Patrick Duffy has opened up about the devastating night his parents were murdered at their Montana bar four decades ago—and the Buddhist practice that helped him endure the loss.
The “Dallas” actor, now 77, said two teenagers armed with shotguns returned to his parents’ bar in Boulder, Mont., on Nov. 18, 1986. Earlier that night, his father, Terrence, had thrown them out for becoming intoxicated and disruptive.
“It was very late at night,” Duffy recalled Monday on Steve Kmetko’s “Still Here Hollywood” podcast. “There was nobody in the bar except my father and my mother. And they walked in with their shotguns.”
Duffy said Terrence recognized the 19-year-olds, Sean Wentz and Kenneth A. Miller, and moved toward them, telling the pair, “I told you to,” before they opened fire. His account referenced testimony presented during the men’s 1987 murder trial.
Duffy’s mother, Marie, had been working on a crossword puzzle at the opposite end of the bar. When she rushed toward her husband, the gunmen shot and killed her as well.
After the shootings, the attackers vaulted over the bar, took cash from the register and grabbed several bottles of liquor before escaping.
A group of people stopping for a drink after changing shifts at the nearby Montana Developmental Center, a state institution, later found Terrence and Marie’s bodies, according to the Los Angeles Times.
One woman initially believed Marie had simply collapsed. She then saw blood on Terrence, ran outside and summoned a friend for help.
Authorities said Wentz and Miller subsequently stole a pickup truck from a car dealership and went to the home of Wentz’s 22-year-old girlfriend. She contacted police after the pair told her that people had been shot and killed.
Wentz received a 190-year prison sentence, while Miller was sentenced to 180 years.
The “Step by Step” star said he learned about the killings the next morning, when his sister—a Washington state police lieutenant—called him in tears while traveling to Montana.
As news of the murders spread, television crews gathered outside Duffy’s California home. Producers of “Dallas” arranged a private jet so he could fly to Montana.
“So, that was fine,” Duffy told the podcast.
At the time of the tragedy, Duffy was married to ballet dancer Carlyn Rosser, whom he wed in 1974, and they had two sons, Padraic and Conor.
Before departing for Montana, he told the boys that their grandparents had been murdered.
“They were getting up to go to school,” he recalled. “And I said to the boys, I said, ‘Padraic, Conor, we have to go in now. I’m going to chant with you.’”
Duffy had practiced Buddhism for 15 years, and chanting was already woven into the family’s morning routine.
“I said, ‘We have to chant for Grandma and Grandpa because they’ve both been killed, and we have to chant for them because they’re going to understand it and hear,’” he recalled telling his sons.
“And they went, ‘OK.’”
The actor said his Buddhist faith gave him a way to process the unimaginable loss.
“The Buddhist philosophy is one of continuous life cycle of your entity, for the lack of a better word,” he explained. “But I didn’t study that at all. I was just chanting because it felt good. It felt right. It made my life feel better.”
Duffy went on to build a decades-long Hollywood career, becoming widely known for his roles in “Dallas,” “Step by Step” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.”