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Jury deliberating McDuffs fateBy ERIC P. JENSEN Staff WriterA Guadalupe County jury began deliberations at 10:30 a.m. today to decide the life df death sentence of convicted murderer Ken-npth Allen McDuff. The same jury, on Thursday, found McDuff guilty of capital murder in the December 1991 disappearance of 28-year-old Austin resident Colleen Reed, f; Prosecutors David Counts and Buddy lyieyer, both Travis County assistant district attorneys, rested their case Monday afternoon dter bringing in witnesses and experts to testify in the abduction, sexual assault and criurder of Melissa Northrup. McDuff had been sentenced to death for Northrup’s 1992 teurder. -During a jury recess, defense attorneys Chris Gunter and Andrew Forsythe said they Wished to call to the stand a Dallas Morning News reporter who would testify that her paper conducted a survey which found the cost of appealing a death sentence was higher than incarcerating a life sentence inmatefor 40 years. They also wanted to call an attorney who would testify that a capital murder inmate serving a life sentence must first serve 35 years before being eligible for parole.Meyer objected to both, stating that those testimonies would not be relevant or material to this case. Judge Wilford Flowers sustained both objections.During morning proceedings, jurors heard from Lori Bible, Colleen Reed’s sister, who gave a tearful testimony on the effect Reed’s abduction and probable murder has had on her and her family.“I paced the floors a lot. Some days, Iwouldn’t eat; other days, I’d eat everything in sight,” Bible said. “Some days, I didn’t want to get out of bed.” *She said her two sons, ages 10 and 12, were close to Colleen and her disappearance affected their emotional attitude and their schoolwork. She said her sons were questioned by classmates as to the case and were finally pulled out of school and sent to hersister in Louisiana where they attended a private school.“We were no longer a private family,’* Bible said* Our lives were opened up by police in the investigation and through the media.”When asked what she missed most about Colleen, Bible said it was not being able to talk with her sister anymore.Bible became depressed three or four weeks following her younger sister’s disappearance and went into counseling, which she continues to this day. She described herself as “a lousy wife and a lousy mother” during that time, and that her marriage ended in divorce because of her depression.One of her sisters, who had been sober for eight years, started drinking again, lost her job and had her home foreclosed due to the effect of Reed’s disappearance, Bible said. Another sister dealt with the tragedy through “total denial,” refusing to discuss anything about Colleen.Bible gave a similar emotional testimonyminutes before when the jury was out and Gunter objected, saying it would cause the jury to decide the sentence based on “an emotional issue.”Flowers said he would allow the testimony, adding that Gunter and Forsythe could object to specific parts of her testimony and he would then rule on the objections at that time.The state then called Dr. Richard Coons, an Austin forensics psychiatrist, who testified that McDuff is a “predator” without a conscience. “Meyer asked Coons to form an opinion on an individual based on known facts. Prefacing each fact with, “let’s assume that...” Meyer recited a litany of McDuffs crimes including the Reed abduction and asked Coons if this individual v/ould commit continuing acts of violence.“He has had a history of lethal violence there,” Coons said. “You get the feeling that he enjoyed it. Violence doesn’t bother him. He does it over and over again. His psychology is that of a predator, he picks on someone weaker* He does not have a con* science” •Coons Said ha has never interviewed McDuff but has reviewed his prison recoril Earlier in the day, the state called Dr. Joseph Gilliardo, deputy chief medical exam* iner for Dallas County, who reported he conducted a April 27, 1992 autopsy on a body later identified through dental records as that of Melissa Northrup.Her body had been discovered the da before floating in a flooded gravel pit in Dallas County.Gilliardo said the cause of death was “homicidal violence” but couldn’t be more specific due to the body’s decomposition. A blue jean jacket had been pulled down arounc the victim’s arms which had been tied wit! shoestring and covered with a sock.Trace evidence analyst Charles Linch saw hairs recovered from the right inside sleevt of the biue jean jacket match McDuffs hear hair samples. ’.
Newspaper Details
Seguin Gazette Enterprise
Seguin, Texas, US
Tue, Mar 01, 1994
Page 1
Full Page
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Jared T.
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