Bad Boy From Rosebud (64 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 232
II
While Tim Steglich stayed behind to continue talking to Billy, Mike and Parnell McNamara, Bill Johnston, Jeff Brzozowski, Wayne Appelt, Bill Miller, and Mad Dog Owens headed for Bloom's Motel, a crumbling, down-and-out motel just south of Belton along Interstate Highway 35. Wayne Appelt remembered how cold it was that nightit was freezing. He was shocked to see Hank dressed in cutoff blue jeans only: no shirt, no socks and no shoes.
Hank claimed that he did not know McDuff. This response reinforced what Janice had told the officers earlier during the day; Hank is a liar and was taught to lie all his life. They told him they knew he was lying, that they knew he knew McDuff, and that it was a serious offense to give false information to federal officers. "Look, I don't know nothing about that man. I just met him one time with Billy and I don't know nothing about that man." That was his second lie. Finally he denied ever having worked on McDuff's Thunderbird. That was his third lie. The men zeroed in on Hank and reminded him again how serious it was to lie to federal officers.
Then Mike asked Hank, "Do you know who you are holding out fora kid killer!" For the next few minutes, Hank listened to how McDuff had brutally and sadistically murdered three teenagers in 1966. The tactic, exposing McDuff as a kid killer, worked on some of the sorriest criminals The Boys had ever encountered; it got most of them to talk. Only a few minutes earlier that same evening, exposing McDuff as a kid killer had worked beautifully on Billy. But in the parking lot outside of Room #5 of Bloom's Motel, when the men finished the story, Hank Worley looked up with a blank stare, a look of complete indifference.
"You have a daughter in that room, Hank. Think about what McDuff would do to her," Mike pounded. "Think about who you're holding out for, Hank," Mike said as the men got back into their vehicles, leaving Hank Worley to stew in his own cowardice and guilt.
If Hank thought his stoic, straight face led the investigators to conclude he had no knowledge of Kenneth McDuff or his activities, he was sorely mistaken. The men drove away convinced that Hank was holding out. "He knows something. He knows a whole lot and he's not telling us," Mike told Parnell. The Boys agreed to continue talking to Worleywhether he liked it or not.
4
 
Page 233
They also decided that Billy had to know more than what he said earlier in the evening, and so they returned to the Bell County Sheriff's Office. This time Billy told them that McDuff hung around bars called "H&H," "I Ain't Here," and ''Poor Boys." Of more value was another name: someone else to look for. Billy told them he had introduced McDuff to a woman named Sandy, a known drug dealer in a little town between Belton and Killeen called Harker Heights. Billy did not know much else about her other than her habit of hanging out in a beer joint called Dundee's. After returning Billy to jail, Mike, Parnell, Bill, Jeff and Wayne set out for Harker Heights.
5
Dundee's was located in an area lined with smelly bars, strip clubs, and tattoo parlors. The men encountered a formidable barmaid named Nell, who told them that Sandy lived in a pink, double-wide trailer across from Highway 190. She also said Sandy drove a "sharp-looking" maroon pickup truck.
They went to the trailer but could not find her. At the time, it looked like the men would be barhopping late into the evening. After checking out a number of beer joints, they noticed a nice pickup truck in the parking lot of a place called Harv's. They approached the truck and found Sandy.
She had her child with her and was on her way to her mother's house. When she asked the men standing around her truck what this was all about, they told her that they were looking for a man named Kenneth Allen McDuff. "I don't know him," Sandy said. As each of the men took turns trying to refresh her memory, the young woman grew more insistent that she did not know who they were talking about. She was different from Hank and Billy; it looked like she was telling the truth. Even after they told her that Billy had already admitted to introducing her to him, she denied knowing anyone named Kenneth McDuff. "Are you sure?" said Mike.
"Yes," replied an exasperated Sandy.
"Hold on," said Mike.
Many other detectives would have given up and gone home; Mike decided to try one more thing. He walked over to Bigfoot and retrieved a picture of Kenneth McDuff.
"Do you know this man?" he asked.
"Oh! That's Max," Sandy said.
She followed that with a question that made an already frigid night even colder for each of the men. "Does this have to do with the girl that's missing in Austin?"
6
 
