Authors: Gary M. Lavergne

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

Bad Boy From Rosebud (67 page)

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repeated his statement detailing his trip to Del Valle with Billy and McDuff. He was also willing to take a polygraph to prove he had nothing to do with the abduction of Colleen Reed.
¹

Don and J. W.'s trip to Belton, however, reaped more than just an interview with Morris. Tim told them of another of McDuff's sidekicksAlva Hank Worley. Tim agreed to find and talk to Hank. When Don asked Tim how he found out about Hank, Tim answered that it was because of Janice.

Janice was one of the more productive of Tim's contacts. Her information helped lead to the arrests and imprisonment of both her husband (Billy) and her ex-husband (Hank). Tim thought Janice was pretty intelligent compared to the people she associated with. He thought she seemed like the ''savior type," a fairly decent person who married undependable men. She was always friendly and cooperative, even though Tim had a great deal to do with sending two of her husbands to prison. "It seemed to have no bearing [on Tim's relationship with her]. She just goes on to the next [husband]."
²

Janice kept telling Tim that Hank Worley knew more than he was saying. She indicated that Hank wanted to talk to her about Kenneth McDuff, but she did not want to talk to Hank because they were engaged in a custody battle over Hank's daughter (the one living with him at Bloom's Motel). It crossed Tim's mind that Janice might be trying to exploit Hank's association with McDuff to gain an edge in the custody suit. For a few days, Tim tried unsuccessfully to locate Hank. When he called Janice about his whereabouts, she told him that Hank would be attending a child custody hearing on April 8. Tim decided to bide his time.
³

On April 8, Tim had to find out where the custody hearing was to take place. When he got to the courtroom, he found Hank sitting with his attorney. It was the first time Tim had ever met Hank. He asked if Flank would mind walking over to his office. After assuring the attorney that the topic was completely unrelated to any civil matter involving Hank, Hank consented to an interview. From the courtroom to Tim's office, Hank and Tim engaged in small talk. Hank never asked Tim why he wanted to talk to him. "That is an almost perfect indication that they are guilty. A normal person would want to know," said Tim, who acquired that wisdom after years of experience investigating sexual assault cases.

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Hank was very cooperative as he gave his first statement involving McDuff. He rode with McDuff, he said, because he did not have his own car. "The more he talked, the more jittery he got," remembered Tim. Without prompting, Hank referred to a convenience store clerk. He said McDuff spoke of a "damn good-looking girl" and that he "would like to take her." Hank readily admitted that he interpreted that to mean that McDuff would kidnap her.
⁴Hank finished up his statement and left Tim's office. Tim watched him walk away, knowing Hank knew much more.

The next day, April 9, Tim drove over to the Austin Police Department and delivered a snapshot of Alva Hank Worley. At the time, Hank had a huge bushy beard he had been growing since the abduction of Colleen Reed. His investigation also took him to the S&S Trailer Park where he encountered two other McDuff acquaintances, Buddy and Jimmy. Tim saw several quarts of authentic moonshine and considered himself lucky that Buddy was sober enough to talk at all. He watched Jimmy carefully; he considered Jimmy a dangerous man, and asked him to step outside while he talked to Buddy. Both of the men maintained that they hardly knew McDuff. Tim knew better than to believe that.
⁵

Image not available.

Alva Hank Worley, April 1992.
Courtesy Austin Police Department.

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John Aycock is a decorated Texas Ranger. He wears cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, chews tobacco and spits in a cup. His office walls have pictures of John Wayne. The office is small and horribly cluttered, wholly uncharacteristic of his approach and success in investigations. A small closet is stacked and filled with boxes of files. Inside, reports document just how good John Aycock is. He is one of the best at what he does. His reports are vivid and thorough; they reflect his eye for detail.
⁶

John knew of Kenneth McDuff and the entire McDuff clan. He was one of the first investigators on the scene of Lonnie McDuff's murder.

