Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 401 - Kenneth McDuff: The Broomstick Killer
Episode Date: May 13, 2024Kenneth McDuff killed three high school students the night of August 6th, 1966, repeatedly raping and sexually torturing one of them first. He'd be sent to death row for those crimes. But then, he'd h...ave his sentence reduced to life in prison. And then, he'd get released on parole at the age of 43 and start killing again within 72 hours of leaving prison. Find out what legal changes made his release possible, and how his case drastically changed Texas's criminal justice system once he was caught and put back on death row. Enjoy and Hail Nimrod!Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YD1bdLIKV8sMerch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Do you believe in the death penalty?
As listeners of this show, at a certain point, it's hard not to believe in it, right?
For the vast majority of us, we probably have some succulums, maybe a lot of former subjects
that we would love to see wiped off the face of the earth.
Or former subjects whose deaths we did cheer when we heard about their execution.
It's hard not to cheer when a serial killer who has forever altered the lives of many
people and their families, ended the lives of many people and their families ended the lives of many people finally gets their due.
And on another level, the death penalty suits a very practical purpose.
Not just justice for the families but as a means of permanently removing someone who
is a guaranteed threat to society.
Someone who has essentially no chance at rehabilitation.
Someone who can and for sure will kill again. In a very literal sense the death penalty might be the
only way of 100% ensuring that these people never run free again. That no
legal technicality or law being changed suddenly allows them. Somebody who is
supposed to be in prison for life with no possibility of parole to walk free
again. The death penalty
may be not necessary all the time, but many of us feel that when it is necessary, it is very
necessary. And nobody would embody this more than Kenneth Allen McDuff. Raised in the quaint hamlet
of Rosebud, Texas in the middle of the 20th century, McDuff should have been your classic
all-American boy. His father, J.A., owned a successful concrete and construction company.
His mom owned a laundromat in a town where almost everyone knew everyone.
A town that loved going to church on Sunday after barbecue and having some beers on Saturday
and after cheering for the high school football game on Friday night.
But, of course, Kenneth Macduff would be anything but the classic all-American boy.
J.A. was actually a very absent father, constantly preoccupied with his work, and many gossip
that he worked all the time to avoid his very domineering wife, Addie, a local character
known as Pistol-Packin' Mama McDuff.
Seriously.
And Addie might have loved her boy Kenneth too much.
She would consistently shield Kenneth from the consequences of any and all of his terrible actions and he was terrible so
much of the time. Something was very very wrong with Kenneth. Despite this kid
possibly being born bad, starting when he was a young boy she put it into his mind
that he was better than other people. That if he was accused of something of
anything it wasn't because he'd actually done something wrong. No, people were just out to get him. But they weren't. Kenneth was out to get them, though.
Starting in grade school, he bullied other kids. Starting in junior high, he crashed cars and
motorcycles. Starting in his teens, he got drunk and committed burglary, a lot of burglary,
which landed him in prison at the age of 18 in 1964. And mama didn't seem to mind. She'd stand by him, advocate for him,
hire him the best attorney she could afford,
and he'd be out on parole the very next year.
Of course he would be.
He was Teflon.
Nothing could stick to him,
because he was special, as mama said.
And he was special.
He was especially deviant and wicked.
He began to have especially sadistic,
sexually abusive fantasies as a teen.
And when he set off on the night of August 6, 1966 with the friend Roy Dale Green, he was ready to make those fantasies a
reality. Roy will claim he thought they were just going to pick up some girls and in a horrible way,
he was right. The two came upon a pair of cousins, 15-year-old Mark Dunman and 17-year-old Robert
Brand along with Robert's 16-year-old girlfriend Edna Louise Sullivan.
McDuff would kidnap the three terrified teens before coldly and casually murdering Mark
and Robert and then taking Louise to a remote location where he raped her repeatedly, sexually
tortured her, and then killed her by pressing the handle of a broomstick to her throat so
violently it broke several bones.
McDuff was quickly apprehended, tried, he
was convicted, and he was given the death sentence. And that should have been the
end of our episode about him. He should have been electrocuted. But thanks to the
passing of some terrible and poorly thought out laws and a series of
terrible legal decisions, Macduff went from having a death sentence to having
life in prison, to getting out on parole after serving just 23 years, and then
unleashed upon society
once again, so much unnecessary pain and carnage and death would very quickly follow.
The wild story.
So wild it will seem like a dick bird kind of tale, but it isn't.
Of Kenneth Macduff on today's true crime, serial killer, are you sure you're opposed
to the death penalty in any and all circumstances edition of Time Suck.
Happy Monday and welcome to the Cult of the Curious.
I'm Dan Cummins, Sir Sucks A Lot, Neverland Ranch Petting Zoo Superintendent, guy who
probably should have taken a third molly pill just to make last week's episode weirder,
guy who definitely should have sang Billie Jean way more than he did and you are listening
to Time Suck.
Hail Nimrod, hail Lucifina, praise B to good boy Bojangles, and Glory B to triple M.
Recording this episode before the 400th episode comes out, so I have no idea what the feedback is yet.
But I personally, I don't think it was as funny as I was hoping it would be. I hope I'm wrong.
And I'm not sure, because I was so high, it was very hard to understand just what was going on
for the second half of the episode.
I had so many intrusive thoughts, it took all my energy to focus on my narrative notes.
What I wanted to do was walk out of the recording, go home, listen to some music, cuddle with Lindsay, play with the dogs, touch a lot of stuff.
Right after the episode, we did go home, laid in the yard, I just felt so in love with the world.
And then we walked around Coeur d'Alene, spent some time at the Blue Shell Arcade Bar.
That place is so fun. Playing some old school video games.
Not caring at all about who won or lost.
Then played pool at another bar. Also didn't care.
Then cuddled up, watched TV, played with the dogs.
And it was glorious.
Thank you so much for sticking around for 400 episodes. It does mean a lot.
And also, if you're looking for something extra,
for something to give you extra laughs, excuse me,
check out my buddy Andy Gold's Instagram.
I've been meaning to promote this for a while.
He didn't ask for it, but he deserves it.
At Andy Gold Comedy.
He has people send him embarrassing pictures of themselves
from their childhood, and then he roasts your photo and it fucking kills me
So funny always makes me laugh
Andy's been funny for a long long time and I'm excited to see him start to get some long overdue recognition
So I hope he keeps blowing up with this at Andy Gold comedy. So funny and
One more thing the April Fool's episode this year. Just so you know, it was a one-time thing
I just seen a lot of comments of I don't know a little a little nervous he was doing it again. No. I'm not
gonna fuck with you that hard again. But if you do want to hear more of my fiction
check out Nightmare Fuel. Those episodes on the Scared to Death podcast feed.
Short horror stories written narrated by me. Fans over there are loving them so
far. I'm blown away. If you like horror movies or horror series I bet you'll
like these too. And now for some true horror.
Now for a topic that brings us back to the realm of serial killers.
Unlike most of our past serial killers sucks, however, in which there's a pretty straightforward
arc.
Killer has a horrible childhood.
Killer begins playing with the idea of assaulting someone.
Killer goes on to murder.
Picks up steam.
Gets sloppy.
Gets caught.
The story of
Kenneth McDuff, not nearly that linear. Instead, Kenneth Allen McDuff was quickly
caught and imprisoned for his earliest known crimes. A string of burglaries that
took place when he was 18. He was then quickly caught in prison following his
first murders, which occurred not that long after he got out of prison, which
included multiple rapes, and he was given the death sentence. And damn near everyone
in his hometown of Rosebud, Texas
knew that death row was exactly where Macduff belonged.
That he was the biggest no-good piece of shit loser that town had ever seen.
Literally zero redeeming qualities. Like, cartoonishly bad.
There's nothing fucking good about this guy. He had long been a bad apple.
And anyone with half a brain knew that if he was given the chance,
he would gladly kill again.
But then to the shock and horror of the people of Rosebud and the families of his victims,
he was given that chance. And he would kill again and again and again and again. So how the hell did that happen?
Let's episode structure.
We'll trace Kenneth Macduff's growth from a spoiled, shitty little brat child to a bigger,
more spoiled, sexually sadistic man child.
Sexually sadistic?
I'm not sure if I said that the first time.
And our timeline, which will thankfully conclude with his death.
But first, let's talk just a tiny bit about the concept of parole in US prisons,
since parole will factor heavily into the story.
How do we put away our harshest offenders?
And how do we choose who to let out?
I mentioned before that Kenneth MacDuff got out of prison after the murders of three teenagers,
after serving just 23 years,
which leads to the obvious question of, you know, how the fuck did that happen? There's a simple answer. Some people are
fucking stupid and they just can't accept that not everyone deserves a
second chance. That they can't accept that not everyone you know is redemption
worthy. That some people are truly fucked, rotten to the core and should be
eliminated. Just a poor understanding of human nature, I think. There's also a short and literal answer that is not subjective and that's parole.
Obviously the concept of parole is not a new one as most of us have probably
known or heard of a person who is out on parole after being incarcerated. Some of
you listening, perhaps out on parole, thanks for the download. Stick around.
Learn from the mistakes of people like today's dirty bird and never go back.
When did we start paroling people? The parole system as we know it today in the US started in the early 20th century.
New York was the first state to adopt a parole system in 1907 which included indeterminate sentences, a release system, post-release supervision, and criteria for parole
revocation.
By 1942 all states and the federal government
had adopted parole systems.
The first parole of federal prisoners had begun in 1910
after legislation was passed in response
to an overcrowded federal prison.
Overcrowding.
What a terrible reason to justify releasing violent criminals
back out into the streets.
But it happens every day.
It'll happen to Kenneth more than once.
For a country that spends so much on its military, money spent in theory to keep us safe from
foreign threats, you'd think that a lot of money could also be spent on keeping us safe
from domestic threats.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to be murdered or have some loved one raped
and killed by some released killer who's an American citizen any more than I want to be
killed or have those I love hurt or killed by someone not from America.
If the concept of parole feels like it should go back before the 19th century,
know that the use of pardons essentially worked the same as parole before there was parole.
Early release is, you know, early release.
The first documented official use of early release from a prison in the U.S. occurred in Boston in 1847.
I thought it'd be earlier, actually.
And then in the 1870s, the first indeterminate
sentencing law was passed in the U.S. that allowed prison officials to reduce an inmate sentence
based on good behavior. Before all that, prisons in America, you know, emphasized punishment,
an eye for an eye philosophy. A formalized system of parole was implemented in theory to reward
people who have changed their lives and to encourage prisons to provide rehabilitative services.
Parole was also introduced to relieve governors of some of the burden of exercising clemency
to reduce excessive sentences, clemency being the handing out of pardons.
Parole didn't really become a popular option in the US until the 1960s, one of the many
ways that society was changed under the counter-culture revolution that we've talked so much about
here on Time Zone.
Sex drugs and rock and roll!
And also, prison is bad, man!
Why can't we just forgive each other and let love rule?
In the early 1960s, what was later referred to as community-based programming emerged
as part of a new philosophy of prison reform.
Under this concept, outside citizen groups began to interact with inmates to provide
services and experiences valuable for inmate rehabilitation. Corrections facility
administrators began to look to community leaders to promote more
programs and help gain support for new legislation and larger budgets. A greater
emphasis was given to religious programming as chapels were first given
their own space and new chapels were constructed so an inmate could sit in a
distinctively religious setting
to meditate or speak with the chaplain.
Visiting and correspondence regulations were relaxed as many institutions removed the screens,
barriers, or telephones from visiting areas.
The role of the correctional officer was upgraded to include participation in rehabilitative
programming and inmate classification plans.
The 1960s also saw a trend towards more indeterminate sentences as efforts were made to relate parole release to the attainment of
various goals instituted by new social programs within prisons. Probation and
parole caseloads were subjected to more study and cases were classified for
intensive or minimum supervision requirements. Classification standards
were developed to facilitate the setting and achievement of goals for education, vocational training, and social adjustment.
Citizen and trade advisory groups became aware that institutions needed support for work release and study release programs.
Other correctional programming trends were the development of corrections industries and the establishment of halfway houses.
Parole was seen as being very forward-thinking, very progressive. Prisoners began to work towards more concrete paths towards rehabilitation during the sentence,
and successful rehabilitation, defined by the completion of various programs,
could now be recognizable by a parole board.
However, the ideals of these programs were not as successful as progressives hoped they would be.
Crime was ultimately not reduced thanks to rehabilitation.
For every parole success story,
it seemed there were many more examples
of the recently released getting arrested
before the parole term was even finished.
That period of time post release
when they are still required to meet with the parole officer.
We now have decades of studies that show
that the majority of sexually violent prisoners,
for example, will be arrested again
within the first decade of their release.
In 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Justice released a report called Recidivism of Sex Offenders
Released from State Prison, a nine-year follow-up from 2005 to 2014.
The Bureau tracked 20,195 prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 after serving a sentence
for rape- slash sexual assault.
67% of these released prisoners would be arrested again within nine years. Not necessarily for rape though. However, 7.7% of these guys were arrested again for rape in that first nine years and they
were three times as likely to other as other released prisoners to be rearrested for rape.
And that's just the ones that got caught.
How many others got away with the most underreported violent crime in the world?
Sadly, what parole does for the worst of the worst is to reward them
for figuring out how to be sneakier and more manipulative.
And this is something the U.S. prisons still struggle with.
The debate rages on between hardliners and reformers,
conservatives and progressives,
should prisons be primarily rehabilitative or punitive? Also, what criminals are even capable
of being rehabilitated? Can someone who rapes and murders ever truly be reintroduced into society
as someone who has been successfully rehabilitated? Someone who is no more likely than anyone else
to rape and kill again? I don't think so. I think some
people are not fit for rehabilitation. I am NOT an optimist when it comes to
certain aspects of human behavior. I think there are some lines you simply
cannot cross without permanently and forever altering your psyche, destroying a
part of your humanity in a way that cannot be ever repaired or rebuilt. I
think some people are truly to the very depths of their being lost causes, unable
to be saved, and moreover unworthy to the very depths of their being lost causes, unable to be saved and moreover
unworthy to be saved because of the destruction they've caused.
And I think it is one of the primary duties of a civilized society to identify who those people are and
to protect the rest of us from being harmed by these rotten to the core predators.
But many disagree with me. I'm very aware that many of you disagree with me in this regard.
However, I think that even if you're one of those people, you still might be
glad to know that Kenneth Allen McDuff was finally fucking executed.
That the decision left the world in a better place, much better.
Let's find out if I'm right by sharing the details of a life that should have
been cut far shorter than it was in today's Time Suck timeline.
When Kenneth was born in the mid-1940s, the Hamlets of Blackland Prairie, Texas,
the area where he was born, catered
to small family-owned farms.
Today, most of the land is owned by a handful of large agricultural giants, managed by people
who don't even live in or raise famines in the area, often don't even live in Texas.
But in Kenneth's early years, he was right in the middle of a post-World War II middle-class
boom full of folks living a kind of life that many today would like
to return to some version of.
Rosebud's Main Street teamed with over double the business activity it sees today.
A freshly painted sign greeted visitors on their way in and from out of town, stating
simply, Rosebud, we call it home.
Rosebud was, according to the Chamber of Commerce at the time, a town of good people working
together for the betterment of their community.
Indeed, the Rosebud Chamber of Commerce was at the head of this betterment effort.
They encouraged residents to plant a rose bush in every yard.
The COC, along with the Rosebud News, gave away fresh cuttings to anyone who didn't
have a bush to start their own for free.
The COC town of the City of Rosebud has a lot to be proud of.
But Rosebud is not remembered instantly for its excellent hospital, rest home, businesses, library, schools, and friendly people.
The name and reputation for having a Rosebush in every yard is its main claim to fame.
On Sundays it seemed like just about everybody went to church, and some worshippers, like
those attending services at the Rosebud Church of Christ, were greeted by signs offering
good old country wisdom like, don't pray for rain if you plan on complaining about the mud. I actually
really like that. That is a very very sweet way of saying shut the fuck up
already. We're sick of listening to your sorry-ass bitch about everything. This
devotion to sound principles seemed at least back then to have paid off. One
resident would remember that only a few people from Rosebud ever went to prison, and one of them was for stealing two turkeys. That would of course
change with the arrival of Kenneth Allen McDuff. Before jumping into his life, I gotta say,
poor Rosebud seems to have peaked during his childhood. It looks like a town that used to be
beautiful. It seems that Main Street still has nearly all of the old brick buildings it had back
in the 1940s and 50s, but now most of them are vacant.
And most of those that are not vacant are in very bad need of repairs.
And that's what happens when everyone starts shopping at Walmart, Costco, Target, or ordering
most of their stuff online, places like Amazon, instead of supporting local businesses.
Also what happens when economic forces make it impossible for working class families to
shop anywhere but at Amazon or at the Walmart's targets and Costco's of the world
It's a shame someone who really loves a vibrant small town Main Street bums me out and I'm also part of the problem
McDuff was born March 21st 1946 to John Allen J. A. McDuff and his wife Addie the fifth of their six children
He's actually born 230 miles north of Rosebud in
Paris, Texas, along with his twin brother Lonzo. Record don't indicate why he was born there when
his family lived in the Blackland Prairie not far from Rosebud at the time. Shortly after his birth,
the family moved into town, setting on the settling on the east side of Rosebud in a small apartment.
Then within a few years, they'd move into a bigger house when J.A. started to make more money. That first apartment was, yep, pretty depressing.
Minimal light, barely illuminated, a neat but not clean dwelling. The walls were
dark, the ceilings were low. Still, it was home. To support the family, J.A. did
farm, masonry, and concrete work. He'd eventually owned a successful concrete
business during a big construction boom that occurred all over Texas in the 1960s and 70s.
And Addie would eventually start her own business, the Rosebud Laundromat.
But her real business was her family.
She controlled everything, including the money, the children, and her husband, J.A.
She was, uh, oh, she was something.
She was a fierce matriarch, maybe a little too fierce.
She became known around town as the Pistol Packing Mama after she allegedly accosted a school bus
driver after the bus driver kicked Lonzo, aka Lonnie, off for causing disturbances,
which I'm sure he was guilty of. I'm sure he deserved to have his little ass tossed off the bus.
But that's not how Addie thought. Addie was the kind of mom universally despised and dreaded by school administrators and educators.
Actually, she was the kind of mom despised by fucking just about everybody.
Even other moms exactly like her.
She was the kind of mom who raised monsters.
She became monsters in large part because mama raised them to believe that their shit didn't stink.
And everything they got in trouble for was actually everyone else's fault.
She made kids think that they were too special.
Right? That the rules did not apply to them because they were her babies. They were
better than everybody else. And if anyone disagreed and dared to say something to
that effect to her children, if anyone dared not to treat her kids as if they
were better, whoo! They'd have her and her fury to deal with. Actually reminds me
of a matriarch from my hometown I will not name because frankly I don't have to
fucking deal with running into the her descendants when I'm back home. She was
part of my grandparents generation and for the most part the kids that she had
and the kids that her kids had did not grow up to be well-liked respected
contributing members of society. They ended up in and out of jail and out of
jobs mostly out of jobs by far people somehow not doing shit with their lives
but simultaneously
carrying an arrogant attitude of being above pretty much everybody else. Interesting combo that I have
too frequently come across and I always wonder how? How do you think that you're better than
everyone else? What exactly are you pointing to as evidence of your greatness? Because no one else
has seen it. As a young boy,
Kenneth's mother's laundromat would serve as a location for his transition into a
life of crime.
He would steal shit from his mom's customers on the regular and then not get
in trouble when he got caught. Just truly terrible parenting.
One such unsuspecting customer was Essie Truby. While doing her laundry,
Essie noticed a young boy playing around the washers. Apparently,
while Essie made a quick trip to her car, Kenneth stole her purse.
It had a hundred bucks hidden in a secret compartment.
After searching in vain, the laundromat, and a home, she confronted Addie, who defended
Kenneth staunchly as she always did.
