JUST IN: Killer Cop James Duckett Executed After 38 Years — An 11-Year-Old Girl Never Came Home

Every time we came down here, she was a sweet little girl. That man was on patrol in a patrol car. And he did this in uniform. You teach children to go to cops for a help. This man had no right to do what he did.  We waited a big wait, 40 years to have him dead.  Nearly four decades after the murder of Dorothy Tula’s 11-year-old daughter Teresa McAbee,  the sentence of the state of Florida versus James Aaron Duckett was carried out at 1:19 p.m. on July 28th, 2026.

 The execution took place without incident.  Tracy McFall Buskirk still remembers visiting her young cousin in the ’80s.  Every time we came down here, she was a sweet little girl. That man was on patrol in a patrol car. And he did this in uniform. You teach children to go to cops for a help. This man had no right to do what he did.

 July 28th, 2026. Florida State Prison. 1:19 in the afternoon. The curtain goes up. 35 people are watching through the glass. The drugs begin to flow. Four minutes pass. The warden steps forward, shakes the man on the table, and calls his name out loud. Nothing. James Aaron Duckett, 68 years old, is pronounced dead.

 Earlier, when the warden asked if he had any final words, Duckett looked up and said two words, “No, sir.” No apology, no explanation, no acknowledgement of what he had done. He had spent 38 years on death row telling anyone who would listen that he was innocent. And for a while, a retired detective, a former police chief, and a sitting mayor all believed him.

Then the state ordered a DNA test, the one piece of evidence that could have changed everything. The results came back inconclusive. He was executed anyway. But here is the part that will stay with you long after this video ends. The evidence that put him on that table was only part of the story. What investigators uncovered about his time in that police uniform is something else entirely.

Welcome to the Execution Archive. If you are new here, hit subscribe and turn on notifications because today we are going inside one of Florida’s most debated death row cases. A police officer, a missing child, and a badge that was used as a weapon. Stay with us. You will want to see how this ends.

 Before we talk about what happened that night, you need to know who Teresa May Macaboy was. Teresa was 11 years old. She was a fifth grader at Mascot Elementary School. Growing up in the small, quiet town of Mascot, Florida. People who knew her described her as bright, loving, and responsible. She was the kind of child who did her homework, stayed out of trouble, and made her mother proud.

Her mother, Dorothy Tula, was her whole world. And Teresa was hers. She also had cousins she was close to, including Tracy McFall Buskirk. Family who loved her deeply and would carry the weight of losing her for decades. Teresa had never been in any kind of trouble. She had never engaged in any sexual activity.

 The medical examiner would later confirm that in open court, and those words would land like a punch to the stomach of everyone who heard them. On the night of May 11th, 1987, Teresa needed a pencil to finish her homework. It was nearly 10:00 at night. Her mother said no, but Teresa looked at her and said, “Mom, I won’t take but 5 minutes.” Her mother let her go.

 She walked to a convenience store less than a mile from their front door. She had school the next morning. She never came home. Now let’s talk about the man behind the badge. James Aaron Duckett was born on September 4th, 1957. In late 1986, he joined the Mascot Police Department. By the night of May 11th, 1987, he had been on the force for exactly 7 months.

 He was 29 years old, and on that particular night, he was the only officer on patrol. The entire town of Mascot, every street, every home, every person was his responsibility alone. To the people of Mascot, Duckett looked the part. He wore the uniform. He drove the marked patrol car. He represented safety and order. His former police chief, Michael Brady, would later stand before cameras and publicly say he believed Duckett was innocent.

 The sitting mayor of Mascot said the same thing. On the surface, James Duckett looked like exactly what he claimed to be, but court records told a different story. During the trial, three young women came forward with accounts of what Duckett actually did while wearing that uniform. All three were petite, the same build as Teresa McAbee.

 The first testified that he picked her up while she was searching for her boyfriend, and inside the patrol car, tried to kiss her. The second testified that on May 1st, 1987, just 10 days before Teresa’s murder, Duckett pulled up beside her as she walked along the highway, offered her a ride, and instead of taking her home, drove her to a remote orange grove miles away from anyone who could hear her.

