“Key Players in Duane Owen’s Ongoing Legal Battle”

After a protracted legal battle, the Thursday execution of Duane Owen will end a nearly 40-year saga. Owen was charged with the murder of Karen Slattery, a 14-year-old babysitter in Delray Beach, and Georgianna Worden, a 38-year-old mother of two, in 1984.

Duane Owen was raised by alcoholic parents and an abusive father. Following the death of his mother and his father’s suicide, Owen spent his formative years in a Michigan orphanage until the age of 18. Owen traveled throughout the country before settling in South Florida, where his brother lived, in 1982. Owen was arrested repeatedly from 1982 to 1984 on various charges, including attempted murder and sexual battery. However, it was his 1984 charges in the deaths of Karen Slattery and Georgianna Worden that led to Owen’s indefinite detention at the Florida Department of Corrections.

Karen Slattery, a 14-year-old freshman at Pope John Paul II High School in Boca Raton, was the victim of Owen’s senseless crime. While babysitting two children, Owen broke in, stabbed her multiple times, and sexually assaulted her. Fortunately, the children Slattery was babysitting were unharmed. Years later, in 1991, Karen Slattery’s body was exhumed under the permission of her family members, so prosecutors could compare wounds on her body with a knife believed to have been the murder weapon. In the aftermath of her death, the Karen Slattery Education Research Center for Child Development at Florida Atlantic University was established.

Georgianna Worden, a 38-year-old mother of two, was asleep in her Boca Raton home in 1984 when Owen broke in. He grabbed a hammer and bludgeoned her to death while her children were home, though fortunately unharmed. At the time of her death, Worden was working at the College of Boca Raton, which became Lynn University.

Owen’s defense team recently argued that their client was insane and should not be executed for his crimes. However, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Harold Cohen presided over Owen’s 1999 retrial for Slattery’s murder. He concurred with the jury’s 10-2 recommendation that Owen be executed and sentenced him to death. Cohen considered Owen’s tortured childhood in his sentencing order but concluded that he was not so sick as to be unable to become a mean, cruel, and evil person.

Retired Lieutenant Kevin McCoy, who worked for the Boca Raton Police Department at the time of Owen’s arrest in 1984, played a significant role in bringing Owen to justice. He was among the investigators who interrogated Owen about the murders of Slattery and Worden. McCoy believed that no one is above the law when willing to commit such heinous crimes, but still thinks Owen might be responsible for other unsolved killings.

With a complicated life and severe mental illness, Owen’s reign of terror is coming to a close. Carey Haughwout, Palm Beach County’s elected public defender, represented Owen in his 1999 retrial and described him as “bright, inquisitive, and kind” despite his mental illness. Haughwout believes that there should be no justification for further killings, ignoring that Owen committed such appalling crimes.