Richard Tucker was executed by the State of Georgia for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of a nurse
According to court documents Richard Tucker would kidnap the nurse from a hospital parking lot. The fifty year old woman would later be sexually assaulted and murdered
Richard Tucker would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Richard Tucker would be executed by way of the electric chair on May 22 1987
Richard Tucker Photos
Richard Tucker FAQ
When was Richard Tucker executed
Richard Tucker was executed on May 22 1987
How was Richard Tucker executed
Richard Tucker was executed by way of the electric chair
Richard Tucker Case
Richard Tucker shook his head slightly when asked if he had any last words and went calmly to his death in Georgia’s electric chair for raping and murdering a nurse in 1977 while on parole for another slaying.
The execution Friday night was the second in Georgia in a week. Another is scheduled for Wednesday.
The 44-year-old Tucker went to the chair after the U.S. Supreme Court earlier in the day voted 7-2 against a stay of execution and the state Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected a plea for clemency. He was pronounced dead at 7:23 p.m
About 30 opponents and four supporters of capital punishment demonstrated outside the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center.
Guards led Tucker into the white cement-block death chamber and strapped him into the varnished oak electric chair.
Asked by Warden Ralph Camp if he cared to add anything to a final statement taped about two hours earlier, the condemned man shook his head. The taped statement was not made public.
The Rev. Nolan Lavell, a Baptist minister from Atlanta, held Tucker’s left hand and prayed in a voice too low to be heard by witnesses on the other side of the glass.
When the chair was activated, Tucker tensed against the straps and clenched his fists. When the current went off two minutes later, he was dead.
Tucker’s execution, that of Joseph Mulligan on May 15 and the one set for Wednesday followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Georgia’s death penalty law is constitutional even though it is more likely to be applied to killers of whites than killers of blacks.
Tucker’s victim was white. Tucker was black.
Tucker stabbed an aunt to death with a pair of scissors in 1964. He served 14 years in prison and had been out on parole for six months when he killed Edna Sandefur of Albany.
Mrs. Sandefur was in Macon to visit her critically ill mother when Tucker abducted her as she left the hospital. He forced her to drive to an isolated area, raped her, then beat her to death with a three-foot iron pipe.
In his confession, Tucker said he had been under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.
Tucker’s petition to the parole board stressed his poverty-stricken youth and neglect at the hands of alcoholic, often-violent parents.