Authors: Gary M. Lavergne

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #General, #Law, #True Crime, #Murder, #test

Bad Boy From Rosebud (40 page)

Page 129

tacle with surprising indifference. Michael saw Brenda kicking and screaming and could see, as everyone else could, that she was in trouble. No one did anything. Little Run, another prostitute, said, referring to McDuff, "Ah, man, that's just that fool."
⁸

Given his fondness for vehicles, McDuff must have been incensed at what Brenda had done to his windshield. If his behavior that night was consistent with what he had done in the past, and what he would do in the coming months, Brenda Thompson endured a slow, excruciatingly tortuous death.

Image not available.

Brenda Thompson.
Courtesy Waco Police Department.

Page 130

Image not available.

Regenia Moore.
Courtesy Waco Police Department.

Since McDuff rail tile roadblock at Faulkner and Miller almost at the moment Gina was being released from the McLennan County Jail, she could not have been on the Cut to witness the abduction of Brenda Thompson. (Even today, many law enforcement officers and news reports continue to incorrectly identify Regenia Moore as the woman seen kicking and screaming in McDuff's truck on October 10, 1991.) She might not have heard about the incident from the others on the Cut, who universally concluded that, indeed, McDuff was weird and crazy. Even so, the people of this subculture, for one reason or another, were drawn to money, and on occasion, McDuff had some.

Only a few days after the roadblock incident, Gina was seen in McDuff's pickup truck on the corner of Faulkner and the Strip. During an interview with federal investigators, the consistently unreliable "scumbag opportunist" Chester asserted that McDuff drove up to him while Gina was in the truck and asked if Chester had any cocaine. When Chester indicated he had none, McDuff drove away. Chester claims to have been the last person, other than McDuff, to see Gina alive.

Page 131

Chester's account was at least partially supported by a more reliable friend of Gina's, (hereafter referred to as William), who became intrigued with the culture of the Cut. Although reportedly not a customer, William came to know a lot of the people of the Cut and became sort of a counselor/advisor to many of them. William was convinced that she was last seen alive between 11
P.M.
and midnight on October 15, 1991, in Kenneth McDuff's pickup truck. Most accounts place the truck at the corner of Faulkner and US 77, within sight of a fast food restaurant called the Chicken Shack.
⁹

McDuff took Gina to a remote area along Highway 6 north and east of Waco. At the site of a bridge traversing the Tehuacana Creek, McDuff could have pulled off the road onto a very steep embankment down to the banks of the creek where he drove under the bridge. Passing motorists could not have seen his car. The road there is a freeway, and cars rushing over the bridge easily made enough noise to drown out any screams Gina may have made.

Within a day or so William contacted Gina's mother, a remarkable and courageous woman named Barbara Carpenter. Barbara immediately went to the Cut and was the first outsider to determine that indeed Gina and Brenda were missing. On October 19, while asking questions on the Cut, Barbara noticed a Waco Policeman, an Officer Barrington, patrolling the area. She stopped the officer and voiced a concern for Gina's safety.
¹⁰

For the next several months Barbara Carpenter believed that she was not taken seriously by the Waco Police Department. "I think they looked down on her, just another prostitute and dope user," she said.

For the Waco Police Department, the unfortunate truth, as insensitive as it might sound, was that prostitutes on the Cut frequently and willingly got into the vehicles of strangers and rode off. "She could possibly be anywhere. She is a street person. She is a prostitute. She could be from here to Kalamazoo. We don't have any information otherwise," said WPD Captain Everett January. Most of the time they returned, but sometimes they moved on to another city. The fact that Gina was missing could have meant anythingat the time. But the erroneous connection between Gina and the roadblock sent Barbara Carpenter, William, and the Waco Police Department looking for Kenneth Allen McDuff.

William had spent enough time on the Cut to know its people. He

Page 132

also knew of Kenneth McDuff and was able to tell Barbara Carpenter that McDuff was a student at TSTI. Shortly after Regenia's disappearance, Barbara, her husband, and William went to the Cut to talk to many of the girls there. They told her that Regenia was last seen with a regular customer named McDuff. The trio then went to Sabine Hall where they encountered Frankie, who told them of his rides with McDuff and McDuff's unsuccessful attempt to steal J. A.'s air compressor.

