Pod Insights Criminology Patrick Duffey About this episode On April 26th, 2007, an emergency dispatcher with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department received a 911 call from Linda Duffey. Linda told the dispatcher that her husband Patrick had been shot. Very quickly she informed investigators that she was the one who had shot him. But she claimed it was an accident. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the death of Patrick Duffey. Multiple juries were faced with a difficult decision. Did Linda Duffey murder her husband Patrick, or, as she claimed, was it a terrible accident? You can support the show at patroen.com/criminology An Emash Digital production
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.
0:37 Speaker 01 Hello everyone and welcome to episode 343 of the Criminology Podcast. This is Mike Ferguson.
0:43 Speaker 02 And this is Mike Morford.
0:45 Speaker 01 Mr. Morford, how you doing this week, man?
0:47 Speaker 02 I'm doing good. Just getting on this morning, drinking my third cup of coffee. I love my coffee in the morning and ready to go. How about you?
0:56 Speaker 01 Now, I'm always amazed when I talk to people about coffee. There really to me seems to be no wiggle room. You're either a coffee drinker or you're not. There's very few people that just dabble in coffee and I am undoubtedly addicted to coffee. I love my coffee. It's one of the best and favorite parts of my day.
1:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, in our house, we go through probably, you know, on weekends, it could be three pots a day. So we're pretty serious coffee drinkers here too.
1:26 Speaker 01 Well, my wife doesn't drink it, so it's just me, but my, my girls both love coffee. Now they love all that flavored stuff. Not me. I just like black coffee, nothing in it. I'm good to go. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Lisa Marie, Jackie Stewart, and Sue Ellen Johnson. So some great new support. We really appreciate it.
1:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, thanks so much for that support. It really helps out the show and for anyone else that would like to support us, please head over to patroen.com/criminology to get started.
1:59 Speaker 01 And just wanted to remind everyone, time is running out to get your Crime Con 2025 badges. Crime Con is about eight months away, but you know, sometimes those badges go quick. They sell out.
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2:27 Speaker 01 And as always, we plan to have a group meetup and we hope to see you there. And if you want to save some money when you book, use our promo code criminology to save 10% on your standard badges when you check out at crimecon.com. All right, now that we have all that out of the way, let's dive into this week's case. We're talking about the shooting death of Patrick Duffy in 2007. Not to be confused with the actor from the TV show Dallas. He spells his last name D U F F Y. The victim's name we're talking about is spelled D U F F E Y. And while there was never a doubt about who shot him, the details surrounding the shooting
3:12 Speaker 01 took a lot of sorting out before the truth was finally revealed.
3:17 Speaker 02 Just before three in the afternoon on April 26, 2007, an emergency dispatcher with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department received the 911 call from Linda Duffy. At the time, she and her husband Patrick were living in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County, just south of Whittier, California. They were 49 and 50 years old respectively, and they had two sons together. They got married four years after they met. Julie Prendergast, Linda's friend, told CBS's 48 Hours of Linda, she just said it was like her dream come true and she couldn't be happier. Patrick's sister Kathy Hunt thought they were a perfect match, telling 48 Hours, they seemed happy as a family.
4:01 Speaker 02 They understood each other. They seemed to have a lot of fun with each other, too. Kathy went on to say, they were kidding with each other, joking with each other. This is exactly how Linda would describe their relationship, too, saying, we're just always just joking around with each other and being silly and having a good time.
4:20 Speaker 01 So it seems like they had a good relationship. It seemed like they were really true friends, right? Linda and Patrick. What happened all those years later seemed impossible. When you think about and hear about what a great relationship they had. After calling 911, Linda frantically explained to the dispatcher that she had shot her husband. She fully admitted from the beginning that she was the one who shot him, but she was clear that she hadn't meant to. She told the dispatcher, "My husband was gonna go shooting, and I accidentally shot him. We need help." When authorities responded to Linda's 911 call,
5:04 Speaker 01 it was clear that Patrick had been shot in the head. He was lying on the living room couch. Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Robert Villa told the Whittier Daily News that it looked like he was sleeping on the couch when he was shot. He still had one hand in his pocket. And according to Detective Shannon Laren in a CBS News report, his right knee was being supported by a pillow. It's been noted how relaxed it looked like he had been before being killed. And to me, more of this is a little different than most of the stories we do. You know, we cover a lot of solved cases.
