So, the pit bull can cry. Or come close to it. Or, fake it. Probably, the latter; she's nothing if not an actress.

Nancy Grace, the pit bull ''judge, jury and executioner'' of CNN's Headline News doesn't quit. Right or wrong, it makes no difference.

And golly, it sure is good for the ratings. People, facts, truth, and decency be damned.

The near-tears moment came during her recent interview of Joshua Duckett, father of the missing 2-year-old Trenton Duckett and estranged husband of 21-year-old Melinda Duckett who shot and killed herself after an on-air hammering by Grace. Ms. Duckett was confronted during the interview with a shouting, accusing and desk-pounding litany of questions which clearly indicated Grace considered the young woman responsible for her son's disappearance, if not death.

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What's particularly ghoulish is that the pre-taped interview with Melinda Duckett was set to air on September 8, the day Duckett chose to blow her brains out.

But that didn't stop Grace or Headline News – the interview aired anyway, with a message at the bottom of the screen that the Florida woman had been found dead at her grandparents' home.

People concerned about journalistic ethics (hah!) said it was unconscionable to run the accusatory and bombastic interview knowing Duckett was dead.

There are those who are faulting Grace for her hysterical verbal assault against Duckett and who in fact, blame her for the woman's suicide.

That's where the tears come in. The opinionated and unrepentant Grace interviewed Joshua Duckett two weeks after the suicide. He assured Grace that ''I don't hold you responsible at all.''

Awwwwwww.

Sniff. Sniff. See, I'm human after all.

Apparently, but only when the situation supports her words and actions ... only as long as people agree with her.

But not everyone does. Criticism of Grace is even stronger now because she continues to pound the story on her program, in what MSNBC host Joe Scarborough calls ''a personal jihad against this woman.''

Aside from the show biz and the ratings, the search for the boy continues. There's no trace of Trenton.

Melinda Duckett told police that when she went to check on the child in his bedroom on August 27, he'd vanished from his crib. There was a 10-inch cut in the screen in the window above the bed. As the search progressed, it focused more on the mother after some of the child's toys and photos were found in a trash bin at Duckett's apartment building following his disappearance.

Trenton Duckett is featured with an Amber Alert as ''endangered'' on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement website, a sweet, beautiful child caught between parents in the midst of a contentious separation and divorce. Under circumstances like that, the accusations of both sides are suspect.

As newly released court documents show, accusations flew between husband and wife. Despite them, and despite psychiatric examinations, the courts found Melinda Duckett could be a ''capable and loving parent.''

Lest you doubt that the vindictiveness of Grace hasn't spread into what is ostensibly even-handed ‘news coverage,' an article in The Orlando Sentinel says that Duckett won custody of her son ''because she persuaded a court-appointed psychologist'' that she could parent properly.

''She persuaded?'' Sounds like accusing the good doctor of being a dupe. So much for unbiased news.

Melinda Duckett didn't stand a chance.

But aside from this perversion of news, of sleaze and ratings-opportunism; there's a very human side to this story that's been ignored.

Why?

Last week, investigators in Orlando, released Melinda Duckett's suicide notes. She wrote one to her grandparents, another to her parents and another to the public.

According to Associated Press, she wrote to her parents and asked that they not try to understand her.

To the public, she wrote that her reason for the suicide was the ridicule and criticism she endured after reporting her son's disappearance.

She said the child was ''all I was breathing for'' and that she was misunderstood. ''This is a last minute idea, but I have felt myself sinking after the one-week mark of Trent being gone.''

But it was the note to her grandparents that caught my eye and that I couldn't put out of my mind. It raised my sympathy for this young woman who was so cruelly assaulted on television by a headline-seeking host and by a general media, which clearly didn't believe her story and tried her in the headlines.

In the note to her grandparents, Duckett got to the heart of the matter.

''The main reason I'm doing this is because even after my baby is found, I would not be a good mother with two jobs and full-time school.''

Let's get this straight. She had a baby at 19, married and was in the midst of a hate-filled divorce during which her estranged husband tried to get custody of their child. That's stressful enough, but she was also in school full-time, and had two jobs. She was 21.

No wonder she was crazed and stressed. Anyone would be. I don't know whether Melinda Duckett harmed her child, but I do know she was living a life with inhuman demands.

She was the victim of a society that's foisted on women the unreality that they can (and must) do everything and that there's no such thing as ‘too much.'

''Cause I'm a woman'' sang Peggy Lee, and with that, set out unrealistic expectations for even a healthy female with a decent support system. Melinda Duckett had problems, which were her cries for help. But she didn't get help; she got piled on – be a good mother, be a good daughter and granddaughter, go to school full-time, and work two jobs to support everyone.

Oh, and fight your former husband for custody of the child that gave your life reason and purpose.

Where are the women's groups that should be coming to her defense? How about sympathetic female TV hosts? How about medical people pontificating as to whether she had post-partum depression?

It seems to me, she had reasons to be depressed –to say nothing of sleep deprived and over-worked.

In fact, no one has defended her, and even after death, she remains a media target.

Why? Could it be because she's Asian – not from the currently sympathetic groups (i.e., poor, white, black, Hispanic or illegal). Could that be why?

Melinda Duckett is dead and has not been charged. Her child remains missing. Her husband has been ‘cleared' by the media.

And Nancy Grace continues her vendetta of guilt.

I don't know what happened that night, but I do know that Florida's Department of Children and Families fell down on its responsibilities to children and families.

It determined that Melinda Duckett was capable of being a loving parent but ignored the circumstances under which she was trying to do that.

They could have/should have seen her stresses and could have/should have helped her.

They didn't. She's dead. The baby is gone.

But, they were just doing their job.

No. They failed her and so have the media.

What a tragedy.