Opinion ID: 2545831
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Murder of Elizabeth Duarte

Text: In 1976, defendant worked at the Chevron Research in Richmond, Contra Costa County, where he met coworker Elizabeth Duarte. The two dated for several years, but in July 1980, Duarte obtained a restraining order against defendant. Around the same time, she began dating another coworker, James Luddon. Late in the evening of January 24, 1981, Duarte's father came to her house in Richmond and picked up her five-year-old son. Duarte's father brought the child back the next morning, but Duarte was not there. Later that day, the father notified the Richmond police that his daughter was missing. On January 26, Richmond police investigator Patricia McKittrick talked with defendant about Duarte's disappearance. When defendant asked if he was suspected of murder, McKittrick told him no. Defendant volunteered that Duarte made him so mad he wanted to kill her. According to defendant, on January 24 (when Duarte disappeared), he had gone fishing, and he did not return until the next day. At the end of the interview, defendant said: If I am not a suspect, I ought to be; I had a dream the other night that [Duarte] got shot in the head. Police obtained a warrant and searched defendant's van on February 1, 1981. Caked dirt was on its clutch, gas and brake pedals, and dried human blood consistent with Duarte's (type A) was on the floor. After his arrest in Nevada County in April 1986, defendant discussed Duarte's murder with Richmond Detective Michael Tye. Defendant said that he and Duarte had a love-hate relationship. He decided to get rid of her because the love-hate was not balancing out anymore, and only hate was left. Although defendant decided to kill Duarte for personal reasons (she had arranged for a hit man to shoot 20 rounds from a high-powered rifle at his house), he did not do so for some two months after making that decision. In the meantime, someone offered him $20,000 to kill Duarte because she was a snitch. For $800, defendant had James Luddon, whom Duarte dated after breaking up with defendant, lure her to Luddon's house. On the evening of January 24, 1981, when Duarte arrived at Luddon's house, defendant was waiting in a bathroom. Defendant stepped into the hall and hit Duarte in the head so hard it split her scalp wide open, exposing skull bone. Defendant took Duarte in his van to his house, where he wrapped a bandage around her head and gave her a blanket. The two then drove to the Lime Ridge area of Mount Diablo, where defendant had earlier dug a grave. They talked all night and defendant at one point handed Duarte his .38-caliber revolver, telling her to shoot him. Just as the sun was coming up, defendant shot Duarte once in the stomach. She told him to shoot her again, and he emptied the gun into her. Defendant added that he had buried Duarte wrapped in the blanket. On April 27, 1986, defendant led Detective Tye to the area of Duarte's killing. There, police recovered human remains wrapped in a blanket and with a bandage wrapped around the skull. Several .38-caliber bullets were found nearby. Dental records established that the remains were those of Elizabeth Duarte. She had been shot in the chest at least four times.