Kenneth McDuff: How Texas Freed a Killer Three Times

Kenneth McDuff was a Texas serial killer convicted of at least nine murders across two sprees separated by a quarter century, and the only person in Texas history sentenced to death three separate times. Nicknamed the “Broomstick Murderer” for the weapon he used to kill a 16-year-old girl in a 1966 triple homicide, he was sent to death row, had his sentence commuted after Furman v. Georgia, and was then paroled three times despite an escalating record of violence and a bribery conviction. After his final release in 1991, he killed at least six more people before he was captured, tried, and executed by lethal injection on November 17, 1998.

The 1966 Triple Murder

McDuff grew up in Rosebud, Texas, dropped out of school in the eighth grade, and by 17 was breaking into buildings. In 1965, at 18, he was sentenced to 52 years on multiple burglary charges, but because of his age the sentences ran concurrently and he served fewer than ten months before being paroled.¹

On August 6, 1966, months after that release, McDuff and a younger accomplice, Roy Dale Green, kidnapped three teenagers near Everman, Texas: Robert Brand, 17; Brand’s girlfriend Edna Louise Sullivan, 16; and Brand’s cousin Mark Dunnam, 15. McDuff shot the two boys and then strangled Sullivan with a broomstick, the act that gave him his nickname.² Green confessed to friends the next day and became the prosecution’s star witness. McDuff was captured after a vehicle pursuit led by Falls County Sheriff Brady Pamplin, convicted of capital murder, and sentenced to death.¹

How a Death Row Inmate Got Paroled

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia effectively abolished the death penalty nationwide, and McDuff’s sentence was commuted to life in prison. He was now eligible for parole.¹

McDuff did not wait passively. In 1981 he tried to bribe parole board member Glenn Heckmann in a prison chaplain’s office, offering $10,000 to be left in the glove compartment of Heckmann’s car. Heckmann reported the attempt, and McDuff was convicted of bribery, but the jury sentenced him to only two years. Because he had already accumulated more than two years of “good time” credit while awaiting trial, the sentence was effectively meaningless.¹

Meanwhile, Texas prisons were under federal court orders capping population. To comply, the state mandated the release of roughly 750 inmates per week. By 1989, the 18-member parole board was reviewing about 1,000 files every five working days. Long-term inmates like McDuff were no longer interviewed individually and were instead processed through “special review groups” using files that often contained only minimal information. Eight out of ten parole applications were being approved.¹

Against that backdrop, McDuff was released three times:

First parole, October 1989. Board member Chris Mealy cast the deciding vote, citing McDuff’s enrollment in correspondence courses and the fact that he had received at least one “yes” vote in reviews going back to 1979. Shortly after his release, 29-year-old Sarafia Parker was found dead in Temple, Texas. Investigators believed she was McDuff’s first post-release victim, though he was never charged. His parole was revoked in September 1990 after he threatened a teenager in Rosebud.²
Second parole, December 1990. After the misdemeanor threat charge was dropped by the Falls County district attorney, an anonymous parole hearings officer reinstated McDuff’s release without a formal board hearing or any testimony. He violated his terms again.¹
Third parole, 1991. Released once more, McDuff enrolled at Texas State Technical College in Waco and moved into a campus dormitory.

Mealy later called the 1989 decision “a mistake” and “an error,” adding, “I wish that I could take it back. It’s a human system. Errors will be made. Some of them will be very costly.”¹

The 1991–1992 Killing Spree

Once at TSTC, McDuff beat and nearly blinded a fellow student, threatened others, and was observed by police in his red pickup with a woman, Regenia Moore, who appeared to be kicking and screaming in the cab.¹ Around the same time, women in and around Waco began disappearing.

