Paul Dennis Reid

Reid died at Nashville General Hospital at Meharry, on November 1, 2013. The cause of death was from complications due to pneumonia, heart failure, and upper respiratory issues. Reid had been in the hospital for about two weeks.

For a time, Reid was considered a prime suspect in the 1993 Brown's Chicken massacre in Palatine, Illinois due to the similar nature of the crime in relation to the two incidents in Nashville. Characteristics included shoeprints found at the scene and descriptions of the killer that matched Reid's profile. His alibi checked out, however, and Reid was later ruled out as a suspect. Juan Luna was convicted on seven counts of murder in 2007. On September 29, 2009, Luna's cohort, James Degorski, was found guilty of all seven counts of murder. On October 20, 2009, Degorski was sentenced to life in prison. All but two of the jurors had voted for the death penalty. Reid was reportedly also considered a suspect in the Houston-area killings of three people in a bowling alley for which Max Soffar has twice been convicted.

His last execution date was scheduled for January 3, 2008, but was stayed on December 26, 2007 by US District Judge Todd J. Campbell, pending investigation into the constitutionality of Tennessee's lethal injection methods. The stay was part of a larger investigation, and not directly related to Reid's case. On April 16, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in a Kentucky case upholding the legality of execution by lethal injection. The state of Tennessee immediately began appealing stays of execution to resume death penalty cases, including Reid's.

Reid received seven death sentences for his convictions, the first two coming on April 20, 1999. Reid's execution was stayed several times in the years following, including an instance in 2003 just hours before the scheduled execution. Reid eventually waived his right to an appeal. Members of his family, along with anti-death penalty activists, claimed he was mentally handicapped and unable to make such a decision, and filed multiple motions (both successful and unsuccessful) to stay his execution. However, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld all of Reid's sentences. Reid's case has received national attention among anti-death penalty activists.

At Captain D's on Lebanon Road in the Donelson neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee, on the morning of February 16, 1997, Reid entered the store before opening, under the guise of applying for a job. Once inside, he forced employee Sarah Jackson, 16, and the manager, Steve Hampton, 25, into the restaurant's cooler. Reid forced the two to lie face down on the floor and then shot them execution style. Money, including large amounts of change, was found missing from the cash register. Reid used the cash from this robbery as a down payment on a car two days later.

At McDonald's on Lebanon Road in Hermitage, Tennessee [3.4 miles (5.5 km) northeast of Captain D's], on the evening of March 23, 1997, Reid approached four employees as they exited the store after closing. At gunpoint, he forced them back into the restaurant. Reid shot three employees to death execution style in the storeroom: Andrea Brown, 17; Ronald Santiago, 27; and Robert A. Sewell.

At Baskin-Robbins on Wilma Rudolph Boulevard in Clarksville, Tennessee, on the evening of April 23, 1997, Reid went to the door after closing and persuaded the employees to let him inside. Once inside, Reid kidnapped Angela Holmes, 21, and Michelle Mace, 16, and forced the two to Dunbar Cave State Park. Their bodies were discovered the next day at Dunbar Cave Park. Their throats had been slashed.

Paul Dennis Reid, Jr. (November 12, 1957 – November 1, 2013), also known as The Fast Food Killer, was an American serial killer, convicted and sentenced to death for seven murders during three fast food restaurant robberies in Metropolitan Nashville, Tennessee and Clarksville, Tennessee between the months of February and April 1997. At the time of the murders, Reid lived with roommate Brian Fozzard and had a room at a boarding house, and he was on parole from a 1983 conviction in Texas on charges relating to the aggravated armed robbery of a Houston steakhouse. He had served seven years of a 20-year sentence, and was paroled in 1990. Originally from Richland Hills, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, Reid went to Nashville to pursue a career as a country music singer.