{"id":355298,"date":"2026-07-28T20:11:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/355298\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T20:11:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T20:11:24","slug":"former-cop-duckett-executed-for-girls-rape-murder-in-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/355298\/","title":{"rendered":"Former cop Duckett executed for girl’s rape, murder in 1987"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Aren Duckett, who long maintained his innocence in the horrific rape and drowning of an 11-year-old Lake County girl<\/a> nearly four decades ago, was executed Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

While restrained onto a gurney at Florida State Prison in Raiford \u2014 his hands and fingers secured to the side \u2014 Duckett declined to say any final words before he was put to death at 1:19 p.m., according to the Florida Department of Corrections.<\/p>\n

He was then injected with a three-drug cocktail that put the 68-year-old inmate to sleep, paralyzed him and stopped his heart.<\/p>\n

It was the first of two executions scheduled on the same day. Dominick Anthony Occhicone, 80, is slated to be put to death at 6 p.m., becoming the oldest prisoner executed in modern Florida history. Occhicone was convicted of the 1986 killings of his ex-girlfriend\u2019s parents in Pasco County.<\/p>\n

If Occhicone was put to death as planned, it would be the first time since 1964 that Florida executed two inmates on the same day.<\/p>\n

Hours before his execution, Duckett\u2019s team of lawyers filed last-minute appeals<\/a> with the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of execution to allow several items of clothing that young Teresa McAbee was wearing on the night of her death in May 1987 be tested for DNA, along with vaginal swabs and scrapings from under her fingernails. They\u2019d unsuccessfully appealed to lower courts previously.<\/p>\n

Justice Clarence Thomas denied the appeals without comment just moments before Duckett\u2019s death. Duckett\u2019s execution, scheduled for noon, was delayed by more than an hour as prison officials awaited word from the nation\u2019s top court.<\/p>\n

A federal judge in Jacksonville on Monday also denied requests by Duckett\u2019s legal team to halt the execution. The Florida Supreme Court refused to issue a stay in Duckett\u2019s execution last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is of no import to the State of Florida that they will execute an innocent man, so long as the proceedings keep their conviction intact,\u201d said attorney Elizabeth Wells, who\u2019s represented Duckett for decades, in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Anti-death penalty protestors held vigils and prayer services across the state before Duckett\u2019s execution.<\/p>\n

At the steps of the Lake County Courthouse in Tavares Tuesday morning, four death penalty protestors prepared to toll a massive bell to coincide with\u00a0Duckett\u2019s execution.<\/p>\n

Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of advocacy group Death Penalty Action, drove from Ohio with the about 400-pound bell in tow, which he said has been rung in dozens of states.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the real challenges is that most people are totally unaware that this is even going on,\u201d he said, regarding the rare double execution. \u201cWhen we toll this bell, there\u2019s going to be no mistaking that we\u2019re out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s appellate law states that after a jury issues a conviction, the burden shifts to the inmate to prove their innocence. State prosecutors said all the evidence in the Duckett case has been examined through decades of appeals and additional DNA testing would not present definitive evidence to show he did not rape and kill Teresa.<\/p>\n

\"FileFile photo of Teresa Mae McAbee, murder victim. (Orlando Sentinel file)<\/p>\n

On May 11, 1987, Teresa \u2014 a middle school student \u2014 asked her mom if she could walk to a nearby convenience in a small plaza facing State Road 50 in Mascotte, a rural town of barely 1,700 residents at the time. She needed a pencil to finish her homework.<\/p>\n

Duckett \u2014 who was sitting in his patrol car across the street running radar \u2014 saw Teresa walk into the store and then walk out.<\/p>\n

Gwen Gurley, one of the teenagers near the convenience store that night, testified that she later saw Teresa being driven away by Duckett. But others contradicted her account, and Gurley later recanted her story.<\/p>\n

Teresa\u2019s body was found the next morning floating face down near the shore of a small lake at the end of a dirt road less than a mile away.<\/p>\n

\"DorothyDorothy McAbee touches the gravestone of her daughter, Teresa Mae McAbee, at the Center Hill Cemetery on Thursday, July 10, 2003. Teresa was 11 years old when she was murdered in 1987. (Stephen M. Dowell\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

Duckett was indicted by a grand jury in October 1987 and charged with her rape and murder. He was found guilty in 1988 and sentenced to death.<\/p>\n

His supporters said Duckett \u2014 with a wife and two young boys at the time \u2014 worked hard to become a police officer, such as losing weight before attending a police academy. He was hired by the Mascotte Police department in November 1986.<\/p>\n

Why, they asked, would he leave the body of his victim in open view near the crime scene knowing about police forensics?<\/p>\n

But Teresa\u2019s family and others asked, if Duckett was innocent, why would he, as a police officer, let an 11-year-old girl walk home by herself in the dark?<\/p>\n

\"DeathDeath penalty protesters Tony Herlich, left, and Abraham Bonowitz toll a bell with SueZann Bosler during a demonstration in front of the Lake County Courthouse in Tavares, Fla., Tuesday, July 28, 2026. Borowitz, who is executive director of Death Penalty Action, led the protest opposing the scheduled double execution of former Mascotte police officer James Duckett and another Florida death row inmate in Starke on Tuesday. (Joe Burbank\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

In Tavares on Tuesday, Tony Ehrlich, sporting a straw hat and pink cane, joined the other protesters and sat on the courthouse steps with a sign that read, \u201cAre you willing to be the innocent person executed?\u201d<\/p>\n

The 90-year-old Volusia County resident has traveled to the state prison in Raiford to protest executions frequently since January, he said, this time opting for location closer to his home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re human beings,\u201d he said of death row inmates. \u201cAnd we should treat them like human beings and not like animals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then he tolled the bell again and again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Aren Duckett, who long maintained his innocence in the horrific rape and drowning of an 11-year-old Lake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,114,266,115,139,141,140,109],"class_list":["post-355298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355298","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=355298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}