and told her, i was there. i know something about that case. the sheriff s department of lake county come talk to me. the inference was, we can give you a break if you saw something that we should know about. hint, hint. gwen testified against duckett and was let out of jail having served less than six months of a two-year sentence. but a year after james duckett was sentenced to death, gurley recanted her original testimony and said she never actually saw duckett with tremendous is a mcabee. in a sworn affidavit, she claimed she had been induced into it by investigator rocky harris. rocky harris took me in and out of the jail. they asked a lot of questions, a lot of questions. the best i recall, i never offered her any deal whatsoever. after learning that gwen gurley had recanted her testimony, marshall frank also
duckett s trial began on april 25th, 1988. assistant state attorney steve hurm prosecuted the case and sought the death penalty. that little girl died in the most traumatic, terrifying way, in the dark, alone with a monster. hurm called an eyewitness 17-year-old gwen gurley to the stand. gurley testified that she saw teresa talking to duckett. moments later she saw duckett leave the scene with a small person in his police car. were you able to see the car? yes. were you able to see inside the car? yes. how many people did you see? two. prosecutors also called three women who each testified that officer duckett had made sexual advances while he was on duty. they were all accosted by duckett when he was on duty in uniform in his patrol car on the midnight shift and taken by him to wooded areas. it took jury less than 90 minutes to find james duckett
he left town soon after. we don t know where he is. we don t have a full name for him. there were always a lot of people around that home that didn t live there. like a little gathering. there were always more guys than girls. a lot of stuff to raise suspicion, you have an 11-year-old female child in the house. i think the person who was harassing teresa at home killed her, dressed her, and took her and dumped her in the lake. once they zoomed in on james duckett, they stopped looking for other suspects and that s not good police work. they called gurley. the only eyewitness who placed teresa in duckett s patrol car had recanted her original testimony. if they used gwen gurley as a key witness to put me here and if she s no longer telling their lies, that should count for something. i can remember when we talked to gwen. this is great stuff. she s recanted. she s the only person that saw the victim in the car. so we think, this is going to get us a new trial.
more to gwen gurley, the only eyewitness than jurors had been led to believe. i wanted to know how that came about that she would testify against duckett. gwen gurley was always getting involved in thefts and involved in disturbances and all of a sudden she becomes a star witness the worst credibility you could ever have. in 87, i was 16, i was a typical teenager, i would say. except i was getting in a little trouble. when gurley was in the leesburg city jail three counts of grand theft. the news report of duckett s indictment came on the news. james duckett in connection with the killing and she saw that. she called a female corrections officer over.
for the police department. and now we ve evolved to a point where people are very careful in the way that they present these cases. it is exceptionally rare for police officers to be indicted charged, let alone convicted in case where is they used deadly force. the gurley case in brooklyn is a rarity. the case in baltimore extremely rare. but i think when you go from just bob mccullough s presentation of the darren wilson outcome, and the sort of presentation that was about exculpating the officer all the way until now, you re seeing that cities and these officials and d.a.s have learned a lesson. they ve learned that you have to start with empathy both for the officer and their family, but also for the community. and they have to start from this point of empathy with the african-american community, with the aggrieved fam edd community and