But Essy was the rare person who wouldn't back down, and Addie eventually promised to
find her purse.
Essy replied,
You damn sure better!
And the money better be there!
Ah!
She's not afraid of that pistol pack of mama!
She probably got a pistol in her own purse. Probably got two or three. Essie replied, you damn sure better and the money better be there. Ah, she's not afraid of that pistol pack of mama.
She probably got a pistol in her own purse, probably got two or three.
Essie did get her purse back, which I, well, although she had guns somewhere else,
I guess her purse was stolen, and the money was there.
Did Kenneth get in trouble?
Does not seem so.
That was not Addie's way.
Most other people who dealt with Addie were less successful than Essie.
Another Addie MacDuff story involved the Rural Electrification Association and her displeasure
at the amount of time it was taken for a power line to be connected to her house.
On one occasion, Addie was rumored to have gone to the REA office and said something
to the effect of, she wasn't called Pistol Pack and Mama McDuff for nothing.
Wink!
Basically, give me a fucking power line before someone gets shot.
Seems if Addy was one of the people in Rosebud that everybody knew, few liked, and most feared.
There was no way to prove it,
but when pets or hogs would turn up dead
from gunshot wounds, Addy was often blamed.
As J.A. and Addy's separate businesses
became more successful, the family could afford
to move into a much nicer two-story house on Linden Street,
almost directly across the street
from the family laundromat, made for an easy commute for Addie.
Around this time, Addie became an active member of a somewhat rowdy assembly-of-god church.
Neighbors around the building, where the congregation worshiped, always heard and sometimes complained
about the noise, as the celebrants shouted and carried on.
Reportedly, there was little evidence of a traditional church service like Bible study,
teaching or preaching, but some of the neighbors would see Addie, a leader of sorts, standing
before a group completely possessed by the spirit, speaking in tongues, only to stop,
fix her dress, get a little repossessed, and then continue. Addie seems extra as fuck.
I don't think her and I would get along too well. After services, some of the inhabitants of nearby
homes were convinced that she would throw items she picked off the street at their houses, sometimes hitting their windows.
They had no idea why she did that, other than she was just an angry, crazy person.
That is pretty funny to imagine.
Some lady, some mom to a big brood of local kids getting done helping lead the congregation
on Sunday morning, and then she walks to her car, just stops, grabs a few rocks, a few
beer bottles off the road, out of the gutter, and then she walks to her car just stops you know grabs a few rocks a few beer bottles off the road out of the gutter
and then just starts fucking hucking that shit some of the church neighbors
fuck you sinner take that devil suck my tits heathen lick my righteous faithful
fucking asshole Philistine
It's called bananas
If the locals were scared of Addie, they felt sorry for J.A. He was a quiet dude who worked so much that most people wondered if he did anything but
work.
He also was incredibly devoted to Addie and the kids.
Although he seemed a little odd, due to his lack of apparent interest in socializing with
anyone outside his family, he did gain a reputation for doing quality work, and Rosebud locals hoped that would rub off on his sons, and
it kind of seemed to.
As an after-school job, Kenneth made money mowing the lawns of elderly Rosebud residents
who reportedly liked him and thought he did great work.
He probably did do good work.
But was he also stealing from them, or planning to?
Kenneth would later, bizarrely, maintain that his success in mowing
lawns, in which he claimed to have made more money than many adult males in Rosebud, combined
with the business success earned by Addie and J.A., caused most Rosebud adults to resent
him and the rest of his family as a symbol of upward social mobility. They were just
so jealous. It was then, according to to Kenneth that jealousy birthed a conspiracy to keep the Macduffs down
and that's why he would get arrested. Did I mention that they weren't rich?
Right? They were. They were doing fine, but they weren't suddenly living in some big
mansion overlooking the town from some hill, occasionally you know leaving
their gated driveway and one of their many Bentley's or Jaguars to cruise
around town and throw pennies at the plebes.
This conspiracy notion makes no sense.
I especially like that other townsfolk were out to get him because he mowed lawn so well.
Like they had a meeting about it.
Just too much good lawn mowing.
Hey, who else here is plum angered than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest?
I got my tail up, boy.
I'm sick to death of that McDuff boy.
Mowing lawns so damn good he's making the rest of us look like we couldn't hit the floor
if we fell out of bed. He's making me feel as useless as two buggies in a one horse town.
That cocky shit wants to rub it in our faces too. That boy could strut sitting down. We
need to take him down a peg or two. We need to take down that whole damn family for their lawn mowing, wizardry and laundry
and concrete riches.
But be careful around the mother.
She's so contrary she floats upstream.
She can start a fire at an empty house.
So let's figure out how we're going to do it.
How we will destroy the McDuffs.
There's got to be a way.
You can't get lard unless you boil the hog.
Come on now.
If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas.
Come on let's go.
Let's ruin that family and keep them so poor
they won't be able to afford a pot to piss in
or a window to throw it out of.
I know that went on too long.
But it's just fun to toss around some Texas localisms.
No one outside the McDuff family would later say
that anyone was trying to take the McDuff's down.
And then when it came to Ken, specifically,
he did a pretty good job of taking himself down.
By the time he was in junior high, he already had a well-earned reputation
for being a rowdy, rambunctious bully who became enraged whenever discipline or confronted.
A kid whose parents would never back up his teachers or anyone else who got after him.
Whatever Kenny Boy did was brilliant.
And whenever he was blamed for something, he was blamed incorrectly.
His teachers and fellow students would remember him laughing maniacally whenever he got a question wrong. He seemed to think the very notion of himself failing was ludicrous. He
was also large for his age and would use his size to intimidate others. His twin brother
Lonnie was also a problem at school. Lonnie also a bully. A bully with multiple speech impediments, which you know, makes being a bully a little
tougher.
Apparently he had an attachment.
I fucking love weird details like this.
He had an attachment to the nickname, Rough Tough Lonnie McDuff.
That's what he wanted to be known as.
I am Rough Tough Lonnie McDuff.
But because he had a lisp, when he said it, it would come out as, I'm woof tough, want to make tough.
I love a bully who can just never deliver the tough guy lines he wants
because of his speech impediment.
You are willing to get me in wage there, Wajah?
I'm willing to foul it up.
Want to wessel? I dare you.
I dare you to try and wessel me.
Fuck you, Wajah.
Makes me miss my daughter Monroe, not being able to say ours correctly when she was little.
God, I loved her little kid lisp.
I mean, I'm glad she worked with speech therapists and she got rid of it, you know, because she
didn't love it.
I get it.
But it was adorable!
And now, before seeing what kind of trouble Lon and his brother Kenny Shit-For-Brains
get into in high school, time for today's first of two mid-show sponsor breaks.
Thanks for sticking around.
If you don't hear these ads, get the entire catalog ad free and more by signing up to be a spacer on
Patreon for five bucks a month. And now let us return to the education or lack thereof of the
McDuff boys. Okay, so Lonnie, Kenny, they'd entered ninth grade high school. The principal of Rosebud high school was the legendary D.L. Mayo at this time.
He was a typical post-World War II high school principal. A veteran, hardened by military training.
Toughened by war, believing in the power of militant organization to keep kids on the right track.
Students and teachers were terrified of him. The only way to communicate effectively with him was through curt military-style memos apparently. The pep squad of Rosebud High
School, for example, was trained in military fashion because that's what Mr.
Mayo wanted. He had a vein on his forehead that astute teachers would use as a
barometer. If the vein bulged and got red, it's best to stop talking about whatever
was working him up. Beat a hasty retreat. Even when the vein wasn't throbbing
ominously, he never smiled.
He was also the author of the school's student handbook
and his primary enforcer.
His rules are pretty simple.
Students were not to lie or steal or show disrespect
to teachers or anyone else.
They would respect school property.
They'd respect other students' property.
If something was stolen, Mr. Mayo was gonna find out
who did it and there's gonna be consequences. Once a student with a nice new baseball glove entered Mr. Mayo was going to find out who did it and there was going to be consequences.
Once, a student with a nice new baseball glove entered Mr. Mayo's office to report he had
laid it down just long enough to have somebody take it.
Apparently, the boy and his parents had saved for quite some time to purchase this glove.
They were very proud of it.
They loved baseball.
Mr. Mayo felt bad for the kid and was on the case.
And guess who took it?
Who is the bane of Mr. Mayo's existence?
His least favorite student?
shortly after the search began old Kenneth McDuff entered the front office with the glove now smeared with black shoe polish and
Kind of sarcastically announced. Oh look what I found in the ditch
Nobody would remember Mr. Mayo's exact reaction in this moment, but it really was not a happy one. It was rage
Insults were hurled punish punishments threatened, bullshit was called on Kenny.
Everyone would remember the reaction of Lonnie,
who apparently was outraged at the thought of his precious can't do wrong twin brother being accused of thievery and being disciplined.
So he made the mistake of pulling a knife on the principal, Mr. Mayo.
And that uh, that did not work out too well for him. This is so great.
Principal Mayo now literally lifted Lonnie up off the floor,
carried him out of his office,
and threw him down a fucking flight of stairs.
Yes!
Hail Nimrod! That is exactly the kind of child abuse I'm in favor of.
If your kid is fucking dumb enough to pull a knife on their principal
over some stupid shit like this, as far as I'm concerned,
throw him down the fucking stairs.
Could it kill them?
Yeah, I could.
Are we going to miss them?
Probably not.
Could also really make them think twice about when it's a good idea to pull a
knife on someone, which is a pretty good life lesson.
Actions have consequences.
Again, I'm thinking about the family that McDuff's remind me of from
Riggins, my hometown.
Some of them also got into physical altercations with teachers
and the principal of high school. And those altercations consistently did not work out
well for them. Oh, so great. Years later, Kenneth would brag that he had knocked around
the principal. That was a bunch of bullshit. He didn't do shit to Mr. Mayo. He was afraid
of him. However, Kenneth Allen MacDuff rapidly rising over six feet tall, weighing over 250
pounds, just as a teen still, would continue to torment some of the students at Rosebud High School for
the very short time he remained in high school.
And he would torment locals outside of school as well.
Every once in a while, residents out in the Blackland Prairie would hear loud motorcycle
and gunshots.
The next day, someone would find holes in their mailbox, and there was no doubt who
did it.
Fucking Kenny! Just riding around his motorcycle and fucking up people's property.
Classic juvenile delinquent. And I was a delinquent like that for a while.
I'm not gonna lie. Mayhem. When you don't get caught for it. Can be pretty fun.
But eventually, for the most part, you do get caught. You have to pay the piper.
Due to his size, temperament, and crazy gun-toted mom, etc., almost nobody would stand up to Kenny.
A smaller, courageous, rose-bud freshman named Tommy Sammons would stand up to him, though.
I love this story as well.
There's so much I love in this episode.
Bunch of stuff I'm gonna hate, too.
It's just horrifying, but some good stories.
One day, Kenneth called Tommy a chicken shit, and Tommy decided not to let it go.
One of the most popular boys in his class, Tommy was athletic, reserved, and unpretentious. Candice challenged him to a fight in a ravine
transversed by a bridge near the school. Soon every student knew of the big coming, you
know, the fight coming up. Nearly everyone in the school showed up to watch. Some fully
expected Tommy to get slaughtered. You know, he just wasn't a fighter. They didn't think.
Just a good kid. At the appointed hour, the two boys show up and the fight is on.
And while Tommy was smaller, it was soon apparent
that his athletic ability and strength
was gonna carry him through.
Kenny was big and loud, but he was neither strong nor fast.
Tommy got Kenny in the headlock,
pounded his fucking face with some punches.
Kenny had to bite Tommy's arm to get out of it.
And that was about all Kenny could do, bite Tommy's arm,
which was not seen as a manly move.
Students lined up along the ravine, leaned over the bridge, they were cheering for Tommy.
They loved seeing Kenny get his ass kicked.
One of the boys watching, Bud Malsik, was so elated by Tommy's win, he sprinted home
to his mom just to tell her, oh, Tommy just whipped the snot out of him.
Soon the word spread throughout Rosebud that at last there was justice for McDuff.
And that was the last straw for Kenneth.
Having not yet completed ninth grade, he now drops out and begins working full-time pouring
concrete for his dad.
Nobody outside of his family was sad to see him leave school.
Kenny himself not exactly happy to go.
He hated farm work.
He hated work in general.
He hated a good, honest day's work.
But after work, he had access to cars and motorcycles which he could use to
rove the Blackland Prairie, crash him into signposts and fence with reckless
abandon. He had the money to buy more cars and motorcycles back when they were
much, much cheaper compared to working-class wages than they are now.
Like many others in the area, Kenny started drinking at the age of 15 and a
few years later, perhaps fueled by some liquid courage,
he started committing more serious crimes.
Early in the spring of 1964, when Kenny had just turned 18,
he and a few other local boys began committing a string of robberies over the course of several weeks.
In late March, he and an accomplice burglarized a place outside of town called Lot Store,
a place still in Falls County, by cutting a bolt off the front door.
It took about $500 and some checks from a safe. Early the next month in the adjacent
Milam County, Ken did the same thing in three stores, taking assorted shotgun ammunition and
two bars of ice cream. Yeah, you gotta get that ice cream. You gotta enjoy a nice cold victory snack
after a successful heist. Then with yet another accomplice he burglarized a
coin changer and took about 20 bucks. Later that same month he broke into a
machine shop in nearby Bell County. All those places are
between Austin and Waco and he took a skill saw and some tools. Then the very
same night he broke into a 7-11. Couldn't open the safe but was able to find and
take some 22 caliber bullets. He also met up with an accomplice to try and bust into a boathouse near Temple, less than 25 miles from Rosebud,
but they couldn't get in and left. Moving a few miles north to the little town of Troy,
they broke into three more businesses there instead. On April 17, 1964, less than a month
after this crime spree began, Temple police rounded Kenny and a few of his accomplices up.
When asked by prison officials what rationalization he had for his offenses
Kenny replied in a rare moment of complete honesty
stupid
Years later when asked directly about why he did it and how he could possibly think that he could go away with so many break-ins
He would grin laugh and say oh they were just pranks
Joking a joshan
That's the interesting way to look at it.
I doubt the people who had hundreds of dollars in cash
and goods stolen from them saw it that same way.
Oh, man!
Oh, shit!
That's when jokesters got in.
Okay, all right.
Some jokesters, they got in.
They took all the money from the safe.
I can't even be mad.
I can take a joke.
They got me.
They got me fair and square, dead to rights.
Good one one fellas.
Kenny also later complained about how law enforcement officers and the court should have been mature enough
to recognize that he was just an immature kid and they shouldn't have been so hard on him. Yeah, totally. It's their fault
that he got in trouble. If you just look at it in the right light and
so it begins. The
rationalization, the victim mentality, the refusal to take responsibility for his own poor choices. That pathetic attitude works for people
every once in a while but not often. For most people leads to a lifetime of
struggle and unnecessary failure and frustration. Most successful people I
know are successful in large part because they take responsibility for
the mistakes and learn from them. They use hard lessons from personal failures as a way to improve and increase their odds of finding
more success going forward. I think the single most common denominator amongst all the serial
killers we have covered is having this attitude, blaming everyone else for their own fuck-ups and
shortcomings. So, you know, don't do that. Also, Kenneth may have done something far worse than
burgers around this time. In the fall of 1964, while awaiting trial for all the burglaries, he allegedly would
tell his bro, Lonnie, Olonzo, Ogonzo Lonzo, that he had raped a girl, cut her throat,
and left her for dead.
Jesus.
Lonnie reported the reply that Kenneth should just forget about it and go to bed.
I'm sorry, what?
I don't have a brother.
But if I did, and he told me that he did,
that while I don't know what I would say, I sure hope I wouldn't say that. What would you do if
your sibling told you they did something that bad? Try and get some evidence so you can turn them in.
That would be the right thing to do, but wouldn't be easy. January of 1965,
Kenneth was found guilty of committing a whole bunch of burglaries.
On January 22nd, he was convicted of eight counts of theft or burglary in Bell County,
two counts on January 29th in Falls County, four counts on February 3rd in Milam County
for a total of 14 counts.
He was technically sentenced to a total of 52 years in prison.
But since he was given a sentence of more than four years, since he was not given, excuse
me, a sentence of more than four years for any of the individual crimes, and all his
sentences ran concurrently for all practical purposes, he was just sentenced to four years
in prison.
And then on March 10th, 1965, two weeks before his 19th birthday, Kenneth would be delivered
to the Ferguson unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
And he will then be out in less than a year. So much for all those sentences. Sentenced over 50 years in then be out in less than a year.
So much for all those sentences.
He's sentenced over 50 years in prison.
Out in less than a year.
What was the point?
In nine months and two weeks, on December 29th, 1965, Kenneth Allen McDuff is paroled
for the first time.
And just over six months later, he will do something a whole lot worse than steal some
cash and a couple of ice cream bars.
Like hundreds of others. 20 year old Kenneth McDuff was heading to a fun little event called the Breman Street Dances in July of 1966.
Breman is just 20 miles from Rosewood.
The 20 year old future serial killer, maybe already killer, was going to meet a friend Richard Boyd
whom he liked because he had an impala and was quote in with the girls.
And we've already met a dick in this suck it really is uncanny how many dicks show
up in suck first isn't it there he would go on to meet Richard's friend Roy Dale
Green who would go on to work with Kenneth for J.A.'s concrete business with
his dad Roy was only 18 felt excited by the prospect of hanging out with older
more established guys Roy was also apparently a pretty kind of like meek and tiny little guy. He's hanging out
with a big tough guy now feeling cool. Both Richard and Roy knew Kenny kept a 38
caliber pistol in his car. That didn't bother them. Lots of people did. Hey it's
Texas. Lots people didn't do though was brag about killing people. Kenny was
boasting that night that quote killing a woman is like killing a chicken. They
both squawk
Huh, okay Uh roya asked if he'd ever actually killed anyone and kenny said yeah he had and he buried them in shallow graves
Man, what a fucking what a cool guy kenny is what a fun thing for a friend to say
So creepy, I would for sure immediately unfriend someone for making a serious claim that they did that whether it was true or not
So fucked up to just act like you've done that really shows how damaged your way and thinking you know your way of thinking is
Oh, I know it would oppress these guys me talking about killing women
Where he claims he didn't believe him still though fuck that guy for even saying that
But he would also later admit to federal agents that he did know that Kenny had once enjoyed
Pinning a girl to the floor and squeezing a tube of either deep heat or Bengay into her vagina.
Not sure if he personally witnessed that or if he heard from those who had witnessed that,
but that is so fucked up.
I mean, sexual assault, sexual torture.
If he did witness that, Roy is a piece of shit for neither stopping him or, you know,
for no longer associated with him after that. For choosing to continue to associate with him after that excuse me. Kenny at
such a young age clearly already you know hates women. Also in July after
visiting some poor girl named Joanne in Hearn Texas about 35 miles from Rosebud
these guys were walking back to Kenny's car when Richard caught sight of a
broken broomstick. Without thinking he picked it up played around it threw in
the backseat. Broomstick was a with a jagged edge would stay in Kenny's car for nearly
three weeks and would lead to Kenny's new terrible nickname of the broomstick killer.
Yeah, that crime that earns him that nickname is particularly brutal. Reading the details
the first time actually literally made me feel sick to my stomach. Friday, August 5th,
1966, Kenny hopped on a motorcycle and
visited his piece of shit brother Lonnie. Later that night Roy headed out to hang out with Kenny
and Rosebud. That evening they picked up Dick went to Hearn where Roy got real drunk. As usual Kenny
talked more about killing that night. He said I know where people park and we can kill them but
they wouldn't kill anyone that evening. Next day though would be a different story. Next morning Kenny and Roy Dale wake up early, help to
pour concrete at a construction site in Temple. At about noon they hurry back to
Rosebud to wash up. Kenny decided to go out that night to Fort Worth. It was about a
two-hour drive. It was exciting for Roy Green. He had never been to Fort Worth
before. The Busley metropolis right next to Dallas, far bigger than Rosebud. They were anxious to get out and have some fun
when their Saturday work day ended sometime between noon and 1 p.m. Years
later Texas Ranger John Acock discovered that Roy Dale had been Kenny's second
choice to go to Fort Worth actually and yes his last name really is Acock. A-Y-C-O-C-K, pronounced Aycock.
