{"id":355277,"date":"2026-07-28T19:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/355277\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T19:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T19:52:11","slug":"james-duckett-executed-in-florida-for-rape-murder-of-11-year-old-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/355277\/","title":{"rendered":"James Duckett executed in Florida for rape, murder of 11-year-old girl"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida is set to become the first state in nearly a decade to carry out a double execution in one day with the lethal injections of a child murderer and an octogenarian.<\/p>\n

Former police officer James Duckett, 68, died by a lethal injection at 1.19 p.m. Tuesday at Florida state prison near Starke for raping and drowning an 11-year-old girl in 1987.<\/p>\n

Duckett said \u201cNo sir\u201d when asked if he wanted to make a final statement and about four minutes after the three-drug injection began, the prison warden shook Duckett and shouted his name, receiving no response.<\/p>\n

\"MugshotEx-cop James Duckett, 68, is set to be executed via lethal injection in Florida on Tuesday. Florida Department of Corrections<\/p>\n

The second execution is scheduled for 6 p.m. and will see Dominick Occhicone, 80, a murderer convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend\u2019s parents in 1986.<\/p>\n

Barring any last-minute developments,\u00a0Occhiconewill become the oldest death row inmate ever executed in Florida \u2013\u2013 and the second oldest prisoner known to have been put to death in modern US history.<\/p>\n

The last state to execute two people in one day was Arkansas on April 24, 2017 \u2014 and the last\u00a0time two inmates were executed on the same day in Florida was in 1964.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Dennis Sochor became the eldest inmate executed in Florida when he was put to death for killing a woman he met on New Year\u2019s Eve 1981.<\/p>\n

Another 74-year-old inmate, Dusty Ray Spencer \u2014 who was just one week younger than Sochor at time of execution \u2014 was put to death in June.<\/p>\n

The oldest prisoner known to have been executed in US history is Walter Moody Jr., who was put to death at 83 in Alabama in 2018.<\/p>\n

Moody was convicted over a mail bomb campaign in 1989 that killed a federal judge and a civil rights attorney.<\/p>\n

Duckett was the sole police officer on duty in Mascotte, near Orlando, on the evening of May 11, 1987.<\/p>\n

\"BlackDuckett was sentenced to execution for raping and murdering 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee in 1987. Family handout<\/p>\n

Witnesses said they saw Duckett\u2019s victim, Teresa McAbee, getting into his patrol car that evening and her mom reported her missing hours later. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Her body was found in a nearby lake the next morning, with DNA and hair collected from the girl\u2019s body found to be probable matches to Duckett.<\/p>\n

Fingerprints matching Duckett and the victim were found in his patrol car, according to investigators.<\/p>\n

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Duckett\u2019s death warrant in February, with his execution originally scheduled for March 31.<\/p>\n

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But the Florida Supreme Court issued a stay just days before it was due to go ahead to allow DNA testing which couldn\u2019t be carried at the original trial due to technological limitations.<\/p>\n

The results were inconclusive and the stay was lifted earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Duckett\u2019s attorney, Mary Elizabeth Wells, said after the execution was rescheduled that it was shameful and blamed the state\u2019s handling of DNA evidence for the inconclusive results.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Duckett has consistently maintained his innocence,\u201d Wells said. \u201cThe State\u2019s duty is to ensure that justice is done, and not rush to kill in a case with such serious doubts over guilt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida has now carried out nearly half the state executions in the US since the beginning of 2025 \u2014 with Duckett being the 11th inmate executed this year.<\/p>\n

With Post wires<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida is set to become the first state in nearly a decade to carry out a double execution…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4537,28,30,29,4538,4281,48121,4278],"class_list":["post-355277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-executions","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-murders","tag-rape","tag-sentences","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}