Hell on Wheels

The True Tale of Kenneth McDuff and how his release led to reform of the Texas Criminal Justice System

Released from prison on October 11, 1989, Kenneth Allen McDuff walked away from the Texas State Penitentiary after 23 years in prison for the murders of three Texas teens. Six years of his term were spent on Death Row. In the three years that followed his release, McDuff confessed to killing no fewer than five young women, but the true number is estimated to be as high as fourteen.

A small-town bully born in the Central Texas town of Rosebud in 1946 to a “a pistol packing mama”, who only saw the best in her boy, McDuff was reported to have an IQ of about 92. People in town remember him as a loner who picked on the weak. His lack of intelligence most likely played a role in getting him caught for many of the crimes he committed, beginning at age 18, with a string of burglaries. Around that same time, he confided to his brother that he had already raped and killed a woman. McDuff may have been referring to the unnamed woman he raped and left for dead in 1964, who reportedly bore a child out of the crime. It may have been someone else.

His First Death Sentence

Following release for his first burglary offenses, McDuff was not deterred but determined to continue his crime spree. No less than eight months after his parole, on a hot August night in 1966, McDuff, along with a young sidekick named Roy Dale Green, kidnapped three…