After almost four decades, the execution of James Duckett brought closure for two families who believe they both lost young girls to the same killer.
The 68-year-old was executed by lethal injection July 28 for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee while on duty as a cop for the Mascotte Police Department.
McAbees family attended his execution at the Florida State Prison in Raiford.
They were joined by family and friends of 14-year-old Jeanifer Weldon. Authorities believe she also was killed by Duckett four months after he murdered McAbee.
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But law enforcement officials stopped pursuing a conviction out of fear it would prolong his life, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a news conference.
It had been decided that piecing together evidence on the case could “jam up” the process or “create more defense, or more arguments, or more excuses why he shouldn’t be executed,” Judd told reporters on July 30.
So once Duckett was sentenced to die for McAbees murder, authorities stopped pushing to secure a conviction for the killing of Weldon, Judd said.
McAbee went missing in May 1987. She was last seen with Duckett in his patrol car on an evening when he was the only officer working the streets.
When her body was found, evidence showed shed been sexually assaulted, strangled and drowned, according to court records.
A month later, Duckett was named a suspect and was fired from his job as a cop. Very strong fingerprint and DNA evidence linked Duckett to the case, Judd said.
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Then three months later, another girl went missing in Central Florida.
Weldon disappeared on Sept. 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 15th birthday.
Shed spent the Saturday with friends on a trip to town to Tampa, where shed bought a fluffy kitten to add to the stuffed animal collection in her bedroom, Judd said.
Around 9 p.m., she left her friends to walk about two miles home, carrying her new stuffed kitten in a green plastic bag, Judd said. She never made it home.
For “13 frantic days, we looked for Jeanifer to no avail,” Judd told reporters almost 39 years later. There were few leads, until a phosphate miner pulled over to investigate a pair of shoes he spotted on the side of the road in Fort Meade. It had been about two weeks since Weldon had disappeared.
When he got out of his car, he was hit with the pungent smell of a decomposing body, Judd said.
Weldons “skeletonized” remains were found behind tall grass and a berm in a wooded area away from the road, Judd said.
Duckett eventually became a suspect in that killing, too.
Investigators believed Duckett had used his old law enforcement uniform to convince Weldon he could provide a safe ride home.
Family members and investigators felt Weldon wouldnt have gotten in a car with Duckett without that reassurance and confidence that he was a police officer and someone she could trust, Judd said.
She died by strangulation, he said.
Investigators suspect she was raped before her death.
A month a