Mr. Aycock.
Just had to acknowledge that before continuing.
Kenny had asked another friend named Nicholas
to go with him, but Nicholas turned him down.
Lucky for Nick.
Probably didn't matter much to Kenny,
who accompanied him like all of his burglaries.
What would happen on the night of August 6th
was not about the accomplice.
It was about what Kenny wanted to do.
What his miscreant mind had been thinking on for a while. Roy Dale was particularly excited to head out
because for the past two days, in between his usual murder talk, Kenny had bragged about
some sexcapades. To a kid who was about to enter his senior year of high school, this
was thrilling. The idea that he might sleep with a girl that very night was enough to
make his blood run hot. As soon as they got off work, they rushed to Rosebud to wash up.
Roy almost certainly beat off. Then they headed to Fort Worth. On off work, they rushed to Rosebud to wash up. Roy almost certainly beat off.
Then they headed to Fort Worth.
On the way, they stopped in Waco, bought some beer at a 7-Eleven.
They drank the brew on the way to Fort Worth, back when drinking and driving was still fucking
cool and arrived a couple hours later.
While in Fort Worth, Kenny bought another two packs of Schlitz.
Oh, fuck that, bro.
Drinking the good stuff.
He spotted a friend named Danny at a place called Helen's Bar.
Kenny had dated Danny's sister, a young girl named Edith. Poor Edith.
After talking to Danny and finding out that Edith was home, we dumped Danny and dropped Roy Dale off at the Hamburger Hut in a suburb called Everman. Roy Dale waited there
until Kenny returned with Edith. While Roy Dale drove, Kenny sat in the back seat with his date.
They rode around Everman for about an hour until they brought either to a relative's
house in nearby Forest Hill.
She and Kenny talked on the front porch of the house and took a short walk together around
9.30 pm.
Afterwards, Kenny and Roy cruised the streets of Everman.
Apparently Kenny knew the area and more significantly the rural area to the south.
He knew there was a high school nearby.
And who would be at a high school?
But high school girls.
Located on the southern edge of town, the Everman High School campus was bordered by farmland.
Gravel covered the unpaved streets, baseball fields lined the western edge of the campus,
and even though the school was within the Everman city limits, the area was nonetheless still
isolated. As Kenny steered his Dodge Coronet around the campus, he found what he was looking for.
Near the baseball field, he could see a large large parked 1955 Ford. At the time of night or at that time of
night he probably assumed the inside of the Ford that inside of the Ford he
would find a young couple parking aka making out. After carefully surveying the
area Kenny made his approach. He placed his car in a field about 150 yards away
and from a console between the two front seats of his Dodge he removed a Colt
special revolver that belonged to Lonnie. Roy knew of the gun
having looked at it on the way to Fort Worth. Kenny then exited the car and told
Roy to get the stick and follow me. Roy grabbed the three foot long faded red
broomstick from the back seat and did as he was told. What the fuck Roy? Guess you
really are a piece of shit. In the dark still night he followed Kenny slowly
toward the Ford.
He'd later say he thought all of this was just a joke.
Bullshit.
About halfway to the car, Kenny told Roy to stop again.
Roy did as he was told.
I'll handle this, Kenny said.
But when he reached the Ford, he didn't find a couple making out.
Instead, he discovered three high school students talking leisurely.
Two were cousins, Robert Brand and Marcus Dunham. The third was Robert's girlfriend Edna Louise Sullivan.
And three high school kids minding their own fucking business parked at their
high school where they probably felt safe. Where they should have been safe.
Edna Louise Sullivan her friends and family just called her Louise was about
to begin her junior year at Everman at the end of August. So young.
A popular girl, she liked basketball and played on Everman's team despite the fact she was just 5'2".
And weighed just 110 pounds.
Pretty small for a basketball player.
She's also very pretty.
Everybody said so.
Her shoulder length hair was fashioned into a popular style at the time.
Parted to the side.
Curled inward at the end.
With her family, she attended the First Baptist Church in Everman. where she volunteered to help in the nursery. She was a good kid.
Sometime in late June or early July of 1966, she'd begun dating a young boy from Alvarado
named Robert Brand, a handsome young man who loved music so much, he worked several jobs to save up
enough to buy a guitar. And with it, he started playing with a group of friends at teen clubs and parties.
His younger cousin from California, Marcus Dunham, was staying with the Brand family
that summer in Alvarado. Marcus and Robert were more like brothers and cousins.
They played music, hunted together. August 6, 1966, Marcus had been visiting his
grandma in Fort Worth. At about 4 p.m., he decided to hitchhike back to Alvarado.
He made it safely and the boys left for Everman that afternoon, planning
to double date with Louise and her friend and neighbor Rhonda. But Rhonda got sick.
So the three just went out together, leaving the brand house around 7 p.m.
thinking they might try and catch a movie. Sometime during the evening,
probably while parked at the secluded baseball park, staring thoughtlessly at
the sky through the back windshield of Robert's 1955 Ford. One of the three teenagers removed mascara from Louise's
purse and wrote Louise on the glass. Seven wore on to 730 and then 830 and
then 930. And they didn't see the man now approaching their car. For several
minutes Roy Dale stood about 75 yards from the 1955 Ford to watch Kenny creep
closer and closer to the unsuspecting teenagers.
Roy then approached the car in time to hear Kenny tell Louise and the boys to get out
or he would shoot them.
After taking the boys' wallets, he put all three terrified teens into the trunk of the
Ford.
Kenny now wryly observed, these boys don't have much money, when he told Roy Dale to
get into Robert's Ford.
With Roy Dale in the passenger seat,
Kenny drove the Ford back to the Dodge and instructed Roy to get in and follow him. Throughout
the evening, Roy Dale did as he was told, never thinking to drive away in Kenneth's
Dodge, or at least never choosing to. Never trying to stop Kenny, never trying to alert
authorities or anyone else. Kenny led Roy south into the countryside near the Tarrant
and Johnson County line near Burleson.
They crossed a highway, probably US 81, and proceeded down some gravel roads to a cow pasture.
There Kenny stopped, looked around, and pronounced,
this isn't a good place. So they backed out and drove to another field. Kenny brought Roy
and his teenage captives to a tiny farm-to-market road numbered FM 1017. Mr. and Mrs. Raymond
McAllister lived only 400 yards away.
Mrs. McAllister testified that she saw two vehicles
pull off the road and into a field at about 1035 that night.
When another car passed by,
the lights of the first two cars were turned off.
Kids used the area to park and make out
on a regular basis on that Saturday night.
Mrs. McAllister figured that's what was going on.
Meanwhile on the road, Kenny opened the trunk of the Ford and pulled Louise out by her arm.
Without saying a word, Louise slowly exited the Ford as Kenneth ordered Roy to place her in the trunk of the Dodge.
Roy again did as he was told.
Kenny then looked at Roy and said,
They gotta look at me. I'm gonna have to kill them. We can't have witnesses. I'm gonna have to knock them off.
Robert and Marcus now frantically
begged for their lives, saying that they would never go to the police. They would never tell
anybody what happened. Kenny started shooting anyway. Robert was struck in the ear and in the
forehead. Then Kenny pointed the gun at Marcus, shot him three times, once through the arm as
Marcus tried to wave off the volleys. As if to punish him for defending himself, Kenny grabbed
Marcus by the hair, placed the gun against his head, and fired the last round.
Good God, Kenneth, what did you do that for?
Roy Dale asked, after the firing finally stopped.
I had to, came the icy reply.
He was calm and collected.
Incredibly, Kenny got more upset at not being able to close the trunk when both bodies were
loaded into it than he got upset about shooting these guys.
Instead of reaching in and repositioning the bodies,
Kenny started the car, backed it up to a fence
so the open trunk would not be visible from the road.
At Kenny's instructions, Roy now used Marcus's shirt
to wipe fingerprints off the Ford
and flattened out some tire tracks left by Kenny's car.
During this crime scene cleansing,
Luis lay helplessly trapped in the trunk of the Dodge.
Fucking terrified, I'm sure.
And then probably even more scared when the car started to move again
Kenny and Roy Dale were now headed further south into Johnson County before reaching a little town of Eagan
Kenneth turned from FM
917 onto an isolated gravel road the path cut through a hayfield of tall grass
After stopping Kenny walked over to the trunk ordered Louise out
She got out of the trunk Kenny directed her to the back seat of his car. He went
back there as Roy sat outside on the trunk and at times would watch. He
watched Louise take off her clothes as Kenny commanded and then he watched as
Kenny raped her. After he raped her, Kenny ordered Roy Dale to get into the car. As
Roy sat behind the wheel, Kenny now asked him if he wanted to have a turn. Roy would tell authorities that he did not. And when
Kenny leaned forward and asked why, Roy considered or reconsidered, wondering if
he'd be killed if he didn't. That's what he said. Is it true or just part of a defense
strategy? Maybe he was thrilled to participate. Right? We weren't there.
Maybe cheering Kenny on. Maybe he was cheering Kenny on when he did what he did.
Whatever his motivation,
what he did do was climb into the backseat and now rape Louise as well.
After that, Kenny returned to the backseat, raped her again.
This time he also penetrated, this is the part that made my fucking stomach, this is fucking brutal.
If you want to skip ahead 30 seconds.
He penetrated her with the jagged end of the fucking broomstick lying on the floorboard.
The car was filled with agonizing screams, but during the entire assault, Louise only
actually said one thing.
And it's fucking, oh my God, it's so sad.
She said, stop, I think you ripped something.
Of course, nobody stopped.
Man, that fucking detail right there.
Take away the two murders he just committed.
Had he not killed those two guys, but he did kidnap and rape Louise and also violated her
with a broken broomstick like that,
he should be fucking killed.
If I was an executioner, all I would need to feel morally righteous in my decision to execute that motherfucker would be that detail.
Oh, I'm sorry, what? He raped her with a broken broomstick handle while she screamed in pain? Oh, yeah. No, happy to kill him.
I'm actually pissed he isn't already dead. Don't even bother paying me. This one's on the house.
Reading shit like that fills my head with all kinds of Dexter vengeance fantasies. I wouldn't want to just kill him.
I'd want to make him suffer. Tie him up, shove that same broken broomstick up his ass until it just ruptures his colon,
then just keep shoving it until it pierces a variety of other organs.
But not so far that he dies quick. Just leave him on the ground. Let him die slowly and suffer.
Why the fuck do people like him exist? I could do a million Serial Killer Sucks and never fully
understand. Not really why these people are able to do this. I get they have no conscience,
but still just to like fucking human beings do nothing to you. To do that to them, my god.
Finally, Kenny told Louise to put her clothes back on.
Kenny then drove Louise and Roy a short distance to yet another lonely road, covered with white
crushed tone, yeah, they're not done.
He stops the car, orders Louise to get out, sits on the road near the front of the car.
She has no choice but to do what he wants.
When she asks what is going to happen to her, Kenny replies that he was going to tie her
up.
Why, I'm not going anywhere, she says. Kenny replies that he was going to tie her up. Why?
I'm not going anywhere, she says.
Kenny then turns to Roy and asks if he has a belt.
Roy hands his belt over, but Kenny promptly changes his mind, throws it back into the
car.
He then grabs that broomstick, walks towards Louise, tells Roy to get the belt.
As Roy turns to go back to the car, he hears an odd sound.
Kenny had gone over to Louise, sat on her chest, and placed the broomstick across her throat. As
he pressed against the white crushed stone, it sounded like air escaping out of a balloon or air hose apparently.
No, no, leave her alone, Roy Dale said, or at least claimed, he said.
It's got to be done, Kenny replied.
Kenny pressed hard enough to break several bones in Louise's neck. As she gasped for air, struggled for life,
her arms and legs flapped around so much, Kenny ordered Roy to hold the 110 pound girl's legs down.
I want to get into a fucking time machine. Go back and kill both of these fucks.
Human centipede them together or something.
When he finally let go Kenny told him to grab her legs again, and he did the second time he grabbed her legs.
However, you know, she wasn't struggling because she was already dead.
Kenny then said, just all casual like, it's like you kill a possum.
Some people are so fucked in their heads.
Roy now ordered Roy or Kenny now ordered Roy, Roy Dale to turn the car around.
Roy did it as he was told.
Kenny continued to press the broomstick across Louise's neck, even though she is
far gone at this point, he just enjoyed himself, I guess.
Then Kenny grabbed her arms, Roy grabbed her legs, they heaved her over a barbed wire fence
into a field with long grass.
Kenny crossed the fence, choked her again, what the fuck, before finally asking Roy to
take her pulse.
He did.
Uh, no pulse.
Kenny double checks.
No pulse.
That was when he noticed a German cross necklace around
Louise's neck and he ripped it off and put it in his pocket. A little trinket, I guess.
Kenny then looked at the gun, noticed that he had fired all of his rounds into Robert and Marcus,
and he was frustrated because he wanted to shoot Louise again. Or not again, but shoot her, just in
case. They now dragged her to a clump of oak trees with ground covered by dense
brush and left her there. On their way back to Roy Dale's house in Marlin, Kenny and Roy
stopped in Hillsboro at a gas station for some soft drinks. Yeah, why not? Enjoy tasty root beer
to refresh yourself after getting all tired, violently raping, and killing some high school
girl. Over cans of soda, Kenneth instructed Roy not to say anything to anyone. The police would give them both, the electric chair, he said.
As they drove south to Marlin, they tossed the empty shells from the pistol out the window
along with that broomstick which would never be found.
Later they stopped near a road sign and buried Roberts and Marcus's wallets.
After reaching Marlin, they tried unsuccessfully to flush their bloody underwear down a gas
station toilet.
It's so fucking disturbing that they both had bloody underwear because they got that obviously from Louise while they're
raping her. Which was a magic button. I can push right now and I would push it if
it would just kill literally everybody who has ever raped anyone. Be the most
fucking satisfying thing anyone's ever done in history. Just like oh yes just
push it. I wonder how shocked a lot of people would be by the amount of people who
would die if I did that.
Some people would for sure lose most of the men in their family.
How many celebrities would be dead?
How many professional athletes, how many politicians, actors, CEOs, tens of
millions of people, at least would drop dead.
Hopefully a time stuck downloads wouldn't take a big hit.
God, that'd be super depressing to find out. Like I'm so excited, like, God, they're fucking dead. Hopefully, time suck downloads wouldn't take a big hit. God, that'd be super depressing.
To find out, like, I'm so excited, like, God, they're fucking dead. And then my downloads go
down by like, I don't know, 60, 70%. Oh, what the fuck? Why were they listening? Why were those
people listening? Frustrated by being able to clean the or frustrated by not being able to clean
the blood off. Kenny threw the garments onto the roof of the gas station. After reaching Roy Dale's house, the two guys spent the night together in the same bed.
Yeah, why not?
Have a little post-rape slumber party.
Late that night in Alvarado, Jack Brand returned home from work at Bell Helicopter at 2.15
a.m. to find his wife pacing the floor in a frantic state.
Their son Robert, his cousin Marcus, had not yet returned home.
Immediately Mr. Brand began searching for the boys.
He drove all night but couldn't find anything and eventually had to go home and sleep.
For a while Mr. Brand thought that the boys might have taken off to Little Rock.
For her part, Louise's mother did not know to be concerned at this point. She thought all along
that Louise was at her friend Rhonda's house, just a couple of homes down Marlene Street.
Early Sunday morning, Bill Sanders of Burleson, Texas was driving west on FM 1017.
He intended to go fishing when he spotted the 1955 Ford parked against a fence.
Thinking it unusual to see an unattended parked car with the trunk open, he stopped to check it
out and was the first to see the horrible scene. Tarrant County Sheriff Lon Evans later said that
it looked like an execution. Immediately, Sanders went to the McAllister home to call the authorities. In a matter of hours, Rhonda's parents informed the brands of
what had happened. They had still yet to find Louise. Meanwhile, Roy Dale and Kenny had gotten
up, washed up, and went outside. After finding the shovel in the cigar box, Kenny tried to place the
Colt revolver into the box but couldn't fit or wasn't able to get it to fit. He then ripped out
one side of the box, wrapped it in some rags,
buried it in the gun in a two-foot hole he dug near Roy's garage. In an effort to conceal the burial,
he carefully placed some leaves over the fresh dirt. Then he headed to a car wash where they scrubbed the car clean,
careful to remove Louisa's long brown hairs.
Later that day, Sunday, August 7th, 1966, Roy Dale accompanied Kenny to Robertson County to pick up their friend
Joanne. She and Kenny had a date that night. Yeah, yeah, why not go on a fucking date, you know,
right away. Kenny then took Roy to Richard Boy's house and like he hadn't just done what he did,
he went on his date. Good old compartmentalization. Put all the evil shit you just did in a little box
in your mind. Just, you know, just put that box in the back. Keep it away from all the other boxes in your head. Just
continue on like normal. Next day, Monday, August 8th, over 2,000 people assisted in
a search for Louise using helicopters, horses, and motorcycles. They sifted
through woods, tall grass, and thick brush. Officers with binoculars flew low in
helicopters to see if they could scope it out, but they couldn't find her. But then
a guide would arrive. Someone who knew where the body was.
One of the rapists, Roy Dale Green.
Kenny had dropped Roy off at Richard Boyd's house about 11.30 a.m. on Sunday.
Early that afternoon, Richard and Roy drove to Richard's girlfriend's house, picked
her up for a Sunday drive.
Her name was Shirley, and she and Richard could clearly see something was bothering
Roy.
While seated in the back seat, he started to cry.
So maybe he wasn't cheering Kenny on.
Still did what he did, so fuck him.
But maybe he didn't love it like Ken Dog did.
And when a radio news report broke the story of the discovery to have two
murdered boys in Tarrant County, Roy broke down completely, falling over
in his seat, bursting into tears.
Clearly Richard had to do something.
Stopped the car, took a walk with Roy.
Roy now confessed to what he and Kenny had done
the night before, and Richard Shirley and Roy Dale
drove to Shirley's parents in Bremont.
Oh, how nervous Shirley was to be around him
after hearing what he had done.
After that, they went to Boyd's home,
where they called the Sheriff of Robertson County
E. Paul Sonn Elliott.
Sonn was like his nickname nickname he was known by. Roy Dale was taken to the nearest
justice of the peace and placed under arrest where he reportedly said, I just
had to tell it. I kept seeing it. I kept hearing those boys moan. The boys? I know
that what happened to the boys was also super fucked up and I'd be happy to kill
Kenny for what he did to them and nothing else. But that was what happened to the boys was also super fucked up, and I'd be happy to kill Kenny for what he did to them. And nothing else.
But that was what came to your mind first, not the broomstick assault?
Roy and Sheriff Elliot then went to Marlin and picked up the sheriff of Falls County, Brady Pamplin.
The two sheriffs in Roydale went directly to Roydale's house and Marlin, their Roydale, took them to the spot where Kenny buried the Colt revolver.
But somebody had already dug it back up.
Before the day was out, Roy was placed in jail
in Robertson County and taken back to Fort Worth,
where he spent the night.
At first, authorities thought that Roy was the mastermind,
not Kenny.
But Kenny's criminal record and information
from Sheriff Brady Pamplin in Falls County
quickly discounted Roy Dale as the primary villain.
And so on Monday, August 8th,
two massive searches were taking place simultaneously. One for Louise in Johnson County and another for Kenny in
Falls and Robertson counties. Roy couldn't remember exactly where it all
taking place but then someone handed him a napkin and he did manage to draw a map.
