AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
The minute serial killer Kenneth McDuff walked into a Texas prison interview room complaining about a toothache, investigator John Moriarty knew he had the edge he'd been waiting for.
"I got up and went into the warden's office and got him to the head of the list to see the dentist the next morning," explained Moriarty, a stocky 53-year-old with a New York accent. McDuff soon told investigators where he had dumped the body of Austinite Colleen Reed, one of 14 people authorities believe he might have killed.
That ended one of the state's most publicized unsolved crimes. McDuff was executed in November 1998.
"With guys like him, you got no twist on them. He was on death row. He'd look at you, and you knew he was thinking, 'What's in this for me?'" Moriarty said. "That's how it works in prison."
If anyone knows how things work behind bars, it's probably Moriarty, who has spent the past 22 years investigating crimes there, 10 of them as the agency's inspector general, the top cop, and only the second IG the agency has had.
On Aug. 31, Moriarty plans to retire and go fishing. His replacement has not been named.
During his colorful career, the gruff, mustachioed investigator has busted suspects on both sides of the bars: from felons with smuggled cellphones to top prison officials involved in the VitaPro prison food contracting scandal of the 1990s.
"When I got to Texas, I knew this job was going to be different. I didn't know how different," Moriarty said of a career in which death threats were routine.
To many Texans, from white-uniformed convicts to the big shots at the state Capitol, Moriarty is the no-nonsense Sergeant Friday of Texas' prison system, a man who is both respected and feared. Walking into a prison a few years ago, he was quickly recognized by guards. "Someone's probably going to jail today," one remarked to a reporter. Same for convicts: "If he shows up, you already been got," said one.
Moriarty rolls his eyes at the story.
"You're not writing traffic tickets in there. You're dealing with major bad people every day," he said. "If you've done bad, we're coming after you. That's our job."
Indeed, the job description reads like a script for a cop reality show: Witness executions to make sure the state's procedures are followed, supervise the capture of escapees, bust lawbreakers for new crimes committed inside the gritty world of prisons.
By most accounts, he's been successful, but the key to his effectiveness is difficult to pin down.
"He has a look — his eyes tell you that he wants to help you but you've got to tell him the truth, probably 'cause he already knows it," said Jerry Peña, a retired federal undercover officer who worked with Moriarty on several federal cases inside Texas prisons. "It's a talent that a lot of officers don't have, something that makes him effective at what he does. That New York accent is part of it."
Longtime Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, whose legislative panel oversees Texas' sprawling prison system, said he has learned firsthand how Moriarty works. Just a few years ago, when a condemned killer on death row called Whitmire on a smuggled cellphone, he immediately alerted Moriarty.
Richard Lee Tabler and two relatives were subsequently arrested, triggering a lockdown of all state prisons for three weeks that brought about the seizure of hundreds of cellphones and other contraband — and rocketed Texas to the forefront in a national campaign to allow prisons to jam cellphone signals.
"He's a can-do guy, a no-nonsense guy," Whitmire said. "He gets to the bottom of things."
Born in New York City, the son of Irish immigrants "who were just off the boat," Moriarty grew up in the Bronx. His father worked for a chemical company; his mother was a waitress.
Long route to Texas
After graduating from a Catholic high school, he worked in construction and then took a job as a park ranger in New Jersey, writing tickets. Just over a year later, federal funding was cut and Moriarty got laid off.
"I liked law enforcement — what can I tell you?" he said. "I had never been west of Philadelphia. But Wyoming was recruiting. So I took a job out there."
