3 steps to make a murderer confess

In 1987, the area surrounding this pump house and dirt road in Mascotte, Florida, became the scene of a crime with repercussions that are still being felt nearly 30 years later. Click through the gallery for details of the case, including more crime scene and evidence photos from CNN's "Death Row Stories."

Today, former Mascotte Police Department officer James Duckett faces execution for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee.

The night of May 11, 1987, Teresa left her mother Dorothy McAbee's home in Mascotte, walking alone to a nearby Circle K convenience store to buy a pencil.

Later, a resident reported a girl's body floating in nearby Knight Lake, not far from the pump house and dirt road. It was Teresa McAbee. An autopsy showed she had been raped, strangled and thrown into the water.

Investigators found tire tracks along that road near the body. The tracks matched the pattern of police cars driven by the Mascotte Police Department, including Officer Duckett.

When Duckett arrived at the crime scene, his police cruiser was impounded for further investigation. Fingerprints matching Teresa's were found on the car hood.

Police questioned Duckett, who denied that Teresa ever sat on the hood of his cruiser. He was charged with sexual battery of a minor and first degree murder.

The prosecution's lead witness, Gwen Gurley, testified that she saw Teresa outside the Circle K the night of the murder. She also testified that she saw Duckett drive off with "a small person" in his patrol car.

Duckett's police notebook appears to show Duckett visited another convenience store -- a Jiffy Stop -- around the time of the murder, providing him with a possible alibi. But the notebook was not introduced at trial. Veteran homicide detective Marshall Frank -- who interviewed Duckett for a crime novel -- told CNN's "Death Row Stories" the "Jiffy Stop entry wasn't in the same order as the other loggings. And I thought that was odd."

An FBI agent who also was an expert hair examiner for the prosecution testified that a pubic hair found in Teresa's underwear had "exactly the same characteristics" as sample hairs taken from Duckett. After a trial, jurors found Duckett guilty. He was sentenced to death. Later a Justice Department report said the FBI agent had falsely testified about hair analysis in other cases, calling his testimony in Duckett's trial into question. After more than 25 years on death row, Duckett maintains his innocence.

Although Gurley later recanted her testimony in a sworn deposition, she pleaded the Fifth Amendment at a formal hearing, fearing perjury charges. Gurley now claims she was coerced into recanting. "The last time I saw Teresa McAbee, she was in James Duckett's police car," she told CNN's "Death Row Stories."

"We have an innocent guy here. This is crazy." Duckett's appellate attorney Beth Wells told CNN's "Death Row Stories." Duckett and Wells await a decision by Florida's Supreme Court on their request for an evidentiary hearing. "I'm 100% confident that when they evaluate this evidence they're going to say, 'You know what? We got it wrong. We have to give this guy a new trial.'"

"I just want justice for my daughter. That's what I want," Dorothy McAbee told CNN's "Death Row Stories." "26 years -- I'm tired. I don't think I'm ever going to have closure, because he's never going to admit it."

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• Veteran Miami homicide detective opens up about interrogating suspects


• Retired detective Marshall Frank writes crime novels and holds seminars


• Since his detective days, Frank has changed his mind about the death penalty


• Frank describes how he elicited a confession from convicted killer Paul Eugene Rowles

CNN's original series, "Death Row Stories," explores America's capital punishment system each Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT. Follow us at facebook.com/cnn or Twitter @CNNorigSeries using #DeathRowStories

(CNN) -- As a Miami-area homicide detective, Marshall Frank has met some really bad people.

Now retired, the 30-year law enforcement veteran reveals trade secrets about how he "made friends" with criminals and coaxed them to confess.

For example, take Paul Eugene Rowles -- a convicted murderer and sexual predator who died last year in a Florida prison. When he was with Metro-Dade Police in 1972, Frank arrested Rowles for the strangling death of Rowles' Miami neighbor, Linda Fida.

Frank, who spoke with CNN by phone, described the handsome, 6-foot, blue-eyed Rowles as "someone you trust right away, very pleasant to talk to, soft spoken, somebody you wouldn't think would be a dangerous killer. But these killers are the most dangerous of all."

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For them, Frank said, killing is "like an addiction, like heroin, and they've gotta have that murder fix."

So, how did Frank get Rowles to confess? "I made friends with him," he said matter-of-factly. "It took half an hour."

But he didn't do it alone. "I had another cop in the room with me, and we knew each other's methods. The other detective just stayed quiet. He was there for support, but not to be a part of the interrogation."

Sitting close to Rowles with his knees almost touching him, Frank said he would lean toward him during the interrogation. "I was really appearing to be interested in him," Frank said. Then they started talking about how Rowles' life, family, father and mother had all affected him and "how that led to what he had just done."