As is the case with most high profile murders, many leads flowed in to various law enforcement offices. John patiently and thoroughly checked out many of them. One of his major contributions to the case was that he was able to establish that McDuff had guns while in the H&H Lounge. While there, McDuff was his usual, abusive self. He tried to hit on a girl who quickly rebuffed his advances. Frustrated, McDuff took out his anger on a patron. He wanted the man to buy drugs. When the man declined, McDuff displayed a gun and said: "Well, I'll just kill your motherfucking ass."

"Man, there ain't no sense in having this kind of problem over drugs. I don't want to get killed," the frightened man said. Luckily, McDuff walked out of the H&H.
⁷

Among the law enforcement agencies, there was a "sense of urgency," as the
Waco Tribune-Herald
reported, "which a federal official attributed to McDuff's violent past." On March 30, 1992, Kenneth McDuff came closer to apprehension when two United States Marshals named Dan Stoltz and Mike Carnevale walked into Mike and Parnell's office.

Inspector Dan Stoltz of the United States Marshal's Service headed the task force that had been formed to track down McDuff. He was based out of Houston, and because he was an Inspector, Dan did not report to a United States Marshal. Dan was a very capable investigator who assembled a crack team to track down McDuff. The team included undercover operatives infiltrating the Central Texas subculture. As many as twenty people served on the task force. Joining Stoltz was a gifted investigator named Mike Carnevale, a marshal based out of San Antonio. Carnevale had earned a reputation as being one of the nation's best fugitive hunters. Stoltz and Carnevale were fond of one another and

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worked very well together. From Washington, Supervising Inspector Mike Earp, a descendant of a legendary law enforcement family, provided support. During a visit to Texas, Earp said, "Until I actually got on the scene down in Texas, I didn't realize what an impact McDuff had on those small communities, that people were absolutely terrified of the man."

At the time, the U.S. Marshals were winding down Operation Gunsmoke, a nationwide program designed to apprehend fugitives. Luckily, Stoltz was able to secure the funding, manpower, and resources that were already in place and ready to be moved to Waco to be concentrated on McDuff. The resources included the "Red October," a huge trailer moved about by truck and equipped with some of the most sophisticated communications and tracking equipment available to law enforcement.
⁸

Dan Stoltz established his authority fairly quickly. One of his first decisions was to refocus the investigation on the search for McDuff, rather than victims. He quickly replaced officers who did not carry their load. He had no patience with "politicians with big white cowboy hats who hung around" his headquarters. One officer from TDCJ introduced himself as "a captain." Stoltz replied, "well if you're a captain, I'm a
general
." He also pointedly instructed an area sheriff to "get out of [his] way and go on home."

Dan Stoltz struck an effective balance between being an administrator and an investigator. He personally processed each of hundreds of leads, prioritized them, and assigned them to officers.
⁹

As the number of officers on the case grew, the local townspeople began seeing out-of-towners with badges. One day, Parnell received a phone call from John Aycock, who explained that he had gotten a call from a woman who worked in a bank in Temple. She was concerned because a well-dressed stranger approached her and stated that he worked for the United States Marshal's Service and proceeded to ask questions about Kenneth Allen McDuff. (The investigator was Larry Doreck of the Houston Police Department.) In responding to the woman's phone call, Aycock began a surveillance of Doreck. As Aycock watched Doreck and the bank, he called Parnell in Waco. Parnell explained that the stranger was a member of the McDuff Task Force, and was one of Stoltz's specially deputized marshals investigating McDuff's finances. But Doreck was wearing shoes, John retorted; he had never heard of a United States Marshal who did not wear boots. With facetious indignation, Aycock said that if he ever heard of anyone else claiming to be a Marshal but not wearing boots,

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he would arrest him on the spot. Parnell hung up the phone, enjoying a much-needed laugh.
¹⁰

In the case of Kenneth Allen McDuff, the United States Marshal's Service performed brilliantly and delivered an amazing public service. Their agents investigated and tracked down hundreds of leads. Carnevale later stated that he and fifteen to twenty Marshals worked round-the-clock for five weeks. Like The Boys, each night they quit only after there was absolutely nothing else to do.
¹¹Mike Carnevale was particularly remarkable; at the time of the investigation he was battling terminal cancer. At times, Dan Stoltz had to order him to rest.
¹²Surely, in the annals of crime, no law enforcement agency has ever expended such time and effort to track down a suspect with a warrant for an arrest because of one LSD tab. But then, McDuff was special.

