Nearly 40 years after his parents were killed at their Montana tavern, Patrick Duffy is sharing the painful details of a night that changed his family forever.
The 77-year-old Dallas star became emotional during the November 9 episode of Steve Kmetko’s Still Here Hollywood podcast as he recalled the deaths of his parents, Terence and Marie Duffy.
The couple were killed on November 18, 1986, at the bar they owned in Boulder, Montana. Duffy said the violence followed a confrontation between his father and two disruptive young customers.
“My dad had thrown these two boys out because they were, you know, drunk and boisterous,” he recalled.
According to Duffy, the men left, continued drinking and later returned armed with shotguns. By then, his parents were the only people remaining inside.
Recounting what he learned from court testimony, Duffy said his father stepped toward the men and began telling them to leave again before he was shot.
His mother had been sitting at the other end of the bar, working on a crossword puzzle.
“She took a couple of steps running towards Dad, and they shot her too,” he said.
The attackers then took money from the register and bottles of alcohol before leaving, Duffy recalled.
Sean Wentz and Kenneth Miller, both 19 at the time, were convicted in connection with the killings and received lengthy prison sentences. Miller was later released on parole in 2007, followed by Wentz in 2015, according to subsequent reporting.
For Duffy, known to generations of viewers as Bobby Ewing on Dallas and Frank Lambert on Step by Step, his Buddhist faith became a source of support as he faced the loss.
He told Kmetko he had practiced Buddhism for about 15 years before the murders. Its teachings about the continuity of life helped shape how he understood his parents’ deaths and began processing his grief.
The conversation comes as the family approaches the 40th anniversary of the killings—a loss Duffy still carries even after decades of speaking openly about faith, family and moving forward.
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