Based on the map he was then brought out to the northern Johnson County, to
northern Johnson County in an area near Eagan where he pointed out a fence and
then he was taken back to Tarrant County Jail. A local chief of police, Homer Barnes,
Burleson and several other men searched the area Roy pointed out and they soon
found Louise's body lying face down beneath a thicket of oak trees barely
visible in the thick grass. Later two of her uncles would arrive at the scene, oh
my god how traumatic, and positively identify her. Poor bastards.
By the time she was identified, Kenny was already arrested.
Finding Kenny was not too difficult.
Roy knew that Kenny had a date with a girl from Bremen named Joanne, and on the Sunday
night, just as Kenny and Joanne were getting back, they were ambushed by Sheriffs Pamplin
and Elliott.
Kenny immediately threw his car in reverse, floored the gas pedal, of course he did.
Just as immediate was the response by the sheriffs.
Brady Pamplin fired two rounds of buckshot from a 12 gauge shotgun at Kenny's radiator
and tires.
Elliot fired his pistol at the same areas.
Fucking love it!
I'm not fucking around!
Kenny now launched himself out of the car and to the M&M cafe on Breman's Main Street,
where he flagged down Joanne's brother, told him that somebody was shooting at him.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Brady Pamplin told his son, also employed by the police department,
to park a couple blocks away, stay out of danger. But once Larry Pamplin heard the shots, he pulled
up, picked up the two sheriffs, gave chase, and caught up to the boys. Brady Pamplin told them to
stop and get out with their hands up, and they did. The only question Kenny had for the officers was
whether his insurance would pay for the bullet holes in his car or not.
What a dipshit. Hey, man, you kind of fucked up my ride. Is that you guys do pay for that?
Are you you're gonna have to pay for that?
The sheriff's knew that they had the right guy. Someone so cold and calculating he didn't even ask why he was being chased down by the cops.
August 9th 1966 after Kenny McFucked that guyDuff was back in jail for the broomstick murders,
the state of Texas had revoked his parole for the burglaries.
He was jailed on suspicion of multiple things, murder, rape, destruction of evidence.
Joanne had told police he and Lonnie had done something suspicious behind a barn.
Probably taken that gun, hit it.
Lonnie would be arrested too for fraudulently and illegally concealing a weapon used for murder.
Yeah, took the gun.
His bond would be set at $10,000, later increased to 20,000,
and he'd be represented by a Waco attorney
named Godfrey Sullivan.
Meanwhile, most Rosebud residents weren't surprised
that Kenny was involved in something so terrible.
And they weren't surprised that the MacDuff family
was rushing to support Kenny and Lonnie.
They got the youngest MacDuff child, a 12-year-old girl, the lie, and say that Lonnie had been with her at the movies,
when he was definitely, you know, not destroying evidence. What a great couple of parents Kenny
and Lonnie have. When this little sister was asked directly if she saw Kenny at the home at all
recently, she cried out that she had not, but said, Kenneth had not done all those things.
recently, she cried out that she had not, but said, Kenneth had not done all those things. Meanwhile in jail, Kenny behaved as he had always done in school.
Sane little, except for profanity.
And he never smiled.
Every day he had to appear in court.
The grim-faced fuck wore a dark suit and tie.
You can find pics on the web of him from court.
He truly looks like an evil motherfucker.
The trial began in November of 1966.
Kenneth, sweet,
sweet Kenneth, would be prosecuted by Tarrant County District Attorney Doug Crouch,
a steel-jawed, no-nonsense war hero who had fought in the South Pacific in World War II.
Working with ADA's Grady Hite and Charles, uh, aka Charlie Butts, he made it clear that he would
seek the death penalty for both boys, Kenneth McDuff and Roy Dale Green and yes
We have now had a man with the last name of a cock in the story and a man with the name of butts
BUTTS a cock and butts. Are you kidding me?
Thank You Nimrod too bad. They weren't partners the same law firm
Oh, man, they could have legally had the best law office commercials of just all time.
The FCC would not be able to stop them.
Hey, are you tired of life bending you over?
Tired of getting kicked while you're down?
How about instead of just continuing to take it, you turn things around and flip the script?
It's high time that you put a cock in butts on the case
and start taking what's yours.
When you hire the law officers with a cock in butts,
you don't just get some legal advice.
You get some litigation action and satisfaction.
So put a cock in their butts and then in their face.
I mean, put a cock in butts on the case.
That's what I said both times.
You must hurt me the first time.
They forgot to put up a caution, wet floor sign,
and now instead of tasting a double cheeseburger,
you got two slip discs and sciatica.
Sounds like somebody needs a cock and butts
to penetrate their legal defenses
and shoot some hot litigation
all over their smug little naughty bottoms.
You got rear end on the freeway,
and now they don't wanna make good?
Maybe the threat of a cock and butts
will get them to do what they should.
When you hire the law offices of a cock and butts, don't just get a cock you don't just get butts
you get a cock and butts for a price or low it's nuts we're gonna stick it to them we're gonna stick
it in them we're gonna stick it all over them and if we have to we're gonna go fuck their butts
i mean we're gonna go full a cock and butts that's what i said both times stop twisting my words
We're going to go full A-cock and butts.
That's why I said both times.
Stop twisting my words.
Go to A-cock and butts.com, which is what I've been saying to hold A-cock and butt.
I haven't been saying a cock and butts.
It's not my fault you don't keep your ears clean.
And I'm back now.
Kellogg's frosted cock cages last week and now the law says of A-cock and butts.
Oh, what a charm life.
Since I already disrupted the flow of the narrative let's break here for today's second of two mid-show sponsor breaks thank you for sticking around and now
let's go over the details of Kenny's first murder trial
Kenny's attorney was Godfrey Sullivan who we mentioned before can't do much
with his name what What a bummer.
Judge Byron Matthews would preside. I was really hoping for someone named Judge Harry Wettpost or something, but okay. Before this, Judge Matthews had been one of the best lawyers in northern Texas,
one of the first inducted into the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Hall of Fame.
The jury consisted of nine men and three women, and there was the reigning Texas Mother of the Year,
Addie McDuff.
Surrounded by her daughters and vindicated by the fact that charges against Lonnie had been dropped for unspecified reasons,
she took her seat in the courtroom and watched every moment of the trial.
Over and over again, Addy whined that Brady Pamplin and the police department had finally succeeded in getting Kenny into trouble.
Like this was all a conspiracy against her sweet baby boy. He's the victim.
She maintained Kenny's innocence by claiming that he was with a young girl at the time
of the murders. According to Addie, the family wouldn't identify the girl because she was
a nice girl from church. I hope Addie is burning in hell right now.
I don't even actually believe in hell. But right now, I want hell to be real and I want
Addie to be burning there forever. She knows damn well there is no such girl.
Kenny's defense amounted to a simple proposition.
Roy Dale Green had committed the broomstick murders and framed him.
The trial was, as you would expect, intense.
Featured the emotional testimony of Mrs. Jack Brand, Robert's mother, and Mrs. Sullivan,
Louise's mother.
Mrs. Brand identified the striped shirt that Kenneth and Roy had used to wipe away fingerprints
on the Ford and the broomstick is belonging to Robert. The trial also featured heartbreaking
testimony about the victims' bodies and the causes of their deaths. Louise's sexual assault and
murder was described in excruciating detail to a jury of small-town people that probably had never
so much as seen a couple share a bed on TV. A lot of minds blown, a lot of stomachs turned upside down, a lot of tears.
Grady Height and Charlie Butts replicated in specific detail the route that the boys
had taken on the night of the murders, and then they took it a step further and proved
that Kenny had scoped out the area first.
Mr. McAllister, who owned the nearby farmhouse, reported seeing Kenny there earlier in the
summer in a Mustang that he later totaled.
But the biggest piece of testimony came from someone who had already shared his side of the story, Roy Dale Green. In a shaky voice, he recounted the events
the night, sometimes dropping down to a barely audible whisper. But his horrified appearance
actually gave him more credibility with the jury. This was clearly a kid who was scared out of his
gourd and very ashamed of what he had done. Then on Saturday, November 13th, 1966, just when spectators of the courtroom thought the
trial could not get any more dramatic, Godfrey Sullivan announced, if the court please, the
defendant would like to take the stand on his own behalf.
Unknowingly Kenny was about to dig his own grave.
According to Kenny, during the broomstick murders, he was asleep in a burned out shopping
center in Everman.
In direct contradiction to what the jurors had seen for themselves only a day or two
before, Kenny described Roy Dale as angry, frustrated, just determined to look for girls.
Kenny said he left Roy Dale and sat down beside a wall and went to sleep. This did not sound like the Roy Dale that the jury had heard
from just a few days before. After his testimony, Charlie Butts headed up to cross-examine him,
and because Kenny had admitted in his testimony to getting in a little bit of trouble with the
police before, that opened the door for Charlie to ask him about this trouble and establish a
pattern of law-breaking behavior. As Kenny detailed his pre-murder crimes, he looked visibly nervous, cracking his knuckles over and over. One juror
later reported that he looked like he was about to rip his knuckles off of his hand.
Soon it was time for the final arguments. Doug Crouch made the closing argument for the prosecution,
and on November 15th, the jury was told to deliberate. They would deliberate from
between three and four hours. The state wasn't entirely sure of their victory.
After all, they'd failed to produce a murder weapon in the form of the gun or the broomstick.
But they had a feeling that the jury would listen to Roy Dale Green.
And when the jury came back, three women had tears in their eyes.
Judge Matthews read their verdict guilty.
Everyone reacted to the verdict and the death sentence it carried in silence.
Even mommy Add addy ass face.
Then a wave of deputies surrounded Kenny and quickly escorted him out of the courtroom.
Everyone besides the McDuff seemed relieved. Also an attempt for a retrial by Kenny's defense team quickly failed. An attempt
that was pretty funny.
During deliberations, a bailiff had provided the sequestered jury with a bottle of booze for a quick snort.
This issue made it to Judge Matthews' bench when Godfrey Sullivan asked for a new trial
on the basis of the jurors' intoxication.
But Charlie Butz argued that the statute prohibited intoxication, not an innocent snort, by tired
and lonely jurors.
I like Charlie Butz.
Judge Matthews denied the motion for a new trial once he was thoroughly convinced that
none of the jurors had gotten intoxicated. More than 30 years later,
with some measure of glee, Butts would recount the appeals court
referring to the booze as a bottle of needful. Meanwhile, Roy
Dale Green, represented by his attorney Brantley Pringle, pled guilty to murder
without malice in the death of Marcus Dunham and received a five-year prison
sentence. He pleaded guilty to murder with malice in the death of Marcus Dunham and received a five-year prison sentence.
He pleaded guilty to murder with malice for the murder of Louise Sullivan, and that kept
him from a death sentence.
He was sentenced to 25 years instead and also maybe faced the wrath of other prisoners for
ratting out his co-murderer.
Roy would end up serving 13 years before being paroled in 1979.
McDuff was put into the Tarrant County Jail pending an automatic appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. On
October 8th, 1968, the court affirmed his conviction and his first date with the
electric chair was set, December 3rd, 1968. He should have died before he turned 23.
That's what the initial ruling had decreed. The higher court ruling
cleared the way for his relocation to state prison, and he arrived at the Texas Department of Corrections October 9th, 1968.
At prison, Kenny served as a building or block tender,
type of prison hall monitor who had special privileges to keep order in their section of the prison.
And it's rumored that he was involved in smuggling and using drugs,
possibly with the help of his brother Lonnie, who helped smuggle the drugs into prison. Sounds about right for those two.
Two IQ tests were given to Kenny in prison.
Found a score of 92 the first time, 84 the second.
Had him at about a seventh grade achievement level.
While waiting to die he got his GED through the Wyndham school system.
Not sure what the point of that was.
Maybe he wanted his final words to be more grammatically correct or something.
He was supposed to have only a couple months of prison before he met his death, but as
you know, that will not happen.
It's unclear why the first date, December 3rd, was not a go.
The second pushback would be the result of a clerical error.
A clerical error that would result in at least six more dead bodies.
In the charges of the capital murder and rape of Edna Louise Sullivan, Kenny, through his
attorney, had filed a writ for a quick and speedy trial.
The writ would be received by the court in Johnson County June 15, 1970 and was incorrectly
treated as writ of habeas corpus and then denied.
Over seven years later, September 15, 1977, McDuff's new attorney, Gary Jackson of Dallas,
Texas, correctly argued that the writ for a quick and speedy trial should have been granted
at the time.
Thus, Kenneth had been denied a constitutional right. And yes, you were correct, Gary, but also, why couldn't you just keep your fucking mouth shut? Did you not know about the broomstick?
Jackson's motion included arguments assuming Macduff's innocence in the Marcus Dunham
conviction. Judge Byron Crossier's ruling accepted Jackson's argument of the denial of a speedy trial but clearly rejected the notion of Kenneth's
innocence. Still, the murder and rape charges against Kenneth were dismissed
March 8th 1978. To the horror of those back in Rosebud and the victims'
families, Kenny asserted that he had never been tried or convicted of doing
anything to Louise Sullivan and he was technically right since the denial of
his constitutional rights invalidated that particular conviction all because of a
clerical error. What a bunch of bullshit in this context. Now another thing would make Kenny
McDuffin even luckier man. In 1967 a man named William Henry Furman burglarized a house in Georgia
and unwittingly shot someone behind a closed door and for that he was given the death penalty.
But then his case would go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman v. Georgia.
And the court's ruling would be very favorable to men like Kenneth Macduff. The 5-4 decision pretty
much reflected contemporaneous American division over the death penalty issue. The majority ruled
that in the case of Furman and in the cases of a couple of other death sentence dudes, the imposition
and carrying out of the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment
and unequal protection in violation of the 8th and 14th amendments. Okay? I mean
the guy did kill somebody. Somebody in their home. Somebody Furman was robbing
for fuck's sake. Also after Furman gets out of prison he goes back to Burger
Rising Homes and eventually goes back to prison for another long stretch.
So it's a good thing he was released.
Good thing his life was spared.
The Eighth Amendment limits the criminal justice system's ability to punish people who have
been accused or convicted of a crime.
The whole cruel and unusual punishment amendment.
The Fourteenth Amendment is more varied.
Among other provisions, it states that no state can deprive a person of life, liberty,
or property without due process of law.
Justices Brennan and Marshall, both lifelong opponents of the death penalty, argued that the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
Brennan asserted that it did not comport with human dignity.
Marshall argued that it was impermissible because it was morally unacceptable and
excessive.
Is it excessive?
It's a pretty subjective word.
So it's unacceptable.
Justices Douglas, Stewart and White argued
that the infrequency of executions
were evidence of unequal application.
Basically, they argued that if we're going to apply
the death penalty to different situations,
and then sometimes those death penalties are carried out
and sometimes they are not,
how can we say the death penalty is truly justified?
I mean, it's an interesting argument.
Justice Potter Stewart compared it to being struck by lightning.
Both were cruel and unusual because so much was left up to chance.
Except people getting struck by lightning aren't almost always rapists and murderers.
And Justice Brennan, the most eloquent and outspoken opponent of capital punishment wrote, when a country of over 200 million people
inflicts an unusually severe punishment no more than 50 times a year,
the inference is strong that the punishment is not being regularly and fairly applied.
I mean that is an interesting legal argument. Strange, but okay. Oddly enough, these arguments
suggest that the death penalty could be made more equitable
by increasing its use.
But the direct implication was that giving juries near unlimited discretion over sentences
was unconstitutional, a major ruling in favor of those opposed to the death penalty.
But it wasn't all a party for anti-death penalty folks.
Through the Furman ruling, the Supreme Court showed states how to make death penalty laws
constitutional, and almost every state would rush to pass laws assuring a more equal application,
making executions far more, not less common, in the United States.
The ruling was a result of a very complicated legal battle over one of our most basic societal
tools, to be able to dispose of the monsters in our midst or to not dispose of them, but instead
place them in a cage where they might not get out.
And many would get out because of this ruling.
The nearly 600 men and women on death rows throughout the country, including 127 in Texas,
magically now had their sentences commuted to life in prison.
And many of them, thanks to other laws in various states that did not currently allow
life without the possibility of parole, would be eligible for parole in a surprisingly short time, including Kenneth Allen Macduff.
This psycho's first parole hearing was on April 4th, 1976.
Right.
He's fucking, he's not even in prison for 10 years.
That's crazy.
His next one, uh, February 18th, 1977, then November 16th, 1977.
My God.
Luckily those did not, you did not result in his release.
But that's crazy.
On January 11th, 1979, parole board member and obvious fucking idiot, Edward Johnson,
cast the first favorable vote for Ken's parole.
Other two members, however, voted no.
The second board member to vote for approval was another idiot, Helen Kapitka, January 2, 1980.
Again, this was a lone yes vote and Kenz was forced to stay in prison for the time being.
The two lone yes votes must have been frustrating because in his next parole hearing in 1981, during an interview with board member Glenn Heckman, Mcduff said,
I don't know how to put this, but if you get me out on parole, I guarantee you'll find $10,000 in the glove compartment of your car."
Stunned Heckman simply continued with the interview, but McDuff did not let up.
What I said earlier I meant, you'll have $10,000 in the glove compartment of your car before
I leave.
You can get me out.
You're the vote I need," he said.
A few minutes later, Heckman reported the bribery directly to local prosecutors, resulting
in McDuff's conviction for bribery August 6, 1982, which added another two years to his sentence, or
would have, but it ran concurrently.
So essentially, he literally was not punished at all for openly bribing or trying to bribe
a parole board member.
Our justice system has ran so nonsensically far too often.
This fucking concurrent bullshit.
Kenny is still in prison,
but for how long? In 1982, he's still only 36 years old. Now he gets another lucky break.
Around the same time as Furman v. George, many prisoners had begun to make complaints about
stuff like overcrowding, poor medical care, and the use of building tenders as guards of other
inmates. Building tenders, which Kenneth was one, kept control of their areas and thus got preferential
treatment from guards.
One inmate, a guy named David Ruiz, who was serving 25 years for armed robbery, took his complaint to the courts.
The Ruiz case went before US District Judge William Wayne Justice of Tyler, Texas.
Dude was literally Judge Justice. His last name was Justice. Like a fucking comic book character.
Thus began the longest and most expensive trial
in the history of Texas.
So let's skip to the end.
Judge Justice's ruling concluded that the system violated
inmate rights through crowding, poor medical care,
using inmates as guards, brutality by professional guards,
and unconstitutional grievance and disciplined procedures.
He ordered a complete overhaul of the prison system
and set up federal monitors to assure
compliance.
In 1987, Judge Justice ruled that occupancy above 95% capacity or about 48,400 inmates
was a violation of prisoners' human rights.
As a result, county jails became filled with backlogged state prisoners awaiting transfer
to prisons that had no space.
In some areas, county jails became so crowded that tent cities of prisoners were discussed.
This coincided with the time of reduced spending and the Reagan-led campaign against big government.
So where was the money going to come from to overhaul these prisons?
Nowhere.
The prisons were basically shit out of luck.
As the backlog of felons clogged county jails and the populace reacted in horror to the
notion of criminal tent cities surrounded by chain-link fences near neighborhoods,
public officials had only one tool left to ease overcrowding and regain control of the prisons from both the inmates and the government.
More parole. Put pressure on parole boards to release as many prisoners as possible. Awesome. Seemed to a lot of politicians like a good option, considering that parole hearings seldom if ever generated public interest in an
age-long trial before, you know, social media and watchdog groups. Parole boards
could quietly release offenders, avoid criticism or accountability, and were
thus able to turn their attention to the funding and regulations snafu without
having to increase taxes. The Texas Department of Corrections instructed the Parole Board to release a hundred and fifty prisoners a day. At least 700 prisoners a week and
at least 3,000 a month or 36,000 a year. That was the mandate. They wanted nearly
75% of the incarcerated population released in the near future. And this
mandate created a fucking crazy thing called parole in absentia or PIA which
meant that an inmate while housing a jail, could get parole from a state prison
without ever having spent a day in the prison.