And then Rowles began "blathering the confession out," Frank said. "He started crying."

Although Rowles was sentenced to life in prison, he was paroled in 1985. Nine years later Rowles was convicted of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor and sentenced to 19 years. In 2012, DNA testing linked Rowles to the 1992 murder of 21-year-old Elizabeth Foster. Before Rowles died last year, police tried to interview him, without success, to determine if he was behind the disappearance of 20-year-old Tiffany Sessions in 1989. After his death, investigators found a journal in Rowles' cell with a note that read "2/9/89" -- the date Sessions disappeared. "No. 2" was scrawled on both sides of the notation. Police believe it's an indication that Sessions was Rowles' second victim.

Read more about Rowles

Crime novelist Marshall Frank served for 30 years as a Miami-area police officer and homicide detective.

In 2003, Frank played a very different role in another Florida murder case. While researching a crime novel, Frank began corresponding with James Duckett, a former police officer who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of an 11-year-old girl named Teresa McAbee. Duckett has been on death row for more than 25 years, as the appeals process plays out. Frank sat face-to-face with Duckett in a prison lunchroom, a conversation both men describe in CNN's documentary series, "Death Row Stories," airing this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.

See more about Duckett and Frank

Successfully interrogating suspects one-on-one, Frank said, requires patience. "You can't come across as though you're personally involved," he said. "You can't come across like you're mad or angry or impatient or putting pressure on.

Real jailhouse police questioning doesn't happen the way it's portrayed by Hollywood. According to Frank, the cliché, the two-cops-on-one-suspect scenario with angry, screaming interrogators isn't part of the real world.

We've broken down Frank's method into three ideas:

1. "The most important thing is gaining their confidence, respect and cooperation." Frank repeated his theme: "I just kinda made friends."

2. "At the beginning of the interrogation you don't even go into what you're there for. You wait five minutes. Wait 15 minutes, 30 minutes. There's no hurry. What you want to do is get the person talking and feeling good about talking to you."

3. "Eventually you just work your way into whatever the issue is. Next thing you know, someone's just blathering a confession. Believe me that's how it worked."

'I just got a hunch'

During all his years on the force, Frank claims he never arrested the wrong person in a case. But he came close. Frank told a story about a case where he questioned a man whose aunt accused him of raping her.

I just got a hunch — something about the guy.

Marshall Frank, retired homicide detective

"During the interrogation he was adamant that he didn't do it," Frank recalled. "Well of course a lot of guilty people are adamant that they didn't do it. But I just got a hunch — something about the guy. So I started thinking, 'Maybe we ought to check this out further before we actually book him.' We went back out on the streets, and we found the aunt again, and we polygraphed her. After polygraphing her, she admitted that she had told a lie."

Frank said it turned out the aunt had "an ulterior motive about her wanting to have him arrested." He then freed the suspect.

The 'conveyor belt'

After three decades as a law enforcement officer, Frank has some opinions about America's justice system.

Public defender resources are overburdened, Frank said. Which sometimes contributes to less than fair circumstances.

"It's really an uneven system to have people who can afford a good attorney and other people who can only afford public defenders," Frank said. "I asked a public defender once, 'How do you keep up with the caseload?' And he said, 'It's like Lucille Ball and the conveyor belt: You just can't keep up with it.'"

A lot of public defenders are talented and would like to do a better job, Frank said. "But they're constrained by the enormous stresses and the pressures to keep up with their caseloads.

The death penalty

CNN's "Death Row Stories" draws back the curtain on how murder cases are investigated and prosecuted. It connects the judicial dots between the crimes, the evidence, the trial and the death chamber. Frank joked about his days as a "hotshot detective," when he used to favor the use of the death penalty in some cases.

But in the years after his retirement in 1990, Frank has turned a 180 on the issue. Now 73, Frank has been writing crime novels, which require many hours of research.

In 1972, Marshall Frank arrested Paul Eugene Rowles for the strangling death of Rowles' Miami neighbor, Linda Fida.

"The death penalty is something I researched a lot about," he said. "How many times do we find people who've had life sentences and 25 years later DNA proves them to be innocent? Those same people could easily have been executed by now. I'm sure that there have been people executed who are innocent."

That's just not acceptable, he said.

"I've realized that society can't sacrifice some innocent people once in a while just so it can get all the guilty ones."

Frank said society should consider alternative punishments for dangerous criminals. "Because, basically, putting someone to death is murder," Frank said. "It's intentional murder. Premeditated murder. Isn't it?"

Are overburdened defense attorneys breaking America's justice system? What do you think? Tell us in the comments below.

CNN's Eliott McLaughlin contributed to this report