Wake Deputy Found Dead Beside Unmarked Patrol Car, Victim Of Apparent Shooting
POSTED: 2:23 p.m. EST February 12, 2004
UPDATED: 10:43 a.m. EST February 13, 2004
Story by wral
APEX, N.C. -- A state-wide manhunt continues for the person who killed a Wake County sheriff's deputy. Mark Tucker was president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Wake County.

Someone shot deputy Mark Tucker, 49, Thursday afternoon. A 28-year veteran of law enforcement, Tucker was on duty at the time.

Tucker's body was found beside his unmarked patrol car in a field near Holly Springs Road and Winding Oak Way, just before 1:30 p.m. The deputy's gun was still in its holster.

The land where the car and body were discovered is the future site of the Southeast Wake YMCA, located across the street from Tucker's Oak Chase neighborhood.

Sheriff Donnie Harrison said his office is treating the death as a homicide.

Harrison and other investigators at the scene Thursday were visibly shaken. But Harrison said they had a job to do. Investigators remain at the scene.

"He was one of us," Harrison said. "We're a big family, and it hurts."

Harrison speculated that Tucker may have been home for lunch, seen something suspicious in the field and gone to investigate. The sheriff said there have been reports of cars in that field before.

Harrison said an all-points bulletin has gone out statewide for a vehicle in connection with Tucker's death.

Tucker was found beside his unmarked patrol car in a field across the street from his home.
The vehicle is described as a white or light grey "boxy" car, perhaps a Mitsubishi, with a chrome grill and hood ornament. Harrison said he was not sure how many people are in the car, or whether it is a two-door or four-door model.

Anyone seeing a vehicle matching that description or any suspicious activity should contact the sheriff's office at (919) 856-6900. Local authorities are asked to stop any vehicle with that description.

A passerby saw Tucker's car, a silver unmarked sedan, in the field and alerted authorities around 1:26 p.m. Investigators arrived a minute and a half later.

Tucker is the fourth Wake County deputy to die on duty in 71 years.

In the past five months, two deputies were killed in car accidents: Phil Owens in October and Frank James in September.

Tucker had been with the Wake County Sheriff's Office since 1976, except for a short stint with the U.S. Marshals Service. He was appointed U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of North Carolina in September 1999.

Tucker returned to the sheriff's office when Harrison was elected, replacing longtime Sheriff John Baker. Tucker was president of the Fraternal Order of Police of Wake County.

News of his death had a major impact on Tucker's neighbors, as well as other law officers. He was described as kind and friendly and always willing to lend a helping hand.

"When you lose an individual like Mark, because he was so well known, and him being president of the lodge and a U.S. marshal, it rocks our entire organization," said officer Michael Gillespie. "Anytime a law enforcement officer dies, it's personal."

Said Harrison: "He was well-liked, very low key. He was a good officer. He didn't have any enemies, as far as we know."

Colleagues remember dedicated deputy
Copyright 2004 The News and Observer   
The News & Observer (Raleigh, North Carolina) 
 February 13, 2004 Friday,  FINAL EDITION 
                
Mark Tucker was at turns giddy and awestruck when President Clinton unexpectedly lifted him from his longtime job as a Wake County sheriff's deputy and appointed him as the U.S. marshal for the eastern district of North Carolina.  

For a little more than two years, from September 1999 to March 2002, Tucker strode the Federal Building in Raleigh hardly believing his good fortune. When it ended with the election of a
new president, Tucker quietly returned to the streets as a detective for the same sheriff's department.  No matter what the rank, law enforcement was a job that the burly, cowboy-booted, motorcycle-riding Tucker loved with an enthusiasm that earned him respect.  

"You know how somebody wears their badge and their badge gets to you before they do? He wasn't like that," said Raleigh criminal defense attorney Rick Gammon. "He was one of those
police officers who had a job to do, but he was polite and courteous."  

Tucker, who died at age 49, was 6 when his family moved to Cary. Like many young men of that time and place, the North Carolina native developed a lifelong passion for country music,
stock car racing, motorcycles and saltwater fishing.  

As a teenager, he rode along on patrol with his older brother, Buddy, who had become chief of police in Marshall in Madison County. He decided he wanted to be an officer, too, joining the
Wake County Sheriff's Office in 1976.

"He was a very dedicated law enforcement officer," said former Wake Sheriff John H. Baker Jr., "a gentleman, as well as a friend." 

