POLK COUNTY, Fla. – Polk County authorities announced Thursday that executed former police officer James Duckett was the sole suspect in the 1987 abduction, rape, and murder of 14-year-old Jeanifer Weldon.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd detailed the cold case investigation during a news conference at the Sheriff’s Operations Center, coming two days after Duckett was executed at Florida State Prison. Duckett was put to death on Tuesday for the separate 1987 rape and murder of 11-year-old Tereasa McAbee in neighboring Lake County.
Weldon vanished on Saturday, Sept. 19, 1987. After spending the day in Tampa with friends and purchasing a stuffed kitten for her collection, she was dropped off at a friend’s home on Highway 98 North in Lakeland. Around 9 p.m., she began a two-mile walk to her home on North Socrum Loop Road, but she never arrived.
Her body was discovered 13 days later, on Oct. 2, 1987, after a phosphate mine employee driving down a dirt road in Fort Meade noticed shoes sticking out near the tree line and smelled a decomposing body. Detectives found Weldon’s skeletonized remains in a wooded area nearby along with her t-shirt. Authorities determined she died from strangulation.
Investigators accumulated tens of thousands of hours reviewing circumstantial evidence pointing to Duckett. On the night Weldon went missing, Duckett left for his shift at a phosphate mine five hours early, drove along Weldon’s walking route, and arrived at work two hours late—hot, sweaty, agitated, and with dirty hands. He later claimed scratches on his back were from barbed wire.
The following morning, Duckett gave his wife a green store bag containing candy and a gray stuffed kitten, matching the toy Weldon had purchased in Tampa. His wife threw the toy away after questioning why he brought home a single stuffed animal for two children. She also refused Duckett’s later requests to fabricate auto repair receipts and have his car professionally cleaned. At the time of the murder, Duckett lived in a trailer park 1.8 miles from where Weldon’s body was recovered.
Despite sending more than 10 items of clothing to crime laboratories over the decades as testing methods improved, forensic technicians were never able to recover usable DNA evidence from the scene.
Detectives visited Duckett in prison last Friday to offer him a final opportunity to confess, but he declined. The primary detective on the case attended Duckett’s execution on Tuesday, fulfilling a promise made 38 years ago to be present.
“We never had not one iota of evidence that anyone other than James Duckett ever committed this murder,” Judd said. “We know that he’s a psychopath. We know that he is a child-raping murderer. We know he is pure evil in the flesh.”
Polk County detectives plan to meet with the state attorney’s office one final time to officially clear the case now that the suspect is dead.
Weldon’s younger sister, Amy Weldon, noted that the execution occurred on her late mother’s birthday and expressed confidence in the outcome.
“I’m confident the right person was executed,” Amy Weldon said. “I don’t like how long it took, but I am confident, 100 percent the right person died.”
She also addressed public debate around capital punishment, stating that victims and their families deserve justice. “Teresa didn’t deserve it. My sister didn’t deserve to die like they did and just be dumped,” she said. “I definitely believe in the death penalty, and I think that was justice.”
READ: Florida Supreme Court Clears Way For James Aren Duckett Execution On July 28
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