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They followed Sandy to her parents' home where she dropped off her child. Sandy's father approached the officers demanding to know what was going on. They showed him their badges and calmed him down by explaining the situation and telling him about Kenneth McDuff and what kind of man he was. Sandy agreed to meet them at her pink doublewide.
She promised to help in any way she could, but she was so nervous she shook. It got even worse when they pointed out to her that her size and slender figure matched the physique of McDuff's victims. "He was here," she kept saying, quickly appreciating the fact that she was still alive. At times she talked so fast, they had to tell her to slow down.
"Why did you say what you said about the missing girl in Austin," asked one of the men. For what seemed like an eternity, she lamented, "Not Jack, he wouldn't do that."
"Who?" asked Bill.
"Jack is a nice man; he wouldn't do that," Sandy insisted.
Each of the officers sighed; the long night was getting longer, and deciphering Sandy's disjointed, stammering language was going to take a while. Finally, someone said, "One-eyed Jack?"
"Yea," Sandy replied.
After that laborious breakthrough, confirming that she was, indeed, talking about Jackie, the One-Eyed Jack, was fairly easy. There aren't that many hideous looking 250-pound men completely covered with tattoos. Bill and the McNamara Boys knew Jackie from past cases involving theft from Fort Hood in Killeen.
"Not Jack, he wouldn't do that. Jack is a nice guy," Sandy insisted, as she sucked violently on one cigarette after another. She was also upset with Billy, who must have known about "Max's" past when he introduced her to him. She said Max was crazy and always talking about robbing someone. She related a conversation she had with Jackie where he said he saw in the news that a Thunderbird was used to kidnap a girl from a carwash in Austin. The description of that car matched the car Max used on Christmas Day. He also told her that Max often drove the wrong way on one-way streets, just like the men who took the girl. Jackie told her this on the phone, Sandy said, and he told her not to spend any time around Max.
When the officers asked her where they could find Jackie, she claimed not to know. It was Sandy's first lie. She admitted only to knowing that
 
Page 235
Jackie had run from an Austin halfway house after taking a drug test he knew he would fail. He knew that there would be a warrant for him soon.
7
Since The Boys did not get back to Waco until nearly 2:00
A.M.
, it was later in the same day that Bill determined that Jackie had, indeed, run away from a halfway house. He called a probation officer.
"Do we still have Jackie on supervision?" Bill asked.
"Uh, we did," said the probation officer.
"What do you mean we did?"
"Uh, he ran off from a halfway house."
"Do we have a warrant?" Bill asked.
"Uh, we'll get one."
"Well, how about getting one today," said an exasperated Bill.
Before long, Bill had his warrant. But they still did not know where Jackie might be. Tim Steglich called and reported that he had information that Jackie had previously been seen at the home of a woman currently incarcerated in the Bell County Jail. When they visited her, she confirmed that she knew Jackie, and that they supplied one another with cocaine "so that they could all get high." Jackie, she said was living in Austin, but he ran off to Dallas, where he currently resided with a man named Steve.
8
Steve owned a construction company and Jackie worked for him. Steve was one of two brothers with a very bad reputation in Dallas circles. Reportedly, Steve's brother once saw a man leisurely walking his dog on a leasehe shot the dog. The pair had also been linked to drive-by shootings in Dallas's Oak Cliff section. The Boys thought it was a good idea to make another visit to Sandy.
When confronted with what they knew about Steve, Sandy admitted that she knew where Jackie was. He was in Dallas at Steve's house. "Where in Dallas?" they asked. She could not remember the name of the street. Desperate for more information, Mike, Parnell, and Bill retrieved a Dallas city map and tried to jar her memory by asking her if the name of the street started with an "A"then a "B," and so on. Bill vividly remembers the frustration: ''It was like playing Scrabble with a chimpanzee." After a long, agonizing process, she remembered that the house was on Quinella Street near Grand Prairie. Very reluctantly, Sandy paged Steve. She told him that she needed to talk to Jack and that it was urgent. Soon, Jackie called and when she said she needed to talk to him very badly, he said he would return to Harker Heights the next day.
9
 