What the fuck?
This actually happened not that long ago.
So to recap, an unelected federal judge seizes a prison system and places the rights of prisoners
over the safety of the public.
Then the state, not wanting to increase taxes, responds with a resounding lack of political
courage.
Fuck yeah, bro.
And because of all this, the people of Texas will wake up one day to find out that felons
will soon be arriving into their communities in droves.
A lot of them rapists and murderers.
Now let's reconnect with Kenneth McDuff again.
In 1982 and 1983, his parole attempts had been denied unanimously.
March 19th, 1984, board member Sue Cunningham casts a favorable vote and Kenny is back on
the road to parole.
She'd vote for him twice more, she sounds like a brain surgeon, in 1984 and 1985, but
she was the only one.
She's very wise.
Also in 1985, twin brother Lonnie was arrested and charged with theft of more than $750 and
later with possession of methamphetamine. Oh yes! Meth! Of course Lonnie's on meth! If I had to pick one
drug for he or any other member of the Macduff family to abuse, it would for
sure be meth, followed closely by crack. Then on January 5th, 1986, after dispute
between Lonnie, Lonnie's girlfriend Michelle, his friend and co-worker Larry
and Larry's wife Doris, Larry shoots Lonnie at Larry's house in Rogers, Texas after Lonnie allegedly made a pass at Doris.
That sounds like some shit Lonnie would do. He and Kenny, they started to remind me as this went on,
of like an evil upside down world version of Bo and Luke Duke
from the Duke's Hazard. Things a lot to their ma, they been trouble with the law since the day they was born Killing high school girls, hitting other men's wives
Never doing nothing for the world, nothing good, not once in the lives, fucking shit up, only way they know how.
Doing so much evil way more than the law will allow.
Just a shithead boy.
It does fit right.
Anyway, dipshit Lonnie gets shot.
The first shot enters his head through his upper lip, exploding in his mouth and destroying his upper teeth on the left side.
Second shot passes through his left temple and out of his right.
And he is very dead.
Lonnie dies instantly in the apartment's narrow hallway.
The only person Kenny McDuff ever cared about.
And I gotta say, fucking love it.
Love it!
Good shot Larry!
Go Larry! I don't give a love it. Love it. Good shot, Larry. Go there.
I don't give a fuck that happened to him.
Remember when he hit the gun
that his bro used in a triple homicide
that included an incredibly violent broomstick rape?
Lonnie was a piece of shit.
Only good thing he ever did
was get thrown down a flight of stairs
as a kid by his principal, which made for a good story.
Back to Kenny.
In 1986, a three-member panel
had unanimously denied him freedom, but then
January 7th 1988 board members Ken Castor and Chris Mealy idiots vote in favor of Kenny's parole
He now appeared to be headed for freedom
Until a wave of letters of protest for many officials in Falls County arrives and his approval is revoked
Okay, but just four months later,
the board reviews the case again.
Ken Casner, the only affirmative vote this time.
I wanted to shit on Ken again here,
but then I read his obituary.
He died in Waco in 2009 at the age of 79
and actually seemed like a great guy
who just tried maybe two harder times
to see the good in people,
to see everyone is worthy of redemption.
He had a big heart, a little bigger than his brain. That's okay. Meanwhile, political pressure from
Judge Justice's rulings was mounting. In 1988, 28,090 of 49,126 requests, 57%
for parole were approved. In 1989, 34,536 of 61,221 requests, 56% are approved.
And then in 1990, 79% will be approved.
56,442 of 71,074.
Basically 8 out of 10 get approved.
Nearly everyone was being released after only an initial review.
Also a prisoner could conceivably get credit for serving a full year in just 22 days with the laws the way they were then. A lot of fun. In the midst of this,
on September 1st, 1989, Kenny MacDuff makes his 15th request for parole. The three-member panel
reviewing the case consisted of Cora Mosley, Dr. James Granberry, an orthodontist, and Chris Mealy,
the village idiot. No, he was not the village idiot. He was actually one of the only people in history
to be born with just a brain stem.
Not a brain, but somehow survived into adulthood.
Inspirational, you know, in a sense.
However, literally not having a brain,
his career choices were limited to only parole board member.
I don't know what he did or what kind of brain he had.
Mommy, why do you call her mommy?
So mommy makes it much weirder. Mommy Addy.
Mama Addy Macduff had secured another lawyer for Kenny. She still hadn't given up on her precious
murdering rapist baby boy. And this lawyer's name was Bill Habern and Bill was ready to rock and roll.
He employed a parole consultant named Helen Kopeka who had voted on at least
four of Macduff parole requests, and Helen would
contact Cora Mosley, pointing out some improprieties which occurred during the trial. After it was
discovered that James Granberry was the friend of McDuff's former lawyer, Gary Jackson, he abstained,
was replaced by another board member named Henry Keane. Oh, also Gary Jackson was in the process of
securing the film and TV rights to the McDuff story, because of course he was. No conflict of
interest there. His wife, Gloria Gloria Jackson also insisted on extraordinary artistic control over the
project including retention of music rights and the selection of music for the soundtrack,
the selection of creative talent and a veto to assure fidelity to the objective,
whatever that means. Back to the parole. Officially on September 1st,
1989 Cora Mosley and Chris Mealy vote to approve the parole. Henry Keene votes to deny. These
decisions would then be re-examined by now by a new three-member panel
consisting of bizarrely Chris Mealy and Henry Keene. What? We gotta have this
we gotta have these votes looked at by a new committee and then the people who just voted just like moved to a different desk and sit down and
yeah, no, it looks good to us.
So two out of three of the first people are now on the second panel and they keep their
vote the same.
And then Dr. James Granberry, who only two weeks earlier had abstained from voting on
the same request now votes.
Okay.
Interesting.
Later, people would think that Addie MacDuff paid off one or more of these parole board members.
Granberry cast a deciding vote. September 14th, 1989, slightly less than 23 years after being convicted of the broomstick murders,
Kenneth Allen Macduff has been granted parole. On September 24th,
he's transferred to the Michael unit for processing out of the prison system.
By October 5th, Macduff's parole certificate had been been issued and on October 11th, 1989, this sadistic, soulless,
43 year old motherfucker walks free. Immediately people in Rosebud are
worried. Oh yeah, I imagine there was a quick spike in gun and ammo sales. It
would make sense. People pumped shells into shotguns, hit the ranges to make
sure everything was in working order, shoved heavy pieces of furniture in front of double and triple locked doors.
Not kidding. Tommy Sammons, who had humiliated Macduff in a playground fight back in the freshman year of high school, worried about his teenage children.
Would Kenny kill them just for spite? Local law enforcement was worried too. Falls County Sheriff Larry Pamplin, a teenager when McDuff was arrested by his dad, Brady
Pamplin, telephoned his longtime friend, Deputy U.S. Marshal Parnell McNamara and Waco and
told him, you're not going to believe what happened, Parnell.
They've paroled Kenneth McDuff.
There was a brittle silence as McNamara processed this totally illogical piece of information.
Then McNamara asked, frankly, have they gone crazy?
They both knew he was gonna kill somebody or many somebodies.
They just didn't know how, when or where.
I'll now share some when and where.
He didn't wait that long to get back to after it, not long at all.
The dead body of 29-year-old Sarah Fia Parker was discovered on October 14th, 1989 in Temple,
Texas, a town 48 miles south of Waco along the I-35 corridor.
A body found three days after Kenny was released. A pedestrian strolling the 1500 block of East
Avenue came across her remains. Sarafee had been beaten, strangled to death, dumped in a field,
from what coroners could tell no more than 24 hours before her body was found.
Sort of like another crime we just heard about. Also, if she had died a full 24 hours before her body was found. Sort of like another crime we just heard about.
Also, if she had died a full 24 hours earlier, that would mean that Macduff killed around 48
hours after being released. This has to be the run in the running at least for the fastest time
to commit a homicide after being paroled in U.S. history. Texas Ranger John Acock, Acock is back,
baby, later located in an interview to witness who
could place Parker in a pickup truck driven by McDuff October 12th, 1989, the day after
he got out.
Good job fighting for baby boy mama.
What a great decision.
October 17th, 1989, Kenny applies for a driver's license using a car belonging to his sister's
family to take the driving test.
His sister will later tell law enforcement how he proceeded to take advantage of her entire family when she took him in. Yeah, of course he did. He
was a piece of shit. For example, because of some grudge Kenny had against her son,
he took her son's pickup, which only had 25,000 miles on it, and proceeded to quote, tear it up.
Kenny apparently did not like her husband either when asked by
investigators if he had any friends her sister said ain't nobody close to Kenneth. Yeah of
course this dude literally has no redeeming qualities. He has been a piece of shit since
he was in grade school stealing from mommy's laundromat customers. Less than a month after
his parole he requested a transfer at a Rockdale to another sister's home in the Waco district in McClennan County.
By December 5, 1989, Kenneth had successfully transferred his parole to the Waco district
and was living with another sister.
Only four days after moving to Waco, McDuff's parole officer reported an unverified meeting
between Kenny and some producers in Dallas.
Remember how Gary and Gloria Jackson are working on the rights to his story?
Well, they've made a corporation now. Justice for Macduff Incorporated.
I hate these idiots. They might actually only have brain stamps.
Kenneth would now serve as this company's vice president. The vice president of a company designed to prove that there was a huge conspiracy against him.
As opposed to, you know, I don't know,
just the truth, which was he was a guy that just kept
getting in trouble because he's easily one of the worst people to ever walk the fucking earth.
Kenny would later say that the Jacksons had promised him two projects, movies, that would
make him a millionaire. And so he had no reason to look for a job or anything to keep himself
occupied until he had his Hollywood money. Showbiz! Mommy, or Mama Addy, I want to call her Mommy so bad,
would provide him with money and cars.
This guy is apparently incapable of ever making a responsible or moral decision.
December 19th, 1929, only 12 days after transferring to his sister's home in Waco,
Kenny now asked to have his pearl transferred back to Temple.
He's wore out another welcome with Sister Number 2.
He is extremely unlikable.
Almost immediately immediately he was
told not to move to temple but he did anyway because he's fucking Kenny McDuff and then he
quickly moved again. By January 4th 1990 Kenny was uh lived with mommy and daddy in Belton Texas
and instead of being punished for disobeying his terms of parole he'll be rewarded because the
Texas penal system in 1990 was a fucking clown car. It was a hot pile of shit.
On January 17th, 1990, Kenneth Allen McDuff was removed from sex offender
supervision because his rape conviction had been voided over that clerical error.
So damn it.
From February to May, he would stay in Tyler, Texas with his youngest sister's
family. Then on May 29th, he would report to his parole officer that he had a job
at a construction company in the colony, Texas.
Two weeks later, he moves back in with Addy after getting fired. What? How?
Why were his new bosses so mean to him?
I picture this guy being just the most
unlikable douchebag of all time. Like a Danny McBride character, but amplified even further.
Like his foreman at the construction job on his first day is like, hey Kenny I need you to nail those
studs to the wall buddy. Space them out every 16 inches and just
immediately he's like, I need to fucking, I need to fucking nail your mom to the wall
bro. I'll space your pussy out every 16 inches bro. What did you say about my mom
Kenny? And he's so clueless to social conventions, just such a dipshit asshole, he just doubles down.
What are you deaf? I said I need to nail your fucking mom, bro.
As in I'm gonna fuck your mom's pussy with my 16 inch dick motherfucker.
Get the fuck off this job site Kenny, before I beat you to death. You're fired.
Your fucking mom is fired bro. I'll set I'll set your mom y'all set your mom on fire
I'll fuck I'll nail her pussy for whatever reason I picture him taking almost every social interaction to that insulting and aggravating of a place
Like at his own sister's house. She's like hey Kenny. Would you mind take out the trash? Yeah, I'll fucking I'll put your fucking mom in the trash bitch
Okay, what my mom is your mom That doesn't even make any sense.
Your mom won't make sense when I fuck her asshole bitch.
Kenny, why are you talking about her mom like that?
I didn't bitch, I talked about your fucking mom.
Because you're adopted and shit.
You're ugly and fat.
I just can't imagine anyone ever having a remotely pleasant interaction or conversation with this guy.
Kenny was supposed to stay out of Rosebud, but on July 11th, 1990, he and his nephew went there anyway.
Kenny does what Kenny wants.
He was sitting on the curb of Main Street listening to music when four young black youths walked by and Kenny, being Kenny, approaches one and says,
Hey, racial slur, I bet you don't like white boys any more
than white boys like you. No I don't replied the young man. More unpleasant
trees were exchanged and now Kenneth went to get a switchblade from his car.
Of course he has a switchblade. Switchblades are made for douchebags like
Kenny. Then knife in hand he went after the most vocal of the young man, a 16
year old high school student. The young man ran into an alley, scared shilless I'm
sure, that border the building of 301 Main Street
and grabbed two bricks to defend himself with.
Still clutched his knife, Kenny now backed off.
Oh, okay, got some bricks I see.
Returns to his car.
Later that evening, the teenager's contact
the justice of the peace, Judge Ellen Roberts,
who issued an emergency warrant for McDuff.
He's been out of prison exactly seven months
and he's already killed at least one person.
You know, he's in a town, the one town he was told to stay away from, and he just tried to stab a teenager in broad daylight that he picked to fight with because he's racist.
Oh, and he's held down one job for a total of about two weeks.
Talk about a true detriment to society.
This guy wasn't even just worthless. He was below worthless.
He brought negative value to whatever situation he found himself in.
On July 18, 1990, Macduff would be arrested by Bell County Sheriff's deputies
during a visit to the parole office in Temple. On September 11, 1990, an administrative release revocation hearing on Kenneth's parole took place at the Bell County Jail.
Testifying against him was one of the teenagers he provoked a fight with, a young man named
Robert McBee, and based on his testimony, it was concluded that Kenny had indeed violated
parole.
I would hope so.
On October 11, 1990, Kenny returns to the state prison system exactly a year to the
day after he'd been released.
But before he even walked back into his cell, several forces were already working towards him getting released again. Unbelievable. On October
23rd, just you know just like a fucking few weeks later, Gary Jackson, still his
attorney, not a fan of Gary, submitted a motion to reopen Kenny's parole
revocation and wrote a letter to Parole Board Chairman James Granberry
requesting that the revocation be set aside. Why? We don't know. Meanwhile,
Addie Macduff pays $1,500
plus an additional $700 for expenses to two Huntsville attorneys in return for their evaluating
her sweet baby boy's prospect of release. I wish Addie and Gary would die in a car wreck
together. But they don't. On December 6, 1990, Parole Division Staff Attorney Betty Wells
makes an administrative decision to reinstate Kenneth McDuff's parole.
Don't understand why.
There was no hearing, no testimony, no advocacy of any kind.
McDuff would be one of the 56,442 convicts set free that year when the parole rate reached
an all-time high of 79%.
And so, two months after returning to prison, on December December 18th 1990 Kenny is walking back out of prison
He would now move to the SNS mobile home park outside of Belton living amongst the empty shelves of some trailers abandoned by their owners
Lawn littered with car parts and other debris a place still far too good for him here
Can you become known to his neighbors as Big Mac?
Hell yeah, Big Mac way better than his brother's old nickname
of Wuff Tough Wanny MacTuff. Most people that didn't go by at this park didn't go by their real
names. Most people were hiding from somebody fleeing parole officers, creditors, crime lords.
A woman named Diana was known as Little Bit. Some lady named Jean was known as Ducky. Cool. Some guy Don East was Little Run.
There was a black Jennifer and a white Jennifer. And not even the police knew
what white Jennifer's real name was. This place sounds both sad and terrifying.
At night drug dealers and sex workers lined Faulkner Lane at Miller Street nearby, stood
at the corner of South Loop to serve as customers. Old Big Mac hung out there a lot. He did a little rock. He might have smoked a little crack.
Sometimes offering his compatriots 50 bucks if they gave him a gun so he could go rob a crack
house and smoke some more crack. It's about time we introduced a little bit of crack into the story.
That's when Kenny Big Mac needs to start really turning his life around. Fucking big fat rocks of crack.
First Ronnie on meth, now Kenny on crack.
God, those McDuff boys.
They didn't know how to party.
Big Mac bragged to his new friends that he'd been sent to prison for beating a man to death
with a baseball bat.
Also bragged about his genitals.
In a weird way.
He would frequently grab his crotch and just say weird shit like like have you ever seen a set of balls like this on anybody?
That's a new one a dude bragging not about the size of his dick
What about the size of his balls specifically? Hey, bro. Check this shit out
What? Why are you showing me your tiny little dick? No, bro
Not talking about my title dick talk about these These big ol' honeydew nuts, bro.
It's fucking gross, dude.
You get those checked out, you probably have a tumor in them or something.
I'll put some tumors in your fucking, I'll put them in your mom, bro.
I'll put these nuts in your mom, bro.
Kenny was so volatile, especially on crack, that nobody in the trailer park stuck around
him for long,
like a married woman named Linda, who occasionally went out with Kenny Big Mac Bigger Nuts and
once spotted a driver's license in his glove compartment showing some blonde woman with
curly hair.
Kenny told her that the woman was quote, a dope whore.
And Linda apparently wasn't bothered by that.
But she was bothered when Kenny Balloonballs suggested that they murder Linda's grandparents
for their money and some guns.
But she still stuck around because she's a classy lady.
The end of the relationship came when Linda drew the line that Kenny having sex with sex
workers.
What's she going to do?
Bring home some STI to her husband who doesn't know she's fucking Kenny Big Nuts behind his
back?
No.
She cares about him too much.
She respects him too much for that. Kenny would hire sex workers a lot and
abuse them. Of course he did. A sex worker named Ducky, we met her. She's local. She
told officers about a date she had with McDuff in which he forced her to have
every conceivable type of sex with him for three hours. He called it quote
going around the world. She also said that he never completely got naked for
sex.
He often kept his boots on. That sounds, yep, that sounds right.
And that he seemed to enjoy inflicting pain in women.
That definitely sounds right.
He also seemed like he faked orgasms
and didn't seem to have them for real
unless he was having anal sex.
Huh, I wonder how much anal sex he'd been having in prison.
Developed a real hankering for it.
Probably pushed those big old nuts into some Texas butts. Doing some Texas bing-bonging.
Soon Kenny XXXL, chicken skin duffel bag, decided he was going back to his old ways.
Not serial killing, but just being a down-home family guy. Which I don't
think was ever his way. But that's what he thought. He moved back, that's what he said.
He moved back in with his parents in early 1991.
Of course he did. And he soon discovered Project Rio,
Reintegration of offenders, which started in 1985. He gave grants to ex-convicts to attend college or trade school.
And Macduff would now go to school. This just keeps him better.
He now starts attending the Texas State Technical Institute, a two-year technical college located in Waco that actually had dorms
Maybe still does I'm sure he was a model student and Waco
He would discover the joys of being fully taken care of dorm room cafeteria access to remote wooded areas surrounding the campus to high bodies
Can you imagine going to college with this dude?
So scary you're 18 you have to share a room with this 45 year old complete psychopath
Hey, bro, you're been you're been in prison bro. Ha this reminds me of prison shit
Hey, how mad would you be if I fucked your butt prison style? No, no homo. Hey, come on
Just underpass time man. Fuck you looking me like that for bro. I was kidding
I didn't even want to fuck your butt bro. I'll fuck your mom's butt, bro
I'll push these Texas style grande nuts
In that grande butt, bro
Then he pulls out a switchblade
Starts waving it around while thrusting his hips miming humping motions. Just never breaking direct aggressive eye contact
Five minutes later the traumatized freshmen in the student union building crying while talking to their parents on the phone
Just begging to be allowed to come back home
crying while talking to their parents on the phone, just begging to be allowed to come back home.