5:45 Speaker 01 We know ultimately who the perpetrator or perpetrators are. But it is strange for investigators, I think, to find out right from the very beginning, who did the shooting, right? Normally, we're talking about an investigation. They're having to go through all of these hurdles and jump through hoops to try to figure out what happened. But here Linda just comes out and admits that she shot her husband. Now, she says it was an accident, but she readily admits to being the shooter.
6:23 Speaker 02 I think that helps the police in one aspect because now they don't have to run around looking for a mystery shooter, somebody that came in the house, maybe and did this and ran off. They know who did it. So now maybe their job's a little bit easier. They can focus on Linda and how things played out and do their investigation that way.
6:46 Speaker 01 But it's not like there's still not mystery here, right? Because she's saying I accidentally shot him and you know, that's going to be, you know, the crux of their investigation. Is that really what happened? Or is that just what she's saying happened?
7:05 Speaker 02 Thankfully, neither of their two teenage sons were home from school when this happened. They could have ended up witnessing their mother shoot their father in the head, or it could have been one of them that ended up getting injured or killed. According to a later press release from Sheriff Leroy D. Baca, Linda initially said that the gun, 38 caliber revolver that belonged to Patrick, went off while Linda was examining it. During the 911 call, which was recorded, Linda says he was teaching her how to shoot a gun and the gun accidentally went off.
7:36 Speaker 01 Now, these two statements don't necessarily conflict with each other as Linda could have been examining the revolver while learning how to shoot it. But an indoor shooting lesson certainly seems a bit far fetched. And according to Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, Robert Villa, in a Whittier County News article, the evidence doesn't really support that that's what happened. Since Patrick appeared to have been asleep on the couch, things just didn't seem to make sense to police on the scene. So Linda was taken to the police station for an interview. She didn't ask to be represented by an attorney when she answered questions.
8:17 Speaker 01 And at one point Detective Sean McCarthy reassured her that this wasn't her fault. Gunshot residue on her hands confirmed that she was the one who fired the gun.
8:29 Speaker 02 Now, this is a pretty odd situation. It seems like to me indoor gun lessons just sounds a little bit strange. I know one of the oldest rules of handling guns is always assume that the gun is loaded. So why they would ever be doing this inside the house just seems a little dangerous. And I know you do a lot, a lot of shooting. What do you think about this situation?
8:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, this doesn't make sense to me at all for a number of reasons. First of all, you know, go to a gun range, go to a place that's designed to, you know, shoot guns. If you want to practice or give somebody a lesson on how to shoot, teach them to shoot. But you also have the fact that he's asleep on the couch. So how is he teaching her how to shoot if he's asleep? Now, was he teaching her earlier? And now she's picked up the gun to do who knows what? And it just happens to go off. But you know, you hear that in
9:36 Speaker 01 a lot of cases, the gun just went off. Well, to be honest with you, guns don't really just go off. And especially, you know, when you're talking about a revolver, there, there is a trigger pull. You have to pull that trigger. You don't just pick up a gun and it just goes off. Now you could accidentally pull the trigger. You could get it snagged on something. You could mishandle it and it falls down onto your finger. But most of these guns, they're the trigger pull is somewhat substantial. It takes an effort. So this notion of, you know, guns just going off is kind of strange to me. I don't buy
10:21 Speaker 01 that a lot when people say it.
10:23 Speaker 02 Linda walked detectives through what happened right before she claimed she accidentally shot Patrick. Earlier in the day, they both went to a doctor's appointment for Patrick, who had chronic circulation problems. After they got home, he started getting ready to go to the gun range to do some shooting. He was a gun enthusiast and had multiple firearms. During the interrogation, Linda explained that she picked up his gun just to look at it, and then asked Patrick where the bullets were. He replied, "over there." According to Detective McCarthy, Linda then told him that she and her husband were both big fans of cartoons, and she explained that they would often do cartoon voices to each other. Detective McCarthy told CBS, "She said that we have this thing that we always do
11:07 Speaker 02 where we morph into cartoon characters." Unfortunately, the cartoon scene they had chosen to reenact that afternoon was what led Linda to believe that the gun she was holding and pointing at her husband had no bullets in it.
