Inmate who murdered Rickreall couple in 1987 dies at Oregon State Penitentiary

By Capi Lynn
The Salem Statesman-Journal

Michael Robert Tucker, serving a life prison sentence for the murder of a retired Rickreall couple in 1987, has died in Oregon Department of Corrections custody, according to a news release.

Tucker, 67, was incarcerated at Oregon State Penitentiary and died in the infirmary while on hospice care, the release said. As with all in-custody deaths, corrections notified the Oregon State Police.

Tucker entered Department of Corrections custody March 14, 1995, from Polk County, serving a life sentence. The news release did not include his crimes, but Statesman Journal archives show he was convicted of the October 1987 shooting deaths of Robert Farmer, 70, and his wife, Barbara, 71, in their mobile home in Rickreall.

Tucker and an accomplice planned to rob the couple with help from the accomplice's wife, who once worked for the Farmers, according to Statesman Journal coverage of the trial and sentencing. Tucker admitted he killed the couple, each dying from a single gunshot to the head.

A year later, a Polk County Circuit Court jury found Tucker guilty of 10 counts of aggravated murder, two counts of first-degree robbery and one count of first-degree burglary, according to the newspaper's coverage of the five-day trial. The aggravated murder charges, five for each victim, were brought under different sections of the law related to multiple killings.

The same jury sentenced Tucker in November 1988 to death by lethal injection.

The Oregon Supreme Court, where death penalty cases are automatically appealed, upheld Tucker's convictions in 1993 but overturned the death sentence, returning the case to Polk County for a new jury to decide sentencing.

In 1995, Tucker was re-sentenced to life in prison with a 30-year minimum term.

https://www.statesmanjournal.com/sto...r/70093846007/