Mom Kills Herself After TV Interview
CNN's Nancy Grace Grills Mother Who Says Her Baby Was Kidnapped
-
-
Photo
Nancy Grace (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
-
Photo
Melinda Duckett (AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel)
-
-
Interactive
Out Of Sight: Missing Kids
Get the facts on kidnappings, learn predator profiles and check out resources for locating missing children.
Before it was over, CNN's 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.
"Nancy Grace and the others, they just bashed her to the end," Duckett's grandfather Bill Eubank said. "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.
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.
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."
©MMVI, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.



- 1
- 2
- next
See all 58 CommentsNancy, put yourself in her shoes and ask yourself how you would have reacted. I think it was very selfish. All Nancy wanted was to try to break this young lady. Guess what, YOU DID!!! Right on to the point of taking her own life. I can't even stand to watch you on CNN.
1) if the mother were innocent, then Grace's actions led to the "last straw" which cause an emotionally distraught woman to seek an end to her unbearable misery.
BUT
2) Even if she were guilty; Grace's actions were the same as a KKK lynch mob. I'm sorry, but this country is fighting to keep our freedoms and those include trial by jury. I don't watch Grace's show, but after reading about her actions in other publications, I had to see how someone acts who is accused of causing the death of another individual. I was appalled!! This "woman" was acting like she had done the world a service!!! I could not watch her "show" long. I was nausiated.
What a joke television has become. Truly the opiate of the masses.
I think she's now the Jerry Springer of journalism and I've flipped my channel to watch Greta in the same time slot. They often cover the same topics and Greta does it in a balanced, respectful, and professional manner.
We have to get rid of them, both of them.
Grace is a disgrace to the profession.
And Americans just sit and watch, and accept it. CNN does have to file for an FCC license? A possible way to hold them accountable for the act Grace perpetrated against this women.
I hope other Americans have a chance to face the CNN court.
Will America please rise, CNN is now on the air.
Has this Grace person been fired yet?
Who owns CNN, Adolf Hitler?
Our country would be bettter off with out having CNN around.
We can all write to CNN and tell them what Nancy Grace did wasn't an interview but a massacre on and to Melinda's mental health. She was already fragile and Nancy Grace helped to pull that trigger. Nancy Grace should be banned from ever being on TV again and in the courtroom. There isn't any room for people like this in society.
I think you need to rethink this statement...Americans may have watched it, but they have not accepted it. There are many of us AMERICANS that are totally apalled by her treatment of Melinda Duckett and hope that CNN will sit up and take notice that they screwed up big time. If they don't fire Nancy Grace, then CNN's ratings will go down the tube, because we can all boycott them.
Stop watching CNN and see how fast they get rid of her when their ratings take a nose dive. Anyone that justifies her actions, youre idiots.
Roy
Unbelievable. I will never watch her show again...well come to think of it I've only seen it twice anyway. If the supposition is innocent until proven guilty, what the hell is wrong with Nancy Grace to do that
I am not disputing the fact that the girl was emotionally fragile, and I am by NO MEANS calling myself God. Perhaps the suicide may not have taken place, we will never know. How are you so sure that Nancy Grace is the one who "bludgeoned her over the edge?" Were you inside her mind at the time? The whole story is a tragedy. A child is missing, a young, beautiful girl is dead and we can debate the what if's all day and point fingers all day, but it doesn't reunite him with his loved ones, and it doesn't bring her back. Can't we focus our attention's towards helping locate him? If you are correct and Nancy did have something to do with it, then you have made your point and no one is forcing you to watch her show. If other folks are correct and she was not to blame, then let's hope that some good comes of all of this hype and the child is found, and the family is at peace. The more it is publicized and broadcast, the more the boy is on people's minds. Let's just pray that he is found and the family suffering will be over soon.
She bullied and battered this girl.
I understand she was advised by her lawyer to not answer the questions. She may have made the appearence to prove to people that she didn't harm her child, but Nancy Grace went for the throat and asked her the questions she was advised not to answer. Melinda Duckett may be innocent in the sense she did not kill her child, but maybe just hid him away from the father. With her death goes the answer to that puzzle. I pray he is safe. Either way it goes she is dead and Nancy Grace pushed her to it.
I understand she was advised by her lawyer to not answer the questions. She may have made the appearence to prove to people that she didn't harm her child, but Nancy Grace went for the throat and asked her the questions she was advised not to answer. Melinda Duckett may be innocent in the sense she did not kill her child, but maybe just hid him away from the father. With her death goes the answer to that puzzle. I pray he is safe. Either way it goes she is dead and Nancy Grace pushed her to it.
Remember, there is such a thing as KARMA. Oh, and Nancy, was your 'precious' interview WORTH it?????
Her overly dramatic and often arrogant attitude, braced with her inane innuendo, serves as a thinly veiled attempt to mask her inability to flesh the facts from her feverish imagination.
Was Ms. Duckett guilty of a heinous act?
Maybe she was, then again, maybe she wasn't. Perhaps we'll never know, but the one undisputable FACT in this entire sordid episode, is that Nancy is still around and on-air, and THAT is without a doubt, a crime of the highest magnitude.
Her overly dramatic and often arrogant attitude, braced with her inane innuendo, serves as a thinly veiled attempt to mask her inability to flesh the facts from her feverish imagination.
Was Ms. Duckett guilty of a heinous act?
Maybe she was, then again, maybe she wasn't. Perhaps we'll never know, but the one undisputable FACT in this entire sordid episode, is that Nancy is still around and on-air, and THAT is without a doubt, a crime of the highest magnitude.
- 1
- 2
- next
See all 58 Comments