Mother of missing boy commits suicide (after Nancy Grace interview)

[celeb_2006]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060913/...NlYwNtdm5ld3M-

LEESBURG, Fla. - Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with TV's famously prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and loudly demanding to know: "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?"

A day after the taping, Duckett, 21, shot herself to death, deepening the mystery of what happened to the boy.
Police have refused to say whether she left a suicide note, and said nothing they have found so far in their investigation of her death has shed light on the whereabouts of her 2-year-old son, Trenton.
Investigators have stopped short of calling her a suspect but have focused increasing attention on her movements just before the boy vanished and the notes, computer, camera and other items seized from her house.

[heart_leigh]

Mother and son



Melinda Duckett


Trenton Duckett


Joshua Duckett

[KD]

What a creepy story, so the baby has not yet been found?? I hope and pray that he is found safely.

[SammysMom]

I dont even know what to say about this. Its a very very sad story.
I do know one thing I cant stand Nancy Grace. She crossed a line. I watched a news show talking about this story and most people agree she crossed a line. One thing is CNN should have never aired that interview. What was the point? The interview was not done live. But CNN choose to air it even the day after she committed suicide. That is some f'ed up crap.
Nancy Grace I sure hope you can live with yourself now as well as those producers at CNN.

[Lobelia]

I just read the transcript of the interview with Nancy - very interesting.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../08/ng.01.html

Mom simply wouldn't say yes or no when Nancy repeatedly asked her if she'd taken a polygraph (she dodged & weaved & chattered) and when asked point blank where she'd been that day, she admitted that she would not give that information. A couple of guests on the show, to include Marc Klaas and a couple of investigators, made comments that appeared to insinuate that mom's behavior & story were not ringing true.

My personal 2 cents: if somebody broke into my home & took my child, I believe I would move heaven and earth to find them. I certainly hope that I would not kill myself 12 days later because someone in the media wasn't nice to me. Bullshit. If I KNEW that I didn't hurt my child, and he could still be out there somewhere, I would USE Nancy Grace and whoever else I could. This woman refused to answer questions, and......well, read the transcript for yourself. She could have left at any time. She wasn't forced to do that interview.

[SammysMom]

Seems according to reports the mom was not mentally nor emotionally all together. So even if she did do something to her child, God forbid, those producers should not have had that interview. Whether the mother cracked and confessed what was the point of airing the interview the day after the lady committs suicide? Ratings, plain and simple, ratings.

Yes you move heaven and earth and do all that is needed if your child is missing but why air the interview? I know Im repeating myself Im sorry

[KD]

Well, I can totally see where people find Nancy Grace annoying but I love the fact that she is a former prosecuter whose fiance was murdered and so has lived through some serious trama in her life. I love that she grills people and pretty much calls people's bullshit on their bullshit. So, I guess where I can see people hating her, I like her. And WTF is up with the mom buying a GUN 2 days before the baby's disapearance?? I smell a rat.
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More on this story www.msnbc.com

LEESBURG, Fla. - Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with CNN’s famously prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and loudly demanding to know: “Where were you? Why aren’t you telling us where you were that day?”

A day after the taping, Duckett, 21, shot herself to death, deepening the mystery of what happened to the boy.

Police have refused to say whether she left a suicide note and said nothing they have found so far in their investigation of her death has shed light on the whereabouts of her 2-year-old son, Trenton.

Investigators have stopped short of calling her a suspect but have focused increasing attention on her movements just before the boy vanished and the notes, computer, camera and other items seized from her house.

Duckett’s family members disputed any suggestion that she hurt her son. They said that the strain of her son’s disappearance pushed her to the brink, and the media sent her over the edge.

‘Bashed her to the end’
“Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end,” Duckett’s grandfather Bill Eubank said Tuesday. “She wasn’t one anyone ever would have thought of to do something like this. She and that baby just loved each other, couldn’t get away from each other. She wouldn’t hurt a bug.”

Janine Iamunno, a spokeswoman for Grace, said in an e-mail that Duckett’s death was “an extremely sad development” but that the program would continue covering the case.

“We feel a responsibility to bring attention to this case in the hopes of helping find Trenton Duckett, who remains missing,” Iamunno said.

Duckett had told police that after she finished watching a movie Aug. 27, she went to check on Trenton in his bedroom, and all she found was an empty crib — and a 10-inch cut in the window screen above it. At the time, she was living with her son, wading through a messy divorce with the boy’s father and trying to get her life back on track after getting laid off from her job with a lawn care company.

Exhaustive search
The boy’s disappearance in this town of 19,000 people about 45 miles northwest of Orlando stretched the 75-member police force to its limits. Fliers were posted on gas station doors around town, asking for information from anyone who might have seen the boy, a brown-haired youngster wearing denim shorts and a diaper.

