Bad Boy From Rosebud (5 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 15
II
There was a sense in the school system that Kenneth was just hopeless. He was not considered retarded, just dull. Addie's assertions of his perfection led to a denial of his academic problems, and frustrated the attempts teachers made to help him. Martha Royal, Kenneth's fifth-grade teacher, remembers him as a regular fifth-grade boy. Once when he had been running down a hallway, he ran into Ms. Royal who saw him coming soon enough to put out her hands and knock him to the floor.
"Did you like being knocked down?"
"No," Kenneth replied.
"Well, I don't like being run over."
Kenneth walked away with an angered look, and Martha Royal wondered if she was in for a visit from Addie. Otherwise, during the fifth grade, "Kenneth blended in." Ms. Royal believes that had he not become so infamous as an adult he might have been one of those kids that "you just forget."
13
He was large for his age, and soon he learned that his size alone could intimidate others. His disciplinary problems appear to have begun during his sixth-grade year. That year, and on through the ninth grade when he would drop out of school, he would become a memorable discipline problem. His IQ was estimated at 92, barely within the average range, but he courted failure and seemed to think it was funny. School children in the 1950s remembered his maniacal laughter at things no else one thought was funny; so would writers and law enforcement officers in the 1990s.
During the sixth grade, Kenneth's teacher referred him to Ellen Roberts, a special education teacher and speech therapist, who also functioned as a counselor for Rosebud High School's sixth through twelfth grades. Her class was next door to Kenneth's and so it was easy for Kenneth to spend thirty to forty minutes each day with Ms. Roberts. Back then, however, meeting the needs of special students carried a stigma it does not carry today In some ways Ms. Roberts's class became a dumping ground for students other teachers had given up on.
Ms. Roberts tried for three consecutive days to get Kenneth to respond to her. He said nothing the entire time. He entered the class with hostility, probably because of the dumping ground mentality at the time. Ms. Roberts could do little more than send Kenneth back to his teacher.
 
Page 16
Ellen Roberts also had the occasion to work with Addie, who appeared to be far more concerned with Lonnie. Lonnie's problem was far more apparent than Kenneth's; he had multiple speech impediments. Later, much would be made of Lonnie's attachment to the nickname "Rough, Tough, Lonnie McDuff." When he said it, however, it came out as "Wuff, Tuff, Wonnie McDuff." Ms. Roberts, who had a therapist background, got along well with Addie, and Addie seemed genuinely grateful for the attention Roberts paid to her boys. Later when Ellen Roberts was elected Justice of the Peace in Falls County, she made other, very different attempts to help Addie.
14
The principal of Rosebud High School was the legendary D. L. Mayo. He was a typical post-World War II high school principal, a veteran hardened by military training and toughened by war. He was strictly business. The teachers were terrified of him, and the only way to communicate effectively with him was through curt, military-style memos. The pep squad of Rosebud High School, for example, was trained in military fashion because that was what Mr. Mayo wanted. He had a "thump" on his forehead that astute teachers used as a barometer; if the "thump" got red it was best to get outfast. Post-World War II principals like D. L. Mayo were above question. They never smiled. They ran schools as they saw fit, and school boards and lawyers left them alone. Students behaved and learned because men like Mr. Mayo had taken care of the Nazis; discipline at Rosebud High was not a problem. Even the McDuffs found that out.
D. L. Mayo's discipline policy never took the form of an elaborate handbook. It was really quite simple: Students were not to lie or steal or show disrespect to teachers or anyone else. They were to respect property. If something had been stolen, Mr. Mayo found out who did it. Once a student with a nice new baseball glove sadly entered Mr. Mayo's office to report he had laid it down only long enough for it to have been stolen. Apparently, the boy and his parents had saved for quite some time to purchase the glove and were quite proud of it. Whether for the love of baseball, or an admiration for the virtue of a young man saving money for something special, or because stealing was wrong and he would not have it at Rosebud High, Mr. Mayo decided he would find the gloveand the thief. He put the pressure on. Shortly after the search began, Kenneth entered the front office with the glove, now smeared with black shoe polish, and announced, "Look what I found in a ditch!"
15
 
Page 17
No one remembers exactly what Mr. Mayo did to Kenneth that day. What everyone does remember was the reaction of Lonnie, who apparently was outraged at the thought of his brother being accused of thievery and being disciplined. In
Texas Monthly,
Gary Cartwright wrote that Lonnie pulled a knife on Mr. Mayo. At the very least Lonnie made some attempt to protest directly. At that point, D. L. Mayo lifted Lonnie off the floor and threw him down a flight of stairs. No one remembers Addie contacting Mr. Mayo about the incident.
16
Years later, Kenneth would boast to police officers that he had once knocked around a principal. When told that, Ellen Roberts laughed out loud, "Nobody knocked around D. L. Mayo. He was the Iron Man."
The incident with the baseball glove did, however, illustrate one significant fact about the life of Kenneth Allen McDuff. The only person he seemed to respect, or even like, was his brother Lonnie. They had a true relationship. Kenneth said that they were very close as brothers because they were friends as well. Otherwise, he added, "I don't have any friends."
17
Lonnie never earned the reputation Kenneth did. He was not a killer, but many thought he could become one. In the fall of 1964, Kenneth allegedly told Lonnie that he had raped a girl, cut her throat, and left her for dead. Lonnie reportedly replied that Kenneth should forget about it and go to bed.
18
Judging by their behavior, and the testimony of those who knew them, the brothers seemed to share a common sense of invulnerability. Something in their value system taught them that what they did could not be wrong, because
they
did it; what they said was the truth, because
they
said it; and whatever
they
believed was right, because they believed it. Like Lonnie, Kenneth existed in an extraordinarily self-centered world. Kenneth had his things, but what everyone else had could be stolen; Kenneth spoke, while others existed to listenand believe; and tragically, when he grew to be nearly 6'4" tall, weighing over 250 pounds, Kenneth would see other people as things to be "used up." As a result, he took pleasure in "performing" before an audience. This, of course, led to his downfall. To a lesser extent it would lead to Lonnie's downfall as well. Charles Meyer, an ATF Special Agent who came to know Kenneth as well as anyone, summed up his egocentric personality: "He loves the sound of his own voice."
19
And so, Kenneth Allen McDuff, a big, mean, loud bully, continued to torment the students of Rosebud High School. Every once in a while
 