Kenny was placed in the dorms March 5th, 1991. Beginning his classes two days later.
He was listed simply as a transfer student. They didn't give anybody a heads up that he'd been imprisoned for multiple murders. And he was studying computer numerically controlled machine shop
operations. Okay. Classes included basic shop machines,
precision tools, measurement,
basic lathe and mill operations,
blueprints and other shop classes.
Not that Kenny would learn much about any of this.
He was frequently absent.
But he did attend some classes
and even engage in some school related activities.
Somehow this fucking ape in human skin
earned a GPA of 3.78.
What? During the fall semester of 1991, he had to have cheated. He got
A's and B's in everything except a course called In-De-Spec and Safety. He would also take a class
called Human Relations, okay, which was aided helping people understand their close relationships,
collaborate better, and succeed in work. And this was what the nearly 40,
this is what 45-year-old McDuff would write when asked to provide four traits about himself.
One, reliable.
I chose reliable as number one as some of the most important things in life depends
on person being reliable, such as your job.
Without a job one's life becomes very difficult at once with a
long line of problems. What if you bought this in a book? Like there was a book
at the bookstore it was like wisdom. The secrets all of life's wisdom and then
you're just reading. Such is your job. Without a job one's life becomes very
difficult at once with a long line of problems associated with the fact you've
lost your job and by failing to keep appointments one loses reliability with friends family and
Associates the trade of being reliable was influenced upon me by family and people I've known
attitude
toward being reliable
That that's a work
That's a great work at the Texas State Technical Institute. I would hate to see what a failing grade, what their work look like.
Two, respectful.
Respectful is chosen as number two of importances.
Oh my God.
This trait is also needed to maintain good relations on the job and in one's social life.
I must admit that I have one major problem in showing
respect when it is not shown in return. I tend to do the opposite. That is to
show the most disrespect as possible. Being disrespectful is something one
learns through the people he meets in life. 3. Rapiness. Rapiness was my choice
of third of importances. This trait has got me into a lot of pickles.
Rapiness is about how rapey you are.
I'm not the most rapey, but I must admit I'm not the least rapey neither.
I have one major problem with rape and that is not doing it enough.
Hey, it can be hard because you can be caught and locked away.
If you are locked away, it affects your rapey choices a great much and
Now you have to pretend that man butthole is woman vagina and rape it instead
for
pretendedness
Pretending this is how good you are and pretending a man butthole is a woman vagina for rape
Of course, those are not his two traits his other two traits, but that is his writing level
What he really wrote for three and four is three
Perceptive I chose perceptive is number three
But at some points in my life I would have placed it number one as my life body and limb had depended on it smile
Being perceptive in everyday life is important in understanding others and their intent.
Understanding what a person is really saying isn't always what they are saying.
Also understanding body language is an important part of being perceptive.
I feel being perceptive comes naturally and through life experiences.
This guy was dumb as a pile of rocks.
How is he an ace dude? Four, open-minded.
I feel that I am open-minded and I feel that it important for people to be open-minded.
The world would be a much better place to live if we're all open-minded.
I try to look at both sides of every issue as the saying goes, walk a mile in my shoes. Being over-minded is the experience in life.
Okay, yep.
The world would be a better place to live in if you weren't in it, Kenny.
Your side of the issue fucking sucks.
In an assessment of his flaws, he wrote that he was not good at meeting people and too trusting sometimes.
Interestingly, he got a perfect score on a quiz for sexual harassment and on a quiz about drugs and drug testing.
This is ironic because he's providing his hallmates with a variety of drugs at this time, ranging from weed to LSD,
and he himself is smoking fucking crack a lot and using meth.
Oh, double whammy! Crack and meth! Oh, what could go wrong? He also was bragging about robbing drug dealers
and tried unsuccessfully to recruit fellow students to go rob some
convenience stores with him. Again, how the fuck is this guy in the dorms?
Apparently he was starting to realize that this movie was never gonna come out
and make him a millionaire. He's got to make money some other ways. To one
classmate, an ex-con named Lewis, he would even describe his method for
disposing of a body. He'd wrap the feet in some chains, slice his stomach, throw it in the river.
Just, you know, normal co-ed student talk. And to another classmate, another Richard, Kenny offered
to bring him out for a night in the town where they picked up Black Jennifer headed to a Motel 6 to-
What a night! They picked up Black Jennifer and headed to Motel 6 to smoke some crack and fuck and fight.
At the Motel 6, Kenny flew into a rage and beat Richard senseless, nearly popped out
one of his fucking eyes with his thumbs while Jennifer screamed for him to stop.
Just say!
This is just Motel 6!
This is what we do!
Somehow Richard got away, surviving with a swollen head, horribly discolored eyes, and extensive brain damage.
He left campus for good due to his medical issues and thanks to fear of Kenny.
Also, Kenny doesn't get in trouble for this. Kenny does not get in trouble for this.
Also, Kenny borrowed another student's motorcycle on a Friday one weekend,
returned it the following Sunday after having driven it over a thousand miles.
He was the worst. He was a nightmare on two legs.
Where the fuck did he go? Just down to Mexico? What did he do down there? How many people did he kill?
In the summer of 1991, Macduff learns that Larry, the man who had murdered his brother Lonnie,
was being released from prison. So now he starts looking for some guns so he can go shoot Larry.
That search takes him to the home of one of his sisters where he violates federal law by taking
a revolver. And then he actually confront larry. It's unclear where
Excuse me, uh, but probably in the little town of holland where larry was paroled
And fucking larry who apparently had an even bigger set of nuts
Does him back down
In fact, he tells
He tells kenny he had killed a mcduff before he'd be happy to do it again
Sometimes I really love Texas.
Kenny backed off after that.
Oh, the bully getting bullied, hail Nimrod.
On the night of September 1st, 1991,
at 10.55 PM, Kenny gets arrested again.
Should have been sent back to prison.
Temple police officer, Bruce Smith,
observed a pickup truck run red light
and swerve across traffic lanes
in a reckless manner on 43rd Street.
Smith stopped the truck, discovered Kenny, and a man named Alva Hank Worley,
a ninth or 10th grade dropout from Belton High School,
who was first convicted for larceny at age 18 and went to jail for two years.
One of his first employers post prison had been Kenny's bro, Lonnie McDuff.
That's how they met. Well, actually that's not how they met. Sorry.
I thought that was how they met. That's not how they met.
Kenny and Hank met at the SNS mobile home park where Hank's sister Diane lived so small
world lives crossed in numerous ways like Roy Dale Green many years earlier
Hank Worley was physically small underweight and didn't stand up for
himself aka Kenny's perfect accomplice he talked with Kenny about anything he
wanted including violence murder and taking an attractive girl who worked at
a convenience store Kenny frequented.
Taking.
And that night, as they did most nights, they were drinking hard until they got pulled over.
Kenny got out of the truck, walked unsteadily towards the officer.
His eyes were glassy, his speech was slurred.
He also smelled like a run-down beer joint.
When the officer asked him how much he had to drink, Big Mac said, just one beer, about
three hours ago.
Classic.
Then he failed several field sobriety tests and was
immediately arrested. Two days later, September 3rd, McDuff reports the DOI arrest to his parole
officer. Also admits he's been smoking some weed. Doesn't talk about the crack or the meth.
Each of the offenses he did talk about was a violation of his parole which could have
sent him back to prison. But the persistent strain on the prisons meant he was not being sent back.
After his court appearance where he was not punished at all, he celebrated by
smoking crack at a friend's house.
Yeah, buddy.
Two weeks later, September 15th, 1991, 23 year old Cynthia Renee Gonzalez goes
missing from Arlington, Texas.
She'd be found dead in a creek bed near County Road 313 in a heavily wooded area,
a mile west of I-35 on September 1st, 1991.
Investigators strongly believe Kenny killed her.
Less than a month later, on the night of October 10th, 1991, Kenny big balls.
Kenny wants to push his sperm dumplings into your poop pipe.
Heads out looking for another woman and finds Brenda Thompson.
Just 37, Brenda looked much older than that.
She was
living a real hard life. Her eyes were sunken, her face was gaunt, the mark of a
life punctuated by frequent heavy drug use, numerous charges of petty theft,
possession of controlled substances, DUIs, trespassing charges, numerous counts of
forgery, all of which landed her various tints in jail. She lived in a house on
Delano Street in Waco. She'd been arrested as recently as the previous
month for prostitution.
The officer in that case noted that she had several missing teeth and a birthmark on the
back of her neck.
Since the charge was not a felony, she was released and back on the streets for 10 hours.
And on the night of October 10, she climbed into Kenny's car.
Meanwhile, a police checkpoint had been set up on Focton Lane by a special operations
team.
Kenny drove south of Miller Street,
ended up running smack dab into the checkpoint. When an officer walked towards Kenny's vehicle,
he showed his line in, shone a light in, my god, and saw a disturbing scene.
Brendan Thompson was kicking and screaming. Her arms appeared to be tied behind her back.
She started kicking the windshield with such force she shattered it on the passenger side.
Thompson repeatedly kicked the windshield of Kenny's truck, cracking it several times.
Go Brenda go!
Immediately, Macduff slams his foot on the gas, drives directly at the officers at the
checkpoint.
Three of them had to jump out of the way to avoid being run over.
Some officers give chase, but Kenny has a good head start.
He's racing south on Miller Street towards Waco Drive with his lights off.
Brenda Thompson still screaming in the passenger seat,
intentionally driving on the wrong side of the road down one way streets. He, uh,
well, I guess there's the wrong way down one way streets.
It doesn't matter which side you're on.
He turns west on US 84 then north on Golson road and that motherfucker loses the
police. So he wasn't totally dumb, not book smart, not a writer, but not a moron.
Sadly, despite her heroic effort,
that would be the last time Brenda will be seen alive.
Her body will be discovered seven years later in 1998.
Just five days later, October 15th, 1991,
Kenny and a 21-year-old sex worker named
Regina Gena Deann Moore were witnessed having an argument
at a Waco motel.
Oh yeah, after trying to run over several officers
at a checkpoint, officers who saw a tied up screaming woman kicking the shit out of his
windshield, Big Mac just decides to stay in the area and get right and gets right
back to picking up sex workers. Gina lived on Dutton Street and worked at the
same corners, worked the same corners as Brendan Thompson had. At 5'4", 110 pounds,
she was small and slight. She already had three kids who had been adopted by a
relative. She had a bad crack who had been adopted by a relative.
She had a bad crack habit, which made her reckless.
And on the day Brenda was taken, she had spent the night in jail.
Meaning if anyone was talking about the man who abducted her, she missed out on that crucial
information.
And she decides to climb into his car.
They apparently argued at the motel shortly after the pair drove in Kenny's pickup truck
to a remote area beside Texas State Highway 6 near Waco.
Nobody would see her alive again.
Her body would be discovered, also in 1998.
Back to late October 1991, the police officers from the checkpoint that had almost been run
over would track Kenny down to his college campus.
One of the officers positively identified McDuff's red truck as the truck that ran
the roadblock October 10th.
They noticed that the windshield had been kicked out and shattered on the passenger side,
but the inside was very clean and had been washed out. A little bit suspicious.
These same officers positively identified Kenny as a driver. Two police officers then interviewed Kenny in his dorm room.
He admitted he knew Gina, but said he dropped her off after he finished his business with her.
And for some reason, they believed him.
And he would not be arrested for trying to run over the police.
What the fucking fuck?
You probably think I'm making half the shit up.
No, look this guy up.
There's no hairbrush in this guy's ass.
The Broomstock killer, very real.
There are way too many idiots in this episode.
I will never understand how those officers
did not bring him in.
This is insane.
Eight days later, October 28th, a separate WPD report asserts that the officers, the ones
who Macduff almost ran over, did not write an offense report for aggravated
assault against an officer because they didn't feel like they were in that much
fear for their lives. You know, they were able to jump out, you know.
He didn't come that close. He wasn't that good of a driver. Okay.
In early November, Kenny returns to the red pickup with a broken windshield to his dad, J.A.
who doesn't even bother to ask what happened
because almost no one is a normal person
with normal people reactions in this story.
Around the same time, Kenny comes into possession
of a 1985 Ford Thunderbird.
One of his sisters gave it to him.
Why?
Why give this piece of shit anything?
It was just what he was looking for. Mid-sized but powerful. Two doors and a spacious interior. Plus, passengers seated in the rear could not get out without the ones in the front seat moving
their chairs. They'd be trapped, which is what he wanted. As the Christmas holidays approached,
Kenny continued to roam the highways and back roads of central Texas. He had no job,
but he had money. Thanks to dealing a lot of meth now.
And I'm sure smoking a ton of meth as well as crack.
He spent much of Christmas Eve in 1991 with a woman from Bastrop, Texas named Angela.
The two spent time with his sister and nephew.
Did I mention that his nephew was now a major central Texas distributor of meth?
He was.
His family is fucking credible.
Nothing but champions.
Uh, now let's talk about Colleen Reed.
Colleen was born in the Evangeline Parish cheat of
Ville Platte, Louisiana, April of 1963.
She was the youngest in the Reed family.
Same week she graduated from kindergarten.
Her older sister, May graduated from high school and began
packing to go to college.
The ever observant Colleen began packing too, clutching her diploma and insisting she
had graduated and was going to college as well. She was adorable. And after she
finished sixth grade, Colleen's family moved further into the woods to a
picturesque area called Bayou Chico. She attended Bayou Chico High School until
the end of her sophomore year, then finished requirements for her diploma
through a dual enrollment program with Louisiana State University at UNIS. More than studying, she loved the outdoors.
She'd ride her shell and pony through the woods for hours, play in the trees, swing
from ropes, catch frogs. She had a wonderful childhood. Also had a gift for practical jokes,
a high-pitched laugh that annoyed her sisters, and a tendency for mischief, like the time
she threw a snake around her sister Lori's neck. She also had a wonderfully sunny disposition.
No matter what happened the day before, Colleen always woke up happy.
Lori, one of Colleen's older sisters, would graduate from high school
and head for Austin, Texas in December of 1978.
While still in high school, Lori visited and fell in love with the city.
They visited the Hill Country,
Barton Springs, the Highland Lakes, and Hiked Mount Bonnell.
Lori wanted Colleen to move out there, but Colleen wanted to marry her high school sweetheart,
Keith from Pine Prairie.
And she did so, but then their marriage only lasted about two years.
Colleen then finished her degree in accounting at LSU in Baton Rouge, taking her first job
in New Orleans.
But she didn't like it, and after years she accompanied her boyfriend, Jamil, to Austin,
where his work had transferred him.
They lived together there for about two years, then split up.
Starting fresh, Colleen moved in with Lori until she could get back on her feet.
The two sisters were just as close as they had been as kids.
Friends didn't know what to make of it when they would automatically sit down in the same
chair one on the other's lap.
Colleen helped Lori raise her two small sons while Lori focused on keeping their lives
together.
Paying the bills, making sure there was food in the house. They often treated their neighbors to authentic Cajun cooking.
During the summer of 1989 Colleen applied and got a job as an accountant for the Lower Colorado River Authority.
A job she started September 1st.
There she started a relationship with one of her supervisors, a guy named Oliver Guerrera.
They went out to restaurants and to
Esther's Follies, Austin's legendary comedy theater. They jogged, they hiked, they biked,
they golfed together, they went to church, and in May of 1991 they moved in together.
Then they broke it off in October. She moved into an apartment in the 1800 block of West Lake Drive
in an Austin suburb. The apartments were simple, but Colleen loved the view of the woods near
Bee Creek, reminded her of her childhood, run a wild with her sisters in the Boston suburb. The apartments were simple, but Colleen loved the view of the woods near Bee Creek, reminded
her of her childhood, running wild with her sisters in the woods.
She'd adopt a small cat during the first cold spell of 1991, naming it Minoo, Cajun slang
for cat.
At the same time, she was advancing professionally and had started to supervise people older
and more experienced than herself.
With her large dark brown eyes and big smile, she had a way of putting people at ease and
soothing over tense situations at L.C.R.A. By the fall of 91 Laurie was remarried.
Colleen was doing well for herself both of them leading independent lives but they were planning
to get together for Christmas. Colleen would drive up to Laurie's Round Rock residence in a new car
she purchased only a few months earlier a white 1991 Mazda Miata. On Christmas, Lori's boys washed the car with super soakers. They'd unwrapped that morning.
Lori and Colleen planned the boys' birthday parties for January, agreed to go to a Neville
Brothers concert in February. She's living a great life. End of Christmas day in 1991,
Lori says goodbye to her sister. On Saturday, December 28, she went into the office and then
rented a movie to take to her old flame Oliver's house They dinner watch the movie spent the night together or the next morning Colleen returned to LCRA
Volunteered to assist the emergency hotlines used by flood victims with her good friend. Joe Ellen. I just a solid person helping people
Before leaving the phone banks Colleen called Oliver at about 10 a.m
They agreed to attend the 1215 mass at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church.
Afterwards, they got together at a popular restaurant called Trudy's, then parted to
go to their respective houses to take naps.
Colleen especially felt she needed it.
She suspected she was coming out with a cold, wanted to snuggle up with her kitty Minu.
When she woke up, it was around 7 p.m.
That meant she only had a couple hours to do chores, like depositing a check from her
dad for $200.
Wearing her gold rimmed glasses, a white windbreaker and jeans, she got into her Miata and headed
downtown.
Meanwhile, around 7pm, Kenny McDuff picked up Hank Worley from Hank's sister's trailer.
Hank assumed the two of them were going to head to the University of Texas campus to
score some speed.
But before that, Kenny filled up the car at a love truck stop and drove out without paying
for gas. Oh classic Kenny
Then they made another pissed off for beer, but instead of the typical 12-pack McDuff only got a six-pack
That was weird Hank thought why did Kenny want to be sober?
Soon became apparent why by the time they reached round rock Kenny was talking about kidnapping a girl and quote using her up
This is gonna be another brutal description
girl and quote using her up.
This is going to be another brutal description.
Colleen, meanwhile, was at the bank, depositing her check.
Then she went to whole foods where she bought a gallon of milk and a bottle of vitamins.
Did you know the whole foods originated in Texas?
I did not.
First one opened in Austin fall of 1980.
Anyway, Colleen still had her last errand to wash her car.
She'd head to a self-service place at West fifth street or on West Fifth Street next to the Travis County Democratic Party headquarters and a piano bar. When she stepped out of her car to wash it she
noticed someone in a nearby car washing stall, Kenneth Allen McDuff. He began to
clear out the empty beer cans from the truck and when he looked up McDuff was
walking back with Colleen kicking and screaming as he restrained her. Dude just
fucking grabbed a woman in a car wash in the suburbs of Austin, Texas before
the sun went down.
Not me, not me, Colleen screamed.
You're going with me, Kenny replied.
Then he barked at Hank to get his ass in the car.
Hank, like Roy Dale Green before him, did as he was told.
Kenny ordered him to hold Colleen down in the back seat and Colleen began to cry.
The tan Thunderbird sped down the street, past families hanging out on their porches, who all noticed the car's flickering brake lights and
how it kept swerving into the wrong lane. One such family, two adult brothers and their sister and
partners, ran over to the car wash where they'd heard screams and saw the abandoned Miata and
immediately called the police. Meanwhile, the Thunderbird kept going. Eventually, Kenny had
Hank drive, climbed into the back seat where he started to rape Colleen. By the time they entered Mopac Street, Kenny had ordered Colleen to have anal sex.
Now Hank turns the car onto Ranch Road 620. Kenny now ordered Colleen to give him oral sex,
pushing himself into her so hard she couldn't breathe after roughly anally raping her.
By the time they reached Chisholm Trail and Round Rock, Colleen was fighting back. She scratched
Kenny in the eye, which led to him punching her.
He tied her hands behind her back with one of the laces from her tennis shoes.
Grabbing one of Hank's cigarettes, he lit it, pressed it between her legs, yelling at
her to act right as he literally burned her vagina.