Trenton’s father, 21-year-old Josh Duckett, was closely questioned after the boy disappeared. Newspapers reported that his wife had taken out a temporary restraining order against him. But Josh Duckett took a polygraph test and has answered all police questions satisfactorily, Capt. Ginny Padgett said.

On Sept. 7, Melinda Duckett gave a telephone interview to CNN Headline News’ Grace, a former prosecutor known for practically cross-examining her guests. Duckett stumbled over such questions as whether she had taken a polygraph — she said she refused on the advice of her divorce lawyer — and where, exactly, she was shopping with the boy before his disappearance.

Hours before the interview aired, Duckett shot herself Friday with her grandfather’s gun at her grandparents’ house, up the road from where she was living.

Building a timeline
Investigators are still trying to piece together a timeline of where she and Trenton were 24 hours before she reported him missing. On Tuesday, they released the make and model of her car, a 2000 Mitsubishi Eclipse, and asked anyone who might have seen it during that period to call them.

Also on Tuesday, a newspaper reported that she bought a shotgun from a pawn shop two days before Trenton vanished. Padgett said police could not confirm that.

On Monday, agents used dogs and digging equipment to search an outlying area that someone had called about, but found nothing. Investigators continued to field tips.

“We’re following up,” Padgett said. “Hopefully they’ll bring in something to help us firm up the timeline.”

[Delphinium]

I had heard some kind of expose on Nancy Grace and from what I recall the story about her murdered fiance wasn't totally legit. I can't remember what the details were now though, sorry.

I don't like Nancy Grace. When she first started out I did like her show, but she is so rude, condescending, and downright nasty at times that it made me quit watching long ago.

I think she did push a fragile person over the line into suicide. innocent until proven guilty I thought was something Nancy Grace respected as a lawyer, guess not.

[Lobelia]

I think she asked a question, and got a bunch of bullshit answers, and then pressed to get something clearer.

But if she is so rude & condescending, then surely everyone knows it. Why would a traumatized parent choose to go on her show? And I STRESS the word CHOOSE.

[KD]

She's a former prosecuter, to them you are guilty until proven innocent!! Not to mention she's a victim's rights advocate.

Really though, the mother was hemming and hawing. Answer the damn questions already.

Here is the controversy: www.wikipedia.com
Controversy over fiancé's murder trial
In March 2006 an article in the New York Observer suggested that Grace had embellished the story of her fiancé's murder and the ensuing trial to make it better support her image as an avenger of the judicial system's wrongs.

Her fiancé, Keith Griffin, was shot not by a random stranger on the street, but by an embittered former coworker.
Tommy McCoy, who was convicted of the killing, was five years younger than Grace claimed and did not have a prior criminal record.
Rather than constantly denying the crime, he confessed the night of the murder.
The jury deliberated for a few hours, not days, as Grace claims.
Prosecutors asked for the death penalty on their own, without consulting Grace. Both the defense and the prosecutors believe that the jury chose life imprisonment instead of death penalty because McCoy was mildly retarded in addition to his previously clean record.
There was no ongoing string of appeals (McCoy's family did not want any). McCoy has only once filed a habeas petition, which was rejected.
The killing occurred in 1979, not 1980, and Griffin was two years younger than Grace has claimed.
Grace told the Observer she had not looked into the case in many years and "(tried) not to think about it." She said she was told initially that McCoy had denied the crime (the officer who took him into custody said he remained silent during his entire trip to jail). She said she made her previous statements about the case "with the knowledge I had." Her mother told the paper she has repeatedly advised her daughter to let it go.


Sounds to me like she still suffered some serious trama that God forbid, we never have to go through.

[SammysMom]

Do we know if she chose or may have gotten caught up in all the media? I know there are two sides to every story. Im a very private person and I could see the nervousness in doing any kind of interview, I would be nervous.
From watching Nancy Grace she does push people. I use to watch her on Court TV but after watching her time and time again be rude and condesending.

I watched part of the interview they showed on this news show and I felt bad for the mother. She did tell her she wouldnt answer this question or that question from the advice of her lawyer. Legit answer, lots of people say that.

[KD]

See, to me it's like calling Dr. Laura Schlessinger with a problem. She absolutely berates people!! I would never in a million years call her for advise!!

I just don't understand why the mom was being so evasive. I guess we'll soon learn.

[SammysMom]

Or it may turn out to be one of those things we will never know what really happened.
All in all its sad and you are so right about Dr. Laura.
Nancy Grace is one person I would stay very far away from. She would probably make me feel guilty even if I wasnt. She should be at Sadam's trial Im sure she could get the truth out of him

[Lobelia]

See, that's my point. If she is so well-known to be so abrasive, insensitive, rude, pushy, whatever, why go on her show if you're in a fragile state of mind? I simply don't believe she was forced. Period.

What she said makes me think she knows exactly what happened to that child, and I think Nancy was right to try to get answers.

[MrsMarsters]

^^ exactly. That does not make sense to me. Do you guys think she had something to do with it?