 
Tucker said in a 1999 interview that he first explored the possibility of becoming a marshal after Clinton was elected in 1992, letting prominent local Democrats know of his interest. When nothing happened, he ran for Wake County Board of Commissioners in 1996 but lost.   He tried again in 1999, spending a week filling out the paperwork. When Clinton appointed him during a congressional recess, Tucker said he felt like a kid at Christmas.   Tucker said he was awed at becoming a part of the history of the U.S. Marshals Service, the oldest law enforcement agency in the nation.  

"He was well-respected and liked by the federal court family," said Federal Magistrate Judge David Daniel. "He was down-to-earth, friendly, accessible. He obviously enjoyed being out there in the field with the guys."  

Word of Tucker's slaying spread quickly Thursday afternoon through the federal and county courthouses in Raleigh, where lawyers, judges and law enforcement officers were stunned.   Several agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Marshals Service quickly left from the Federal Building and drove to the scene in southwestern Wake County to offer help.  

Raleigh defense attorney George Hughes, who has known Tucker about 15 years, noted that his is the third death of a Wake deputy in less than a year.   "It just tears me up; I'm sick," Hughes said. "It's the third one that I knew out of three this year." 

 
Tucker lived in Apex with his wife, Patricia. The couple have two children.

Deputy's Widow Offers Condolences To Killer's Family, Calls Husband Great Man
Teenager Charged With First-Degree Murder For Shooting, Killing Decorated Deputy

RALEIGH, N.C. -- While a teenager who killed a decorated Wake County deputy sat in jail on first-degree murder charges, the slain deputy's widow said she holds no animosity toward the suspect.

Patricia Tucker said her husband died doing what he loved. Patricia Tucker also sent her heartfelt condolences to the parents of 18-year-old Matthew Grant, who confessed Saturday to shooting and killing Deputy Mark Tucker on Thursday. Grant said he was shooting his shotgun in a field when Tucker approached him. Deputies said Grant was on probation, got scared and shot Tucker. Two other teens also are under arrest, charged as accomplices for helping Grant come up with an alibi.
Patricia Tucker said she was relieved, but also saddened, by Saturday's turn of events. She showed great strength as she talked to news crews about her husband.
"He was the greatest man in my life," she said of her husband of more than 20 years. "I've got two really good ones sitting on either side of me, but he was the greatest man in my life."
Flanked by her two sons, Chad and Matthew, Patricia Tucker said she is leaning on her faith to stay strong.
"If it weren't for God, my father, I would not do this," she said. "He supplies me with an amazing amount of strength every few minutes to keep me going through this."
Patricia Tucker even mustered the courage and grace to address the suspects' families. Wake Deputy Had Proud Career In Law Enforcement "I pray they can find some comfort somewhere and know that I do not have any animosity or hatred toward their children," she said. "I just don't like the events that happened and the results that came from it."
Patrica Tucker admitted that she knew the risks of her husband's job. In fact, she said Saturday, they talked about it 24 years ago after Raleigh police officer D.D. Adams was shot and killed on duty.
"When he (Mark Tucker) came home that night, I said this is it," she said. "You are out of this business. You are not leaving me with a fatherless child."
She said her belief in a higher power changed her mind.
"I said I guess I'm going to have to leave you in hands greater than mine and hope that he brings you home every night," she said. "And for over 26 years, he did."
Patricia Tucker said her husband died doing what he loved. And she made a point to thank the countless officers who have been working around the clock to solve this case.
She said deputies do not get the respect they deserve and that they do a dangerous, low-paying job that no one else wants. She called her husband a "rare breed" and part of "homeland defense."
Grant's family, meanwhile, issued a statement following his arrest Saturday.
"A senseless act by one young man has ruined many lives," the statement read, "not only his own, but the family of Deputy Mark Tucker, his friends who tried to cover up for him, his own parents, and to some extent his brothers and their families.
"We deeply regret the hurt, sense of loss and anguish being felt by the family of Mark Tucker.
Funeral arrangements have been set for Deputy Tucker. Visitation takes place Sunday afternoon at the Brown-Wynne Funeral Home on Maynard Road in Cary.
The funeral is Monday at 3 p.m. at Midway Baptist Church in Raleigh.
Deputy Tucker will be buried at Montlawn Memorial Park.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004 12:00AM EST
Tipster's call simplifies task for investigators
By OREN DORELL, Staff Writer N&O

