Patrick Duffy’s Parents: Murders, Killers, and Sentences

Patrick Duffy’s parents, Terence and Marie Duffy, were shot and killed on November 18, 1986, during an armed robbery at The Lounge, the tavern they owned on Main Street in Boulder, Montana.¹ Two nineteen-year-olds from nearby Helena, Kenneth A. Miller and Sean A. Wentz, were arrested within hours and later convicted of deliberate homicide.²

Who Terence and Marie Duffy Were

Terence Duffy was 66 and Marie “Babe” Duffy was 63.³ They had owned The Lounge for years in Boulder, a former mining camp of about 1,500 people in western Montana, leasing the bar to other operators while away and resuming direct operation roughly eight years before the murders.¹ One wall of the tavern was hung with photographs of their son, who at the time was starring as Bobby Ewing on Dallas. Marie reportedly recorded episodes so Terence, who worked during the show’s airtime, could watch them later.

The Night of the Murders

Miller and Wentz entered The Lounge on the night of November 18, 1986, and robbed it at gunpoint. Terence and Marie Duffy were both killed by shotgun blasts.² Authorities said the motive was money, though the exact amount taken was never publicly disclosed.⁴ The bodies were found by people who had stopped in for a drink after a shift change at the nearby Montana Developmental Center.⁵

How Miller and Wentz Were Caught

The two were caught quickly because they talked. About an hour after the killings, they went to the home of Wentz’s twenty-two-year-old girlfriend and told her what they had done. She told her mother, who called the police. When Miller and Wentz returned to the area while officers were still interviewing the woman, a high-speed chase followed, and they were arrested shortly before midnight.⁵ Police recovered a shotgun believed to be the murder weapon along with money taken from the bar. Both men were charged with two counts of deliberate homicide and held on $500,000 bail each.²

Convictions and Sentences

Kenneth Miller

Miller’s trial was held in Jefferson County District Court in Boulder before Judge Frank Davis. He faced charges of deliberate homicide, robbery, and assault.⁶ Miller blamed Wentz for the shootings, and Wentz, testifying at the trial, blamed Miller. On March 19, 1987, the jury found Miller guilty of causing the deaths of the Duffys during the robbery but acquitted him of the direct charges of shooting them. Judge Davis sentenced him to 180 years in prison: two consecutive 75-year terms for the homicides, 20 years for robbery, and 10 years for assault, all consecutive. Miller was designated a “dangerous offender” under Montana law and required to serve at least half the sentence before parole eligibility.⁷

Sean Wentz

Wentz pleaded guilty on May 6, 1987, days before his trial was set to begin, to avoid a potential death sentence. The plea required prosecutors to drop the charges that he had “knowingly and purposely” murdered the Duffys, which had made him death-penalty eligible. He was sentenced to 190 years in prison and made ineligible for parole for at least 45 years.⁸

Why Miller Was Convicted of Homicide Without Being the Shooter

The outcome of Miller’s trial rested on Montana’s felony murder doctrine, codified at Montana Code § 45-5-102. Under that statute, a person commits deliberate homicide when someone is killed during the commission of certain serious felonies, including robbery, regardless of whether the defendant personally intended to kill. The accountability provision extends liability to a participant in the underlying felony even when a co-defendant fires the fatal shots. Judge Davis instructed the jury that Miller could be found guilty of deliberate homicide either as the shooter or under the accountability law if he aided or abetted Wentz, which is how the jury convicted him of the killings while acquitting him of pulling the trigger.⁶

Where the Killers Are Now

Kenneth Miller was released on parole in December 2007 after serving roughly 21 years.⁹ Sean Wentz remained incarcerated as of at least August 2012, the most recent available reporting on his status.¹⁰

How Patrick Duffy Has Responded

Patrick Duffy was filming Dallas when his parents were killed. Production shut down on the morning of November 19, 1986, after the news broke, but Duffy urged the crew to continue and shooting resumed that afternoon.⁵

In interviews over the years, Duffy has credited his Nichiren Buddhist practice, which he has followed for nearly fifty years, with helping him through the loss. “As horrific as that was, I didn’t feel disconnected from them,” he said, pointing to the Buddhist belief in the eternity of life. He has said people often tell him his public comments about his parents helped them with their own grief, and he described his approach as trying to “take inventory at the end of the day” so the direction of his life stays more positive than negative. “I thought, as long as I can make something out of it, I’ll be okay.”¹¹

When Miller was paroled in 2007, Duffy publicly said he was fine with the decision.¹⁰

1
Los Angeles Times. Parents of Dallas Star Shot to Death in Robbery
2
UPI. The Parents of Dallas Television Series Star Patrick Duffy
3
TIME. Montana: Death in a Small Town
4
UPI. Teenagers Killed Parents of TV Star for Money, Police Say
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Los Angeles Times. Teenagers Charged in Deaths of Actor’s Parents
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Los Angeles Times. Jury Begins Deliberations in Duffy Slaying
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UPI. Killer of Actor’s Parents Sentenced
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UPI. Duffy Killer Gets 190 Years in Prison
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ABC News. Stars Whose Parents Were Murdered
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Yahoo News UK. Patrick Duffy Fine With Killer’s Release
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People. Dallas Star Patrick Duffy Opens Up About His Parents’ 1986 Murders