They then confronted McDuff in his room at Sabine Hall. When asked where Regenia was, McDuff reacted violently, threw up his hands, and said, "Don't try to pin that on me." Months later, in an interview with federal investigators, Barbara indicated that at the time McDuff protested his innocence, no mention had been made that anything had happened to Regenia. She added that McDuff insisted that he had taken Regenia back to the Inn 7 Motel around 9
P.M.
After letting her out of his car, he claimed she almost immediately went to another car, talked to the driver and left with him. McDuff only remembered that the car was tan.

As Barbara left Sabine Hall, she believed that she would never see her daughter again. "I just got this instinct. . . . I hope, I wish, I pray I am wrong, but I don't think I am."
¹¹

On the Cut, it was common knowledge that McDuff had taken and done something to both Regenia and Brenda. When one of the prostitutes asked him what he had done to Regenia, McDuff shot back, "I dropped the bitch off; I didn't even fuck her." Only a few months later, ATF Special Agent Charles Meyer became so sickened by the gross indifference of the inhabitants of the Cut, he lamented, "It was like, 'Okay, Regenia's gonebig deal.' " When asked by another Sabine Hall resident what happened to the windshield of his truck, McDuff replied that he had parked it in the wrong neighborhood.
¹²

In the middle of the whole tragic affair was Chester. All of the investigators of the McDuff case eventually concluded that Chester was a monumental waste of time. But, at the very least, he witnessed some of Regenia's last hours. At least one Cut prostitute believes she saw Chester in the red pickup truck with McDuff and Regenia the last time she saw Regenia there. This same prostitute also stated that a few days later Chester asked her if the police questioned her about Regenia's disappearance.
¹³

The day after Barbara Carpenter accosted McDuff in Sabine Hall, five officers from the Waco Police Department, some of whom wrote that

Page 133

they had to dash from McDuff's truck so that he would not run over them, visited McDuff. One of the officers positively identified McDuff's red truck as the truck that ran the roadblock on October 10. They noticed that the windshield had been kicked out and shattered on the passenger side, but the inside was very clean and had been washed out. The owner of the auto glass shop that later changed the windshield also remembered that it was so badly damaged that it looked like it had been broken with a chain; he also confirmed the cleanliness of the inside of the truck. The back of the truck, however, had a lounge chair and a lot of empty beer cans. Incredibly, the same officer positively identified McDuff as the driver.

Two of the Waco police officers then interviewed McDuff for a short time in his room. In a report of the interview, McDuff was said to have admitted that he knew Gina and that on the date in question, he picked her up on the corner of Faulkner and the Loop. He said that he dated a number of girls at the Cut regularly, and that after he finished his "business" with her, he dropped her off. Throughout the interview, McDuff was very calm. The WPD report has no reference to any action taken against McDuffnot even a ticket. Eight days later, on October 28, a separate WPD report asserted that the officers, who on October 10 reported that they had to run from McDuff's speeding truck, did not write an offense report for aggravated assault against an officer because they were not placed in fear of their lives.
¹⁴The roadblock incident is steeped in controversy to this day.

Kenneth McDuff's childhood sense of invulnerability had to have been reinforced by what he was able to get away with in Waco in mid-October of 1991. He had assaulted police officers with a vehicle and had been positively identified by the same officers who also witnessed a woman passenger, who appeared to be bound, in panic and distressand nothing happened. He considered skipping town, but after he called Addie and asked if the police were looking for him, and she said they had not contacted her, he concluded that "everything was o.k."
¹⁵

And life and death on the Cut went on. Within a five-day period, Kenneth McDuff had abducted Brenda and Regenia within an area of one hundred yards. On other occasions, he even brutalized the prostitutes he did not murder. Duckie's three-hour ordeal, sex "in every hole in her body" with McDuff, meant nothing to the girls who kept getting into his truck. And
every
woman on the Cut interviewed by officers stated

Page 134

that McDuff was weird, crazy, and dangerous. These women behaved in a way that toyed with and almost invited death, through either violence or virus. One tragic example, Little Bitwho before entering the subculture with an absence of beauty, was named Dianacontracted AIDS and died.
¹⁶Undoubtedly, there were many others. And life and death on the Cut went on.

III

In early November, Kenneth McDuff returned the red pickup truck with the broken windshield to his father, J. A., who did not bother to ask what had happened. According to J. A., if Kenneth had given him an explanation he would not have believed him anyway. At that time, according to a cousin, McDuff had taken possession of a 1985 Ford Thunderbird. The original owner of the car was one of his sisters, whose family put well over 100,000 miles on the vehicle. Without question, on November 24, McDuff was driving the Thunderbird.

