* * *
On Sunday, 24 February 1992, McDuff strangled a part-time black prostitute and student called Valencia Joshua, while he was attending the Texas State Technical College in Waco. At the time, he was studying to become a machinist, and shared a campus dormitory with students who were half his age. He used his seniority to good effect, selling marijuana, methampehtamine, LSD and ‘crack’ cocaine to his fellow students as a means of augmenting his student grant.
It is thought that Valencia had only been in Waco a week or two before being killed. ‘The public doesn’t get as outraged when someone like Valencia turns up dead. But it’s still a homicide and just as important as any other,’ said Richard Stroup, McLennan County Deputy Sheriff. The police described her as a ‘street person, but a sweet woman who loved children’. She had no local address, no suitcase and no belongings. In fact, no one had a clue why she was in Waco at all. ‘She had no relatives there,’ said her father, Tommy, who lived in Bryan, and it was her mother, Roma, from Fort Worth, who finally reported her missing.
Twenty-two-year-old Valencia had last been seen alive on the day she died, knocking on McDuff’s dormitory door, number 118. The skinny woman was wearing a dark windbreaker, tight, blue jeans, and an ornate barrette in her hair. When she received no answer, she went to the window and called out, ‘Are you ready yet?’ She was not seen alive again.
On Sunday, 15 March 1992, walkers found a human skull, that had been exposed by animals, behind the James Connally Municipal Golf Course and close to the college. An unclothed body was buried in soft, moist clay close by, and the deputies initially had just one lead to help them identify the corpse – a cloisonné hair comb lying near the body. The inlaid pattern depicted an orange butterfly among green leaves and red flowers – it was Valencia’s proudest possession. Dallas medical examiners eventually identified the body by means of fingerprints. Cause of death was recorded as strangulation.
McDuff was seen pushing a Ford Thunderbird car, a short distance from the Quik-Pak No 8 convenience store in the 4200 block of La Salle Avenue, off Interstate 35, south of Waco, on Monday, 1 March 1992. Richard Bannister said he noticed the incident at about 3.45pm.
A little later that afternoon, 22-year-old Melissa Northrup went missing from her place of work, at the Quik-Pak store. Described as 4ft 11in tall and weighing 110lb, with shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes, Melissa was two-and-a-half months pregnant. She lived with her accountant husband, Aaron, at 3014 Pioneer Circle, Waco. The diminutive young woman would have proved no match for a man of McDuff’s height and bulk. He stood at over 6ft and weighed in at 245 lb.
At around 4.15am, a local man, who knew Melissa, saw her car heading north on Interstate 35. She was in the front passenger seat and looked frightened.
When she did not return home, Aaron phoned her, and when he received no reply, he drove to the store, which was closed. The cash register drawer was open and the contents were missing. ‘A customer was in the store,’ Aaron later told police, ‘and when he saw me, he got real scared and threw his hands up in the air. I threw him the bathroom keys, and told him to please go look for my wife.’ Then he dialled 911. Police soon determined that $250 had been stolen from the cash register and, despite the fact that several people were sleeping in their cars close to the store, there were no witnesses to Melissa’s abduction, although McDuff’s Thunderbird was found close by.
At approximately 9.00pm the same day, Shari Robinson said that McDuff arrived at her Dallas County home and he asked for some food.
Within hours of Melissa’s abduction, McDuff’s details were placed on the US ‘Most Wanted List’, and appeals were placed in the newspapers, and on television, asking for information regarding his whereabouts. As the police intensified their manhunt, Mark Davis, a former college student friend of McDuff’s, came forward to say that, on an earlier occasion, McDuff had tried to enlist him to rob the Quik-Pak store.
Another student, Lewis Bray, reported that McDuff had once boasted that the easiest way to get rid of a body was to slit the abdomen and throw it into water. It was also determined that McDuff had once worked at the Quik-Pak store and, ironically, he had been trained by Melissa’s husband, Aaron.
