By  Seamus McGraw

September 19, 2006

advertisement

LEESBURG, Fla. (Crime Library) —   Investigators probing the disappearance of toddler Trenton Duckett are pursing accounts from two reportedly credible witnesses who claim to have seen the boy's mother alone hours before he was allegedly snatched from his bed.

The new accounts, culled from a sea of tips received since the boy vanished late last month, appear to conflict with Melinda Duckett's own account of the events leading up to Trenton's disappearance, according to published reports.

Trenton Duckett

But police will be unable to confront the mother with the apparent discrepancies in the various accounts. The 21-year-old mother, who had been locked in a bitter custody battle with her estranged husband over Trenton, shot herself to death earlier this month. Family members have cited the stress of her son's disappearance, together with pressure from police and from the media for her suicide. Her death — in her grandfather's home, and by one of his guns — came a day after she had come under intense scrutiny in an interview with CNN and Court TV television personality Nancy Grace. Grace has said that she does not believe her interview was a factor in Melinda Duckett's death.

Nancy Grace

But with Duckett dead, authorities are forced to search out other sources to fill in the gaps in her account of the events.

The woman had told investigators that she had spent the entire day leading up to his Aug. 27 disappearance alone with the boy. They had traveled to nearby Ocala National Forest, with her shotgun, she had said, and got lost on the way back, and drove around Central Florida for some eight hours. Duckett had also told police that she had put the boy to bed around 7 p.m. and came in two hours later to find that the screen to his bedroom window had been tampered with and that Trenton was missing.

Authorities did find evidence of tampering, but thus far have little else to prove or disprove Duckett's sketchy account of the events of that day.

Next Page

Discussion Forum

For more daily crime news