she s never gave up on me. i started investigating his case. and every time i would look into something, i would discover, well, hang on. that s not as they said it was at trial. that doesn t flesh out. then you realize, wait, we have an innocent guy here. the prosecution s key evidence against james duckett was pubic hair that had been found in teresa mcabee s underwear. neither beth wells nor marshall frank were buying it. duckett was accused of sexually assaulting her. one of the things that troubled me a lot is that the prosecution was saying that the pubic hair inside her panties was from the killer, but it wasn t uncommon for teresa to put her mommy s panties on. so maybe that pubic hair was already there in those panties. the records show the prosecution took unusual steps to connect the pubic hair to duckett. the sheriff s department had been with the hair analysis shopping it around.
this alibi would be very good. there was no reason for his attorney not to produce this in court as a defense. but if duckett was innocent, how could frank explain the pubic hair found in teresa mcabee s underwear? pubic hair that an fbi forensic analyst said matched james duckett s. mike malone was an long-time fbi expert. malone took a look at it and said it was indistinguishable from duckett s hair. marshall frank wasn t so sure. what he soon learned about fbi expert mike malone would further convince him that duckett was innocent. overall, it stunk to high heaven. the whole thing stunk.
teresa mcabee s autopsy revealed she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. a pubic hair was also found in her underwear. we got a court order and took samples from duckett. that s when it came back for positive identification. a policeman who may have been the last person to see 11-year-old teresa mcabee alive is under investigation himself tonight. i couldn t believe it. he was supposed to serve and protect the community. she probably thought, well, he s a police officer. he ll take me home. but that never happened. residents are outraged. you teach your children to go to a police officer if they are in trouble or need help. despite the community uproar, police chief mike brady who had hired and mentored duckett held fast in his belief that investigators were focusing on the wrong man. my confidence in him hadn t
disappeared. i got call one day from duckett s wife out of the blue, and she said, mr. hurm, i think jimmy may have had something to do with that case. i say why do you say that? she said, because i remember him coming home with a bag with a little stuffed animal and she said, the reason i remember it is i was mad at him because we had two boys and i said why wouldn t you bring two toys because you know they ll fight over it. i get goose bumps thinking about this. police never charge duckett with the weldon murder, but they have said they ll pursue duckett for the crime if he is ever let off death row for the mcabee murder, a possibility beth wells is counting on. they re presently reviewing jim s case, and i m 100% confident that when they evaluate this evidence, they ll say, you know what? we got it wrong. we have to give this guy a new trial. the hard evidence was tire tracks which can t be identified to his car.
duckett s case to the lake county circuit court in florida. hoping to get a new trial for duckett, wells called jack edmond to the stand to account for his poor performance. edmond told the court, i blew it. i trusted jack edmond. i trusted that 25 years of experience as a criminal attorney, that he would correct this, and i was wrong. beth wells also offered alternate suspects for the crime starting with ex-cons and migrant workers who stayed at the mcabee home. teresa s uncle testified that she had complained to him that there was one man in particular who stayed over there with her mother who would try to pull her down on the couch and touch her inappropriately. and for that reason she had asked to stay at the uncle s house. he s never been examined by the police. they didn t take hair follicles from him. he left town soon after. we don t know where he is.