Bad Boy From Rosebud (6 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 21
purposes he was really sentenced to only four years in prison. On March 10, 1965, Kenneth was delivered to the Ferguson Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
In nine months and two weeks, on December 29, 1965, Kenneth Allen McDuff was paroled for the first time.
27
Exactly twenty-six years later, he committed one of his most heinous crimesat least as far as we know.
Image not available.
First known mug shot of McDuff. Arrested for fourteen counts of burglary in
1965, age nineteen.
Courtesy Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
 
Page 22
IV
Roy Dale Green lived with his mother in Marlin, Texas, the seat of Falls County. Charlie Butts remembered him as ''just a skinny kid." Larry Pamplin, the son of Falls County Sheriff Brady Pamplin, went to school with Roy Dale and remembers him as a quiet boy who had never been in trouble. Roy Dale was easily impressed with people and things because he was not very bright. He appeared to want to hang around with exciting people. In July of 1966, like many hundreds of others, Roy Dale went to the Bremond Street Dances, where he met Kenneth McDuff.
28
The Bremond Street Dances were not teen events. They were family events similar to festivals, attracting people from all over Central Texas. By that time Kenneth was twenty and Roy Dale was eighteen. They had a mutual friend named Richard Boyd. According to Kenneth, he hung around Richard because he had a new Impala and an "in" with the girls.
29
Shortly after they met, Roy Dale worked with Kenneth for. J. A.'s concrete business. They were made for each other. Kenneth needed a weak-willed, easily impressed audience for his immaturity; Roy Dale wanted to run with the "big boys."
Both Richard and Roy Dale knew Kenneth kept a .38 caliber pistol in his car. It did not seem to bother either of them. Kenneth often talked to them about killing. Roy Dale later testified to horrified courtrooms that Kenneth boasted that "killing a woman is like killing a chicken; they both squawk." Roy once asked Kenneth if he had ever killed before and he answered that yes he had, and that he had buried them in shallow graves. Roy Dale never believed any of it. When Kenneth talked about going out and killing people, Roy thought it was another of Kenneth's tall tales. Had he been a little smarter he would have known better. Roy later admitted to federal agents that Kenneth enjoyed pinning a girl against a floor and squeezing a tube of Deep Heat or Ben Gay into her vagina.
30
They were acquainted with a girl named Jo Ann, and on one trip to Hearne, Texas, they were walking back to Kenneth's car when Richard caught sight of a broken broomstick. Without thinking he picked it up, played around with it and threw it into the back seat. The broomstick with the jagged edge would stay in Kenneth's car for nearly three weeks.
On Friday, August 5, 1966, Kenneth got on a motorcycle and visited his brother Lonnie. Later that night Roy spent the night with Kenneth in Rosebud. That evening they picked up Richard and went to Hearne where
 
Page 23
Roy got very drunk. As usual, Kenneth spoke of killing. "I know where people park and we can kill 'em," he said.
31
The next morning Kenneth and Roy Dale woke up early and helped to pour concrete at a construction site in Temple. At about noon they hurried back to Rosebud to wash up. Kenneth had decided to go out that night to Fort Worth. It was all very exciting for Roy Dale Green; he had never seen Fort Worth before.
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
1
Texas Monthly,
August, 1992; Wanda Fischer; Martha Royal, interviewed by the author on July 11, 1998; Ellen Roberts.
2
Texas Monthly,
August, 1992; Wanda Fischer; Martha Royal; Ellen Roberts. Part of the Case File of Kenneth McDuff in the Bell County Sheriff's Office is a 1992 taped telephone conversation between Addie McDuff and Investigator Tim Steglich. The quote is from that tape. This is hereafter cited as "BCSO Files: Kenneth McDuff Case File Tapes, 1992."
3 Confidential sources.
4 BCSO Files: Kenneth McDuff Case File Tapes, 1992.
5 Confidential sources
6
State of Texas v Kenneth Allen McDuff,
SOF in Cause #93-2139, State's Exhibit #150.
7 Confidential sources; Martha Royal; Wanda Fischer; Ellen Roberts;
Texas Monthly,
August, 1992.
8 Wanda Fischer; Ellen Roberts.
9 The following descriptions do not represent Assembly of God Churches or their members. This particular congregation disbanded some time ago.
10 Confidential sources.
11 Kenneth Allen McDuff, interviewed by the author on September 17, 1996.
12 Ibid.;
48 Hours,
broadcast of June 29, 1998; I could not locate anyone in Rosebud who remembers any such lawn care.

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