11:20 Speaker 01 The scene Linda was talking about is from a Bugs Bunny cartoon involving Bugs, Duffey Duck, and Elmer Fudd. In the scene, Duffey is running from Elmer, who is hunting with his rifle. This cartoon episode can be watched online. In it, Elmer Fudd pulls the trigger a few times, but nothing happens, so he says, "Well, what do you know? No more bullets." Bugs Bunny observes this and calls out to Duffey Duck, informing him that there are no more bullets. Duffey runs back to Elmer Fudd, taking his rifle to see for himself. He looks down the barrel of the rifle and then pulls the trigger. After the gun goes off, Elmer says, "Well, what do you know? One bullet left."
12:05 Speaker 01 Because this is a cartoon, Duffey Duck is alive. The hair on the top of his head is hanging off, the bullet's still embedded in it, and he seems very displeased with Elmer Fudd's trick. And more of I think, you know, this does go back to what you said, which is... You always assume that a gun is loaded. That's just a like a cardinal rule. You never assume that it's unloaded. The other thing that that really kind of jumped out at me was thinking back to, you know, these cartoons that that you and I probably watched when we were younger. They were quite violent.
12:46 Speaker 01 If you think about it, I mean, you're talking about guns being fired, Duffey grabbing the gun, looking down the barrel. How unsafe is that? And then pulling the trigger and it going off.
13:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think when you're a kid, you don't really pay attention to the the violent aspect of it, but it's probably not all that appropriate with some of the stuff that happens. You know, they blow stuff up and miraculously all the characters are alive and well at the end and they laugh it off and, you know, the audience laughs with it. But, you know, this situation definitely wasn't a laughing matter.
13:25 Speaker 01 Well, definitely, looking back at it, not a great message, right? To send to kids that you could just walk away from something like that.
13:34 Speaker 02 Linda said to police that she picked up her husband's 38 caliber revolver, said to him, no more bullets, like Elmer Fudd would say. And Patrick said back to her, no more bullets. Both of them mimicking Elmer Fudd's speech impediment. She didn't take his response as him just finishing the bit, saying the next line in the scene. She took this response to mean that he was telling her that there were no bullets in the gun she was holding. To continue the joke and also an attempt to impress Patrick, Linda said she decided to then shoot the gun cowboy style, using a technique that Patrick taught her called fan firing. You've probably seen it at least once in a Western or an action movie, where the person shooting will use the hammer of the gun to fire it multiple times very
14:19 Speaker 02 quickly. This requires the person holding the gun to keep pressing down on the trigger and then pulling the hammer back over and over, instead of having to pull the hammer back each time and then pull the trigger. Linda says that Patrick instructed her on this method. By saying, what you do is you pull that little thing back and do it real quick like the Wild West. She told detectives that this idea didn't impress her, saying she initially told him, Pat, that's stupid.
14:47 Speaker 01 So according to Linda, this shooting was the result of some mutual joking around, and the shooting was totally accidental. Whether you believe her or not, there were definitely some inconsistencies in her story. At first, she claimed that Patrick had been lying on the couch when he was shot, but when faced with the possibility that this would not back up her version of events, or possibly the truth, that even if this was an accident, she was admitting to pointing a gun directly at her husband's head. She said he was sitting down on the couch, and when he laid down, just as she began to shoot the gun, he ended
15:29 Speaker 01 up leaning right into the line of fire. She told investigators, he was sitting up, so I made sure that it was pointed down on the sofa. At this point in questioning, she began to break down and cry. By changing this detail, it meant that she hadn't been aiming at Patrick, she'd been pointing the gun at the couch near him, and if he hadn't moved, he wouldn't have been shot. When Linda composed herself, she said, it was pointed down, and the next thing I know, his head was right there.
16:02 Speaker 02 Sometimes investigators get a strong gut feeling as to whether someone's telling them the truth, and when there are multiple investigators, they often all have the same gut feelings. But in this case, the detectives were torn. Detective McCarthy told 48 Hours, I wanted to believe her story, while his partner Detective Shannon Lahren was much more skeptical, saying, there were so many highly improbable events that would have had to have all lined up for this to actually have been an accident. In fact, Detective Lahren went on to say, it looked like he'd been sleeping on the couch, and somebody just walked up and shot him in his sleep.
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17:58 Speaker 01 So investigators are torn, right? Some believe that she might be telling the truth, some think that she's lying. I mean, the one thing that you'd have to admit is that it's a pretty strange story all the way around.
18:16 Speaker 02 Yeah, to me, it's so strange, it almost sounds believable because who would make this kind of bizarre story up to explain how this happened?
