Two condemned men. Two completely different cases. One execution day.  

In this episode of Murder Blueprint, retired Kansas City Police Detective Gary Jenkins examines two Florida death penalty cases that reached the same conclusion on the very same day.  

The first case follows Dominic Anthony Occhicone, whose long history of anger, alcoholism, and obsession with a former fiancée ended in the murders of her parents. Gary breaks down the evidence that prosecutors used to prove planning and premeditation, leading to a death sentence that survived decades of appeals.  

The second case explores the controversial conviction of former Florida police officer James Duckett, found guilty of kidnapping, raping, and murdering 11-year-old Teresa Mae McAbee. Unlike Occhicone, Duckett maintained his innocence until his execution. Gary examines the circumstantial evidence, witness testimony, forensic evidence, disputed DNA testing, and the questions that continue to divide legal observers.  

This episode does not argue for or against capital punishment. Instead, it examines the investigations, the trials, the appeals, and how two very different murder cases ultimately ended with executions carried out on the same day in Florida.
Transcript
 [00:00:00] Hey, guys. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City, Missouri police detective. Was in the intelligence unit, worked some homicides and did all kinds of things. And today I wanna talk about a, current event. Two men executed in one day in the state of Florida. Florida's kind of leading the country in executions this year. That Ron DeSantis he's he don't play. He don't play, man. Whether, I don't know whether you like the death penalty or not, there's always a lot of controversy about that. But but they're going for it down there yesterday Florida State Prison, two men waited in separate cells. They didn't know each other. They'd never met. They didn't do their crimes together. Their murders that they committed were about a year apart and hundreds of mile apart. There, was a difference in them. One admitted to killing two people, but he argued that his actions were driven by an emotional collapse. It was like a, a love deal and his alcoholism too. The other one, who was actually an [00:01:00] ex-cop from Florida, maintained all the way up to the end that they had the wrong man. But they still were put to death by the order of the State of Florida. Today, we're gonna take a look at their crimes, their lives, their convictions, their executions, and how these two men's stories were so disparate, but they came together on exactly the same day. ,... some folks believe that capital punishment delivers justice to victims and their family. Others believe that the possibility of executing the wrong person can never be ignored, 'cause you can't take that back. You can't overturn a capital sentence once it's carried out. We're not gonna argue about either side. I don't know what's right or what's wrong, I just keep doing a podcast and do the best I can each day, and that's all we all can do really. Let's take a look at this first case. . Let's take a look at this first case. Dominic Anthony Occhicone. Occhicone, O-C-C-H-I-C-O-N-E, was born in 1945, same age I am. He's about a month older. He was [00:02:00] born up in New York. He grew up in a stable family. His father had immigrated from Italy and worked as a sanitation worker in New York City. Now, a sanitation worker, some people, that may be a lowly job, but it's not a bad job in, in New York City. People that knew the family always described , the father as gentle and devoted to the family. Mother was just a normal mother. But from an early age, Dominic had , an explosive temper. He was always involved in fights as a teenager and young adult, which a lot of young men are. I've been in a few myself. The anger problems would soon become a recurring theme through his life, plus the alcohol. He was drafted into military during Vietnam, as everybody was. He failed to appear instead of reporting on that day that he was gonna be inducted in. He was court-martialed, and he served two years in a military prison, and that was like the beginning of the end for him. His life just gradually moved south from then on. Following his parents' [00:03:00] retirement, the whole family relocated to Florida, and he moved down there too. In 1977, he was a young man who'd just got, probably just got out of serving his two-year sentence in the stockade for failure to report. He married a woman named Sharon. They had a son. Sharon died, and their son was only two years old, and he did not stick around to raise the child. This child went to live with relatives. Occhicone spent increasing amounts of time drinking. His alcohol abuse was, became severe over the years, as it does. If you're an abusive drinker, it ain't gonna get better, and you're not gonna cut back. It's just gonna get worse and worse until you reach out for help. Years before marrying Sharon, he had dated another woman when he was still living in New York and he'd had a child out of wedlock, a daughter, and neither the father nor the daughter knew of each other's existence until years later. He didn't find out till he was on death row. Occhicone met his daughter [00:04:00] on death row. In the 1980s down in Florida, Ochoco had began a relationship with a woman named Anna Garrity. Following the six months that they lived together, Garrity already had a son and a daughter, and they took in Ochoco's young son, and they got engaged. They planned to get married in 1985. But two months before the ceremony, Anita ended the relationship. According to the testimony, she ended it because of his violent temper and his abusive behavior, and probably goes without saying, his alcoholism. But for him, as with many cases like this, for her the relationship was over, but for him it was not over. He continued to contact Anita. He continued. He sent flowers. He stalked her. He was trying to reconcile. In his mind, he thought if he could just do the right thing, he could get it going again. He could get it back together. I think maybe every man at some point in their life have had a [00:05:00] breakup where they thought, "If she just would listen to me, she'd understand, and then we'd get back together and everything would be fine again." And it never is, for the most part. She started dating somebody else, and when he found out about that, he was not happy. During that conversation she also told him she had an abortion, and she refused to identify the father. It could've been him. The harassment continued, and it really increased after that. He increasingly blamed her parents for their failed relationship, and that's common. A, a couple starts breaking up, and say the woman, in this case it's the woman is close to her parents, and so she, uses her parents for support. Many times they'll move in with the parents. And the man will then start blaming the parents for the failed relationship. Raymond and Martha Arsner Ochie Cone had threatened Anita with not only harm to herself, but harm to members of her family. Now, that's a good way to get a girl back, ain't it? Go out and threaten to beat them [00:06:00] up or threaten to hurt them if they don't come back or threaten to hurt their family. The Archeners lived in Holiday, Florida, and one day Ochie Cone arrived, wanted to, he just wanted to talk to Anita. Baby, just let me talk to you. Baby, come on. Just let me talk to you." Of course, she threatens to call the cops. "I've been there," "I'll call the cops. Get out of here." He leaves temporarily, and he comes back with a gun He was pretty calculating on this. He was pretty calculating on this, and probably one of the reasons it ended up with a death penalty. Before approaching the house with a gun, he disconnected the telephone lines so they couldn't call out. Inside, her father, Raymond Archner he saw Oticon was outside and he tried to call the cops. The phone wouldn't work. The father, Raymond, went outside carrying a broomstick as a weapon and warned Oticon to leave, and they end up in an argument, and Oticon shoots him in the face. He then forces his way in the house. Inside, [00:07:00] his girlfriend, Anita, sees him breaking in, and she runs out the back with their daughter and gets away. Her mother, Martha Archner, stayed inside Ochocone shoots her four times. Three gunshot wounds to the chest. She dies at the scene. Raymond's transported to the hospital. Before he dies, a deathbed statement, he identifies Dominic Ochocone as the shooter. Later the same day, they charge him with two counts of murder. He will admit this at trial,, they've got the death penalty is on the table, and he's trying to mitigate that and get life in prison and not get the death penalty. Obviously they didn't have a deal. And even, his attorneys, even after the jury heard this evidence of his alcoholism, his depression, his emotional distress,- the prosecution argued something pretty different. They presented the evidence that Ochocone had repeatedly threatened the Archers. He'd been [00:08:00] going after them, that he disconnected those phone lines. This was a calculated deal. He left and got a handgun and came back. That shows planning and premeditation. That's one of the things you need to get the death penalty, is planning and premeditation. If you just got a gun right there, folks, and you pull it out and you shoot somebody in an argument, then you got a chance to mitigate your penalty and by not showing that planning and premeditation. Jury will recommend the death penalty. It's a no-brainer to convict him. He admits to it They sentenced him to life imprisonment for the murder of Raymond Archer, because if you remember, he came out with a broomstick trying to run him off, so they've got like a fight between the two men. But he then, after he kills Raymond, he goes inside