A fisherman discovered Melissa’s corpse, floating in a water-filled gravel pit in South-East Dallas County, at 6.00pm on Sunday, 26 April. The body was partially dressed, in a purple suit and a dark coloured jacket. Part of her lower torso was missing. Her car, a burnt-orange 1977 Buick Regal with a white vinyl top, licence plate TX LP287 XHV, was found, parked, just a mile away and close to Shari Robinson’s home. After forensic tests had been completed, human hairs, identical in every respect to those taken from McDuff, were found on the car’s upholstery.
* * *
McDuff was committing his murders throughout Texas, thereby creating jurisdictional problems which brought a dozen law enforcement agencies to the conference table to co-ordinate their enquiries. What was needed was to combine the organisational capabilities of the FBI, US Marshal’s Service and the Texas Rangers, but rape and murder are State rather than federal offences.
Two US Marshals from Waco, Mike and Parnell McNamara, had an idea which offered a way out of the bureaucratic impasse. They had been told that during the time McDuff was at the technical college, he had been supplying LSD and was known to be in possession of a firearm, both of which are federal offences. Consequently, on Friday, 6 March 1992, the local State Attorney issued warrant No 9280-0310-0506-Z for McDuff’s arrest. Two months later, they had the break they were waiting for.
Thirty-six-year-old Gary Smithee worked for a Kansas City refuse collection company. After arriving home on Friday, 1 May 1992, he tuned his television set to the America’s Most Wanted show and, as was his usual practice, videotaped the programme. Smithee was taken by the $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Kenneth McDuff and thought he saw a striking resemblance between the face on the screen and a new co-worker called Richard Fowler. The new man had created an impression with his constant boasting about his sexual prowess, particularly with very young women.
Smithee thought very carefully about the implications of reporting his suspicions. He did not want to upset Fowler, but the chance of a fast $5,000 was too good an opportunity to miss. He discussed the tape he had made of the TV programme with a work colleague before phoning the Kansas City Police. Sergeant JD Johnson took the call, and immediately ran a search through their computer for the name, Richard Fowler. Information came on the screen reporting that a man, answering a description that fitted both Fowler and McDuff, had been arrested during a prostitution sting and been charged with soliciting. The detective then carried out a fingerprint comparison between the two names with the result that Fowler’s record card matched that of McDuff.
The next morning, Johnson ascertained which truck McDuff was due to join as a crew member and determined the route that the trash-collection truck would take on Monday, 4 May. He learned that it would be going to a landfill site, south of Kansas City, between 1.0.0pm and 2.0.0pm. The police set up a six-man surveillance team working under the guise of a commercial vehicle stop detail. ‘We wanted to make sure the location we picked was isolated in the event of trouble,’ Johnson explained. ‘McDuff was reported to be armed and dangerous. The site we picked was the type where some vehicles were routinely stopped, and there were no people around.’
To lend further authenticity to their plans, the police borrowed a car that Kansas City Engineers used for their routine truck inspections. When the vehicle in which McDuff was riding approached, a lone officer waved it to the checkpoint. Instantly smelling danger, McDuff made an attempt to get out and make a run for it, but he was stopped in his tracks at gunpoint and made no further attempt to escape.
McDuff was indicted in the Fifty-fourth Judicial District Court of McLennan County, Texas, on 26 June 1992, for the capital murder of Melissa Northrup while in the course of committing and attempting to commit kidnapping, robbery, or the mur
der of another pursuant to the same scheme and course of conduct. He was found guilty as charged.
On 18 February 1993, following a separate punishment hearing, the jury affirmatively answered the first special issue submitted to Article 37. 071(b) (1) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, and answered negatively to the second special issue submitted pursuant to Article 37. 071(e). In accordance with the State law, the trial court imposed the death sentence.
McDuff’s conviction and sentence were automatically appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which affirmed the conviction on 28 April 1997.
Then, McDuff filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court, a legal technicality requesting that proceedings be moved to a higher court. This was denied on 12 January 1998.
Next, McDuff filed a petition for a State writ of habeas corpus which was denied, on 15 April 1998, by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
On 29 April 1998, the Fifty-fourth Judicial Court of McLennan County, Texas, set McDuff’s execution date for 21 October 1998.