A phone call after 10 p.m. Friday turned a grim, slow-moving investigation into a fast-strike operation.
By dawn Saturday, warrants had been drawn, arrests had been made, a confession obtained, a weapon found and charges filed. The shooting death Thursday of Wake County Deputy Mark Tucker appeared to have been solved.
Matthew Charles Grant, 18, was charged with first-degree murder. Justin Daniel Franke, 18, and Lawson "Trey" Allen Rankin III, 18, were charged with being accessories after the fact of murder.
Until that call from a female tipster, Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison and his investigators thought they were looking at a long and methodical investigation -- a frustrating prospect in a case law officials in the area burned to solve quickly.
With clues scant, a three-pronged attack was developed: A team of investigators searched for suspects in Tucker's personal life; more sifted through his case load; and others explored the scenario of a chance encounter.
Investigators were working through a stack of computer printouts several inches thick Friday night. The printouts, provided by the Division of Motor Vehicles, listed addresses for white cars that matched the description of the one seen leaving the scene of the shooting, a field along Holly Springs Road in southwest Wake County, near Tucker's home.
Then Harrison, driving on the edge of Johnston County to check out a white Mitsubishi someone had called in as suspicious, got a message about 10:30 p.m. that a caller had information but would talk only to him.
The caller's tip was credible. She knew something that had not been made public: Tucker had been killed by a shotgun blast to the face.
Maj. T.S. Matthews told The News & Observer on Thursday that no "projectile" had been recovered at the scene.
"We wanted to keep that to ourselves because it ended up being extremely important in interviewing [the suspects]," Matthews said Monday.
Harrison met with the woman, whom he would not identify. She had no relationship to Grant but had third-hand knowledge about what happened.
"From that point in time, it was just routine detective work," said Ronnie Stewart, Harrison's chief of operations, who coordinated the investigation with Harrison and Matthews.
The informant sent investigators to the source of her information, and that person led them to Rankin, Stewart said.
Deputies picked up Rankin and then Franke, and took them to the sheriff's headquarters in downtown Raleigh. They were put in separate rooms, and investigators began questioning them.
Those interviews led them to Grant, Harrison said.
The sheriff's heavily armed special response team was sent to back up surveillance officers outside Grant's home on Belnap Drive, to watch him until warrants for his car and home could be drawn up. But Grant left his home with his girlfriend before the warrants were ready.
Deputies followed them down Belnap to Arthur Pierce Road to Kildaire Farm Road in Cary, where they stopped him for crossing the center line, Matthews said. They arrested him for careless and reckless driving and possession of less than a gram of marijuana.
He was taken downtown and put in a third interview room.
Sheriff's investigators were joined by detectives from Raleigh, Cary, the U.S. Marshals Service and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in a conference room on the second floor of the Public Safety Center. Together they monitored the three interrogations simultaneously via closed-circuit television.
The interviews lasted hours. Officers wrote on a board each piece of new information extracted from the suspects. New information drawn out of any of the suspects was relayed into the other two rooms, where detectives sought to corroborate it.
Others in the conference room were sent into the community to check details mentioned in the interviews. Deputies searched for shotgun shells in trash bins near Rankin's and Franke's places of employment. They found none.
Stewart said that, at the time, it seemed chaotic. "There was so much information flying back and forth."
But the mood began to change.
Stewart recalled a "guarded optimism with some relief that progress was being made after hours and hours of tedious work when nothing concrete happened."
"We had a good idea who the suspect was," Matthews said, but parts of the puzzle were missing.
"We needed several items to make it come together," Stewart said.
At last, they got a confession, Harrison said.
Grant told investigators he had driven his car to the field across Holly Springs Road from the subdivision where he lived, and was going to practice shooting a shotgun. According to the sheriff, Grant knew that as a convicted felon on probation, he was not allowed to possess a firearm.
So, when Tucker drove up, got out of his unmarked car and walked toward him, Grant said he pulled the gun out of the trunk, turned and pulled the trigger, Harrison said.
Still, deputies had not recovered a weapon. Rankin was sent out with deputies to search a muddy field near Research Triangle Park.
It was 8:05 a.m. Saturday when local news media were notified that Harrison would hold a news conference at 9 a.m.
As Harrison headed into the conference, he got another call.
Deputies had dug up a 12-gauge shotgun, thought to be the one used to kill Mark Tucker.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004 5:39AM EST
Hundreds mourn deputy
By BONNIE ROCHMAN, Staff Writer N&O

