Father Who Left Tortured Daughter to Die Pleads Guilty to First-Degree Murder

It was a case of unimaginable brutality: A 12-year-old girl is scalded and beaten to death -- by her own mother.As if that isn't bad enough, the girl's father came home to find his daughter dying on a bedroom floor, then had dinner, went to bed and left for work...

By Ray Stern

April 15, 2009

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It was a case of unimaginable brutality: A 12-year-old girl is scalded and beaten to death -- by her own mother.

As if that isn't bad enough, the girl's father came home to find his daughter dying on a bedroom floor, then had dinner, went to bed and left for work the next day. Jeffrey Duchane (above) of Phoenix never called for an ambulance, never called for police.

And for that, he'll spend the rest of his life in prison on a first-degree murder rap, says the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. .

Few will argue with the sentence of one of the state's worst fathers (yup, there have been worse). But this seems far from a classic case of premeditated, first-degree murder.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.