This story is part of The Dallas Morning News Murder Project focused on sharing the stories of all the people murdered in Dallas in 2024.
Stop N Save Liquors on Cesar Chavez Boulevard had been open for less than an hour when Kandi Priester walked in.
The Dallas Morning News tells the stories of people killed in homicides in 2024 to show the toll of violent crime in Dallas. Throughout the year, reporting will examine what officials are doing to tackle a crime that claimed at least 246 lives last year.
Drinking was rare for her, but this Wednesday morning in September called for it. She scoured the shelves for something cheap. Palm-sized bundles of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey shots caught her eye – two packs of 10 should be enough, she hoped.
A text from her husband left her reeling. It was bad news about a friend who lived on the streets, just like the couple did when they met eighteen years ago.
Crime in the news
‘Bald head is dead.’
Priest wanted her husband to be wrong. She called to bombard him with questions. How did he die? Who killed him? What was the word on the street?
She discovered that her friend, a tireless worker who put as much energy into keeping his friends alive and lifting their spirits even in the face of homelessness, had met a violent end.
Many who sleep on the sidewalks and parking lots of South Dallas knew him as “Bald Head” – a nickname he earned for his militant commitment to keeping his head clean-shaven, without allowing even a hint of stubble.
To her he was Kenneth McGlothurn.
Priester’s husband said he drove to meet McGlothurn’s “street family” on Cesar Chavez Boulevard, where he slept next to his friends under a sprawling oak tree overlooking a bustling Interstate 30 interchange.
She decided she would go there too.
Priester and her husband met McGlothurn more than two years ago while volunteering — a promise they keep several times a week to give back and remind themselves where they come from.
McGlothurn, 50, rarely spoke about how he became homeless, saying only that it happened after his release from prison, Priester said. In 2013, a home burglary landed him there while he was on probation for auto theft, records show.
Priester was not deterred; time behind bars was not uncommon for those living on the streets. “He was then, but I knew him now,” she said.
McGlothurn’s time in prison changed him, Priester said. His mother had died while he was in prison. He often said he wanted to visit her grave, but he didn’t know where she was buried. Priester searched through online obituaries in an attempt to find her, but came up with nothing.
The Dallas Morning News found a woman with a matching name and time of death, who was buried in rural Louisiana – more than 250 miles away from the oak tree. McGlothurn would “most certainly” find a way to get there if he were alive today, Priester said.
Priester occasionally hired McGlothurn and others when her employer, a property protection company that removes debris, needed extra hands. The work took them through the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She once saw him outpace everyone as he loaded two 26-foot U-Haul box trucks with debris for a job in Burkburnett, a small town near the Texas-Oklahoma border.
Her boss was so impressed that he asked if McGlothurn would be available for a day-long business trip to the Austin area this summer. McGlothurn agreed, so Priester drove to Walmart to buy him new clothes and toiletries. She fed him before they left.
A photo taken during that trip shows McGlothurn wearing the new clothes, a brimmed hat and aviator-style sunglasses. He flexes one arm while giving a thumbs up with the other. Priester thinks this was the last photo of him.
Kenneth McGlothurn, 50, is seen in a photo taken during a business trip to Austin in the summer of 2024. The photo is likely the last image taken of him before his death on September 11, 2024.(Kandi Priester / Courtesy of Kandi Priester)
McGlothurn’s friends describe him as a handyman with an entrepreneurial spirit and a knack for fixing things.
He kept his friends looking sharp, cut their hair with razor blades – the “prison way,” they joked – and could make any pair of shoes look brand new with a little water and a cloth. He sold spare shoes for a few dollars but kept the Converse, his favorite, for himself.
He also had a levity that belied his circumstances, his friends recalled recently over nachos cooked by Priester. Most things were a joke, except the Dallas Cowboys; for him, the team’s good prospects, combined with their poor performances, were no laughing matter.
“He was still hoping for that Super Bowl,” said Robert Watson, 64, a Washington Commanders fan, over the group’s hearty laughter.
They sighed after the laughter and smiles disappeared.
“But he didn’t make it all the way,” Samuel Jenkins said.
“No,” Watson replied. “He didn’t quite make it.”
Just after midnight on September 11, Dallas police found McGlothurn on Cesar Chavez Boulevard. His friends remember how the swirling red and blue colors illuminated a dimly lit underpass a few blocks away, where officers found him in the roadway, with multiple stab wounds marking his body.
A witness — who knew him only by his nickname — told police he was killed after an argument with a man who demanded he share his crack cocaine, an officer wrote in an arrest warrant affidavit. Police later arrested Harold Anderson, 71, in connection with the death.
As of Sunday, Anderson, who is also homeless, was in jail and charged with murder, jail records show.
McGlothurn’s friends said he and Anderson had known each other for years.
“They got along great,” Jenkins said. “That’s what I don’t understand. You may have arguments, but how can you turn around like that?
Jenkins describes homelessness as an endless cycle of finding and losing things.
A backpack can ease the burden of lifting for months. A discarded camping tent can provide shelter for weeks. Extra clothing is a backup in case of rain. But these things often get stolen. They are lost or broken. Sometimes they were wiped out when officials closed camps.
The cycle can breed selfishness on the streets – but Jenkins, who lives under the oak, says McGlothurn was different.
Last winter, Jenkins underwent surgery to place a defibrillator under his collarbone to address persistent heart problems. When he was discharged from hospital with nowhere to go, he felt weaker than ever and now, every morning around 9:09 a.m., the little device would sound under his skin – a daily reminder of his deteriorating health.
Jenkins, 70, made it through his first night. The second night, McGlothurn invited him to share a makeshift shelter he cobbled together from cardboard and scrap wood.
“I’m not going to make him a saint, but his heart was good,” Jenkins said. “His heart was very good.”
Samuel Jenkins (left) and Robert Watson, friends of Kenneth McGlothurn, pose for a photo along I-30 East, in the area where they lived with McGlothurn until his death, in Dallas on Monday, October 28, 2024. Kenneth McGlothurn, a 50-year-old Dallas man was stabbed to death on September 11 in the 2400 block of South Cesar Chavez Boulevard in South Dallas.(Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer)
McGlothurn left behind only a few belongings: a blue Coleman refrigerator and a worn cushion from a sofa that served as a bed. His backpack, where he kept razor blades to cut his hair and other items, was missing.
Jenkins inherited the couch cushion and sleeps on it at night. The cooler went to Watson, who used it to store bottled water for their group. The souvenirs are the only physical memories they have of their friend.
But Lennell Beverly, 55, says McGlothurn gave them something far more indelible – one that could never be lost, broken or stolen.
“He taught me how to survive.”
When Priester left the liquor store and drove down Cesar Chavez Boulevard to greet her friends under the oak tree, McGlothurn wasn’t there.
She called the medical examiner’s office to ask for confirmation, but it started to dawn on her. His friends had seen the red and blue lights along the road. The underpass, barely visible on the horizon, was cordoned off with yellow police tape.
She tore open the packs of 10 and handed out the small bottles. Jenkins, like them, almost never drank, but today they made an exception.
They raised their shot for McGlothurn.
“Rest in love.”
“We miss you, Baldhead.”
“This is for you.”
Kenneth McGlothurn’s “street family” on Cesar Chavez Boulevard throws shots of cinnamon whiskey in his honor on September 11, 2024. Dallas police found McGlothurn, 50, stabbed to death in the road earlier that morning.(Kandi Priester / Courtesy of Kandi Priester)
Efraín Xicol Quej, 25, was beaten to death on March 16 in the 2700 block of Northaven Road.
Looking back on the life her son was building, Meeka Dennis said he seemed proud.