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A MOTHER has killed herself hours after she was virtually accused by a television presenter of murdering her missing child.
Melinda Duckett, 21, shot herself after being grilled by Nancy Grace over her pleas for help in finding her two-year-old son Trenton. He had, she said, been kidnapped from his cot as she watched television with friends downstairs.
Grace, a former prosecutor who treats many guests on her nightly CNN show in the US as presumed guilty, remained unrepentant yesterday, insisting that the show was not to blame.
During the telephone interview on September 7, Grace pounded her desk, loudly demanding why Ms Duckett had refused a lie detector test and asking exactly which shops the mother claimed to have visited with her son before he disappeared.
“Where were you? Why aren’t you telling us where you were that day?” Grace asked. Ms Duckett ended the interview by handing the phone to her grandmother. The following day, and hours before the interview was due to be aired, Ms Duckett shot herself with her grandfather’s gun, close to her own home in Leesburg, Florida.
Although Grace was echoing the suspicions of the police, who have stopped short of calling Ms Duckett a suspect but call her initial answers to officials as “vague”, the case has highlighted the aggressive tactics of a new breed of legal pundit who first rose to prominence during the O. J. Simpson murder trial a decade ago.
“Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end,” Ms Duckett’s grandfather, Bill Eubank, said. “She and that baby loved each other. She wouldn’t hurt a bug.”
Grace said on air on Monday: “I do not feel our show is to blame for what happened to Melinda Duckett . . . Melinda committed suicide before that interview ever aired.”
In a separate statement, Grace said: “We feel a responsibility to bring attention to this case in the hopes of helping find Trenton Duckett, who remains missing.
“While Ms Duckett’s death is an extremely sad development, we remain hopeful that Trenton will be found.”
Grace was a a prosecutor in Atlanta before becoming a television personality. She never lost a case, though some of the convictions she secured were overturned on appeal. Grace was criticised by the Georgia Supreme Court for conduct that “demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness”.
The case has provided ammunition for her critics, who contend that she and others make it difficult for a defendant to receive a fair trial. Unlike Britain, there is no contempt of court law in America and defendants are often the subject of critical profiles before they are tried.
However, there is little evidence that conviction rates in America are any higher. Indeed, evidence suggests that in the US, just as in Britain, juries take their duty extremely seriously and remain immune to the influences of criminal justice talk shows.
Ms Duckett told police that she found Trenton’s cot empty and a 10in cut in the window screen above it. At the time she was in the middle of a divorce from the boy’s father, Joshua Duckett. Mr Duckett was also interviewed by Grace and told her that he disagreed with his wife’s claim that Trenton was a heavy sleeper. He said that the boy would have cried if moved.
Police say that they cannot account for Ms Duckett’s whereabouts in the hours before her son’s disappearance.
EXTRACTS FROM THE INTERVIEW
Nancy Grace questions Melinda Duckett at length about Trenton’s room and her own movements. After talking to the boy’s father, she returns to the mother:
Nancy Grace: This is Trenton’s mom, Melinda (Duckett), have you taken a polygraph?
Melinda Duckett: I’ve spoken to the investigators, and Joshua (her ex-husband) is on the outside loop of it, and as far as the investigative techniques are concerned with polygraph, stress test, physical searches, interviews etc, my family and I have fully co-operated with local law enforcement and . . .
NG: Have you taken a polygraph?
MD: . . . the federal and everything . . . And locally, they don’t have enough necessary experience, and that’s why the FBI was called in to begin with. I’ve been instructed to only speak with them, and anything they release to the media or public is up to them. Now, as far as . . .
NG: Have you taken a polygraph?
MD: . . . or anything — like I said, I mean, anything that I do or anything is in co-operation with them. I’m doing everything they want me to. But as far as details and everything, I’m leaving everything up to them.
NG: Right. Have you taken a polygraph?
MD: I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to. . . .
NG: Melinda, my producers tell me police say they offered you a polygraph and you haven’t taken it yet.
MD: Well, I’m not sure what the police are doing. I’m not working with the police. But everything with the FBI is being handled.
NG: Have the FBI offered you a polygraph?
MD: Everything that they have done (inaudible) and asked and everything, we’ve co-operated with. Just like with my husband, obviously, you know, there’s nothing coming up with anything. . . .
NG: Ms Duckett, you are not telling us for a reason. What is the reason? You refuse to give even the simplest facts of where you were with your son before he went missing.
MD: (inaudible) with all media. It’s not just there, just all media. Period.
NG: Let’s go to Dr Lillian Glass, psychologist. Weak spots?
Glass: This doesn’t make any sense to me. And the fact that she’s skirting around the issue and can’t get to the point concerns me a lot. Her reaction is not the typical reaction of a mother who has a missing child . . . Most people would be emotional about it.
WFTV.com
WFTV Interviews Melinda Duckett |
CNN Host Under Fire For Melinda Duckett Interview
LEESBURG, Fla. -- Cable talk show host Nancy Grace is under fire for grilling Melinda Duckett about her whereabouts in the hours before she reported 2-year-old Trenton Ducket missing. Duckett's family blames Grace and other members of the media, in part, for Melinda's suicide.
VIDEO: CNN Host Under Fire For Interview"Right, why aren't you telling us and giving us a clear picture of where you were before your son was kidnapped?" Grace asked Duckett in an interview."Because I'm not going to put those kind of details out," Duckett replied.Grace repeatedly pressed the young mother for answers about what she did leading up to 2-year old Trenton Duckett's disappearance from his bedroom in late August, at one point implying that she was hiding something."Ms. Duckett, you are not telling us for a reason. What is the reason? You refuse to give even the simplest facts of where you were with your son before he went missing. It is Day 12," Grace told Duckett.Duckett's family is holding Grace's show partly responsible for her suicide saying, "Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end."For her part, Grace is admitting no wrong doing and said she will continue to cover the story until Trenton is found.