Counsel was appointed on 30 April 1998, to represent McDuff in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division.
On 8 July 1998, McDuff filed a petition for a Federal Writ of habeas corpus. The State responded with an answer and motion for summary judgment on McDuff’s claims.
The Western District Court denied habeas corpus relief on 15 October 1998, granting summary judgment for the State, and lifting the stay of execution. The court also rescheduled McDuff’s execution for 17 November 1998.
McDuff filed a Notice of Appeal on 23 October and, three days later, the Western District Court denied McDuff’s request for a certificate of appealability. His appeal to the Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals was denied, and the Supreme Court denied his last appeal for a stay of execution on 16 November 1998.
* * *
A man familiar with the routine of carrying out executions by lethal injection is Assistant Warden-in-Charge of Executions in Texas, Neil Hodges. Speaking about the reality of this method of judicial death, he said, ‘People think this is all painless and stuff like that. It ain’t! Basically, they [the condemned] suffer a lot. They are sort of paralysed, but they can hear. They drown in their own fluid and suffocate to death really.
‘Yeah, we get problems. Sometimes the guy doesn’t want to get on to the table. But we have the largest guard in Texas here. He gets them on that table, no problem. They are strapped down in seconds. No problem. They go on that mean old table and get the goodnight juice, whether they like it or not.’
On 17 November 1998, a large group of reporters stood outside the Walls Prison in Huntsville, Texas, in an area reserved for the press. The Walls is the oldest of all the prison units in Texas; it also houses the death chamber. Perfectly suiting the occasion, a single, heavy, dark cloud hovered over the prison. Near a concrete picnic table, a jungle of photographers’ tripods looked like a flock of ostriches. Mercifully, a gentle breeze flapped at the cautionary yellow ‘DO NOT CROSS’ police tapes. No one in the press saw a single anti-death penalty protester.
Earlier in the day, inmate number 999055, Kenneth McDuff had been taken from his cell at Ellis Unit, and driven 15 miles to the Walls. Even for a stone-cold killer like McDuff, his first sight of the death house was a sobering one. The truck that had brought him to his final destination, pulled to a stop in front of a set of wire gates topped with razor wire, glinting and sparkling in the Texas sunlight. Shackled and cuffed, he was led through two steel doors. On his left was a row of cells; he was allocated the second one, furnished simply with a bunk, a small table and a chair. The bed linen was spotless, as were the cream-painted walls. Next to McDuff’s cell was a ‘strictly no contact’ cell. The door was covered with a fine steel mesh screen, painted black. It was used by inmates, should they wish to give instructions to an attorney.
In the corridor, and to his right, was another wooden table with two chairs. On it, McDuff noticed a bible and a telephone. There was no ashtray as smoking was forbidden.
Lethal injection was first legally introduced as a method of execution in 1977 in the States of Oklahoma and Texas. The first prisoner to die by this means was 43-year-old Charlie Brooks, who had been sentenced to death for his part in the murder of a used car dealer, in Fort Worth, in 1971. Brooks finally gave up his appeals against the death sentence and died in Huntsville Prison on 7 December 1982.
The practice of giving hospital patients a pre-med injection to sedate them before going into the operating theatre, prior to general anaesthesia, is a common procedure. It relaxes the patient and takes away the tension. This concept offered a number of advantages to those responsible for despatching condemned inmates to perdition. The drugs were certainly available and cheap to use. There was also the added humane dimension inasmuch as lethal injection was a clinical procedure carried out in appropriate surroundings. Gone were the dread gallows, the ominous electric chair with all its wiring and leather helmet and death mask. Gone, too, was the evil-looking gas chamber, with its sickly green-coloured walls and mass of rods, tubes and linkages. When using a lethal cocktail of drugs, the condemned inmate would be led from a holding cell to a hospital gurney to be strapped down and injected intravenously.
There were benefits as well for the state authorities. The whole idea would appeal to the media and public alike, for execution could not possibly be made more merciful. A team of paramedics would attend to the inserting of a needle into the victim’s right or left arm, and a doctor would be, as with all executions, in attendance to pronounce death.