 He placed his hand on her and tried to kiss her. The third testified to repeated encounters with Duckett while he was on duty, in uniform, in the same patrol car that Teresa McAbee was last seen entering. Court records confirm this pattern clearly. He was not using that badge to protect people.

 He was using it to access them. What happened on the night of May 11th did not come out of nowhere. There was a pattern and it had been building for months. Every woman Duckett targeted was someone he encountered while on patrol. He spotted them alone. He approached them using the weight of his uniform and he took them somewhere isolated.

 Not one of them reported him. Because who do you call when the threat is the police officer himself? Then came May 1st, 1987. 10 days before Teresa McAbee walked to that convenience store, Duckett had already driven a young woman to a remote orange grove and put his hands on her. Nothing happened to him. No report.

 No consequence. No one stopped him. 10 days later he was back on patrol. According to court testimony, when Duckett arrived at the convenience store on the night of May 11th, he went inside first. He walked straight up to the store clerk and asked two questions. “What’s her name? How old is she?” The clerk told him Teresa was somewhere between 10 and 13 years old.

 Duckett said he was going to check on her and walked out the door. Court records confirm that between 10:50 at night and 12:10 in the morning, the exact window Teresa disappeared, Duckett sent zero radio transmissions. Not one. Over an hour of total silence from the only officer on duty in Mascot. This was not a case with accomplices, co-plotters, or hired help.

 James Duckett acted entirely alone. And that is exactly what made him so difficult to catch. He had the patrol car. He had the badge. He had the entire town of Mascot to himself with no supervisor checking in, no partner riding alongside him, and no one to answer to. Court records confirm he was the sole officer on duty that night.

 Whatever he chose to do, he could do without anyone knowing. And after Teresa disappeared, he made his moves carefully. He showed up at the Mascot Police Station 15 to 20 minutes after Teresa’s mother had already been there, waiting and desperate. He sat down and took the missing person report himself. The report about the girl he had last been seen with.

 He drove to her home to collect a photo, making himself look helpful and concerned. He told the police chief he had already prepared a flyer and did not need any assistance. Then he took that flyer to the convenience store and told the clerk not to post it. He said it was not a good picture. He promised to return with a better one. He never came back.

 If you have made it this far, you already know this case is unlike anything you have heard before. Make sure you are subscribed, so you never miss a case like this one. It is the night of May 11th, 1987. Let’s walk through it, minute by minute. At around 10:00 at night, Teresa McAbee leaves her home and heads to the convenience store.

 5 minutes, she had promised. By around 10:20, she is outside the store with a 16-year-old boy she had just met. The two walk over to the area near the dumpster and talk. Then a marked patrol car pulls up. Duckett goes inside the store first. He asks the clerk about Teresa, her name, her age. Then he steps outside and approaches the pair.

 According to his own trial testimony, he told Teresa it was nearly 10:30 and that she needed to go home because of the curfew for minors. But she did not go home. Shortly after the boy’s uncle arrived at the store. Both he and the boy saw something that contradicted Duckett’s story. Teresa and Duckett were still standing near the patrol car.

 Duckett sent the uncle and the boy away. Once they were gone, Teresa was placed in the passenger seat. The door closed, the car pulled away. The uncle later testified in court that he never once saw Teresa touch the hood of that patrol car. At around 10:50, Duckett’s radio went completely silent.

 At around 11:00, Teresa’s mother arrived at the convenience store looking for her daughter. The clerk told her the officer may have taken Teresa to the police station. Teresa’s mother and her sister drove through every street in Mascot. No patrol car. They reached the Mascot police station, empty. They drove to the Groveland station and filed a missing person report.

 At 12:10 in the morning, Duckett’s radio came back on. 10 minutes later, he walked into the Mascot station, 15 to 20 minutes after Teresa’s mother had already been there waiting. The next morning, May 12th, a fisherman near Knight Lake spotted something at the water’s edge, less than a mile from the convenience store.