In looking for anyone who had any type of relationship with Kenneth McDuff, The Boys came across the name of Harrison. Harrison had been in jail with McDuff while the latter was serving time for a DWI charge. After both were released, the two men rode around together in McDuff's truck. Harrison was dark complected and often unshaven, and thus he matched the description of the passenger seen in McDuff's car the night of Colleen's abduction. During one of his trips with McDuff, Harrison had refused to have anything to do with a scheme to rob a convenience store and "take" a good-looking girl. He wisely made up his mind to have nothing whatsoever to do with McDuff. But Harrison was a strange and dangerous criminal as well, and law officers were watchful and careful whenever they were around him. That was why they all found it so odd to learn that Harrison lived with his grandmother. Shortly after reaching Harrison's grandmother's home, the men began to watch her carefully.

The Boys and a number of other officers, including Tim Steglich and Mad Dog Don Owens, arrived at the grandmother's home late into the evening. Harrison characterized his relationship with McDuff as brief. He complained that McDuff constantly talked about robbing and killing crack dealers. To Harrison, he was crazy and dangerous. So much so that he told his elderly grandmother that if McDuff ever came to the door, "don't open it or talk to him
just shoot him
." An incredulous silence followed. Finally, someone asked the grandmother if she had a gun. She calmly answered that she had a 357 magnum.

Afterwards, Harrison's grandmother became the object of curiosity. She told the officers that Harrison's father was a full-blooded Indian who

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died of alcoholism. Harrison's mother, however, was a filthy tramp, a slut, and had been sleeping with lots of people in the Hill Country town of Kerrville. Finally, Harrison's mother had married a doctor. As she spoke, Harrison continually interrupted her, saying, "Oh, Baby," and "Oh, Sweetheart" and "Oh, Miss Suzie, dear," as he stroked the back of her head and asked her not to be upset.

Harrison's grandmother insisted that she was a good Christian woman, and that she raised Harrison in a good Christian home, and taught him to be a good Christian man. That was why, she explained, she kidnapped him from a day-care while he was still an infant. The men were enthralled as she told of how she went the to daycare and threatened "to beat the hell out of the woman" there if she ever laid another hand on Harrison. She said that Harrison had told her that the woman had hurt him. Mike McNamara, perceptive as usual, kindly asked Harrison's grandmother: "If Harrison was an infant, how could he tell you that the woman had hurt him?"

"Just the way he looked at me, Mister. He said it [with his eyes]," replied the old woman.

As the men gathered on the front porch to leave, Harrison's grandmother repeated her devotion to Christian principles, and how all she wanted to do was what was right for Harrison. It was very dark and well after midnight as the men got into their vehicles to leave. As they backed away, dogs began to bark. Looking towards the dogs, the old woman screamed at the top of her lungs, "Shut up. Shut up. You gonna wake up the whole god-damned neighborhood!"

"She's a terrorist," Tim thought to himself.
¹³

The next day, Mike, Parnell and Bill thought that it might be wise to learn more about McDuff, from an historical perspective. They called their good friend, Falls County Sheriff Larry Pamplin, who arranged for them to meet Roy Dale Green. Roy Dale still lived in the house where he and Kenneth McDuff spent the night after committing the Broomstick Murders. Only a few yards from the house was the garage where they buried the pistol used to kill Robert Brand and Marcus Dunnam. Roy Dale repeated the horrible story. He also talked about what it was like to be around McDuff. He told of how McDuff raped girls, and how the instruments of his mistreatment included a tube of Deep Heat. During the interview, Green alleged that one of McDuff's victims never recovered from her trauma and later committed suicide.
¹⁴

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