode of the most recent season of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered. The episode’s official summary says:
“It takes a special eye to see what’s wrong at a crime scene. In this case, the thing that’s wrong looks so small that no one knows what it is or what it means. It took a team of determined investigators almost 20 years to figure out what it is.”
Dateline: Secrets Uncovered: Who was Robin Hoynes? What happened to her?
In 1984, Robin Lucille Hoynes, who grew up in Whittier, California, and was 21 years old, worked as an assistant manager at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Torrance, California. On October 30, 1984, a former co-worker named William Charles Marshall killed her in cold blood.
On the night of the murder, Hoynes let Marshall in after hours while she was doing paperwork. She told him he could pick up his briefcase and leave his uniform because he had been fired for stealing money. Marshall killed Hoynes in a surprise attack because he planned to rob the place.
In the Robin Hoynes murder case, the medical examiner said that the victim had two stab wounds in the back, one of which was fatal and the other of which could have been. Her throat was cut before or after she died.
The next day, Hoynes’ body was found by Cheryl Fuller, who had switched shifts with Hoynes that night and worked at the same fast food restaurant.
How the man who killed Robin Hoynes was caught
William Marshall was the most likely person to have killed Hoynes, but he was arrested and then let go because no charges were brought against him at the time. Also, Marshall’s alibi didn’t show that he was at the scene of the crime that night.
Marshall stayed out of jail for more than 20 years with the help of his girlfriend at the time and because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him.
In 2005, detectives at the Torrance Police Department started to look at the “cold cases” again. In 2006, they re-arrested Marshall because they found a small piece of foam at the crime scene and tied it to his boots.
His ex-girlfriend, Yvonne Williams, also testified against him and told the court about the crime. Back in 1984, Marshall told her about the stabbing and asked her to lie for him. After Hoynes’ death, the couple used drugs together and stayed together for three more years.
In 2007, after four weeks of testimony, a jury found Marshall guilty of killing Hoynes. He was given a sentence of life in prison without the chance of getting out.