 Authorities were called, the police chief arrived. It was Teresa. Court records confirm what the medical examiner found. Teresa had been sexually assaulted while she was still alive, then strangled and drowned. She was 11 years old. She had been gone less than 3 hours. By the time Teresa’s body was pulled from Knight Lake, Duckett had already spent hours positioning himself at the center of the search.

 He had taken the missing person report. He had collected her photo. He had made the flyer. To anyone watching, he looked like a dedicated officer doing his job. But, investigators began to see it differently. Every move he made had kept the early search inside his own hands. When the body was found, the focus shifted to him immediately.

 He was the last known person seen with Teresa. He was the only officer on duty that entire night. There was no one else. Then detectives pulled the radio logs. The gap between 10:50 at night and 12:10 in the morning, over an hour, was completely empty. Duckett told investigators he had stopped for coffee during that time.

 Not one person confirmed that. Not one. Court records show he had also told the convenience store clerk not to post Teresa’s flyer. He promised a better photo. He never came back with one. On June 16th, 1987, 36 days after Teresa’s murder, Duckett was suspended from the Mascot Police Department. Three days later, he was fired.

 His entire career as a police officer had lasted exactly 7 months. Investigators had no confession, no murder weapon, no eyewitness who watched it happen. What they had was physical evidence, and it was quietly building a case that Duckett could not explain away. The first major find was the tire tracks near Knight Lake. A technician from the Sheriff’s Department examined them closely and noticed something unusual.

 The tracks were made by Goodyear Eagle mud and snow tires, tires built for cold northern climates, rarely ever seen on Florida roads. The local tire center confirmed they had only ever received two sets of those tires by mistake across 9 years of business. Both sets had been fitted onto Mascot Police cars.

 One of those cars belonged to Duckett. The second finding was the palm prints. Both Duckett’s prints and Teresa’s were found on the hood of his patrol car. The position of Teresa’s prints showed she had been sitting backward on the hood and sliding upward. At trial, Duckett denied it directly. Sir, she was not down on the hood of my car.

 The third piece of evidence came from FBI analyst Michael Malone. He testified that a single pubic hair found inside Teresa’s underwear matched Duckett’s samples with, in his words, a high degree of probability. Duckett denied driving to the lake. He denied Teresa was ever on the hood. He repeated his coffee story. Not one person on Earth confirmed any of it.

In October 1987, 5 months after Teresa’s murder, a Lake County Grand Jury formally indicted James Duckett for first-degree murder. The prosecution made their position clear from day one. They were seeking the death penalty. But, the indictment was only part of the story. What truly shifted public understanding of Duckett was the testimony of three young women who came forward to describe what he had done to them while wearing that uniform.

 Their accounts made one thing impossible to ignore. Teresa Maccabee was not a random, isolated incident. This was a pattern of behavior Duckett had been carrying out for months. He found women and girls who were alone. He used the patrol car. He used the badge. He drove them to places where no one could hear them.

 Teresa was simply the one who never came home. The arrest sent a ripple through Lake County and far beyond it. A sworn police officer, someone the community trusted, had been charged with the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl he encountered on a routine patrol shift. But, as the case moved toward trial, detectives were quietly looking at something else entirely.

 A woman found dead near Lakeland, Florida in 1986, last seen getting into a dark blue car. Duckett owned a royal blue Buick Regal at the time. And a 14-year-old girl who vanished from a carnival in September 1987, just 4 months after Teresa’s murder. What investigators found connecting those cases to Duckett is almost impossible to believe.

 In early 1988, James Duckett stood trial before a Lake County jury. The prosecution laid out the physical evidence, the tire tracks, the palm prints, and FBI analyst Michael Malone’s pubic hair testimony. The three young women took the stand and described what Duckett had done to them while on duty.

 Their testimony painted a clear picture of who he was and how he operated long before Teresa McAbee ever walked to that convenience store. When it was Duckett’s turn during the sentencing phase, he took the stand himself. He denied everything. Then he looked at the jury and asked them to spare his life. The jury went to deliberate on May 10th, 1988.

