Bad Boy From Rosebud (3 page)

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Authors: Gary M. Lavergne

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #General, #Law, #True Crime, #Murder, #test

BOOK: Bad Boy From Rosebud
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Page 4
Kenneth Allen McDuff eventually became the architect of an extraordinarily intolerant atmosphere in Texas. He helped bring about the restructuring of the third largest criminal justice system in the United States. The first sentence of Ken Anderson's excellent book,
Crime in Texas: Your Complete Guide to the Criminal Justice System,
consists of two words: "Kenneth McDuff" followed by, "More than any other person, McDuff has come to represent everything that was wrong with the Texas criminal justice system. He convinced everyonecitizens, politicians, the news mediajust how broken the Texas system was."
7
Indeed, McDuff managed to forge a coalitionone that could never have been formed under a normal political discourseto do one thing: build prisons. In the May 1996 issue of
Texas Monthly
, Robert Draper described "the biggest prison system ever concocted by any free society in history." Draper's article, which does not mention McDuff, clearly shows that the great Texas buildup had its roots even before the McDuff story hit the stands. Federal lawsuits involving prison overcrowding and media coverage of gang violence put Texas on the path of a building binge. From 1990 to 1995 the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's budget more than tripled (from $700 million to $2.2 billion). By 1996 the prison system had more than 146,000 beds. In a two-year period (19941996) the number of units (prisons) went from 65 to 102, and the number of inmates grew from 72,000 to 129,000.
8
But the bulk of the funding, a huge new Texas Department of Criminal Justice budget and a billion-dollar bond issue passed in 1993 which made possible such a penal explosion, resulted in part from emotion-ridden "debates" laden with references to McDuff. At the very least, Kenneth McDuff validated an urge for a prison buildup. Today, only Russia and China (and possibly California, depending on how you measure) have larger prison systems than Texas.
The spasm of prison construction and parole reforms collectively called the "McDuff Rules," resulted from an enormous display of anger vented towards a system that had broken down. "This guy beat the system," said Austin Police Department Detective Sonya Urubek. "If I have to spend every day at the Capitol, if I have to scream, [I'll do] whatever I have to do,'' promised Lori Bible, the sister of one of McDuff's victims.
9
They were typical comments in a flood of outrage. It turns out that from 1965 to 1992, McDuff had been arrested for burglary, sent to prison, paroled, arrested for three brutal murders while on parole, sent back to prison and placed on death row, taken off death row,
 
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convicted of a felony while in prison, paroled, arrested for making terroristic threats while on parole, sent back to prison, paroled again, arrested for driving while intoxicated while on parole, put in jail, released from jail, placed on probation, arrested for public intoxication while on parole and probation, arrested for murder while on parole and probation again, and finally, put back on death row. Texans will no longer take such chances.
The case of Karla Faye Tucker removed all doubt about Texans' commitment to capital punishment. She was a born-again Christian whom few doubted had truly rehabilitated herself, but she was executed by lethal injection in February 1998. Texas state officials received thousands of appeals for clemency, including those from the Pope, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Amnesty International, and the United Nations. Significantly, even after such an outpouring of support, she would not receive a single favorable vote from the eighteen-member Board of Pardons and Paroles. Governor George W. Bush, hardly a rabid advocate of capital punishment, refused to intervene. Tucker's execution re-ignited the debate for a few days, but it did virtually nothing to move the state away from its historic commitment or its new-found allegiance to the death penalty. Some even took perverse comfort in knowing justice is indeed "blind" in Texas. A capital murderer will be executed, even if she is a good-looking, white, Christian woman. David Botsford, Tucker's lawyer, would lament after her execution that "Texas has no mercy."
10
When it comes to capital murder, he is absolutely rightthe result of the long-term effect of historical support for capital punishment by Texans compounded by the short-term effect of Kenneth Allen McDuff. For many, McDuff removed the doubts and discomforts good and thoughtful people have of supporting the death penalty, even in a case like that of Karla Faye Tucker. Indeed, he has become the poster boy of capital punishment.
How did he gain such notoriety? Because in
his
case, the advocates of the death penalty are right: Had Kenneth McDuff been executed after the Broomstick Murders of 1966, the young women he murdered from 1989 to 1992 would be alive today. McDuff tragically illustrated that even a death sentence is not a certainty. As long as pardons and clemency exist, and as long as there is a possibility that one day the Supreme Court can rule that capital punishment, whether
de facto
or in its application, is cruel and unusual, there is no such thing as a guaranteed execution, much less a true "life without parole" sentence.
 