18:27 Speaker 01 Lynda Duffy was allowed to go home after her interview. She wasn't arrested or charged in Patrick's death, according to 48 Hours, after an autopsy was performed. Detectives were surprised to learn that there was a second gunshot wound. The amount of blood at the scene had prevented them from being able to see more than one bullet wound. Despite this, Detective McCarthy wasn't willing to arrest Lynda without more evidence. He explained to 48 Hours, "I needed to be convinced myself that this was murder. The last thing in the world I want to do is send an innocent person to prison for the rest of their lives."
19:08 Speaker 01 One thing that we haven't mentioned yet, but need to point out is that the gun that Linda shot Patrick with that day was a double action revolver. This means that unlike the single action revolvers used in the old Western movies, you have to pull the trigger every time you want to fire. You can't just hold the trigger down and pull their hammer back rapidly using that fan firing technique. You have to let go of the trigger or the cylinder won't cycle. So no new bullet will enter the chamber to be fired. This means that Linda had to pull the trigger, not just once, which could have been a legitimate surprise for her when it fired, but twice.
19:52 Speaker 01 And I think the other thing it does is it kind of blows up the whole fan firing theory. It's just that gun doesn't work that way.
20:01 Speaker 02 Firearms expert Tracy Peck told 48 Hours, "I don't find it a very believable story." Blood spatter and photos from the scene would show that Linda wasn't telling the truth about where she was standing when she shot her husband. Paul Dowhauer, a crime scene reconstruction expert, told 48 Hours, "She moved and the relative position of the gun to the head changed." Eventually, Detective McCarthy was swayed by the opinions of his fellow investigators. He told 48 Hours, "I still wanted to believe her, but it clearly couldn't have gone down the way she said it went down."
20:36 Speaker 01 In January of 2009, Linda was brought back into the station for another interview. She stuck to her story. During that second round of questioning, Linda said, "He showed me how to do it really fast. You gotta do it like the Cowboys." Detectives showed Linda a video of firearms examiner Tracy Peck acting out the fan firing she claimed to have done. In the video, Tracy is struggling to do it quickly, and there's no real way to precisely control her aim. After Linda watched that video, her story changed up a bit. Detective McCarthy said, I could tell the light bulb went on in their brain.
21:18 Speaker 01 And she said, I gotta at least change the story a little bit. And I feel like this is what happens in almost every case. If someone is thought to have done something, detectives are interviewing them. Maybe one time, maybe multiple times, as detectives kind of hit them with facts. It's like the person's story has to change. It has to evolve to explain those facts. And I feel like that's why people's stories often change multiple times.
21:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it just goes to show that even when you think you've got, you know, perhaps a story down that you think is a good one. If you're, if you're covering something up and something comes out that casts doubt on that, as perfect as you thought it was, you have to suddenly start shifting. I think police often notice that when you start shifting your story, changing details here and there, I think that raises a lot of red flags. Early on, Linda downplayed her experience with guns. Now she claimed that she and Patrick had practiced fan firing maybe 15 to 20 times in the past, but it had always been with an unloaded revolver.
22:42 Speaker 02 With Linda still sticking to her story, she was released with no charges once again. Detectives didn't believe she was a current danger to anyone at the time. So they waited while they tried to gather more evidence. The detectives also asked her to meet them at the shooting range and show them using an exact replica of the 38 caliber revolver she used that day, exactly how she fan fired it at Patrick. Detective McCarthy said to her, you can show us how you can fire this gun in the manner that you said. But Linda never met them at the range. She never tried to show them exactly how she was able to accidentally shoot her husband twice. Despite the detectives believing that Linda had intentionally killed Patrick, the case got put on the back burner.
23:26 Speaker 02 Detectives McCarthy and Laren each got new partners and new cases came in, pushing their older ones aside.
23:33 Speaker 01 Linda's friend Julie Prendergast was suspicious of Linda after Patrick's death. She told 48 Hours she dyed her hair blonde. She was wearing different style of clothes. She seemed to be walking on air, on clouds, like, oh, just as happy as can be. When Linda asked Julie to sing at her wedding to her new fiance Lawrence, just two years after Patrick's death, Julie declined. She had been in Linda's wedding to Patrick, but refused to even attend Linda's second wedding. Julie knew something was off, deep down, telling 48 Hours, something's not right, surrounding the death of Patrick.
24:12 Speaker 02 I think Julie's suspicion here is interesting because this is Linda's friend, and she's sort of doubting what happened and having some thoughts that maybe there's more than meets the eye here with this story. So when, when your own friends don't fully trust what you're saying is the truth, you can understand why the police didn't believe the story either.
