Duckett was convicted of raping and drowning 11-year-old Teresa McAbee while he was working as a police officer in central Florida in 1987. He declined to make a final statement and showed no response several minutes into the execution when the prison warden shook him and shouted his name. Duckett became the 11th Florida inmate executed this year.
The girl's relatives spoke of decades of suffering after the execution. Dorthy Tula, the victim's mother, said she waited nearly 40 years to have him dead before breaking down.
Tracy Mcfall-Buskirk, the girl's cousin, said the man took advantage of his badge. The execution was part of the first double execution in Florida in more than six decades and the first time any state has carried out two executions in one day since Arkansas in 2017.
Florida has now conducted 12 executions to date in 2026, more than all other states combined. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who leaves office in January, oversaw a record 19 executions last year, more in a single year than any other Florida governor since the reinstatement of the death penalty in the U.S. in 1976.