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McDuff managed to outrage more than just the kooks who party in Huntsville during executions. The massive Texas prison buildup came about during the administration of liberal Democratic Governor Ann Richards, who readily admitted that she would much rather have spent such a vast sum of money on other things. Her career championing liberal causes took a back seat to what "had to be done." Conservative Republicans did an about face as well; at a time when their doctrine was to reduce spending and the size of government, they encouraged and supported one of the largest expansions of state government in the history of the United States, as well as its necessary revenue enhancements. Only Kenneth McDuff could inspire ultra conservatives to see big government as a solution. It had to be donesuch was the effect of the bad boy from Rosebud.
Investigators in dozens of law enforcement jurisdictions, hardened by years of dealing with brutality of all types and the evil they see, were aghast at what they learned about McDuff. A descendant of a legendary law enforcement family, United States Marshal Mike Earp, said that McDuff was "basically an animal who had to be taken off the streets."
"A sadistic bastard is what he is," said McLennan County Deputy Richard Stroup, as he straightened his stance and gritted his teeth.
Fred Labowitz, a renowned Dallas psychologist, summed up the mystery and the frustration, and our unsettling helplessness: "This guy goes beyond the study of human behavior." No matter how much we contemplate the Ted Bundys and Charles Mansons of the world, "none of this can prepare us for an encounter with Kenneth McDuff."
11
Other mass murderers have caught our attention. Charles Manson exposed a fascination we have with the bizarre, but he had virtually no effect on our behavior or our laws. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Henry Lee Lucas, and Jeffery Dahmer horrified us with what they did. But in those cases we were caught by surprisewe could not have predicted that they would do what they did.
Kenneth McDuff set himself apart from the others. What he did from 1989 to 1992 was utterly predictable because he had done it before. That he was paroled to kill and paroled to kill again galled every civilian public official who knew of him. Some of his own family members could not believe he had been set free. How on earth could this happen? Who did this? After finding out that Kenneth had been freed through a perfectly legal process, Charlie Butts, a former assistant dis-
 
Page 7
trict attorney from Tarrant County, and a truly refined country gentleman, bristled at the suggestion that anyone could possibly consider McDuff rehabilitated. "I don't give a damn what he did in prison; he is a killer and he will always be a killer."
12
On a personal level, Kenneth McDuff brought out atypical behavior in people. J. W. Thompson of the Austin Police Department, a person of faith and a kind and gentle father of two young daughters, as well as an easy-going and unassuming homicide detective, gets angered when reminded of assertions once made by McDuff's former lawyer and former parole board members who claimed to genuinely believe that the convicted murderer could have contributed to society. "Well, he did!" J. W. said uncharacteristically in a voice dripping with anger and sarcasm. "He gave me a lot of damn overtime I did not want!"
13
Noted defense attorney F. Lee Bailey is probably right when he asserts that we are often caught off-guard at the discovery of mass murderers because we have not done what he calls "our homework." The frustration of not knowing what to do caused Bailey to ask rhetorically: "What should be done about such creatures?" Truman Capote, the author of
In Cold Blood
, suggested that we cannot begin to understand mass murderers and thus cannot pretend to treat them.
Others are like Charlie Butts, who, seasoned by more than four decades of prosecuting and defending the accused, says that people like McDuff have "no conscience and it doesn't make him crazy; it just makes him mean." Another prosecutor of Kenneth McDuff, Crawford Long of the McLennan County District Attorney's Office, stated simply, "He was not driven to this; he chose it."
14
Truman Capote may be right. Maybe we cannot treat mass murderers because we cannot understand them. But then, maybe there is nothing to treat. Maybe some people, like McDuff, are mean because they want to be and kill because they like it. In the case of Kenneth Allen McDuff, a serious search for an answer begins with his first victimRosebud.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
1 The quoted phrase was taken from a document in the personal papers of Ms. Wanda Fischer. Hereafter cited as Fischer Collection.
2 Ibid.; Ms. Wanda Fischer, in an interview with the author June 16, 1998. All
 
Page 8
interviews will be initially cited by name and date. Afterwards, each will be cited by name only;
Rosebud News,
January 9, 1986.
3 Wanda Fischer.
4 CBS News,
48 Hours
program, aired at various times and dates.
5 Ms. Ellen Roberts, in an interview with the author, June 16, 1998;
Austin American-Statesman,
April 24, 1992.
6
Texas Monthly,
August, 1992;
Austin American-Statesman,
April 24 and May 5, 1992.
7 Ken Anderson,
Crime in Texas: Your Complete Guide to the Criminal Justice System
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997), pg. 1.
8
Texas Monthly,
May, 1996.
9 Sonya Urubek, quoted in an interview with the author, June 15, 1998;
Austin American-Statesman,
April 24, 1998.
10
Austin American-Statesman,
February 2, 1998.
11
Waco Tribune-Herald,
May 6, 1992; Richard Stroup, quoted in an interview with the author, June 17, 1998;
http://www.Lubbockonline.com/news/112496/mcduff.htm.
12 Charles Butts in an interview with the author on June 20, 1998.
13 J. W. Thompson in an interview with the author on June 15, 1998.
14 Information from F. Lee Bailey and Truman Capote is taken from Bailey's Foreword in Jack Levin and James Alan Fox,
Mass Murder: America's Growing Menace
(New York: Plenum Press, 1985), pgs. viiiix; Charles Butts;
Texas v Kenneth Allen McDuff,
Cause #643820, Closing arguments by Crawford Long, February 16, 1993, pgs. 1442. Note: Much of this work is taken from Kenneth McDuff's capital murder trial transcripts. They are called
Statements of Facts [SOF]
. I have numbered the Melissa Northrup Murder Trial, Cause #643820; the Colleen Reed Murder Trial is #93-2139.

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