They came back in less than 90 minutes. Guilty of first-degree murder. Guilty of sexual battery. By a vote of 8 to 4, they recommended the death penalty. On June 30th, 1988, Judge Jerry Lockett sentenced Duckett to death by electric chair along with an additional 25 years to life with no possibility of parole for the sexual battery conviction.

 Then began nearly four decades of appeals. In December 1989, Duckett filed his first appeal. The Florida Supreme Court dismissed it in September 1990. In 2001, the same judge who sentenced him denied his post-conviction appeal. In 2003, his defense team claimed a trial witness had lied under coaching from law enforcement. That too was denied.

 New DNA testing was approved that same year, but the deadline passed without a single motion being filed. By 2004, a court order barred any further DNA testing entirely. In 2005, the Florida Supreme Court rejected his second appeal. In 2010, US District Court Judge William Terrell Hodges denied his federal appeal.

Further appeals in 2014, 2017, and 2018 were each rejected. Every court reached the same conclusion. The tire tracks, the palm prints, the radio silence, and the eyewitness accounts were more than enough. By the year 2000, James Duckett was one of 370 inmates sitting on Florida’s death row. He continued to insist he was innocent.

 He filed appeal after appeal. Every single one was denied. For a period of time, he had supporters who believed him. A retired homicide detective named Marshall Frank publicly stated he had researched the case and concluded Duckett was innocent. Former Police Chief Michael Brady said the same. So did the mayor of Mascotte.

 But Marshall Frank kept digging. The deeper he went into the details of Teresa McAbee’s case and the unsolved murder of 14-year-old Jennifer Weldon, the more his opinion changed. Frank eventually reversed his position completely. He concluded that Duckett was guilty of killing both Teresa McAbee and Jennifer Weldon. On February 27th, 2026, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed Duckett’s death warrant.

 The execution was scheduled for March 31st, 2026. Almost immediately Duckett, the same man who had let a DNA testing deadline expire without filing a single motion back in 2004, suddenly wanted that test done. The Florida Supreme Court halted the execution and allowed the testing to proceed. The results came back inconclusive.

 They did not exonerate him. The state moved to lift the stay. Six of the seven justices said no. The warrant expired. The court ordered deeper analysis of the results. For months, the case sat in legal uncertainty. Then, on July 8th, 2026, the Florida Supreme Court lifted the stay. The DNA testing had settled nothing. Six days later, Governor DeSantis signed a second death warrant.

 The new execution date, July 28th, 2026. The night before he was executed, Duckett met with four family members for a final visit. He woke the next morning at 4:45. His last meal was eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits, and chocolate milk. He met with a spiritual advisor. At noon, he was taken to the execution chamber. 35 witnesses sat behind the glass.

 Among them, the family of Teresa MacAbbe and relatives of Jennifer Weldon. When the warden asked if he had any final words, Duckett said, “No, sir.” At 1:00 in the afternoon, the drugs began to flow. At 1:19, James Aaron Duckett was pronounced dead. He was 68 years old. Outside the prison, Teresa’s mother, Dorothy Tula, stood before cameras and broke down completely.

 “I waited nearly 40 years to have him dead.” Her niece, Tracy McFall Buskirk, was composed but direct. “This man took advantage of his badge.” She added that it should never have taken four decades for her aunt to see this day. The family of Jennifer Weldon was also there. They said the execution gave them a measure of closure they had been waiting a very long time for.

 The two families, bound together by loss, had quietly supported each other through the years since Duckett’s conviction. Two days later, on July 30th, 2026, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced that investigators were formally naming Duckett as the suspect in Welden’s murder, closing a case that was nearly 39 years old.

 James Duckett spent 38 years on death row. Teresa Macaby’s mother spent 38 years without her daughter. He had a badge. He had a uniform. He had a patrol car. And on the night of May 11th, 1987, he used all three. Tell me in the comments what moment in this case hit you the hardest. And if you are not subscribed yet, now is the time.

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