Trenton Duckett: New Development

Police have renewed their search for two-year-old Trenton Duckett, operating on the assumption that he is still alive. A witness reported seeing the Leesburg, FL, boy with his mother in a Belleview Wendy's restaurant on August 27, the same day he was reported missing. The Marion County Sheriff's Office will hold a press conference tomorrow to release additional details to the public.

Sources: Bradenton Herald and Orlando Sentinel

More information about Trenton's disappearance is available in this timeline entry. Other Duckett entries can be accessed by utilizing the Categories dropdown menu in the sidebar of this blog.

Update: November 15, 2006, 1:36 pm, CT

Additional information was released at today's press conference:

Pogue and other officials said a drive-thru worker at a Wendy's restaurant in Belleview remembered seeing Melinda and Trenton between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that Sunday. About 20 minutes after the first sighting, the Wendy's worker saw Melinda come through the drive-thru again. This time, Tenton was not in the car. The Wendy's worker was interviewed and passed a polygraph test, officials said.

Then there's this unexpected news:

As authorities renew their search for missing Central Florida boy, Trenton Duckett, WKMG-TV in Orlando has learned that a private investigator is looking into his mother's apparent secret side business of creating and performing in amateur pornographic videos.

Nude photographs of Melinda Duckett, including one image where she is straddling a child's crib and another explicit video where the sound of a crying baby can be heard in the background surfaced in the missing boy investigation and caused concerns for detectives, the report said.

Before Duckett's suicide, authorities said they thoroughly looked into her alleged involvement in the adult entertainment industry to see if the 21-year-old made any enemies or possibly had given her son away to someone she met while making the movies.

Whoa. Well, that might explain where the cash stashed in her car under the ashtray came from.