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In the second of two episodes on the Kansas City Serial Killer, Bob He Butcher Berdella, Gary continues his interview with retired Kansas City police sergeant Troy Cole. They discuss the investigation into Bob Berdella after Christopher Bryson escaped from his house in 1988. 

Listeners learn how police found Polaroid photographs, human remains, and other evidence of abuse. Cole explains how detectives identified the previously unknown victims through photos, documents, dental records, fingerprints, and Berdella’s torture logs.

They learn that young men named Robert Sheldon, Jerry Howell, Larry Pearson, James Ferris, Mark Wallace, and Todd Stoops. They were all young guys who lived by their wits. Berdella tricked them into thinking he was their friend and a fellow social drug user. 

He also describes Berdella’s guilty plea, which led to life without parole and a detailed confession about the victims and disposal of bodies. Cole addresses the lack of evidence for occult claims, the media pressure on investigators, and the emotional strain of the case.

Get the book by Troy Cole and Tom Jackman, Rites of Burial. 

Subscribe to Murder Blueprint wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies.

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In this inaugural episode of Murder Blueprint, retired Kansas City Police Detective and Gangland Wire host Gary Jenkins is joined by retired Kansas City Police Sergeant Troy Cole to begin a gripping multi-part examination of one of the Midwest's most infamous serial murder investigations—the Bob Berdella case.  Get the book by Troy Cole, Rites of Burial. 

