The Oxygen True Crime series, Snapped: Behind Bars, features the story of Lucille Duncan, a woman who has spent two decades in prison for a crime she insists she did not commit. In this episode, Duncan, convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in 2004, shares her account of the events for the first time.
On June 5, 2003, the body of James Pruitt, Duncan’s ex-boyfriend, was discovered in a wooded area near Gleason Road in southern Boone County. Pruitt had been shot in the back of the head while seated in a car, with Duncan in the driver’s seat and her son, Jeremiah Robertson, in the back. Robertson’s testimony was pivotal, as he recalled his mother’s nervous behavior and revealed her prior contemplations about killing Pruitt.
Duncan was sentenced to life in prison without parole, and her brother, Gerald Duncan, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action the following month, receiving a similar sentence. Duncan’s efforts to appeal her conviction, citing ineffective counsel and prosecutorial misconduct, have been denied by lower courts, the Missouri Supreme Court, and the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Her petitions to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017 were also unsuccessful.
Catch Snapped: Behind Bars, Lucille Duncan on Sunday, September 22, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. on Oxygen True Crime.
