Grace Guest's Suicide Note Cites Media

A woman who killed herself days after reporting her 2-year-old son missing said in a suicide note she ended her life after facing ridicule and criticism, according to a letter authorities released Saturday.

In a two-page, handwritten note addressed to the public, Melinda Duckett, now named the primary suspect in the disappearance of her son Trenton, said the boy was "all I was breathing for" and that she was misunderstood.

The rest of the letter spoke to the questions she faced in media interviews just before the suicide, including a confrontational spot on CNN Headline News' Nancy Grace in which the host and guests openly questioned her innocence.

"Your focus came off of my son. I love him and only wanted him safe in my arms," Duckett wrote in the letter, which mentioned no one in the media by name.

Duckett, 21, killed herself with a shotgun at her grandparents' home on Sept. 8, a day after the contentious Grace taping; police said the letter was found in her car that night. Family members have blamed critical media reports for pushing her to kill herself.

Duckett said in the unsigned letter that her words had been "twisted."

"I do not bleed my emotions to the public and throughout this situation you did not understand that. There were many more errors you made in understanding me, but time is short and I have more important people to speak to," she wrote.

Duckett also referred to her son in the suicide note, saying, "He was and always will be my essence and as he grows, I want him to know that."

A spokeswoman for Grace, sent a copy of the letter, had no comment Saturday. A telephone call placed to the home of Duckett's grandparents Bill and Nancy Eubank was not immediately returned.

Despite days of searching in the Ocala National Forest and Farles Lake based on tips, authorities have found no signs of Trenton. A scaled-back search following a new tip is planned for Sunday or Monday, a police spokesman said.

Duckett told police she went to check on Trenton in his bedroom on Aug. 27 and found an empty crib and a 10-inch cut in the window screen above it. Authorities narrowed their focus on Duckett after finding some of Trenton's toys, photographs and a sonogram photo in a trash bin in her apartment complex a day after he was reported missing.

Leesburg police Capt. Steve Rockefeller said Saturday authorities could have arrested Duckett within four days of Trenton's disappearance because she sent a threatening e-mail to herself claiming to be her estranged husband.