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

1 They Was Just Pranks

11 “I got sent to prison because I was an asshole. They should have been able to overlook that.” —Kenneth Allen McDuff I On the eastern edge of Rosebud, Linden Street heads south from Main Street toward a baseball field carved out of surrounding farmland. Small wooden houses, old but well kept, and shaded by large pecan trees, line the streets. On the east side of Linden, only the second building from Main, stands what once was the Rosebud Laundromat. A small living area connects to the rear of the laundromat where the family of John Allen “J. A.” McDuff lived. At least some of the McDuff children, including two boys named Lonzo (“Lonnie”) and Kenneth, were born in far-off Paris, Texas, and no one seems to know why the McDuffs, who lived in the Blackland Prairie before moving to Rosebud, ended up in the area. J. A. did farm work. His wife was a hefty, domineering woman named Addie. Addie ruled. She controlled everything, including the money, the children, and J. A. “The only opinions J. A. had were Addie’s,” a longtime Rosebud resident would say.1 At least one of Kenneth’s teachers, however, knew of some who thought that at one point J. A. had made some effort to bring discipline into the lives of his two sons. In reality no one knew for sure. The family was a mystery to those around them. In Texas Monthly, Gary Cartwright wrote that the McDuffs were not the friendliest people, in fact, they were downright weird—“but they weren’t white trash either.” In addition to farming, J. A. McDuff did masonry and concrete work, and soon he left farm work to run his own successful concrete business They Was Just Pranks 1 12 Bad Boy from Rosebud during the Texas construction boom of the sixties and seventies. After moving to Linden Street, Addie started her own business. She opened and maintained the Rosebud Laundromat. J. A. and Addie McDuff worked very hard for everything they had. Neither has ever had a criminal record— “not even a parking ticket,” Addie said years later.2 But, for the next four decades Addie McDuff’s volatile and unpredictable behavior scared people, even some seasoned police officers accustomed to breaking down the doors of crack houses. Many in Rosebud considered her unstable. Neighbors, both in Rosebud and out in the Blackland Prairie, had no way to prove it, but they looked toward Addie with suspicion when pets or hogs were found dead of gunshot wounds. “She was just that type of person,” said a Rosebud resident.3 In 1992, when Kenneth made the cover of Texas Monthly, Addie became upset about the article, although she also claimed never to have read it. She particularly resented references to her as a “Pistol-Packing Mama.” “I didn’t do any of that,” she insisted to a Bell County investigator .4 But Rosebud teachers did refer to her as “Pistol-Packing Mama McDuff” after she allegedly accosted a school bus driver and warned that there had better not be any more disturbances involving her children on his bus. She also had a reputation for refusing to believe that any of her children, especially her boys, could possibly misbehave or do any wrong. Another Addie McDuff legend involved the Rural Electrification Association and her displeasure at the amount of time it was taking for a line to be connected to her house. On that occasion, Addie was rumored to have gone to the REA office and said something to the effect that she was not called “Pistol-Packing Mama McDuff” for nothing. Even if untrue , the townspeople believed it and most steered clear of her.5 When it came to her boys, Addie was a conspiracist. Complaints about Lonnie and Kenneth from neighbors, school officials, and especially law enforcement officers brought about protests of cabals against her boys. In the process, she reinforced a notion in the boys’ minds that they could do no wrong and that whatever they said, no matter how outlandish, was per se, the truth. Kenneth’s prison record later included a quote from Rosebud High School’s principal: Did not get along with students, teachers or anyone. He would lie, steal, and destroy the property of others. Was They Was Just Pranks 13 in some form of trouble every few days. He had trouble in the community...