24:37 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it's telling when one of your best friends is suspicious of you. But, you know, it's also kind of strange that, you know, the case got put on the back burner. She wasn't charged at this point in time. So the suspicion was there, but obviously they must have felt that they didn't have enough evidence to actually charge her.
25:04 Speaker 02 Detectives began to widen the scope of their investigation. They interviewed some of Linda's former coworkers and they learned a lot. Detective McCarthy told 48 Hours of the interviews, boy, that was revealing. They consistently talked about how she was so charming. But then as time went on, they started finding out that she was this compulsive liar. By the time detectives tried to contact Linda again, they stopped by the house and were surprised to see a for sale sign out front. The Duffy's two children were at the house, but Linda wasn't there. The detectives were even more surprised to learn that she was in Italy on her honeymoon.
25:41 Speaker 01 Finally, on May 18th, 2012, five long years after Patrick was killed, an arrest warrant was issued for Linda Duffy, the Los Angeles County District Attorney, planned to charge her with Patrick's murder. By the time of her arrest in May of 2012, Linda was 54 years old. She wasn't living in California anymore, and she also wasn't Linda Doreen Duffy anymore. Now Linda Doreen Guazd, she had moved across the country with her second husband. The couple was living in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Linda was working for the University of Southern Mississippi. Linda had been the clinical secretary for the Department
26:26 Speaker 01 of Speech and Hearing Sciences in the College of Health for almost two years.
26:31 Speaker 02 Linda met her second husband, Lawrence Guazd, in 2008 on a dating website. It quickly hit it off, and she moved to Mississippi to be with him. According to thepatch.com, he would later tell Superior Court Judge John A. Terribio that their connection was immediate. He said he knew Linda as a wonderful Christian human being. Lawrence also worked at the University of Southern Mississippi as a professor of saxophone. He has performed as a classical saxophonist internationally, and at really prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall. The arrest of his wife shocked Lawrence, but he was aware of how her first husband died. He told the judge, "She openly shared the story of this tragic accident, and I do mean accident."
27:17 Speaker 01 So it would have to be shocking, Morph, right? For Lawrence, he's met this woman, they dated, they got married. He sounds like he loves her. She thinks she's wonderful, and she knows about her first husband died. But all of the information about it came from Linda. So I'm sure it had to be shocking for him, for her to be arrested. And of course, he's going to defend her.
27:45 Speaker 02 Yeah, but from the sounds of it, he fully accepted her version of what happened and didn't think anything bad of her. And he was just as shocked, you know, as she probably was when they came knocking on the door.
27:59 Speaker 01 Officers from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department flew to Hattiesburg and in an early morning surprise for Linda, placed her under arrest with help from both the US Marshals Service Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force and the Hattiesburg Police. Bail for Linda was set at $2 million, so she remained in the custody of the Forest County Sheriff's Office in Mississippi until her extradition back to California in June. Linda was formally charged with murder in January of 2013, but she didn't go on trial until January of the next year. Prosecutors laid out all of the evidence, everything, including what has been called
28:43 Speaker 01 the Bugs Bunny defense. They went through and refuted Linda's version of events. Juror Brandy Jones would later explain to 48 Hours how figuring out the evidence was difficult in the case. She said, "For every expert, there's another one who can tell you a different story." And I feel like that comes up in almost every case, right? The prosecution has their experts, the defense has their experts, they're normally at odds. I mean, that's how a case goes. That has to be tough for jurors because you're hearing from experts with differing opinions.
29:27 Speaker 01 So what do you believe? It has to come down to what sides experts you believe and how what they're saying fits with the rest of the evidence.
29:38 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I think all of that, you know, the jury has to weigh all of that and make a decision who's more believable, who do they put more stock in, which expert? So I think it's... Both the defense and the prosecution really rely on these witnesses to do their best job to convince the jury of what's true. There was hope for Linda and the case against her wasn't a slam dunk. After two weeks of testimony, the jury couldn't come to a unanimous verdict. A mistrial had to be declared. Juror Brandy Jones told 48 Hours, "Very few of us thought the intent was there. How do you convict somebody when it could have happened exactly
30:18 Speaker 02 the way she explained it?" Despite what Linda's attorney, Joseph Lowe, called "a clear message that the jury wasn't willing to convict on murder," prosecutors decided to take the case to trial a second time. Linda wasn't granted bail as she waited for a new trial.
