EVERMAN, Texas — Kenneth McDuff should never have walked free. He's one of the worst killers I have ever covered.

The convicted murderer was paroled three times, and each release left more victims. His case remains one of the darkest failures in Texas’ criminal justice system, a collision of overcrowded prisons, bribery, and catastrophic decisions that cost innocent lives.

“He’s a killing machine,” a prosecutor said. “I don’t think I have ever seen or heard of anybody who more thoroughly embodied more of what we think of as evil than Kenneth McDuff.”

McDuff’s violence began in 1966, when he and an accomplice kidnapped three teenagers in Everman, Texas. Robert Brand, 17, his girlfriend, Edna Louise Sullivan, 16, and Brand’s cousin, Mark Dunnam, 15, were targeted at random.

McDuff shot t

See Full Page