At the height of Hooters’ popularity in the 2000s, the restaurant chain was shaken by a string of horrifying killings involving young women who worked there.
Those tragedies are revisited in the new documentary The Hooters Murders: Deadly Shift. Showrunner Kevin Brenneke spoke exclusively with Oxygen about the fear that spread among other waitresses after the death of Alissa Blanton, who was murdered in 2010 by customer Roger Troy.
“I think it really resonated with all of them in many different ways,” Brenneke told Oxygen. “Obviously, just the tragedy of the loss. But also, I think it made a lot of them really fearful of what some of these people coming into the store, that they had built these relationships with inside of Hooters — it made them fearful of what they were capable of and that it could have been any of them.”
Brenneke also said convincing former and current Hooters employees to speak openly for the documentary was not easy, with many still carrying anxiety about what might happen if they shared their stories publicly.
“Some of them feared retaliation from Hooters,” he said. “Some of them feared their regulars seeing them on television. That years ago they were really, in reflection, uncomfortable around and concerned about, you now. So it was difficult.”
Hooters declined to comment to producers about the allegations made in the docuseries.
Hooters Customer Roger Troy Develops Dangerous Obsession With Alissa Blanton
Alissa Blanton was just 21 years old when she moved from her St. Louis home to Merritt Island, Fla.
To help fund her dream, Blanton got a job at the local Hooters. But just weeks into the gig, Blanton caught the eye of one of the restaurant’s much older customers, 59-year-old Roger Troy.
Former waitress Tara Nelson—who trained Blanton—described Troy, a regular who came in daily, as giving a “redneck grandpa” vibe.
When Troy asked for her personal phone number, Blanton gave him her email address instead. Troy began sending her dozens of emails, making daily visits to the restaurant to see her, giving her unwanted hugs and following her out to her car at the end of her shifts.
Troy’s troubling behavior did catch the attention of the store’s manager, according to the documentary, who confronted him one day in the parking lot and told him to back off. After the confrontation, Troy’s emails to Blanton got nastier.
Terrified, Blanton quit her job in September 2008 and moved 60 miles away to Orlando to try to escape the harassment.
What Happened to Alissa Blanton?
Blanton moved on with her life, married her boyfriend and got a new job working at AT&T. But in February 2010, Troy’s obsession turned deadly.
Troy confronted her in the parking lot of her workplace and fatally shot her.
“Witnesses observed Alissa Blanton as she was walking towards her office building,” Orange County Sheriff’s Office Det. Brian Cross explained in the special. “Roger Troy was walking behind her, Roger Troy shot her multiple times. She fell to the ground, Roger Troy stood over her and continued shooting into her body. Each shot was a fatal wound.”
Then, according to Cross, Troy shot himself in the head and fell down beside Blanton’s body.
Before her death, Blanton tried to get an injunction against Troy, sharing that he’d started stalking her in Orlando, driving by her home and showing up when she was out in public.
Yet the injunction was denied after the court ruled the facts weren’t enough to declare Blanton a victim of domestic abuse or sexual violence or that she was in “imminent danger,” according to court records obtained by the documentary.