RALEIGH -- Mark Tucker's youngest son wanted to go into law enforcement, but his dad talked him out of it.
Tucker, a Wake sheriff's deputy who was shot to death Thursday, wanted Matthew, 21, to do something bigger, better, more prestigious and better-paying.
So Matthew began studying to be a master chef.
But his father isn't here any longer to dissuade him, and at the close of Tucker's funeral, Matthew knew he would follow his heart. "Thursday made up my mind," he said in an interview Monday.
He had not had a chance to tell his mother yet.
But he hopes she'll support him, because his father's influence is clear.
Nearly 1,500 people showed up for Mark Tucker's funeral, most of them law enforcement officers, for Tucker had two families -- one personal, one professional.
They wore dress uniforms and somber faces and badges draped in black as they filled the grassy hill along U.S. 401 South, waiting to enter Mid-Way Baptist Church. They came from New Hanover County and from Duke University's campus police, from the Angier Police Department and the state Highway Patrol.
Inside, a U.S. flag embraced Tucker's coffin. His deputy's hat and a pair of white gloves rested in front of the casket, tucked between arrangements of white orchids and red carnations.
Matthew Tucker faced his father's body and sat next to his brother, Chad, who sat next to their mother, Patricia. Tucker's parents, both white-haired and in wheelchairs, rolled slowly down the aisle.
Patricia Tucker rubbed Matthew's back. She clutched Chad's hand and sang along with the choir. "Take my hand, precious Lord," she mouthed, "and lead me home." She bobbed her head, sometimes nodding yes when a line from a song or an anecdote about her husband resonated. At other times, she shook her head no, as if finding it hard to believe her predicament.
Mark Tucker, 49, emerged as a gentle, caring man with a sly, wisecracking sense of humor. He was the kind of guy you had to beat to the restaurant if you had any hopes of picking up the tab.
Jennifer Bracey, Tucker's oldest niece, spoke for the family. She read remembrances from Tucker's siblings of extra helpings of Mama's fried chicken, of Tucker's silly grin and strong opinions. The four brothers and one sister were a large, loud bunch who "lost one of our players -- sweet, mischievous Poochie."
As a baby, Tucker loved to be held. As a child, his favorite game was Cops and Robbers.
And as an adult, Tucker relished a good cigar. He was a guy's guy, the sort who wore cowboy boots, coveted motorcycles and thrilled to NASCAR, his Corvette and grilling out.
He was quick to forgive, often bestowing one of his trademark bone-crushing hugs.
Paul Nielsen, 11, attended Tucker's church. "When he hugged you, it was like a gorilla hugging you," he said.
He loved his family, of course, but he really loved all kinds of people, Sheriff Donnie Harrison said, and that's what made him so good at his job. He also loved politics, which earned the portly Tucker the moniker "Boss Hog." The nickname made his wife laugh out loud Monday.
The laughter was short-lived.
"How many times have we asked why since Thursday?" Harrison said. "Only God knows the answer to that."
'Respect authority'
The highlight of his career came in 1999, when President Clinton named him U.S. marshal for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Tucker and his wife danced around for 45 minutes after the announcement, recalled Minister Mitch Mitchell, Tucker's spiritual leader at Triangle Church of Christ. The next weekend at church, Mitchell called Tucker up and gave him a CD. It was the Marshall Tucker Band's "Greatest Hits." Laughing, Tucker took the CD, at once happy and embarrassed.
He was kind, Mitchell said, and probably tried to reason with the person who killed him.
Mitchell is no stranger to conducting funerals. It is the nature of his job, and he is accustomed to it. But Mitchell was also Tucker's friend, and he sniffled loudly several times as he spoke.
He ended the service with a request. "For those not in law enforcement," he said, "teach your children: Respect authority."
At sunset, Tucker was laid to rest. Law officers formed lines five deep on the grass at Montlawn Memorial Park, flanking the family. Three volleys sent a shiver through the crowd, and a National Guardsman played taps.
Two Wake County officers then carefully folded the flag that draped the coffin and handed it to the sheriff, who knelt before Patricia Tucker and placed it in her hands.
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