The Night Before Halloween, the next episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered, will delve into the chilling murder of 21-year-old Robin Hoynes. Hoynes’ killer, a former Kentucky Fried Chicken worker, eluded capture for more than two decades.

Learn more about the murder, the events leading up to it, and the challenges the victim’s family and the Torrance community experienced in the aftermath. The program, which airs Wednesday at 8 pm, will also explain how a small piece of foam became crucial to ending the case after 23 years.

On August 3, 2022, watch the 65th installment of the latest season of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered. The official synopsis for the episode is as follows:

“It takes a single eye to see the object that is out of place at the crime scene; in this case, that thing seems so insignificant that nobody knows what it is or what it means; it takes a team of determined researchers nearly two decades to find out,” reads the book’s subtitle.

Date Line: Secrets Uncovered – Who was Robin Hoynes and what happened to him?

In 1984, Whittier native Robin Lucille Hoynes was 21 years old and working as an assistant manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Torrance, California. She was brutally murdered on October 30, 1984 by William Charles Marshall, a former co-worker of hers.

Hoynes allowed Marshall in after hours the night of the murder while she filled out paperwork under the pretense that he was gathering his briefcase and changing out of his uniform after being fired on suspicion of stealing money. Hoynes was killed in a surprise attack by Marshall, who had come to loot the place.

The Robin Hoynes murder victim had two stab wounds to her back, one of which was fatal and the other possibly fatal, according to the medical examiner. At the time of her death or shortly thereafter, her throat was slit.

Cheryl Fuller, another assistant manager at the fast food business who had switched shifts with Hoynes that night, found Hoynes’ body the next day.

How Robin Hoynes’ killer was caught

Although William Marshall was the prime suspect in Hoynes’s murder, no charges were brought against him at the time, so he was arrested and eventually released. Also, Marshall’s alibi failed to place him at the crime scene that night.

Marshall managed to evade justice for more than 20 years with the help of his then-girlfriend and the lack of adequate evidence to prosecute him.

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His ex-girlfriend, Yvonne Williams, also testified against him in court, describing the crime in detail. In 1984, Marshall had told her about her stabbing and asked her to fill in for him. After Hoynes’s death, the drug-using couple continued together for another three years.

After four weeks of testimony, a jury finally found Marshall guilty of killing Hoynes in 2007, and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.