Confirmed and suspected victims from this period include:

Brenda Thompson, abducted in Waco on or about October 10, 1991. Her remains were recovered on October 3, 1998, in a heavily wooded area roughly nine miles north of Waco, after McDuff disclosed the location near the end of his life.³
Regenia DeAnne Moore, 21, last seen leaving a Waco motel with McDuff in the fall of 1991. Her remains were recovered on September 30, 1998, near a creek north of Waco.³
Cynthia Gonzalez, 23, found dead in an Arlington creek bed in September 1991.²
Colleen Reed, 28, kidnapped from an Austin car wash on December 29, 1991.⁴
Valencia Joshua, who disappeared in February 1992; her body was found at a golf course.²
Melissa Northrup, 22, a pregnant convenience store clerk abducted during a late shift in Waco on March 1, 1992. Her body was discovered by a fisherman about a month later in a gravel pit in Dallas County.²

Law enforcement suspected McDuff of as many as 14 murders in total.⁵

The Reed abduction became the centerpiece of the later prosecution. Four witnesses at the Austin car wash heard a woman scream, then a car door slam and a vehicle speed away; one identified McDuff as the driver. Reed’s car was found at the scene with her purse, keys, and groceries still inside. McDuff’s accomplice, Alva “Hank” Worley, later testified that he drove while McDuff grabbed Reed by the throat, tied her with shoelaces, sexually assaulted her, and struck her with such force that Worley said it sounded like “a tree limb breaking.” Forensic analysts recovered five hairs from McDuff’s Thunderbird that matched Reed’s microscopic characteristics, along with small amounts of human blood.⁴

Manhunt, Arrest, and Trials

One week before his scheduled final exams at TSTC, on March 1, 1992, McDuff vanished from campus. Melissa Northrup was taken that same night from a convenience store near the New Road Inn in Waco, where McDuff had parked his car.¹ A nationwide manhunt followed, and he was featured on America’s Most Wanted. McDuff ended up in Kansas City, Missouri, working as a garbage collector under the alias “Richard Fowler” and staying at a rescue mission.⁶

He was arrested on May 4, 1992, after a coworker recognized him from the broadcast and tipped off police. Officers took him aboard his garbage truck shortly after 1:00 p.m. He initially assumed it was a routine stop, then tried to jump from the truck when he realized what was happening.⁶

McDuff was indicted in Travis County on capital murder of Colleen Reed in the course of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping, plus separate counts of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping. That case was transferred to Guadalupe County for trial.⁴ He was tried separately in McLennan County for Northrup’s murder. There, he took the stand for about two hours. Asked who killed Melissa Northrup, he answered, “I don’t know,” and later added, “Not at this time.” Witnesses described him as evasive and smirking at jurors. His own daughter testified, saying it “horrifies” and “makes me sick to be a part of this man.”²

Both juries convicted him of capital murder and sentenced him to death, his third death sentence.⁴

Execution

As his execution date approached, McDuff bargained. In exchange for dental work, he disclosed the location of Colleen Reed’s remains, which were found near a Brazos River bridge in Falls County.⁷ He also led investigators to the remains of Brenda Thompson and Regenia Moore.³

Kenneth McDuff was executed by lethal injection at the Walls Unit in Huntsville on November 17, 1998, and pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m. His last words were: “I’m ready to be released. Release me.”² He was the 161st person executed in Texas and the 488th in the United States since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.⁸

What Texas Changed Afterward

The McDuff case exposed a parole system built to empty overcrowded prisons rather than assess risk. A convicted killer had been processed through “special review groups” with minimal scrutiny, approved for release three times despite a bribery conviction, and reinstated without a hearing after his first violation.

The Texas Legislature responded by requiring inmates convicted of capital murder to serve a minimum of 35 years before parole eligibility. Lawmakers also authorized the construction of drug and alcohol rehabilitation facilities designed to house 12,000 inmates by 1995, intended to free prison space for violent offenders and ease the pressure that had driven mass releases.⁹ The governor considered legislation to reestablish the parole board as an autonomous agency, separate from the prison system it was supposed to check. These measures, sometimes informally called the “McDuff laws,” reshaped how Texas handles parole for violent offenders.⁵

1
Texas Monthly. Free to Kill
2
WFAA. How Texas Freed a Killer Three Times
3
Gary Lavergne. McDuff Victims
4
Findlaw. McDuff v. State
5
Alcatraz East. The Broomstick Killer
6
UPI. Texas Fugitive Arrested While Working as Garbage Collector
7
Texas Monthly. The End
8
The Marshall Project. Next to Die – Kenneth McDuff
9
Texas Monthly. A System Gone Bad