This is why you kill motherfuckers like this in prison.
Just north of the suburb of Salado, McDuff now orders Hank to pull off at the Amity Road exit, where they change drivers.
Now Hank climbs into the backseat, also rapes Colleen.
Kenny meanwhile continues north. He was headed to Belton, where his parents lived.
He knew an abandoned road there bracketed by overgrown bushes, tall grass, and small trees.
The only people who lived around there were his parents, who he knew would not turn him in no matter what he did
They make it to this abandoned road where Kenny parks the car
Drags the now naked Colleen out of the car to rape her again on the hood of the Thunderbird
Before dragging her by the hair over to the bushes at that point Colleen bites him Kenny screams He's gonna kill her he pulls his hand all the way back hits her in the face
She falls backwards to the ground her head bounces off a rock before she comes to a rest and she's not moving.
Kenny puts out a cigarette on her.
Still not moving.
They now put Colleen's body in the trunk and drive away, back to Hank's sister's trailer
where Kenny asked to borrow a shovel.
Hank said they didn't have one.
But meanwhile, police are trying to cobble together what the fuck has happened to Colleen.
A monster that should have never ever been released happened to her.
This guy, like so many of the serial killers we have covered, is pure evil.
A monster in real life, just as bad as any horror movie demon.
Officers initially thought her old boyfriend Oliver might have something to do with it,
but it was quickly established that he didn't.
Police knew that the likelihood was highest that she had been kidnapped to be sexually
assaulted, which meant that the first 24 hours would be the likeliest time frame for finding
her alive.
But then those 24 hours came and went. Nothing. Very quickly all the leads dried up.
All anyone had to go on was a cream-colored thunderbird.
Three days after Collin was raped and murdered, on New Year's Eve 1991 at a family party,
Hank Wirly gets very, very drunk, asks his family members what they would do
if they saw a girl being beaten up or mistreated.
When asked why, you know, he tells them, or when they asked why and told him he should
definitely help, Hank asked, yeah, but what if he couldn't? What if he'd get killed in the process?
They said that they would obviously then go to the police. And then the conversation abruptly
ended when other guests arrived and Hank never brought it up again. Also at this time Hank starts to grow a beard to change his appearance.
A few weeks later, January of 1992, Kenny would plead guilty to that DUI. Remember that?
Punishment was assessed at a $500 fine plus court costs of $202 and 90 days confinement in the county jail.
Which he would not serve. Plus a two-year suspended sentence.
This is also maddening. Instead of going to jail, Kenny just goes back serve, plus a two-year suspended sentence. This is also
maddening. Instead of going to jail, Kenny just goes back to school. Oh hell
yeah! February 24th, a student at the Texas State Technical Institute in Waco
named Keith gets woken up by a young thin black woman knocking on his window.
When she sees who it is, she apologizes, says she's looking for the person next
door, Kenneth Allen McDuff. Her name was Valencia K. Joshua,
though she often went by K.
She attended but dropped out
of Arlington Heights High School,
soon turned to sex work.
She was 22, though she looked younger.
Nobody would see her alive after that day.
That same day, Kenny was picked up by police officers
on charges of public intoxication now.
He was put in jail for the night,
released by six o'clock the following morning.
While in jail, officers noticed he released by six o'clock the following morning.
While in jail, officers noticed he had a nasty cut under his eye, but didn't seem to really
question him about it.
Free now, Kenneth would go get some work done on his Thunderbird.
Oh yeah, yeah, he's still driving it.
Why not?
It's not like people are looking for it.
It's not like he just raped some poor woman that he murdered in it.
A couple days later, he'd later stop by the Quick Park number 8 to get some gas and possibly
to see if a quote good-looking
woman he liked was there.
She wasn't.
Her name was Melissa Northrup and she was 22, had two young children and a husband Aaron.
She was working on getting her life together. The family would soon move into married students housing at Kenny's student, Kenny's school, TSTI.
She was pregnant with the couple's third child, two and a half months.
She was working with the couple's third child, two and a half months. She was working the graveyard shift the night of February 29th into March 1st, which Erin
didn't like because it wasn't a good neighborhood.
A narrow unincorporated strip between Waco and Robinson.
But she felt like she had no choice.
She had to make money for her family.
To protect her, Erin would stop by the store from one in the morning to 1.30 this night,
but then Melissa told him to go home and get some sleep.
They talked a little on the phone at two, then Melissa calls him again at 4,
but he's cranky and hangs up on her. He feels bad about that, calls her back just a few minutes later,
but there's no answer. Around that time was probably when Kenneth Allen McDuff showed back up.
He'd just been rejected from a job, had to put $800 into maintenance on the Thunderbird,
and was high as fuck on crack. Very bad combination.
He was trying to start his car repeatedly a few feet from the convenience store, which got him noticed by a passerby. The passerby offered help. Kenneth waved him away. Sounds like
Ken. Later, police assumed that Melissa had already been kidnapped at the time of that
interaction. After that encounter, Ken has fled, getting into Melissa's Buick and driving away
from central Texas entirely. Meanwhile, by 4.30, Aaron knew something was wrong.
He hopped into his car, sped to the convenience store, where there was nobody behind the counter.
The register was also empty.
The only thing there was Melissa's purse and a notepad full of baby names.
Man, what a terrible feeling he must have had in his stomach.
4.47 a.m. he calls the police.
By that time, Kenny was already speeding away. Melissa was with him.
He drove her to an area near a small community called Combine, an area where the county roads were narrow, bordered by vast tracts of farmland.
Turning on to an unmarked path called James Road, he marched her about two miles to a flooded gravel pit.
He raped her, strangled her, and tossed her body into the pit.
Then somehow, as he had abandoned the Buick, he
was able to flee Texas entirely. March 3, 1992, his mom, Addie, phones the Bell County Sheriff's
Office to report a missing person, her son, Kenneth. Officers immediately started to celebrate.
Woo! He's fucking dead, boys! That dumb white trash bitch is hot as shit on a stick! Son
is dead! Both those twin shit stains are now dead praise God fuck the McDuffs fuck that
whole family no they didn't do that not while she was still in the line at least
now thanks to Satan's matriarch unintentionally on her part information
about Kenneth his looks history where he liked to go and work is circulated all
over Texas but soon it becomes obvious to detectives that Kenneth is missing by choice
and possibly Addie is helping him.
Addie seemed convinced that someone had killed him,
if only, and officers found that assumption odd
since most people do not immediately assume
their child is dead,
especially when that child is a full grown man.
Police at the McClennan County Sheriff's Office
also discovered the deserted tan Thunderbird
running the plates led to Kenneth McDuff and his lengthy criminal history. They also established a connection to Melissa Northrup
who had been taken from the convenience store just blocks away. In the car, Kenny's driver's
license, a Goodyear tire protection plan, got to make sure you got that warranty, a run over cowboy
hat, the test deposit for blood, and a receipt for gas at the Quick Pick on February 29th was found. The beige seats in the back had blood stains and there were clumps of human
hair in the trunk. March 6th, Melissa's Buick was discovered on James Road. The
driver's seat was pushed all the way back and Melissa was only 4'11", which meant
someone else drove it there. Kenny, obviously. March 8th, Addie would once
again insist to detectives that MacDuff was dead. They're not buying it. They
thought she was trying to get them to not look for her son.
Because she is the fucking worst.
Well, he's the worst, but she's close.
March 9th, parole officers issued an emergency arrest warrant for Kenneth McDuff.
He is wanted for violating his parole.
At the same time, Steen picks up with the Colin Reed case her sisters spearheaded an
effort to get America's most wanted and unsolved mysteries to air specials on the abduction. Good for them
March 10th lieutenant Truman Simons of the McLennan PD connected the Thunderbird to the car witnessed in Colleen's abduction
Witnesses told police of a second person in the car a
Hispanic or dark complexion white male the police initially had no idea who that could be
The next day to Texas would visit Addie again this time they discovered the GMC pickup truck with the new windshield. Addy admitted that Kenneth had borrowed
it. Returned it with the windshield shattered. Authorities now connect County to Brenda Thompson.
Now to Texas, we put together a formidable task force to track down the man they were positive
was a serial killer. Lawmen from several county and local police departments, agents from the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Drug Enforcement Agency, Texas Rangers, an investigator from
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, and about two dozen federal marshals were
involved.
Parnell McNamara, that US Marshal who was friends with Larry Pamplin, along with his
brother and fellow Marshal Mike McNamara, would spearhead the effort.
And as they canvassed the old homes and hideouts of Kenny's associates in the Texas underworld,
often working 18-hour days, they soon found something shocking.
Kenneth McDuff had a daughter.
The woman that he raped and left for dead in 1964, the woman he had told Lonnie about,
was real.
That wasn't just him talking shit.
And she had not only survived, she had his baby.
Poor woman.
Their daughter, Teresa, was 21 when she learned that
her real father was convicted killer Kenneth McDuff. Teresa told the Marshals that she visited Kenny
in prison and became fascinated with him. He tried to persuade her to smuggle drugs into prison. Of
course he did! Who are these people? Why would you want to befriend your mom's rapist even if he's
your dad? These two kept in touch. After his parole, Kenny offered to take her
to Las Vegas to be her pimp. Of course he did. Of course he wanted to pimp out his own daughter.
My god. A daughter he only had because he raped her mom. She also told Marshals that McDuff's
family had paid $25,000 to a former member of the parole board to secure his release from prison in
1989, which would never be confirmed, but I believe it. Soon disenchanted with the man she once found fascinating, the man who raped and impregnated
her mother and left her for dead after cutting her throat, Teresa moved out of state as far from
Kenneth Macduff as possible. And now nobody, not even Teresa, seemed to know where he was.
Or maybe they were too loyal or frightened to give him up. There was, however, that person who
had been with Macduff during the Colleen Reed abduction.
Who was he?
Determined, the McNamaras began running through a list of Macduff's buddies, looking for
someone who fit a description of a tanned white male.
They stopped the name of Hank Worley.
Not only did he fit the description, he was a textbook example of the kind of weak-willed
sidekick Kenny liked to have around.
Perhaps like Roy Dale Green, he'd be willing to talk.
They tracked him down to Bloom's Motel, but Hank claimed not to know anything.
Over the next few weeks, the marshals and the deputy kept dropping by Bloom's
Hotel at odd hours, or motel, over and over, always taken worldly by surprise,
what the lawman called driving a suspect up. Meanwhile, Valencia K. Joshua's body
was discovered March 15th on a golf course near Kenny's alma mater, TSTI.
Yeah, it was March 15th, 1992.
And then the police finally get somewhere with Hank Worley.
On their fifth visit, several marshals find Worley barbecuing, drinking some beer with some buddies.
Over Worley's shoulder, Mike McNamara could see Worley's young daughter.
And he kept his eyes on her as he began his speech.
Hank, you're hiding a kid killer. You know that.
You're protecting a man who raped and brutalized and strangled a girl not much older than your daughter over there.
Picture her on the ground, a broomstick across her throat, crying out to you for help,
begging you to speak out, to do what's right, to save the life of some other young girl.
And that did it. That broke him.
Hail those officers.
Hail the McNamers.
Now, Worley would confess everything.
Worley's statement was then released to the media, giving the
Kenneth Macduff task force what it needed most national attention.
On May 1st, America's Most Wanted featured the search for
Kenneth Macduff generating 50 tips.
Three days later, Kansas City, Missouri, in Kansas City, Missouri,
police receive a call from a viewer named
Gary Smithy, who suddenly realized that a womanizing garbage truck worker known as Richard
Fowler was in fact a killer from Texas named Kenneth McDuff.
Of course, he chose Dick as an alias.
Dick Fowler.
He did have a foul dick.
A foul, evil dick hiding behind a big old stud of Texas ground bay nuts.
A comparison of the fingerprints taken from Fowler to those McDuff showed they were in
fact identical.
A few hours later, a surveillance team of six officers arrests Kenny Fowldick as he
drives to a landfill south of Kansas City.
Parnell McNamara, Mike McNamara, and Larry Pamplin now get to arrest the man who had
eluded them for so long.
Hail Nimrod and hail America's Most Wanted.
Man that show put so many fucking scumbags back behind bars.
But some questions remained.
Where were the bodies, particularly of Melissa and Colleen?
And would he somehow escape justice again?
McDuff was indicted on one count of capital murder right away for the killing of Melissa
Northrup in McClennan County, Texas, June 26, 1992. The killing the state had the most evidence on and a murder that could finally put
him back on death row. Like before, his defense hinged on one thing that it was his little buddy,
Hank Whirly, not him, who abducted and murdered Colleen Reed. Nobody fucking bought it and he
was found guilty. Then on February 18th, 1993, the jury in a special punishment hearing quickly, easily
opted to sentence him to death.
Then at yet another trial in 1994, Macduff would be found guilty of the capital murder,
aggravated sexual assault, and aggravated kidnapping in the disappearance of Colleen
Reed.
He pleaded innocent, laying the blame, of course, on Hank Worley.
Chris Gunter, yeah, at least Hank was actually with him for that rape and murder.
Chris Gunter, Macduff's lead attorney, said Whirly was trying to pin the crime on Macduff to save
himself. He said Whirly gave at least five different statements to police, lied on the
witness stand when he told the jury he did not make a deal with prosecutors for better treatment
in exchange for testimony. How in God's name can you convict a man of capital murder based on the testimony of a liar? Gunter said. But again, nobody bought it. Kenneth Macduff finally, all out of luck,
receives a second death sentence. Lori Bible, calling sisters, said in a statement,
I can't imagine anyone in this country who deserves to die more than Kenneth Macduff.
Amen, Lori Bible. Also, there's been a lot of odd names in this
episode, right? Lori is literally Mrs. Bible. I didn't know Bible was ever a
last name. Or if I did, I forgot. In 1996, it was reported that now 50-year-old
Kenneth Allen McDuff, awaiting his execution date on death row, was
suffering from liver disease. Oh man, poor guy. While many rejoiced at the idea of
him soon meeting a hopefully painful end, there were
still some unanswered questions.
How many women did he kill?
Where are the bodies?
And who, if anyone, did he bribe to get out of prison after murdering three teens 30 years
ago?
He would give some interviews from death row, but they would mostly just add to the confusion.
He insisted, still, that Roy Dale Green lied about the 1966 broomstick murders.
And he denied published reports that
his daughter Teresa was the child of a woman he raped and left for dead in 1964 or that
he tried to persuade her to smuggle drugs into prison or become a Las Vegas prostitute
that he would pimp.
He also denied Teresa's claim that his family paid a $25,000 bribe to a former parole board
member to gain freedom in 1989.
He's innocent of everything.
It's a conspiracy. At worst, he said,
the 1995 liaison with Teresa's mother was date rape. Okay, wait, not 1965, not 95. Mostly during
these interviews, Kenneth did not seem to care about much at all. I consider myself dead,
Macduff said with a shrug. I'm just waiting to be buried. But he said he might want to avoid the
bitterness and formalities of an execution.
Following a number of delays while appeals were heard, the Western District Court denied
habeas corpus relief and rescheduled the execution date for November 17, 1998.
And then, in one of the only kind of nice, I guess, things he ever did, he gave up calling
Reed's burial location a few weeks before his execution.
Authorities found Reed's skeleton buried along the Brazos River, south of Waco, unearthed
nearby with the remains of two other women, also believed to be Macduff victims.
It is unclear from sources if they were the ones we have covered here or different victims.
Following this disclosure, his execution date finally comes.
His last meal, according to Death Row chef Brian Price, was supposed to be a steak, but
they did not give it to him
They gave him a hamburger fashioned to kind of look like a steak. I love it I hope they overcooked it and spit on it and maybe took a shit on it
Laurie Bible had the opportunity to attend the execution but gave her spot to Mike McNamara
Kenneth McDuff now 52 selected two nieces and two nephews along with his spiritual advisor. He has a spiritual advisor now.
That's awesome. To watch him die. Why would he want his nieces and nephews to see this shit?
Oh, you know what? I remember now. He's a demon, not a normal human being.
His last statement was, I'm ready to be released. Release me. Creepy. Sounds like something Dick
Bird would say. McTuff died November 17th and was buried in the Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery, also known as Pecker Wood Hill in Huntsville, Texas.
Prisoners buried there are those whose family chose not to claim their remains.
I guess Mama was finally done with him.
His headstone contains only his date of execution, 11-1798, an X, meaning he was executed by the state of Texas, and
his death row inmate number of 999-055.
He is now remembered as perhaps the Texas prison system's biggest failure.
Although hundreds of other dangerous criminals released also committed heinous crimes, the
Macduff debacle galvanized public opinion to make sure this would never happen again,
like no other case.
In response, the Texas legislature passed sweeping reforms and citizens overwhelmingly
voted for a billion dollar bond to finance more prisons.
The result was dramatic.
The prison system expanded from 38,000 beds to 140,000 beds, mostly due to outrage over
this piece of shit's case.
Getting early releases due to good behavior was significantly reformed and reduced.
Minimum parole eligibility doubled for violent offenders.
The pace of executions picked up and Texas began to execute more killers than any other
state.
Had all these reforms been in effect back in 1966, Kenneth McDuff's case would have
turned out very differently.
He would have almost certainly been executed.
And if he somehow was able to avoid execution, his life sentence for capital murder would
have required him to serve at least 40 calendar years rather than the 10 he
served before the parole board was even able to reconsider him or consider him.
Finally when his time came he would not have been considered by a three-member
panel of the board. The full 18 member parole board much harder to bribe would
have reviewed his case and he would have needed 12 votes and before they could
vote the board would have had to have listed,
uh, or listened to any presentation the victims' loved ones wanted to make for them.
Had all of that happened, Colleen Reed, Melissa Northrup,
uh, up to seven other women, would still be alive today.
Or at least, would not have been killed by Kenny MacDuff.
At least their deaths, you know, have, uh, saved an untold amount of other women
from suffering similar fates, thanks to changes in legislation and some parole reform. Now let's get out of this
bonkers maybe crazier than Dick Bird story timeline.
Good job soldier you've made it back barely.
The broomstick killer Kenny Macduff. A man who went down in history is one of the Texas
prison system's biggest failures and for good reason.
Born March 21st, 1946, Kenny would truly be a menace to society for essentially his entire
life.
He stole from his mom's customers at the laundromat when he was a little boy, started bullying
kids in grade school and junior high, dropped out in ninth grade, smashed shit up all over town, did God knows how much shit he never got caught for.
Eight months after he was paroled for a string of robberies he committed at the age of 18,
McDuff went on one of his periodic rampages and killed three teens in 1966.
After committing the broomstick murders with accomplice Roy Dale Green,
Kenneth was given death sentence put behind bars
But then his death sentence will become life in prison and then life in prison would become just 23 years on
The day McDuff was let out of prison and was told to report to a parole officer in temple where his parents had moved
Sheriff Larry Pamplin made a prediction but Duff would kill again and soon and man was he right
But Duff would kill again and soon and man was he right
Within 24 48 hours after that prediction the naked body of 29 year old
Sarafia Parker was discovered in a field of weeds in Southeast Temple beaten and strangled
Then he would murder sex worker Brenda Thompson blasting through a police checkpoint on his way out of town
Those police would track him down, but somehow never arrest him
Why? The guy had way too much luck on his side way too
many times. He wouldn't be arrested until after his abduction, rape, and murder of
Melissa Northrup. He'd abandoned his own car, a tan Thunderbird, which would lead
police to Macduff and also link him to the calling Reed abduction and then he
would disappear. And Mama seemed to help him in that regard calling the police to
throw them off his trail. A nationwide manhunt and an appearance on America's
Most Wanted, however, would finally catch up with him. In the end, thankfully, McDuff was executed at the age of 52. Too late, but better than not at all.
This episode opens up some interesting questions about how we deal with murderers.
Should they ever get parole? Are life sentences effective if they don't include the caveat that they are never eligible ever for parole?