30:34 Speaker 01 After a year of preparation, prosecutors significantly shifted their strategies. This time, they presented evidence for just under three days. This would be a much quicker trial with less for the jury to wrap their head around. Most crucially, in a pretty brilliant move, they made no mention of Linda's entire defense. The Bugs Bunny cartoon and Patrick saying there were no more bullets. Prosecutors ignored the entire interview with Linda from the day that she shot Patrick, which meant that the defense couldn't talk about it either. If she wanted the jury to know about what she and Patrick said to each other that morning,
31:15 Speaker 01 she would have to take the stand and open herself up to cross-examination by the prosecution. Linda declined to take the stand and testify in her own defense.
31:26 Speaker 02 In another brilliant move, Linda's defense attorney found that in the 911 call, which had already been admitted into evidence, Linda did mention fan firing. Now, they could bring up what her defense had been the entire time without her taking the stand. This also meant that they could call their own firearms expert to discuss fan firing. Lance Martini, the firearms expert called by the defense, explained that while firing a double-action revolver in this manner was not overly common, it certainly can be done. This time around, the prosecution also gave a little bit of a motive, whether or not it was true. They told the jury that Linda didn't want to have to care for Patrick with
32:08 Speaker 02 his chronic health problems that were getting worse. Deputy DA Villa said, she's like, I'm not going to wait on this guy for the rest of his life. Defense attorney Joseph Lowe countered, and he argued that there was no motive because this was an accident. He asked for a verdict of not guilty, saying it's not fair to guess somebody into a conviction, guess somebody into a concrete tomb.
32:31 Speaker 01 And I think more of this would have been a tough case for a jury, for both juries. Obviously, it was a tough one for the first one. They couldn't come to a unanimous decision. And I think you heard it from that one juror. How do you convict somebody when it could have happened exactly the way she explained? It seems to me like the prosecution just didn't have that kind of bombshell piece of evidence that really proved Linda murdered Patrick. But on January 23, 2015, a jury, her second jury, found Linda guilty of murder in the
33:12 Speaker 01 second degree. This charge doesn't require any premeditation on her part, just that she personally and intentionally discharged a firearm, causing great bodily injury and death. Her husband Lawrence and her two sons from her marriage to Patrick all pleaded with Judge Terribio to find it in himself to grant Linda some leniency. Lawrence said, there is absolutely no way that this was purposeful. I assert that the jury made a huge mistake with this verdict. Linda and Patrick's son Thomas said that he knew his mom as someone who won't even kill a spider. He said, I believe she's innocent. Their other son Sean
33:57 Speaker 01 also believed in his mother's innocence, saying, we were always really happy. Lawrence backed this up as he held up a photo of Linda and Patrick, saying, look at these two people, beautifully in love.
34:09 Speaker 02 There was a very mixed reaction to the guilty verdict. Patrick's sister Cathy Hunt told 48 Hours, "The verdict was a real bittersweet feeling." Going on to say, "I really felt good about it, but I felt sad about it at the same time." Linda's husband Lawrence said she's a wonderful human being who doesn't deserve this. While Linda's friend Julie said of the verdict, "Yay, justice has finally served." It was clear that Linda had those who supported her and those that felt the jury got it right. On April 24, 2015, Linda Guaz was sentenced to serve 40 years to life in prison. When she was formally sentenced, Linda was 57 years old, which would make her eligible
34:52 Speaker 02 for release when she's in her late 90s. It wasn't so much that the judge had no sympathy for Linda, he just had to follow the law. Judge Terribio cited in his sentencing, "In this particular instance, the law mandates 40 to life, and my oath requires that I impose that."
35:11 Speaker 01 At her sentencing, Linda fought back tears and said, "This was a horrible accident, and I have been aware of everyone's pain from day one." Linda apologized to her husband Lawrence. She briefly reminisced, recalling, "In a time of unbelievable sadness for each of us individually, we were both given a second chance to love." Then she acknowledged how painful her situation was for him. She said, "You opened your heart to me, and now that heart has been broken and torn apart along with everyone else's." She also apologized to her son, saying, "You lost such a loving, wonderful father."
35:51 Speaker 02 When juror Daniel Wong learned about the first trial that ended in a mistrial, and how much more information was presented to the first jury, she explained to 48 Hours, "We can only make the decision based off of the evidence that we heard." Some of the second jury does feel that learning more of the information about the cartoon and what Linda said happened would have changed their mind during deliberation. If there had been a second mistrial, Deputy DA Villa has indicated that he would have been willing to take it to trial a third time.
