Polk sheriff ties James Duckett to 1987 cold case murder: ‘Pure evil in the flesh’

WINTER HAVEN, Fla. - Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced Thursday that executed Florida prisoner James Duckett is responsible for the 1987 abduction, rape and murder of 14-year-old Jeanifer Weldon.

Cold Case Press Conference

What we know:

Sheriff Grady Judd detailed the 1987 cold case homicide investigation during a press conference on Thursday at the PCSO Sheriff's Operations Center in Winter Haven. The announcement came following the Tuesday execution of former Mascotte police officer James Duckett at Florida State Prison.

Duckett was executed for the 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Tereasa McAbee in Lake County.

Judd displayed an age-progression photo showing what Weldon would look like today had her life not been cut short three days before her 15th birthday.

"She wasn’t able to graduate from high school," Judd explained. "She couldn’t go to college. She never had the opportunity to marry the love of her life. She never had the opportunity to have the children and raise the children and enjoy the wonders of being a mother. She never had the opportunity to send her children away to elementary or kindergarten on their first day or to watch them graduate from high school. Who knows? Maybe she or her children would have been one who turned into the scientist that found the cure for cancer. But, none of that happened."

Unsolved Lakeland Disappearance Timeline

The backstory:

Weldon lived on North Socrum Loop Road in Lakeland and disappeared on Saturday, Sept. 19, 1987. According to Judd, she spent that day with her boyfriend Johnny Marsh, her girlfriend Angel Sullivan and Johnny Marsh's mother.

The group traveled to Tampa, where Judd said  Weldon bought a stuffed kitten for her collection. The sheriff added that Marsh's mother dropped Weldon and Sullivan off at Sullivan's house on Highway 98 North, where they stayed until 9 p.m.

According to Judd, Weldon began walking to her home two miles away but never arrived. He said a frantic 13-day search ended when a phosphate mine worker driving down a dirt road in Fort Meade noticed shoes and smelled a decomposing body on Oct. 2, 1987.

Detectives said they found Weldon's body skeletonized in a wooded area, along with the t-shirt she wore the day she disappeared. Authorities determined the cause of death was strangulation and the manner was homicide.

Circumstantial Evidence In Polk

What they're saying:

"James Duckett viciously abducted, we suspect raped, and we know from circumstance, murdered, violently murdered this little girl," Judd stated.

Judd explained that Duckett left for his phosphate mine job five hours early on the night Weldon vanished, drove past where she was walking, and arrived two hours late to work hot, sweaty, agitated and with dirty hands. At 9 a.m. the next morning, Judd said Duckett gave his wife a green bag containing candy and a gray stuffed kitten, which she threw away after questioning why he brought one toy for two children.

Detectives confirmed the store Weldon visited in Tampa used green bags and sold stuffed kittens. Duckett, according to Judd, claimed scratches on his back came from barbed wire, and he later asked his wife to fabricate auto repair receipts and professionally clean his car, which she refused to do.

Judd said that Duckett once lived in McDuffy trailer park, just 1.8 miles from where Weldon's body was discovered in Fort Meade. Detective Bob Weeks discovered on Oct. 27, 1987, that Duckett had been arrested for McAbee's murder, four months after McAbee was killed and shortly after Duckett was fired in June 1987.

Forensic DNA Testing Limits

What we don't know:

According to Judd, investigators sent more than 10 pieces of Weldon's clothing to laboratories as DNA technology advanced over the decades, but never recovered any usable DNA evidence.

"There was no obvious evidence at the scene," Judd said, noting detectives had zero leads for the first 25 days following the body's discovery.

Judd said it is also unclear if Duckett had any other victims.

Final Legal Steps Ahead

What's next:

Polk County detectives accumulated tens of thousands of hours on the case but Judd said the agency faced a crossroads years ago on whether to prosecute a purely circumstantial case while Duckett was already on death row.

"We never had not one iota of evidence that anyone other than James Duckett ever committed this murder. Never. As you know, back in the day, as I said, there was no DNA. There was no cameras all over the place. There was no evidence. We located not one independent witness and we found nothing. We looked and we found nothing to the contrary to eliminate him as a suspect," Judd explained.

Detectives visited Duckett on Friday to offer him a final opportunity to confess before his execution, but he declined. The detective who worked Weldon's case attended Tuesday's execution, fulfilling a promise made 38 years ago to be the last face Duckett saw.

Judd said PCSO will meet with the state attorney's office one final time to formally clear the abduction, rape and murder case because the offender is dead. PCSO currently has only two unsolved cases in the last 16 years.

"We know that he’s a psychopath. We know that he is a child-raping murderer. We know he is pure evil in the flesh," Judd said. "We saw justice executed this last Tuesday."

"The reality is he did it and finally, he paid for it," Judd added, stating, "It’s never too soon to kill a psychopathic, child predator, murdering suspect."

Weldon's younger sister, Amy Weldon, noted the execution occurred on her late mother's birthday.

"I’m confident the right person was executed. I don’t like how long it took, but I am confident, 100 percent the right person died. I am grateful for the other family that did allow us to participate and bond with them. Our family had always prayed for them and they prayed for us," Amy Weldon shared.

"I’d like to make a comment to anyone who doesn’t believe in the death penalty and believes that he shouldn’t have been executed and what I’d like to say back is when you take a child and their life and you rape them and you strangle them and you dump them like they are nothing and the last memory you have is before because you can’t even identify and they are out on the street decomposing," Amy Weldon said. "What I like to tell people - what if that was your family when you don’t believe in the death penalty. They don’t deserve. Teresa didn’t deserve it. My sister didn’t deserve to die like they did and just be dumped. So, anybody who doesn’t believe in the death penalty is crazy because you need to think what if that was your daughter or your sister, you aunt or, you know. I definitely believe in the death penalty, and I think that was justice and I think if my mother was alive, she would definitely be good with it."