Should the death penalty be used more frequently?
Not as a punishment, but instead to ensure
people from re-entering society as a protective measure?
What if laws change again in the future
and some idealist decides to release more death row inmates?
Is that a risk worth taking?
Society is tough.
A lot of the time the system does get it right.
So many police officers, judges, parole boards, politicians, etc. do actually work hard to keep us
all safe. I'm not gonna deny that. But when they get it wrong, as in the case of
Kenny McDuff, holy shit can it go really wrong. So what do you think? If you were
firmly anti-death penalty before this episode, are you maybe at least in favor
of it some of the time now? In cases like Kenny McMutant nuts? If you're not, can we at least all agree that it's a really
good thing that he's dead? If not, can we at least agree that it would be awesome
if the law offices of A. Cockenbutts really existed? Time for today's
takeaways.
Time Shuck Top 5 Takeaways
Number 1. Kenneth McDuff killed somewhere between 9 and 14 people, those are the estimated totals by law enforcement, beginning in 1966 with the broomstick murders of three teenagers.
He'd be sent to prison, serve nearly 23 years, then via some complicated shit going on with the Supreme Court and Texas prisons at the time, managed to get parole in 1989. After which he would murder again pretty much immediately. In the day or two following his parole and rape and kill several more women before being
caught for the last time.
Number two, in his most high-profile cases, McDuff did not act alone. He preferred accomplices who were demure,
nervous, excited to be around someone bigger and stronger, could be easily manipulated.
People like the teenage Roy Roy Dale Green, who
helped with the Broomstick murders, and Hank Worley, who aided in the abduction and murder
of Colleen Reed. Both of these men would eventually be the key to Macduff's two biggest arrests.
Number three, the Texas prisons really were fucked up in the 1980s and early 1990s.
And it was mostly due to the combination of a decision of just judge justice who ruled that the prisons were too overcrowded to be considered humane.
But with Texas not wanting to raise taxes, that meant that the newer, bigger prisons wouldn't be constructed to house the inmates.
The answer was then parole. Lots and lots of parole. And for McDuff, that meant more murder.
Number four, when we look at who was responsible for the rapes and murders we went over today, aside from Kenny McDuff and his accomplices, of course, his biggest accomplice of all was
perhaps his mom, Addie.
Addie really coddled him as a young boy to a gross, irresponsible degree, may have bribed
officials to get him out of prison, and most likely tried to help him evade justice by
filing a missing persons report.
The pistol pack and mama stuck by her son through murder and bloodshed, but then strangely would not claim his remains
Did she have a change of heart?
She was still alive. She wouldn't die until 2003 five years after his execution at the age of 87
Also, fuck Kenny's dad. J. A. He could have at any point stood up to addy and been a better parent
But he didn't and that's bullshit, too
Number five new info a little more
info about Peckerwood Peckerwood Hill aka Joe Bird Hill where MacDuff was
buried kind of an interesting story of course it has an interesting story with
the name like Peckerwood in the 1850s some officials from the Texas prison
system had accidentally buried prisoners on a on the on a wrong plot of land
Texan prison officials not exactly shining in this episode,
the owners of that plot donated the land to the state
so it could be used as a burial ground.
The cemetery's current name derives from Joe Bird,
no relation to Dick Bird as far as I'm aware.
An assistant warden and executioner at the Huntsville unit
who in the 1960s helped restore and clean the cemetery
and was known for the dignity and respect he gave
to those prisoners he worked with even though he killed.
But his other name, Peckerwood Hill, comes from the racial epithet, Peckerwood, meaning
poor white people because many of those buried at the cemetery were poor and white.
You may remember me saying that word a lot in the lynching of Emmett Tilsuk, episode
360.
According to a quick word search of my notes, I said it at least 37 times that day. Peckerwood. Pretty fun to say. Peckerwood Hill, also the final
home for at least two other serial killers, Derek O'Brien and Elroy Chester.
Ironically, both of them are black. Two black serial killers buried amidst a
whole heap of white trash Peckerwoods. One last bit of strange trivia from
today's Strange-Ass episode.
Time Shuck! Top 5 Takeaways!
Candace McDuff the broomstick killer has been sucked. Thank you to the Bad Magic
Productions team for the help in making Time Suck such as Queen of Bad Magic
Lindsay Cummins running operations around here. Logan Keith recording this
episode designing merch for the store at BadMagicProductions.com. Thank you to Sophie Evans for doing a fantastic job
in providing the initial research this week. Also thanks to the
Allseeneyes moderating the cult of the curious private Facebook page. The
Mod Squad making sure Discord keeps running smooth. And everyone over on the
Time Sucks subreddit and BadMagic subreddit. And now for today's updates.
First up, a Cocoa Correction! Coming in from Cocoa expert Patrick North, Rewarding our recent August Engelhart and the Coconut Cult episode,
Who wrote in with the subject line of... Cocoa Correction. Hey Dan, I used some of the offhand stuff you mentioned as inspiration for a weekly bar trivia game I run.
British Bulldog Pub in Columbia, South Carolina.
In the recent Coconut Suck, you said that according to some Australian source,
150 people are killed by coconuts every year.
That's apparently bullshit.
Based on some numbers, a shark researcher pulled out of his ass to make room for a hairbrush no doubt,
and I just thought you'd want to know. From what I could gather, it's pretty rare but not unheard of.
It even has its own Wikipedia page, Death by Coconut, though.
And then Patrick left a link for Snopes, the fact check site.
Well Patrick, thank you for this correction. Yeah, since I found it on an Australian government site,
in addition to many other sites, I thought it was weird but legit.
Thanks for checking Snopes.com for me.
Per Snopes, we rank this as unproven because accurate published estimates on the global
annual rate of death from falling coconuts do not exist.
Given the dearth of first-hand accounts of deaths from falling coconuts, however,
it seems unlikely that they pose more of a threat to human health than sharks do,
even if death from either event is extremely unlikely.
Also from Snopes, falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number
of fatalities attributable to sharks, was said by George Burgess, director of the University
of Florida's International Shark Attack File and a noted shark researcher.
Investigating the specific claim, syndicated skeptic column The Straight Dope reached out
to Burgess in 2002 to ask what source he had for that stat, and discovered that ultimately
it came from a British travel insurance firm named Club Direct.
According to that firm, they got their information from a 1984 study from the Journal of Trauma
titled Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts.
However, that study talked about theoretical deaths
based on how many coconuts fall from trees every year
and how many people could possibly be killed
at the heat you just right.
From a number of fatalities standpoint,
however, the data did not actually directly identify
a single fatality, though it did anecdotally report one death.
Okay, I thought the number was high,
but again, it showed up on so many seemingly credible sites. I was like, okay, good detective work, Patrick.
The Bulldog Pub in Charleston, South Carolina is very lucky to have your
sharp mind running trivia. Hail Memron. Next up is a message from Dirty Pervert
and Lusophina's slave, Jamison Longwell, who wrote in with the subject line of
cages and chastity and kinks oh my
to clear up my cock cage confusion i spoke about in the coconut cult suck damn it dan i always wanted to write him but this was not how i pictured my first time being been listening since 2020 and
binge through the catalog and now impatiently wait each new episode the only time i put off an episode
was the duggars since that subject always brings up plenty of trauma. Anyway down to down to stainless steel and or plastic tacks I don't know maybe the make
of in brass too. While it's not my personal kink I happen to be pretty well versed in BDSM
and most kinks. It's like adding a baseball card to your bike tire or a fun little horn to enhance
the riding experience. Well played. Anyway the reason for riding cock cages or male chastity
is used a lot of times on submissive or sub males to drive up their desire over short or long periods of time
to make them more submissive and sometimes for humiliation aspects.
They usually size them to the exact size or smaller than the wearer's flaccid joystick
to cause discomfort and make it much more intense.
This locked by the key holder.
Anyway, hope that fulfills your curiosity. and make it much more intense. Then it's locked by the key holder. Anyway hope
that fulfills your curiosity. If not there's lots of porn for anything you
can imagine out there. I'm surprised that someone who went down the pony play
rabbit hole didn't come, you get it, across chastity while doing the sex suck.
Anyway sorry not sorry for the long email. Two out of five stars hail Nimrod
and all the other things people say. Well they say three but that's fine if
you want to give us one less star even. If you want to check
out my band a life worth taking this podcast inspired the logo. The new music
coming out soon is much better than what we have on streaming services. Thanks for
helping me learn how to think more critically in opening my world up and
opening up my worldview more. Well thank you Jay. Thanks for the cock knowledge
the cock the cock-a-ledge the cock-ledge. The cock-ledge.
I appreciate it.
Logan actually showed me a picture of a male chastity cage right after that episode.
And yeah, it looks horrific.
I mean, it makes you happy.
And it doesn't put you in a hospital have at it.
But it made my dick wince and whimper to just look at that medieval torture device looking
thing.
And I think maybe I have seen them before.
There's just so much weird shit
I've gone over the past seven plus years.
It's hard to track in my head now.
Also, best of luck with A Life Worth Taking.
A very cool name.
I can see the logo, influence.
Your stuff looks awesome and sounds great, man.
Keep it going.
And now a cool Mormon Manson update
from one of Ervil's relatives
and someone whose grandfather was murdered
at Ervil's command. Very intense.
A man who did include his name but I will keep him anonymous just to prevent any possible blowback.
And he wrote in with the subject line of, I am from LeBaron. 395 Ervil LeBaron Update. Hey Dan,
I've been listening to Time Sucks in 2019. I'm a huge fan. I love to listen to Scared to Death as
well. Just writing to tell you that I was raised in LeBaron. I am a LeBaron from my mother's side. She's my grandpa Joel LeBaron's youngest daughter.
My mom was just a baby when he was murdered by Ervil. So obviously I never knew him.
My mom never fell into the polygamous practices because she married a man from Mexico who did
not believe in it, my dad. But I have three uncles who have two and three wives. Growing up it felt normal.
But I seldom like to share about where I am from to anyone because I understand how strange it might
seem to others. My direct family is small, though I have many, many cousins due to polygamy. I grew
up there as a kid, still like to go down there every so often to visit. I now live in Montana
and am working in construction. Due to its terrible history, Lebaron might come across as a terrible place that any sane
person would want to escape from.
But believe it or not, Lebaron is full of wholesome and righteous people there today.
I think a lot of origin stories have dark and terrible beginnings, some worse than others.
And after listening to that episode, I have no doubt that Lebaron is among the worst.
But the old ways are slowly dying and the younger crowd, about 40 years on down, are
staying away from the polygamist beliefs apart from a very small few.
I'm not old enough to understand how bad it might have been when I was younger, but
I can assure you that the women down there have their own free choice to marry who they
want to marry, have the right to divorce if they're unhappy just like normal traditional
beliefs.
I have an uncle who had three wives, all three with different homes to raise their kids in.
Very nice and modern homes.
Two divorced him and happily live in those homes still.
I do not believe in polygamy.
In fact, I'm strongly against it along with many others from there.
The church of the first born is still active there.
That's fucking wild.
But the leaders are righteous and kindhearted people.
I grew up believing that my grandpa Joel was a prophet of God and
we were his chosen people.
Everyone in Lebaron who believes that also believes that evil Lebaron, Ervil Lebaron, was a wicked and evil man. I
never understood what a cult really was. But after listening to hours and hours of your
podcast I 100% believe that Lebaron originated as a cult. And my goodness it
was bad. I'm happy to say that Lebaron is not the place anymore like that. I never
grew up in a place like that. I grew up in a ranch town filled with friends and
family who have high standards, good morals. Again I don grew up in a place like that. I grew up in a ranch town filled with friends and family who have high standards, good morals.
Again, I don't believe in polygamy.
I do not believe that my grandpa was a prophet
or that we are God's chosen people, LOL.
But I'm glad to have been raised in an environment
that was family oriented.
And LeBaron holds a place for me
where I can always return and relive the great memories
that I have growing up there.
No one in LeBaron is being held there.
No one's trying to flee.
It's a nice place.
Anyone's free to do and believe as they please. I don't hold the LeBaron name because it's my mom's
side, but it is where I'm from. Sorry for the long email. Again, I love your podcast. Keeps me
entertained during long days at work and it keeps me informed. Great stuff. Wouldn't change a thing.
Three out of five stars. Time sucker out. Well, Mr. Anonymous, yeah, thank you for sending in this
message. Glad to hear that things have gotten a lot better in LeBaron.
What a very unique place to grow up.
I agree that oftentimes, yeah, something that starts off as something terrible, something
really bad, you know, can end up leading to a lot of good.
Just because LeBaron was terrible, that doesn't mean that all the people who followed him
or followed his brother or your grandpa were also terrible.
Good people find themselves inside terrible belief systems all the time.
I mean, look at our own nation. A lot of good has come out of America like defeating the Nazis in World War II,
just for one example,
despite many of our initial colonizers and many generations of people following those first colonizers treating indigenous people atrociously despite enslaving
fellow human beings, treating them terribly on top of slavery itself being terrible, indentured servitude, witch hunts, Jim Crow bullshit, birth of the KKK,
you know, all sorts of horrible shit has occurred here.
But I do believe that while horrible decisions continue to be made
and horrible actions continue to be taken,
we're a powerful nation of over 300 million people.
Of course, we're not going to collectively, you know, be near perfect.
But a lot of us today, you know, we have evolved a lot from our beginnings.
A lot of us are good, hardworking, caring, compassionate people.
And I think the same, you know, can be said for probably most nations in the world.
No place is perfect. No nation, no community, no religion, no commune.
But good can be found almost anywhere.
And I'm glad that it sounds like more good than bad is found today in LeBaron.
And finally, just a nice message from a sweet sucker, Haley Arrington, who wrote in with the subject line of just a long time fan finally coming out of my cage.
Hayley writes, hello suck master Dan. My name is Hayley I'm a long time fan like a
really long fan. Excuse me like a really long time as opposed to like a really
stretched out person. I first heard your stand-up on Pandora somewhere around 2014
while working my first job as a dry at a dry cleaner. I was 16 at the time and your bits got me through many monotonous hours of sorting clothes,
stapling tags, trying not to forget my alphabet while hanging bags.
God I cannot read it.
Naturally it was during one of these hours that I heard your first ad for Time Suck.
I began listening immediately and ended up listening throughout my
throughout earning my bachelor's in psychology and up to now,
as I'm preparing to graduate with a doctorate in occupational therapy in December. Hopefully after that,
I'll get a big girl job and earn a big girl paycheck so I can become an
official spacer. That is awesome.
I won't lie and say I've listened to every single episode since then,
but I was around for the birth of Nimrod, Bojangles, Lusifena, Willie,
Willie, uh, chicken Joe, so many other favorites.
I have nothing profound to say.
I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts I've had for a long time.
One, thank you for giving me something to feel like I was part of years before I started playing D&D.
The only other place I've ever felt safe having the interests, curiosities, and ideas that I do.
You've kept me laughing through times I didn't think I could and kept me thinking in ways I never imagined.
Two, I know it probably doesn't mean much of anything coming from some stranger behind
an email, but I'm so fucking proud of you and everything you've done since episode one.
You've brought so many people together, created so many opportunities, and helped so many
people find and feel confident in themselves and their power to be a force in this insane
world of ours.
I remember hearing you during those first few episodes say that all you were hoping
to do was connect people and connect with people
You've done it Dan and finally
I hope you're very pleased with yourself you motherfucker for your April fools prank
You managed to fool an og listener who's been putting up with your bullshit for seven fucking years
I nearly spit out my food when you made the reveal
Simultaneously so angry myself and be grudgingly impressed with you fuck you fuck your Fuck your family. Hail Nimrod. Haley. OTS.
PS years ago while completing the general art class for my bachelor's degree,
I chose Nimrod as a subject for a printmaking assignment.
Behold the attached photo.
Yes, it is reversed from how it was carved because I'm a dumbass.
Haley, your reversed Nimrod looks awesome.
And congrats on such a huge accomplishment.
It's surreal for me to get this message since I once dreamed of getting my own doctorate
in psychology.
Well, that will likely never happen now, but you never know.
I am so happy to have been along for your right.
Regarding your second point, you are wrong.
It does mean a lot to hear what a stranger has emailed me.
It's easy to get lost in the weeds in the weekly grind of content year after year and
forget why you started doing this.
I am proud that if it all went away today in this increasingly polarized culture of
ours I was able to at least bring some people together.
I was able to get some people to look at things a little differently and entertain some new
ideas and it does feel good.
As I feel a little less burnout every week this year and my batteries are recharging, I'm starting to feel like I did during the beginning of
all this. I'm inspired to use my words carefully and do more to try and help us
all see that the overwhelming majority of us are more like than we are
different. That life is not about a racial experience defined by skin color
or a cultural experience defined by state borders or a sexual or gender
preference experience as much as
it is about a human experience.
It's about the universal human search for meaning, companionship, inclusion, self-worth
and security.
I hope you are able to help so many people with physical, sensory and cognitive problems
gain or regain their independence and find more meaning and fulfillment in their lives.
Hail Nimrod, hail Lusifena, They're both watching you and they are very pleased.
Thank you for the messages.
Thanks, Time Suckers. I needed that. We all did.
Thanks for listening to another Bad Magic Podcast,
Productions Podcast this week.
Scared to death, Time Suck every week, Short Sucks and Nightmare Fuel on the Time Suck
and Scared to Death podcast feed some weeks.
Please don't kill three teenagers this week and then go to prison.
But then get out of prison and then kill a lot more people.
Just don't kill anyone unless they really deserve it and keep on sucking. I was stumbling a little more on some words this week.
Allergies here are pretty intense right now.
And also my sinus system is draining differently.
I had the most ridiculous thing happen last week. I went to the ER. I'm fine
But I haven't been the best about cleaning
I was never taught as a kid to properly clean inside my ears
Correctly, and then I Q tips the way they would feel just made me like feel nervous like I was gonna puncture my eardrum
So not good. Well, anyway, I finally, actually Logan told me to squeeze this stuff you can get for your
ears into your ear canals and it'll break up your particles and then you squish it out
and it does.
But if you've had impacted like earwax for years building up in there, it just can make
it worse.
And so what happened last week is I put this stuff in one ear and then immediately lost
about 60% of my hearing and then couldn't get
my ear to open up and okay I was like fuck maybe it'll open up soon put it in
the other ear lost about 60 70% of the hearing of that ear and then spent the
rest of the night just kind of freaking out trying to get like you know jumping
up and down on one foot putting swimmers ear drops in my ear using q-tips trying
to like open it up somehow squirting water in there everything I did just
seemed to keep making it worse so then I took a gummy trying to like open it up somehow, squirting water in there. Everything I did just seemed to keep making it worse.
So then I took a gummy, tried to knock myself out, uh,
fell asleep for a couple of hours, woke up in the middle of the night,
feeling like kind of dizzy from my equilibrium being fucked up because of my
ears. And finally I was like, okay, I'm, I'm going to the ER.
Lindsay gets in the car. I drive to the ER and, uh, and they, yeah,
look in there. Thank God it wasn't something more serious. I didn't like ruin
something. It was just super impacted with wax in both ears and it was like miraculous when the
doctor scraped that stuff out of my ears. I am hearing better than I've probably heard in five
years. Like I thought I was starting to go just like a little bit deaf. Like I might need hearing
aid soon. No, just had a fuckload of wax in my ear
So take care of your ears. I feel so much better now, but my but my sinuses with my allergies
It's like my whole sinus system is different now because I actually have air accessing my sinus system from my ears. Oh
It's great. I'm listening to music at like half the volume. I was listening to you know, just like a couple weeks ago and
I just wanted I just wanted to share that and that that's all I have. So thanks for listening and thanks for... I don't know
why I was about to thank you for letting me have good ears. I'm going to thank myself.
I thank Logan even though it fucked my ears up at first. But it led to good ears. And
it feels great. Take care of your ears. And don't kill people.