Addie McDuff had arrived too late to see her son on his last day and he was allowed no special privileges other than a choice of menu for his final meal, which consisted of two T-bone steaks, five fried eggs, vegetables, French fries, coconut pie and a single Coca-Cola. As he completed his meal, he contemplated the end, which he thought would be painless, but he didn’t know that he was going to be injected with a combination of three drugs, all acidic, with a pH value higher than 6, which would burn so terribly that he would feel as if he was being injected with fire.
At 5.58pm, the warden received word that the Supreme Court had turned down McDuff’s final request for a stay of execution, and the witnesses started to arrive through the main prison gate to be escorted to the Death House. They might have noticed the sheeting, now draped over the steel gates, hiding the hearse that was waiting to receive the body. After being given a body search to check for hidden weapons or concealed cameras, they were led to the viewing room, which was separated from the gurney by a window and closed curtains.
At 5.44pm the killer was given a pre-injection of 8cc 2 per cent sodium pentothal. Waiting silently, in an adjacent room, was the cell extraction team, wearing protective clothing and armed with Mace gas to subdue McDuff if he caused trouble. Their particular skills have never been called upon at an execution in Texas.
At 6.08pm, McDuff was invited to leave his cell. He agreed and no guard touched him as he walked the few steps to the chamber door, which opened before him. He paused, momentarily, when he saw the gurney with its white padding and cover sheet. Two arm supports were pulled out and he saw the brown hide straps dangling loose with an officer by each one.
At 7.08pm, McDuff was strapped down, and the paramedics inserted two 16-gauge needles and catheters into both of his arms. These were connected by flexible tubes to the executioner’s position which was hidden from view. The doctor also attached a cardiac monitor and stethoscope to the prostrate man’s chest.
The curtains were drawn back and Warden Jim Willett asked McDuff if he had any last words to say into the microphone above his head. McDuff replied simply, ‘I’m ready to be released. Release me.’ Inside the witness area, Parnell McNamara gently placed his hand on the shoulder of 74-year-old Jack Brand.
‘I’ve been waiting for this for 32 years,’ said the father of Robert Brand, who was murdered by McDuff in 1966.
‘Are you all right?’ Parnell asked
quietly.
‘I feel like 32 years have been lifted from my life,’ the old man said.
McDuff looked scared as, over the next ten seconds, he was given an injection of sodium thiopental, a fast-acting anaesthetic which takes effect within about ten seconds. He would have felt a slight pressure, and his arm start to ache. Then he would feel light-headed.
After a one-minute interval, this was followed by 15cc of normal saline, to ease the passage of 50mg/50cc Pancuronium bromide. Pavulon is a curare-derived muscle relaxant which paralyses respiratory function and brings unconsciousness in about ten seconds.
McDuff felt pressure in his chest. It was a suffocating feeling that caused him to gasp several times for air. He was dizzy and hyperventilating; his heart beat faster and faster as his entire nervous system came under attack. This is called the ‘stress syndrome’, a common feature during the first stages of dying.
As the poison permeated through his body, McDuff entered the second stage of death. He was unable to breathe or move, but he could still see and hear. He was paralysed and not able to swallow at this stage: a condition which leads many witnesses to believe that death has intervened. McDuff was still alive, but his central nervous system was beginning to shut down. His eyes dilated and the hairs on his skin stood erect as he was injected with another 15cc of saline and, finally, a massive dose of Potassium Chloride (1.50–2.70mEq/kg). When injected intravenously in large doses, this drug burns and hurts, because it is a naturally occurring salt and instantly disrupts the chemical balance of the blood. It causes the muscles to tighten up in extreme contraction and the instant it reaches the heart muscle, it causes the heart to stop beating. While McDuff was sedated by the thiopental and couldn’t draw breath because of the Pavulon, he was physically unable to scream in pain when the potassium was injected, sending his heart into a crunching, excruciating cramp.
Talking with Serial Killers Page 24