The investigation begins on April 2, 1988, when a terrified young man escapes from Berdella's Hyde Park home wearing nothing but a dog collar. His shocking story initially sounds almost unbelievable, but responding officers quickly discover injuries that support his account of being held captive, restrained, and tortured.  

Gary and Troy take listeners inside the crucial first hours of the investigation as officers decide to place Berdella's house under surveillance, arrest him when he returns home, and obtain a search warrant before entering what would become known as Kansas City's "House of Horrors."  

The detectives explain how investigators approached the case cautiously, recognizing that many complaints begin as domestic disputes or false allegations. But as they searched the house room by room, the evidence began confirming every detail of the victim's horrifying account.  

Inside the residence, investigators discovered a filthy home filled with clutter, foul odors, neglected animals, restraints, syringes, drugs, and a bedroom equipped for prolonged captivity. Then came the discovery that transformed the investigation forever—hundreds of Polaroid photographs documenting multiple young men being restrained, tortured, and abused, including photographs of the recent escape victim.  

As detectives continued searching, they located human skulls, teeth, and other evidence suggesting multiple homicides. An excavation in the backyard uncovered a human head, confirming that investigators were dealing with far more than a kidnapping.  

The episode concludes as the investigation rapidly expands into a major homicide task force. Detectives, recruits, forensic specialists, and anthropologists work together to identify the victims captured in Berdella's photographs and determine how many young men entered the Hyde Park house but never came out.  

This is the first installment of a two-part series featuring firsthand accounts from the detectives who investigated one of America's most disturbing serial murder cases.

Subscribe to Murder Blueprint wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies.

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What makes a killer? Is it rage? Revenge? Obsession? Opportunity? Or is there something else—a pattern, a design, a blueprint—that investigators learn to recognize before anyone else?

I'm Gary Jenkins, and after spending 25 years as a detective with the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, I learned that many violent crimes don’t happen by accident. Whether it's a serial killer, a domestic violence murderer, a child abductor, or a predator targeting victims, there is almost always a blueprint. The challenge is recognizing the pattern before another life is lost. You may already know me as the host of Gangland Wire, where I've spent years interviewing FBI agents, detectives, prosecutors, authors, and even former mobsters about organized crime. Now I'm taking you beyond organized crime and into the darkest criminal investigations I've encountered. Welcome to Murder Blueprint. This podcast isn't about sensationalizing violence.

I want to bring clarity to how violent offenders think, how investigators identify patterns, and how detectives assemble evidence and build cases for prosecution. Together we'll go behind the crime scene tape and inside the investigation. We'll examine serial killers whose crimes spanned years before anyone realized they were connected. We'll look at domestic violence cases that escalated into murder, kidnappings that became nationwide manhunts, and wrongful convictions that allowed violent predators to remain free. 

You'll hear directly from the detectives who worked these investigations, the prosecutors who presented the evidence, the forensic experts who uncovered crucial clues, and the authors who have spent years researching these extraordinary cases.

In our opening episodes, we'll take you inside one of Kansas City's most horrifying serial murder investigations as retired detectives explain how they uncovered Bob Berdella's torture chamber, documented his chilling torture logs, and identified the victims hidden behind hundreds of Polaroid photographs.

In the next month, we'll also examine the investigation into Richard Grissom Jr., whose murders of three young women terrified suburban Kansas City, and hear from the detectives who tracked him down and built the case that put him behind bars.  

We'll revisit cases where investigative mistakes—or failures within the justice system—allowed killers to remain free. In one episode, we'll explore how a wrongful conviction diverted investigators from the real offender, leaving a serial predator free to sexually assault and murder hundreds more victims before he was finally identified. We'll examine what went wrong, why it happened, and what law enforcement learned from those tragic mistakes.  

Every case has lessons. Sometimes those lessons come from brilliant detective work. Sometimes they come from systemic failures. But every investigation has something to teach us about criminal behavior, victimology, forensic science, and the pursuit of justice.  

If you enjoy true crime that goes beyond headlines and popular documentaries, I will give you stories told by the people who actually investigated the cases. If that is your bag as we used to say, then Murder Blueprint is for you. Follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Leave a review, tell a friend, and join me as we uncover the patterns, expose the mistakes, and reveal the investigations behind some of America's most compelling violent crimes.

Art by Remi Jenkins

Subscribe to Murder Blueprint wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer use @ganglandwire
Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee"


To go to the store or make a donation click here.  
To rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here
To rent Brothers against Brothers, click here.
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