The Texas Monster: Kenneth McDuff’s Murders and Execution

Kenneth McDuff was a Texas serial killer who was sentenced to death in 1966 for a triple murder, had that sentence commuted after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down existing death penalty statutes, was paroled three times despite his violent record, murdered several women across Central Texas after his final release in 1991, and was executed by lethal injection in 1998. Law enforcement and victims’ advocates called him “The Texas Monster,” and the press dubbed him “The Broomstick Murderer” for the way he killed one of his first victims.

The 1966 Triple Murder

In 1966, McDuff kidnapped three teenagers in Everman, Texas: Robert Brand, 17; Edna Louise Sullivan, 16; and Mark Dunnam, 15. He shot the two boys and strangled Sullivan with a broomstick handle. A jury convicted him and sentenced him to death, and he spent six years on death row at Huntsville.¹²

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Furman v. Georgia effectively struck down existing death penalty statutes. Texas had roughly 45 men on death row at the time and seven more with death sentences in county jails; all had their sentences commuted to life. McDuff was one of them. Of the 47 affected inmates, 40 were eventually released, and about half of those went on to commit new offenses or violate parole.³⁴

How He Got Out

McDuff became eligible for parole four years after his commutation. Over the next thirteen years, he received enough board votes for release on six separate occasions.² In 1981 he tried to bribe parole board member Glenn Heckmann with $10,000. He was convicted for the attempt, but it did not meaningfully extend his time behind bars, and the board kept viewing him as a viable release candidate.⁵

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles was under intense pressure by the late 1980s. Federal court orders had capped the state’s prison population, and the board was approving roughly 80 percent of cases, processing about a thousand every five working days. In 1989 alone, more than 36,000 paroles were granted.⁵ A Dallas attorney named Gary Jackson also mounted a decade-long campaign to free McDuff, and McDuff’s family offered cash to a parole commissioner.¹

Board member Chris Mealy cast the deciding vote to release McDuff on October 11, 1989. Mealy later said he had been impressed by McDuff’s participation in college-credit courses, and added, “I wish that I could take it back.”⁵

The first parole lasted only months. Shortly after his release, 29-year-old Sarafia Parker was found dead in Temple, Texas. Investigators believed McDuff was responsible, though he was never charged. His parole was revoked in September 1990 after he chased a teenager with a knife in Rosebud. Then, on December 6, 1990, an anonymous hearings officer reinstated his parole without a formal board vote, hearing, or testimony. The board had delegated reinstatement power to staff-level officers, and one simply decided there was “no reason to keep Kenneth McDuff locked up.” He violated the terms of that second parole almost immediately, and in 1991 the board released him a third time.⁵¹

The Women He Killed After Parole

Following his final release in 1991, McDuff left a trail of dead women across Central Texas. The known and suspected victims from this period include:

Brenda Thompson, abducted in Waco in October 1991 after being seen in a vehicle with her hands bound. Her remains were later recovered off Gholson Road in McLennan County.
Regenia DeAnne Moore, 21, last seen alive in fall 1991 at a Waco motel, leaving with McDuff. Her remains were also found off Gholson Road.
Cynthia Gonzalez, 23, found dead in an Arlington creek bed in September 1991.
Colleen Reed, 28, kidnapped from an Austin car wash on December 27, 1991. McDuff’s accomplice, Alva “Hank” Worley, later testified that McDuff tortured Reed in the back seat of a vehicle. Her body was eventually found in Falls County near a Brazos River bridge.
Valencia Joshua, who disappeared in February 1992; her body was discovered on a golf course.
Melissa Northrup, 22, a pregnant convenience store clerk who vanished during a late shift in Waco on March 1, 1992. A fisherman found her body a month later.

¹²

Investigators identified a pattern. McDuff typically dug graves in advance, positioning them roughly twenty paces from a landmark he could locate in the dark. They believe he may have been responsible for as many as fourteen murders in total.²

Capture in Kansas City

After Melissa Northrup disappeared, McDuff fled Texas. He surfaced in Kansas City, Missouri, working as a garbage collector under the alias “Richard Fowler.” His profile aired on America’s Most Wanted, and a co-worker recognized him and called police. Kansas City officers arrested him aboard a garbage truck on May 4, 1992.⁶

Death Sentences and Execution

McDuff was convicted in 1993 and received death sentences for three separate murders: the 1966 killing of Edna Sullivan and the 1991 killings of Colleen Reed and Melissa Northrup. It was the third time in his life that a jury had sentenced him to die.²

As his execution approached, McDuff traded information for dental work, revealing the location of Colleen Reed’s body along with the locations of Brenda Thompson’s and Regenia Moore’s remains. Deputy U.S. marshals located Thompson’s and Moore’s graves off Gholson Road in McLennan County; Reed’s grave was found in Falls County near a bridge over the Brazos River.¹²

Kenneth McDuff was executed by lethal injection on November 17, 1998, at the Walls Unit in Huntsville. He was pronounced dead at 6:26 p.m., the 161st person executed in Texas and the 488th in the United States since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. His final words: “I’m ready to be released. Release me.”¹⁷

What the Case Changed in Texas

The McDuff case became a turning point for Texas criminal justice. In August 1992, Texas Monthly published Gary Cartwright’s investigative article “Free to Kill,” which documented how the parole board’s dysfunction had put a known killer back on the streets. A companion piece was titled “A System Gone Bad.”⁵⁸

The Criminal Justice Reform Act of 1989, passed before the full scope of McDuff’s crimes was known, had already merged Texas’s prison, parole, and probation agencies into a single Texas Department of Criminal Justice. After the scandal, the legislature enacted mandatory minimums requiring inmates convicted of capital murder to serve at least 35 years before parole eligibility. A new law authorized construction of drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers to house 12,000 inmates by 1995, intended to free prison space for violent offenders so population pressure would no longer drive the release of dangerous convicts. The governor also considered legislation to reestablish the parole board as a fully independent agency.⁹

Victims’ advocate Andy Kahan said of the case’s lasting significance: “The ghost of McDuff will haunt this state for eternity, and still to this day it still does.”¹

1
WFAA. Kenneth McDuff: How Texas Freed a Killer Three Times
2
Texas Monthly. The End
3
Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Death Row Historical Files
4
Midland Reporter-Telegram. Forty Death Row Inmates Commuted in 1972 to Life
5
Texas Monthly. Free to Kill
6
UPI. Texas Fugitive Arrested While Working as Garbage Collector
7
The Marshall Project. Kenneth McDuff
8
Texas Monthly. Life or Death
9
Texas Monthly. A System Gone Bad