Nancy Grace Agrees To A Settlement Over Guest’s Suicide

HLN‘s popular talk show host Nancy Grace is well known for her tell-it-like-it-is opinions of criminal cases, but one of those opinions from four years ago has just costed her thousands.

Four years ago, the mother of a missing child appeared on Nancy Grace. Severe badgering is what Grace is known well for, so of course, the questions began to roll, and as usual, assumptions of who did it and who would likely be convicted were the high point of the episode. On that same day of the interview, the woman, a prime suspect in the disappearance, shot herself. Coincidence?

The family of the late 21-year-old Melissa Duckett certainly didn’t think so, and filed a wrongful-death suit against the cable host. This week, Grace finally reached a settlement with the family.

The settlement? A $200,000 trust fund in the name of Melissa Duckett’s still-missing son Trenton, who disappeared when he was two years old. If he’s found alive before his 13th birthday, in 2017, proceeds from the fund will transferred to him. If not, the money will be handed over to the National Center for Missing or Exploited Children.

“After four years of litigation and extensive discovery, the parties now agree that Nancy Grace, the producers of her program, and CNN engaged in no intentional wrongdoing in the course of dedicating a program to finding the missing toddler, as alleged in the lawsuit,” Jay Paul Deratany, the lawyer representing the Duckett family, said in a statement.

A judge is expected to sign off on the agreement early next week.

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