36:23 Speaker 01 In September 2016, Linda's conviction was upheld. She had filed an appeal due to the judge at her trial excluding her statements made to the officers responding to the scene. While Linda believes that these initial statements would have helped her case, the prosecution could have easily pointed out that these statements were just more lies, more versions of her story. If she truly wanted to kill Patrick that afternoon and get away with it, she would know that she needed to lie from the first moment possible. These statements don't become true just because the statements came before her formal interview with detectives. A murderer doesn't start lying after they know they're a suspect.
37:08 Speaker 01 They lie as much as they need to as soon as they can start lying to protect themselves. Sometimes they even start lying before the murder to try to create certain circumstances or set up a fake alibi. Even after two trials and a guilty verdict, there are still many unknowns in this case. One unanswered question is why? What was Linda's motive here? Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Robert Villa told the Whittier Daily News that she never expressed what the motive was. She said Patrick was her best friend. This is something that her second husband, Lawrence Squaz, backed up during the trial,
37:52 Speaker 01 telling the courtroom, "She spoke of her husband to me lovingly as her best friend. There's absolutely no way that this was purposeful. I assert that the jury made a huge mistake with this verdict." Detectives couldn't find a motive either. Detective McCarthy told 48 Hours, "We looked and we looked and we looked."
38:14 Speaker 02 Patrick Duffy did have a life insurance policy that named Linda as the beneficiary, but it wasn't a recent purchase and she would still need to take care of their two boys financially from the proceeds. Linda didn't end up getting the life insurance money anyway. In March 2009, the $300,000 payment was split between their two sons equally by court order. The protective life insurance company, the company they had the policy with, challenged Linda as a beneficiary since she had caused his death. Ultimately, the court agreed.
38:48 Speaker 01 Deputy DA Via acknowledged that he didn't need to know the motive or reason. He just followed the evidence. He told 48 Hours, "All I needed to see was the way he was laying on the couch and two holes in his head," emphasizing that two shots is not an accident. Patrick's sister Kathy Hunt wishes that she knew the reason behind it all, though not knowing didn't change her mind about Linda's guilt. She told 48 Hours, "I don't know why she did it, and that will probably bother me for a long time." Just like Deputy DA Via, Kathy just knew this was no accident, saying, "I'm 100% sure she did it.
39:31 Speaker 01 I have no qualms or no questions about that."
39:35 Speaker 02 Julie Pendergrass, who was critical of her friend Linda and came to believe she had murdered Patrick, expanded on her feelings and touched on Linda's penchant for lying. Julie met Linda when they were both attending the same college in the 80s. They were in the same music course, and later they ended up working at the same office, too. Julie described Linda to 48 Hours as a "very entertaining person who loved to tell stories." She recalled that Linda claimed to have had her gallbladder removed on three separate occasions, sarcastically adding, "We all have one gallbladder. Linda just always seemed to want to have attention." When they first met, Julie recalls that Linda just kind of randomly said, "Well, actually, I'm from Ireland," before switching up her accent.
40:20 Speaker 02 Julie said to 48 Hours, "She started talking with what I thought was a pretty phony accent," explaining that this was her first indication that Linda was a little bit different. This is something that Detective McCarthy would later pick up on, telling 48 Hours, "The overwhelming feeling that I got from her was she was odd at best and eccentric at worst." It's part of why he initially believed her story, too. He said, maybe this could have happened the way she says, because she's so quirky and eccentric.
40:50 Speaker 01 It turned out that Linda didn't just lie about silly little things like her accent. And she wasn't just quirky and innocent. According to Kathy, when Linda called her to tell her that Patrick was dead, Linda claimed that he had accidentally shot himself. Kathy said she left out everything about the cartoons and completely omitted her responsibility in the matter. All she said was he was cleaning his gun and it accidentally went off. Neither Kathy or their brother John could believe that this is what happened, but they didn't pry. Maybe they were too shocked to ask questions. Maybe they were respecting Linda in an unimaginably difficult time.
41:34 Speaker 01 Whatever the reason, as they had more time to think about what Linda told them, Kathy and John Duffy began to doubt that their brother was the one holding the gun that day. It just seemed so unlikely because the whole family was so familiar with guns. Kathy told 48 Hours, we were raised with guns. The number one rule, John Duffy added, we were taught to empty our weapons before even entering the house. For Patrick to have a loaded gun indoors, so one that could actually go off at all seems so unusual.
