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| Tucker Execution Hours
Away |
 (WLTX\AP) -
As the hours left in his life tick away, James Neil Tucker
(pictured left) grows more at peace, while the families of his
victims anxiously await the end of an ordeal that began more
than a decade ago.
Tucker's execution is scheduled for
6 p.m. Friday in the electric chair. His death is near
certainty because a month ago Tucker decided to drop an appeal
claiming dying by electrocution is cruel and unusual
punishment, said his lawyer, Teresa Norris.
The state
is putting him to death for shooting Rosa Lee "Dolly" Oakley
in the head twice and taking $14 from her purse at her Sumter
County home in June 1992. Tucker said he robbed Oakley because
his wife was pregnant and he needed money.
Oakley's
husband, James (pictured below), told News19 it's been tough
on his whole family. "I think anyone who goes through this,
it's tough on them. The waiting for the trial, the waiting for
the execution, not knowing when it was going to happen or what
was going to happen in the trial, it's tough on
everybody."
Tucker also faces a death sentence for
killing Shannon Mellon and taking $20 from her while running
from police in Calhoun County less than a week
later.
Last month, authorities say Tucker tried to
escape from death row. He and another inmate overpowered a
guard but they were caught just minutes after the attempt.
James Oakley believes he knows why Tucker made such a bold
move.
"I think he was hoping he might get shot in
trying to do this. That would save him from going through with
the execution."
Being in trouble with the law was
nothing new for Tucker. At the age of 17, he was convicted of
raping an 8-year-old girl and an 83-year-old woman in Utah. He
was sent to the Utah State prison where he escaped three times
over a 17-year period. But even with that on his record,
Tucker was paroled in 1991. That's when he moved to Sumter.
Now he's just hours away from dying in the state's electric
chair.
The 47-year-old prisoner will be the first
inmate to die in the electric chair in the United States in
more than a year. He will be the first electrocuted in South
Carolina since Larry Gene Bell chose the method in 1996
because he said it would take him directly to God's
throne.
The electric chair used to be the standard for
executions in the U.S. More than 4,200 inmates have been
electrocuted since its invention, and state prison statistics
show Tucker will be the 247th inmate sent to the chair in
South Carolina since it was built in 1912.
But in
recent years, the less dramatic lethal injection has become
the norm because it looks like a much more serene way to die.
Nebraska is the only state that still requires electrocution,
and South Carolina and five other states give inmates some
kind of choice between electrocution or lethal
injection.
Tucker didn't actually choose the electric
chair. Under South Carolina law, any inmate sent to death row
before June 1995 can ask to die by lethal injection. But if no
decision is made, the condemned go to the chair by
default.
"He does not want to be or appear to be in any
way a willing participant in this process," Norris said. "To
him, when faced with a piece of paper that says we can kill
you this way or this way, he refused to
participate."
When his execution seemed imminent,
Tucker and his lawyer talked about filing a final appeal
saying electrocution is cruel and unusual punishment. But
Norris said Tucker asked her to withdraw the appeal "to allow
closure for himself and the victim's families."
The
state issued its death warrant days later, and Tucker has
spent his final weeks preparing for his death, his lawyer
said. "Mr. Tucker gets more at peace with the world and
himself as his execution draws near," Norris
said.
Prison officials plan on driving Tucker two hours
from death row near Ridgeville to the Capital Punishment
Facility in Columbia. The time isn't released for security
reasons.
Once there, he'll be put in a cell a short
distance away from the room where electricians will be
preparing South Carolina's 92-year-old electric
chair.
About an hour before he's scheduled to die,
Tucker's head and right leg will be shaved. He'll be given a
clean, green jumpsuit with one leg cut out so the electrodes
can easily be placed.
Prison officials will offer him a
shot of Valium - the modern version of the old slug or two of
whisky offered to condemned inmates in the decades
ago.
Just moments before he is strapped in the chair,
witnesses will file into a small room. They will watch as
Tucker is given one extremely powerful jolt for several
seconds, a pause and another, weaker jolt that continues at a
lower rate for about two minutes.
Among the witnesses
will be Mellon's father and Oakley's husband. Both have said
they hope Friday's execution will help them deal better with
12 years of grief.
James Oakley said he is glad Tucker
will die in the electric chair. "I think I feel more relieved
that he's going that way because of the things he put her
through," James Oakley said. "I walked in the house and seen
her and seen what he had done to her." |
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