NewsHK
Nearly four decades after Teresa McAbee, 11, was found sexually assaulted, strangled, and drowned in Mascotte, Florida, the state executed the man convicted of her murder.
James Duckett, 68, a former Mascotte Police Department officer, died by lethal injection on July 28 at Florida State Prison in Raiford. The execution drew families of two girls authorities believe he killed.
The mechanism of the case was almost perversely simple. On the night McAbee disappeared in May 1987, Duckett was the only officer working the streets. She was last seen in his patrol car.
When her body turned up, fingerprint and DNA evidence linked him directly, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at a July 30 news conference. Duckett was fired a month after her disappearance and arrested shortly after.
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