Page 18
residents out in the Blackland Prairie could hear a loud motorcycle and gunshots. The next day someone would find holes in a mailbox.
His size intimidated nearly all of the students and even some of the adults. Moreover, Kenneth took joy in harassing smaller boys and watching their fear. Presumptions of his invincibility and daring, however, would soon be shattered by a smaller, truly courageous Rosebud freshman named Tommy Sammons.
"Tommy Sammons was one of the sweetest boys I ever knew," said Martha Royal. He was a good, quiet kid with an inner strength Kenneth could not see. On the day Kenneth called Tommy "chickenshit" in front of his friends, he finally encountered a young man who would not back down. "He just got tired of Kenneth's foolishness and he did something about it," Ms. Royal recalled. One of the most popular boys in his class, Tommy was athletic, reserved, and unpretentious. Kenneth challenged him to a fight in a ravine traversed by a bridge near the school. Soon, every student knew of the scheduled event, and nearly everyone showed up to watch. Some fully expected Tommy to get slaughtered; he was not a fighterhe was a good kid.
At the appointed hour the boys showed up and the fight began. Tommy might have been smaller, but it was readily apparent that his athletic ability and strength would carry the day. Kenneth was big and loud, but he was neither strong nor fast. Tommy got Kenneth in a headlock; Kenneth bit Tommy's arm. That was about all Kenneth could do. Students lined up along the ravine and leaned over the bridge to cheer for Tommy.
For the kids it was a shallow display of suppressed resentment, but it felt so good. They whooped and hollered and clapped louder and louder with every punch. One of the boys at the site, Bud Malcik, was so elated that he ran home to his mother to tell her, "Old Tommy just whipped the snot out of him."
20
Soon, the word spread throughout Rosebud that, at last, there was "justice for McDuff." The unknown, however, was what would Addie or Lonnie do. Many in the community worried about what could happen to Tommy, but nothing did.
The bubble had burst. Kenneth McDuff was no longer invincible. After walking out of the ditch where he had the "snot whipped out of him," he no longer bothered Tommy Sammons or anyone else at Rosebud High School. Shortly thereafter, he quit school and began working full time pouring concrete with his father.
21
 
Page 19
Image not available.
D. L. Mayo, principal of Rosebud High School. "The Iron Man"
ran an effective, disciplined school and was not afraid to confront
and punish Lonnie and Kenneth McDuff.
Courtesy Rosebud Public Library.
III
Kenneth hated farm work and pouring concrete. With his father he worked hard and behaved himself. Unlike most other boys, very little of his adolescence was spent in school engaging in activities with other kids his age. Instead, he labored at construction sites. But after work he had access to cars and motorcycles with which to roam the countryside and hamlets of the Blackland Prairie. During this period his energy, by his own admission, seemed to be directed at fast driving and the destruction of cars. Years later he loved telling torturously long stories about how well he drove. The stories, though, included vivid accounts of his many accidents. When asked to reconcile how someone who drove so well could
 
Page 20
manage to wreck so many cars, he smiled, and with the self-assurance of someone whose words were the "truth," replied, "Yea, but I had a touch."
22
The Rosebud area had no real drug problem at the time because young people did not have access to drugs. As Merle Haggard would soon sing, "White lightning was the biggest thrill of all." Like many teenagers, Kenneth started drinking at the age of fifteen. He maintained that Rosebud's "parents knew it and it didn't seem to matter."
23
What did matter was a string of burglaries he and some other boys began committing in the spring of 1964. His prison record contains his own, though incomplete, account of his activities. In March, he and an accomplice burglarized Lotts Store in Falls County by cutting a bolt off the front door. They took about $500 and some checks from a safe. The next month, in Milam County, he did the same thing in three stores, taking assorted shotgun ammunition and two bars of ice cream. With yet another accomplice he burglarized a coin changer and took about $20. Later that same month he broke into a machine shop in Bell County and took a skill saw and tools. That same night he broke into a 7-Eleven store, but he could not open the safe and just took some .22 caliber bullets. They tried a boat house near Temple, but could not get in and left. Moving north to the little town of Troy, they broke into three more businesses.
On April 17, 1964, Temple Police rounded them up. When asked by prison officials what rationalization he had for those offenses, Kenneth replied, in a rare moment of complete honesty, "Stupid."
24
Years later when asked directly about why he did it and how could he possibly think that he could get away with so many break-ins, he would grin, laugh and say, "Aw, they was just pranks." He followed with a more serious protestation of how law enforcement officers and the courts should have been "mature" enough to recognize that he was just an immature kid.
25
In August of 1966 the
Temple Daily Telegram
reported that in January of 1965 Kenneth was convicted of stealing and stripping his own car. By January and February of 1965 the criminal justice system finally caught up with him. The best sources indicate that on January 22 he was convicted of eight counts of theft or burglary in Bell County, of two counts on January 29 in Falls County, and of four counts on February 3 in Milam County for a total of fourteen counts.
26
He was sentenced to a total of fifty-two years in prison (four years each for thirteen offenses) but each of the four-year sentences ran concurrently, meaning that for all practical

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