42:07 Speaker 02 When Kathy and John met with Linda at the funeral home the next morning, their suspicions grew. Naturally, they asked her for more information about what happened so that they could make sense of it all. Kathy asked Linda where he had shot himself, saying, was it in his head, his heart? What happened? Linda apparently just patted her head. Kathy told 48 Hours, that's when it hit me that he didn't shoot himself. When she demanded to know the truth about what happened, Linda was hesitant to tell her the truth, saying, oh, you're gonna hate me, you're gonna hate me. Eventually she came clean, still claiming it was an accident.
42:46 Speaker 01 So more of as we wrap up this case, you know, I think we said it before, but there is still a lot of mystery surrounding it. You know, a jury found Linda guilty, but also said that if they had known some of the things that came out in the first trial, it might've changed their minds. I guess in the end, this is just one of those frustrating cases. We know who killed Patrick Duffy. That part is not a mystery, but we don't know why. And I think that's a big question. What reason did Linda have to kill him? The prosecution claimed that
43:27 Speaker 01 it was because she didn't want to take care of him as his health declined. Is that the real motive? Is that strong enough of a motive? But the prosecution also correctly pointed out that they didn't need to prove a motive. So we may never know what the motive for this was, but there just doesn't seem to be, you know, really any clear cut motive. We don't know of any affairs. We don't know of any domestic abuse. There was life insurance, but it had been in place for a long time. And this has led some people to ask, is it
44:06 Speaker 01 possible somehow that Linda was telling the truth and that this really was a tragic accident? And as I said before, I think there's no doubt the first jury really struggled with that question. And the second jury may have struggled with it more had they had a little bit more information, some of the information that was given out in the first trial. And I can understand why. Now, what I will say is that it's hard for me to believe that someone could shoot someone in the head twice accidentally. I struggle with that part.
44:48 Speaker 01 Could someone shoot someone once accidentally? Absolutely. But this whole idea of the fan firing, this double action revolver, I'm really struggling with that part.
45:00 Speaker 01 And I think, you know, part of the reason is fan firing a double action revolver is not the easiest thing in the world to do, but also just fan firing in general. You think about it, it's not like it's, uh, it's a great way of aiming. And so I just don't know, Morph, fan firing two shots to the head by someone who admittedly, you know, hadn't shot guns a lot. I, it's tough. It's tough.
45:33 Speaker 02 Yeah. To me, the story sounds so strange that may, maybe there's some truth to it. You know, why would somebody make up this kind of strange story? That doesn't sound believable at all to, to explain this away. I mean, there's one thing I was thinking of, and I wasn't there, I don't know, but could this have been a case of manslaughter where she was messing around with the gun, shot him, panicked, and then came up with this bizarre story? As opposed to just saying, I, I pointed the gun at him and I was playing around and I pulled
46:14 Speaker 02 the trigger and I shot him. And if that's the case, if she had gone that route, maybe she could have cooperated from the beginning and maybe she would have gotten a manslaughter charge instead of a murder. Maybe that would have worked in her benefit as far as a sentence that she has to carry out. So, you know, obviously at this point now, we can't go back, even if that was the case.
46:40 Speaker 02 But I wonder if something along those lines could have happened.
46:43 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think it's possible, but I'm still stuck on the two shots. And I think if I was on the jury, the two shots would be a, a tough sticking point for me. One shot, okay, I'm going to struggle with accident versus on purpose. Two shots makes me struggle a little less, I think. But in the end, there's no way to know conclusively what happened.
47:12 Speaker 01 When she fired those shots and you know, let's be honest, there are a lot of cases where a jury is tasked with trying to figure all of this out. You know, it's not like every case has this unbelievable DNA evidence or something that makes it so that no one else could have done or committed the crime. This one's different because she admitted to shooting him. She just had this explanation that was a little far fetched that she claimed it was accidental. I don't know, man. Tough one for a jury, no doubt though. But that's it for our episode on Patrick Duffy.
47:57 Speaker 01 If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five star rating, leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really helps us out.
48:09 Speaker 02 If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at CriminologyPod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com/criminologypodcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans.
48:25 Speaker 01 So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.
48:35 Speaker 02 And Morph.
48:36 Speaker 01 We'll talk to you next week.
48:37 Speaker 02 Take care, everyone.
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