After Melinda's trek to Orlando and back she was seen by a witness named Wahanina Leggett who lived in the same apartment complex. Here is her sworn statement to Denise Nevers of the FDLE
Let's examine this statement from Wahanina Leggett:
The statement was given one week after Leggett saw Melinda.
Leggett said she saw Melinda while Leggett was walking (from the parking lot) toward her own apartment, so Leggett was facing the fence. If Melinda said hello to Legget, Melinda must have been coming FROM her own apartment TOWARD her car which was parked in that area.
Here is a google shot of the Windemere apartments with their apartment numbers and showing the parking lots.Leggett said she saw Melinda while Leggett was walking (from the parking lot) toward her own apartment, so Leggett was facing the fence. If Melinda said hello to Legget, Melinda must have been coming FROM her own apartment TOWARD her car which was parked in that area.
Also, Leggett stated that Melinda wore a "coat", blue jeans and a hat. Here is the weather report for Sunday August 27, 2006. At the time frame (3:30 - 4:30PM) that Leggett stated she saw Melinda it was 90 degrees. Why would Melinda wear a "coat"? However, at 6:14 PM there was a light rain.
Leggett also stated that she did not see Trenton with Melinda. There are possible explanations for this. Melinda could have arrived earlier than Leggett and taken Trenton to the apartment and fed him and put him in for the night. Then run out to the car to get her laptop or whatever and threw on her jacket because it was raining and saw Leggett and said "hello". That would fit the timeline for the weather and explain why Trenton was not with her.
Melinda stated that she carried Trenton from the car to the apartment in her own statement to police. So if Leggett said she (Leggett) was walking TOWARD her apartment and facing the fence and saw Melinda walking along the fence line, Melinda's BACK would have been toward Leggett and Melinda would not even had seen Leggett nor have a reason to say hello.
Here is Melinda's statement to Rich Giles of the Leesburg PD:
Melinda talks about driving into her apartment complex and seeing the confrontational neighbor Melissa Inglis who lived with her children in apartment 55 which was near the roundabout. That is the reason she parked in the other parking lot as pictured above.
Her statement continued.
So Melinda states that she arrived home around 5:30. Not between 3:30 and 4:30 like Leggett stated to police. But the cell phone pings indicated that Melinda was in the vacinity of her apartment around 5:00 PM.
Here is the police timeline for Sunday:
Here is the myspace timeline:
Melinda myspaced RYBEAR Ryan Misener at 6:40 PM. Here is Ryan's facebook message to me about Sunday.
Here is the Sunday time line in excel format:
There is a gap in time between 5:14 and 6:40 PM. This could have been when Melinda was feeding Trenton then placing him in bed. This is also when she could have run out to her car for whatever reason (without Trenton) and saw Wahanina Leggett.
Here are some more shots of Melnda's apartment to get a better understanding of the layout.
To be continued...
6 comments:
"There is a gap in time between 5:14 and 6:40 PM."
Remind me if she said she checked on him after this?
In her hand written account of what happened that evening, she says she arrived home between 5:30 and 6:15 then fed him left over noodles, took his clothes and shoes off and put him in bed. She said she checked on him one time after he fell asleep and commented on his position in bed and breathing. She then states that Chris Pearce called her at 6:50.
This reminds me so much of the Lindy Chamberlain case in Australia in the late 70's. She too was a victim of a media witchhunt and subsequently was charged with murdering her child. Years later she was pardoned and was compensated by the Australian Government. The Australian public beleived everything the media said, even though it was not based on fact. Sounds like history has repeated itself. Poor Melinda. RIP.
Katherine,
Thank you for reading the blog and posting your thoughts. I was hoping to hear from some of my readers from Australia. The past couple weeks or so my readership has jumped to 500 per day and mostly from Austrailia. Was the tv show "Vanished" featuring the Trenton Duckett case aired in Austrailia recently? Why so much interest in a case so far away? Sure would like to hear from you.
I didnt see it on normal free to air TV, but Foxtel (cable) would have aired it as there are endless shows on American crime shown on air here. The Chamberlain case being back in the news would have been what pipped peoples interest in Australia. In the last couple of weeks, the newslines were about how the death certificate was changed to "death due to dingo" taking the bub and clearing the mum once and for all. A lot of coverage was about how the media really swayed public opinion, the media portrayal of Linday Chamberlain can be compared to Melinda Duckett as it was a crucifixion of a person who was innocent. In retrospect the Australian public see now how nieve they were and how they were "duped" into beleiveing absolutely anything written in print. This was obviously to sell more papers but people passionately beleived at the time that Lindy Chamberlain murdered her baby (without a shred of evidence). Melinda took her life as a result, Lindy did not, however it did cost her her marriage and no doubt would have effected her relationship with her other children. Too sad! People are now angry at themselves that they were so quick to beleive anything that was said and that they all jumped to the wrong conclusions. I think the public have realised through the Chamberlain case how easily they can be manipulated by the media, so the tragic story of Melinda and Trenton would certainly catch the attention of people here as there as similarities of the controversy surrounding the people. Katherine
This also reminds me of how the police & media handled the parents of missing Madeleine McCann, the little girl who vanished from the vacation apartment in Portugal in 2007. Their treatment of so terrible & so unjust.
Keep up the good work.
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