Bad Boy from Rosebud: The Murderous Life of Kenneth Allen McDuff

15 Searching for a Monster

230 Searching for a Monster 15 “It was like playing Scrabble with a chimpanzee.” —Bill Johnston I ATF Special Agent Charles Meyer is a tall, lean man with an angular face and sleek, Clint Eastwood eyes. He is as good an interrogator as anyone who has ever questioned a suspect. He is so good in fact, that a frustrated Austin defense attorney once lamented in open court that “Chuck Meyer always seemed to be there when somebody needed a little interrogating.”1 A native of San Antonio, Chuck flew helicopters for the Army in Vietnam. After earning a degree in management and marketing, he was drawn to law enforcement. He looked into different agencies and chose the ATF for a career. Chuck Meyer is an intensely disciplined investigator . It is hard to imagine him being flustered or losing his cool. He likes to work quietly. Not only does he dislike publicity of any type, he actively avoids it. Although he has been involved in some of the highest profile cases in recent Texas history, a search through the archives of the Austin American-Statesman reveals a single, three-word Chuck Meyer quote: “We did great.”2 In mid-March the ATF’s initial lead investigator in the cases involving McDuff—Wayne Appelt—was temporarily relocated to El Paso to run the ATF office there. Chuck replaced him as the ATF point man in Austin. In an unrelated drug case, he had already heard of Kenneth McDuff. Chuck was already sensitive to crimes against women. At the time he was also a member of the Yogurt Shop Task Force.3 Searching for a Monster 231 At the Austin Police Department another detective, Joseph Wayne “J. W.” Thompson, began to get more involved in the Colleen Reed Case. At the time, he shared a cubicle with Sonya Urubek, and she often discussed elements of the case with him. Sonya suggested to the captain of the Assault Unit that J. W. would make a great addition to the Reed Case. J. W. had grown up in the Big Thicket in a small town called Sour Lake near Beaumont, Texas. He graduated from MacArthur High School in San Antonio. Like Chuck, he is a Vietnam Veteran, but J. W. was on the ground with the U.S. Marines. He smiles and shakes his head when Chuck grins and says “I flew over J. W.” He is a patient, methodical, steady detective with little in the way of a professional ego. As the McDuff case grew, with more and more jurisdictions required to work and get along with one another, J. W. blended in with the McDuff posse quite well. He never tries to impress anyone; he does his job and is just as averse to publicity as his good friend Chuck Meyer. He, too, has been involved in some of Central Texas’s most high profile crimes. He will discuss them in public only if he is in a courtroom and under oath. Otherwise , it is “no comment.” APD detective J. W. Thompson (left) and ATF Special Agent Charles Meyer (right), who tirelessly searched for Colleen Reed after her disappearance. They also helped to establish that McDuff knew nothing about Austin’s Yogurt Shop Murders. Author’s Collection. 232 Bad Boy from Rosebud II While Tim Steglich stayed behind to continue talking to Billy, Mike and Parnell McNamara, Bill Johnston, Jeff Brzozowski, Wayne Appelt, Bill Miller, and Mad Dog Owens headed for Bloom’s Motel, a crumbling, down-and-out motel just south of Belton along Interstate Highway 35. Wayne Appelt remembered how cold it was that night—it was freezing. He was shocked to see Hank dressed in cutoff blue jeans only: no shirt, no socks and no shoes. Hank claimed that he did not know McDuff. This response reinforced what Janice had told the officers earlier during the day; Hank is a liar and was taught to lie all his life. They told him they knew he was lying, that they knew he knew McDuff, and that it was a serious offense to give false information to federal officers. “Look, I don’t know nothing about that man. I just met him one time with Billy and I don’t know nothing about that man.” That was his second lie. Finally he denied ever having worked on McDuff’s Thunderbird. That was his third lie. The men zeroed in on...