The tan, 1985 Ford Thunderbird was a powerful mid-sized car. In some ways, it was perfect for what McDuff had in mind. Even though Thunderbirds have only two doors, the inside is somewhat spacious, and passengers seated in the rear cannot exit without the consent of those in front. On December 2, 1991, McDuff applied for a title for the vehicle, which was issued on December 30, the day after he would use it for kidnapping, torture and murder.
¹⁷

As the Christmas holidays approached, McDuff continued to roam the highways and back roads of Central Texas. He had no visible means of support, but he had money. He spent much of Christmas Eve of 1991 with a Bastrop woman named Angela. According to her statement, they spent some time at the home of one of his sisters. The sister appeared to be very close to him; she suggested to Angela that her brother would do well and that he had not committed the Broomstick Murders. On that day, McDuff complained to Angela that his nephew (the son of that same sister) "disrespected" him because he would not let him in on dope deals. The nephew was a major Central Texas distributor of methamphetamines, reportedly grossing over $500,000 per year. According to Angela's statement, the young drug dealer feared that his uncle would try to take over the "business."

Page 135

Angela and McDuff then went to the County Line Bar for beers and a few games of pool. McDuff began to get very upset when Angela started beating him at the game. Afterwards, she stated, all he wanted to do was sit down. He got even more upset when he "hit" on her and she did not respond. He called her a lesbian and suggested that he was going out to "get some pussy." Later that evening, however, McDuff had asked Angela if she wanted to go with him to Killeen to score dope. Angela declined, saying that she wanted to spend Christmas with her family. Almost a year later, she reflected that the seemingly insignificant decision might have saved her life.
¹⁸

Image not available.

McDuff's 1985 Ford Thunderbird.
Courtesy Travis County District Attorney's Office.

Page 136

Christmas time at Lori Bible's home was much more familial and traditional. Her sister, Colleen Reed, drove up to Lori's Round Rock residence in a new car she had purchased only a few months earlier. It was a 1991 white Mazda Miata. She loved her new car and had paid for it in full by mortgaging land she owned in Louisiana. It was a fun Christmas Day for the sisters, who enjoyed watching Lori's boys "wash" Aunt Colleen's car with the "super soakers" she had given them as presents. They also planned parties for the boys, who both had birthdays in January, and agreed to go to a Neville Brothers concert in Austin in February. It would have been a fun night out for the sisters.

At the end of Christmas Day, 1991, Lori and Colleen bade farewell to one another; Lori would never see her sister alive again.

Even though her engagement with Oliver had been broken off, Colleen continued to see him, and as Lori said years later, "She loved himbig time." But at the time she also dated others. During October or November she had placed a personal ad in the
Austin American-Statesman
, and as a result, dated a man named Francois. During the holidays she spent time with a co-worker from LCRA, and while their relationship was never intimate, they enjoyed each other's company at movies and dinners, and on sailing trips. They also enjoyed cooking for each other. Oliver believed that during their separation they tried to get over each other, but could not. He believed that 1992 was going to be their year.
¹⁹

Kenneth McDuff did not celebrate Christmas like most other people. The holiday season did nothing to temper his lust for robbing dope dealers, purchasing the services of prostitutes, and getting a gun. On December 23, 1991, McDuff drove to the Harker Heights home of a female speed dealer named Sandy. Their mutual friend, Billy, had introduced them. While at her home, McDuff met a most unique character named Jackie. Also known as the "One-eyed Jack" (because he had one good eye), Jackie was better known for the tattoos that nearly covered his body. Austin detective J. W. Thompson remembers that the first time he met Jackie he wondered why this enormous man was wearing a heavy, long sleeved shirt during the heat of a Central Texas summer. As Jackie got closer, J. W. realized that what he mistook for the long sleeves were really two massive arms covered with tacky, dark blue ink.
²⁰

Other books

The September Sisters by Jillian Cantor

Dido by Adèle Geras

Nik Kane Alaska Mystery - 02 - Capitol Offense by Mike Doogan

An Appetite for Murder by Lucy Burdette

Evil Turn (Nathan Hawk Mystery) by Watkinson, Douglas

A Magic Crystal? by Louis Sachar

Gator Bowl by J. J. Cook

The Duke Conspiracy by Astraea Press

The Sabbath World by Judith Shulevitz

The Methuselan Circuit by Anderson, Christopher L.