Montana Governor Marc Racicot passes by death row inmate Duncan McKenzie. At a face-to-face meeting, McKenzie pleaded for his life and said he was innocent. Racicot concluded that he was a liar and refused to intervene. McKenzie was executed two days later (Deer Lodge, 1995) [1084 x 947].

The automod is blocking my full comment, so here is a [link to another post with the full comment and story](https://reddit.com/r/TheGrittyPast/comments/1szk933/montana_governor_marc_racicot_passes_by_death_row/). I’ll give a summary here.

[Duncan McKenzie Jr.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_McKenzie_(murderer)) was the first person to die judicially in Montana in 49 years. The last was spree killer and self-confessed serial killer [Phillip Coleman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Coleman_(spree_killer)) in 1946. On the day of his execution, Coleman made a written confession to 23 murders in the United States and Canada. How much of the confession was truthful is unclear, but Coleman gave details for eight cases. One of the confessions could be corroborated. Coleman, who had previously refused religious counsel, had been baptized a Catholic in prison, and when brought before the gallows, he again expressed that he was sorry for what he had done and that he was ready to face judgment from God. Coleman chose to not go out on a lie.

>Before his execution, Coleman wrote a letter addressed to his son Lee in a dictionary, stating that he was going to be hanged for murder and that he was sorry. This dictionary is currently on exhibit at the Historical Museum at Fort Missoula in Missoula, along with an assortment of other random artifacts reflecting on the city’s history.

[McKenzie asks to live](https://imgur.com/a/NaCK9mw) (the article talks about the victim, 24-year-old rural schoolteacher Lana Harding)

McKenzie went out very differently.

[HUCKLEBERRIES: Cold case closure](https://cdapress.com/news/2023/nov/12/huckleberries/)

>Steve Schauer said all along that Duncan Peder McKenzie Jr. brutally murdered a 15-year-old Coeur d’Alene girl days before Halloween 1973. And he was right. Two years ago, Coeur d’Alene police, aided by improved DNA and genealogy testing, quietly confirmed that McKenzie battered, raped and strangled Debra Prety as she returned home from a school dance.
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>In a final act of cruelty, McKenzie refused to confess to the Coeur d’Alene slaying before he died by lethal injection in Montana on May 10, 1995, for another murder: The January 1974 slaying of schoolteacher Lana Harding.
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>But McKenzie’s secret didn’t stay in the grave.
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>After two years of digging, Coeur d’Alene Officer Jacob Rodgers confirmed in November 2021 that McKenzie killed Debra Prety. A DNA sample showed that the odds of the killer being someone other than McKenzie were 7.08 sextillion to one.
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>Last week, Police Chief Lee White praised Officer Rodgers and Louise Martin, a department property and evidence specialist, for their work in solving the cold case.
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>”As you can imagine,” White said, “there is a ton of evidence gathered in a case like this. And sifting through that evidence years later to find that one important piece was crucial to solving the case.” White added: “It is our hope that although we could not bring the offender in this 50-year-old case to justice, we could offer some level of closure for the Prety family.” The police chief explained why the department didn’t make the DNA findings public two years ago: “Since the public was not in any danger, we opted to not release anything publicly.”
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>Officer Rodgers succeeded after attempts by others failed. In 2003, three men, including McKenzie and a Spokane rapist, were ruled out as suspects, based on DNA evidence. At some point, it appears that DNA from a Spokane rape case was accidentally sent to the state crime lab instead of a sample from the Prety case.
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>Officer Rodgers and Louise Martin sorted through the DNA samples and found the right one.
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>On Nov. 9, 2021, Officer Rodgers contacted Debra Prety’s sister in Rathdrum to report his findings and to return evidence: two school autograph books taken from Debra’s room. Then, he ordered all the remaining evidence destroyed, except for the DNA sample.
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>The sister was “extremely grateful,” according to Officer Rodgers’ report. The sister told the officer that she remembered McKenzie as someone who would wave as he drove his sports car by the family home on 17th Street. McKenzie lived nearby. Also, McKenzie ate at her father’s burger place.
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>According to Officer Rodgers’ report, Debra Prety and a friend were walking home from a dance Oct. 26, 1973, when McKenzie approached in the darkness, claiming to be lost. The two girls had reached the friend’s doorstep. Debra Prety volunteered to help the man, and the friend entered her home. Paul Prety Sr. called the police at 11:30 that Friday night to report his daughter missing. Debra’s brother, Paul Jr., then 26, found his sister’s body in a neighbor’s yard the next morning.
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>At the time of McKenzie’s execution, Paul Jr. told a Spokesman-Review reporter how he watched his mother suffer afterward, rarely leaving home and staring across the street where her daughter died.
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>McKenzie, 22, a married tow truck operator with three children, moved to Coeur d’Alene seven months before the murder and left soon afterward. At the time, McKenzie was on probation for a brutal 1970 beating of a woman who was found crawling along a highway in Blaine County, Mont., wearing only a blouse. McKenzie served two years in prison for that crime before his release and move to Coeur d’Alene.
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>In Montana, McKenzie worked as a farm hand for a week before he abducted teacher Lana Harding, 23, less than three months after the Prety murder. On Jan. 21, 1974, McKenzie kidnapped Lana Harding from her teacherage next to the one-room Pioneer School, 13 miles from Conrad, Mont. Lana Harding’s partially clad body was found two days later, draped over the drawbar of a grain drill along a rural road.
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>In March 1975, McKenzie was found guilty of murder and aggravated assault of Lana Harding, following a 17-day trial in Great Falls, Mont. He was sentenced to be hanged the following month. But he dodged execution for 20 years, through eight successful appeals. His luck ran out May 10, 1995, after Montana Gov. Marc Racicot rejected McKenzie’s 11th-hour plea for mercy.

What a coward and lowlife. May those lives he destroyed be at peace. Living and dead.