Jacksonville, Florida | July 4, 1987
Yvonne McDuffey was 14 years old.
Her little brother, Bilalian, was just 10.
They went to bed that night believing they were safe inside their Jacksonville home.
They never woke up.
The children lived on Brook Forest Drive in Jacksonville’s Moncrief neighborhood with their mother, Betty Pinckney McDuffey, and their older brother.
A Horrific Discovery
According to investigators, Betty fell asleep on the couch before later moving to a bedroom in the back of the house.
Sometime after midnight, something happened inside that home.
Around 3:00 a.m., a friend knocked on the window to wake Betty.
As she got up and walked through the house, she made a discovery no parent should ever have to make.
Bilalian was dead.
Moments later, at approximately 3:11 a.m., police received a call reporting a woman screaming in the street.
When officers arrived, they found both children dead inside the home in separate bedrooms.
Investigators have never publicly released many of the details surrounding the killings, describing the crime as both violent and deeply disturbing.
A Case Filled With Questions
Initially, Betty told investigators she had been home throughout the night.
Months later, however, she changed her account.
She admitted she had left the children home alone and said that when she returned around 3:00 a.m., she found the back door open and the screen torn.
She has always maintained that she was set up.
Despite decades of investigation, no suspect has ever been publicly identified.
No one has ever been charged.
Advances in DNA Testing
When the murders occurred in 1987, DNA technology was still in its infancy.
Evidence was submitted for testing in 1997 and again in 2013, but neither round produced a match.
In 2021, investigators reopened the case once more.
Blood, hair, and skin samples collected from the crime scene were resubmitted in hopes that advances in forensic science could finally identify the person responsible.
So far, those efforts have not produced an arrest.
Nearly four decades have passed.
Two children were murdered inside their own home.
No answers.
No justice.
Only a family still waiting to learn who took Yvonne and Bilalian from them.
Anyone with information regarding the murders of Yvonne and Bilalian McDuffey is urged to contact the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office at 904-630-0500 or First Coast Crime Stoppers at 1-866-845-TIPS (8477).
© The Vivid Faces of the Vanished
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