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The Boys never considered waiting. Parnell got on the phone and got authorization from Cliff Hoffman, his immediate supervisor, and Sam Williams of the Marshal's Service to go to Dallas and arrest Jackie. Then he called Deputy U.S. Marshal Larry Gunn of Dallas to coordinate the arrest. The Dallas Police Department knew exactly where Steve and his gang lived. The area was a known drug-infested neighborhood. The Dallas PD patrol sergeant on the scene immediately advised the posse that a SWAT team would be necessary. When Parnell told the sergeant that they had plenty of guns the officer replied: "If Dallas PD is going to be involved we will have to use the SWAT team because patrolmen are not trained for that type of raid." At 12:30
A.M.
on March 21, the five-member team, closely followed by everyone but Bill, stormed Steve's home.
Wayne Appelt was mightily impressed with the SWAT Team. Using it was a bright move. A fight broke out and several of the occupants had the tar beat out of them before they surrendered. One fool insisted on holding on to a 30-30 rifle. He let go only after repeated hits in the face with the butt of a SWAT member's rifle. "Where da mudderfucker dat hit me in da moute," asked the man, spewing blood and teeth as he spoke.
Every occupant was brought outside and made to lie face down in the grass. Jackie, an old-time con, knew better than to fight. As a matter of fact, he had warned the others of the futility of resisting: "I told you boys to keep your mouths shut."
Mike recognized Jackie right away. As Jackie laid face down in the grass, he moved over and placed a gun to the back of his head. "Look down," demanded Mike every time Jackie moved his massive head to one side or the other. "Look down, I said," Mike repeated as he pressed his gun against Jackie's long, greasy hair.
"Which one of you is Jackie?" asked a Dallas Police officer.
"I got him. He's that big, fat, stinking sweathog right here," said Mike.
"Yeah, you got it. That's me," said Jackie, with a nonchalant grin.
Bill Johnston had not taken a direct part in the raid. As a likely prosecutor of those who were being arrested, there were rules that prohibited him from becoming a witness to certain things. Bill always carefully followed those rules. As the raid developed, however, he noticed a young man hiding in a pickup. He saw the man slump down into the cab. Not willing to take a chance that the individual could be dangerous to the
 
Page 237
other officers, Bill grabbed a 10-gauge magnum and walked over to the truck. He used the gun to tap on the window. "Get out," he screamed. "Get out, now!" Looking down the barrel of the 10-gauge, the man screamed back.
The Dallas SWAT Team, dressed in their specialized garb, and the posse from Central Texas, finished up with the "slugs" lying facedown in the grass. Bill Johnston, dressed in a tie and business suit, marched another suspect up the sidewalk to the house. It was quite a night; even Bill had made an arrest.
10
Jackie was given a place of "honor" in Bigfoot for a ride to Waco. After a period of silence, just before Bigfoot left the Dallas metro area, Jackie spoke up. "What's this all about, Parnell? I know ya'll didn't do all this just because I ran off from that halfway house. I know ya'll better than that."
"No, Jackie, you're right," Parnell said with a piercing look from a face of stone. "We are going to charge you with capital murder."
"Wait a minute! I'll tell you what you need to know," pleaded Jackie.
"I don't want to hear any lies at this time of night. If you want to tell me the truth, then do it, but if you don't then just shut up. If you are going to continue to lie I don't want to hear your filthy voice anymore," Parnell said, keeping up his merciless face of stone.
They arrived in Waco at about 4:15
A.M.
on March 21. It was a Saturday. At the McLennan County Jail, it was Mike's turn to go face-to-face with Jackie. With his own penetrating stare, Mike said, "I am going to be back on Monday. You need to do some serious thinking about what you are going to talk about." Mike turned away and went home, leaving behind the One-eyed Jack, who had been booked for running away from a halfway house.
11
III
On the day the posse motored toward Dallas to arrest Jackie, APD Detective Don Martin called Tim Steglich and confirmed that Kenneth Allen McDuff was definitely a prime suspect in the abduction of Colleen Reed.
Since Colleen's disappearance, the Austin Police Department had approached the case by processing and clearing leads submitted by family members, friends, and anonymous sources. Lori, for example, never

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