Richard Schlesinger is a former “48 Hours” correspondent. Here, he reflects on covering one of the most unusual cases of his career — the 2007 shooting death of Patrick Duffey, and his wife Linda Duffey’s bizarre explanation. Schlesinger reports on the case for “48 Hours” Saturday, July 19 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Long ago I promised myself I would not be surprised by anything unless it was really, truly gobsmacking. A fellow can get that way after a few decades in this business. I’ve seen a lot of eyebrow-raising developments, but nothing really, truly gobsmacking — until we started looking into the curious case of Linda Duffey.
Long story short: She admits she shot her husband, Patrick, in their Whittier, Calif. home in 2007. But she says it was an accident — nothing too strange about that. But she says she did it while mimicking a cartoon — a Bugs Bunny cartoon — specifically a scene involving Elmer Fudd and featuring a brief cameo by Daffy Duck.
We call this the” Bugs Bunny Defense”, and to our knowledge, such a case has been presented only very rarely, if at all, and I’d be willing to bet it is, in fact, unique to this case.
Now, before you dismiss this defense as the creative imagining of a crafty killer, let me tell you at least one seasoned and appropriately cynical police officer and one other person who could decide Linda Duffey’s fate believed her. Her story led to an argument amongst the authorities even before it reached a courtroom.
This case unfolded in a way that was unpredictable to say the least. But we didn’t just focus on it because of the cartoon characters. Because of a surprise twist, we quickly realized there are lessons to be learned from the Duffey case.
We approached this story a little differently than other stories we have done. It was an opportunity to see the system at work in one of the most unusual cases we have ever seen.
I can pretty much guarantee you haven’t seen a case quite like this one — and I’m pretty sure you will be, as we were, really, truly gobsmacked.
