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Thread: LaMondre Tucker - Louisiana Death Row

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    LaMondre Tucker - Louisiana Death Row


    Tavia Sills




    Prosecutors to seek death penalty in murder of pregnant student

    Caddo prosecutors filed notice today they will seek the death penalty for a Shreveport man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend and dumping her body in a pond.

    Lamondre Tucker, along with his friend, Marcus Taylor are charged with first-degree murder in the death of 19-year-old Tavia Sills last summer.

    The body of Sills, a student at Southern University-Shreveport, was found in a pond in the Martin Luther King drive area.

    Prosecutors allege Tucker, 19, shot Sills. They allege Taylor, 22, gave him the gun and also destroyed crucial evidence in the case.

    Both men have pleaded not guilty.

    http://www.ktbs.com/news/prosecutors-to-seek-death-penalty-in-murder-of-pregnant-student

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    Jury selection begins in murder trial

    Jury selection began in Caddo District Court on Monday for a case that drew much public attention due to its horrific nature.

    Two people fishing in a pond at the end of Legardy Street spotted Tavia Sills' body Sept. 12, 2008, floating at the water's edge on the west side of the pond. She'd been shot.

    The 18-year-old disappeared after she left home three days earlier with her ex-boyfriend, the alleged father of her unborn child. Police say LaMondre Tucker, 20, picked Sills up from her north Shreveport home to meet his relatives. She never returned.

    Monday, jury selection began in Tucker's first-degree murder trial, with selection expected to continue today. Police say he plotted to kill Sills after his new girlfriend found out Sills was pregnant.

    The unidentified girlfriend was not involved in the plan to kill the victim, but police say Marcus Taylor, who also faces murder charges, assisted Tucker in carrying out the killing.

    Both men face the death penalty if convicted as charged.

    Assistant District Attorney Dale Cox is prosecuting the case before Caddo District Judge Ramona Emanuel. Attorney David McClatchey represents Tucker.

    Taylor awaits trial.

    Vickie Britton says she forgives the men who killed her daughter, but hopes they pay for what they did. Sills had plans to welcome her baby boy into the world Jan. 18, 2009.

    "There's not a day goes by that I don't think about Tavia and my grandbaby, that I don't look at her picture, that I don't talk to her and want to see her," Britton has said. "I was mad at first, but when there was a problem she'd always said 'Mama let's do something about it.'"

    Last year Britton started the annual "March for Love" to call an end to abuse and asked the community to practice love for self and others.

    "It's a problem of violence and lack of love in this community, and I'm going to do something about it."

    http://www.shreveporttimes.com/artic...yssey=nav|head

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    Jury selection continues for man charged with killing pregnant woman

    Jury selections resumes this morning in the trial of a Shreveport man charged with killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend.

    LaMondre Tucker faces the death penalty if convicted as charged for the death of Tavia Sills. Two people fishing in a pond at the end of Legardy Street spotted Sills’ body Sept. 12, 2008 at the water’s edge of the pond. She disappeared three days before when Tucker picked her up from her north Shreveport residence.

    Police say Tucker plotted to kill Sills after his new girlfriend found out that Sills was pregnant. The victim was to welcome their baby boy into the world in January 2009.

    Opening statements could begin today. The trial will be heard before Caddo District Judge Ramona Emanuel. Dale Cox and Bill Edwards are prosecuting and Attorney David McClatchey represents Tucker.

    Co-defendant Marcus Taylor awaits trial on murder charges. Prosecutors say Taylor helped Tucker carry out the plot then fled to the east part of Louisiana.

    http://www.shreveporttimes.com/artic...text|FRONTPAGE

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    Jury selection ends in Tucker trial

    Jury selection was completed today shortly before 5 p.m. in the Lamondre Tucker first-degree murder trial.

    Opening statements will begin at 2 p.m. Sunday in Judge Ramona Emanuel’s court.

    LaMondre Tucker faces the death penalty if convicted as charged for the death of Tavia Sills, his pregnant ex-girlfriend. Two people fishing in a pond at the end of Legardy Street spotted Sills’ body Sept. 12, 2008 at the water’s edge of the pond. She disappeared three days before when Tucker picked her up from her north Shreveport residence.

    Police say Tucker plotted to kill Sills after his new girlfriend found out that Sills was pregnant. The victim was to welcome their baby boy into the world in January 2009.

    http://www.shreveporttimes.com/artic...yssey=nav|head

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    Opening statements underway in Lamondre Tucker murder trial

    Opening statements in the Lamondre Tucker murder trial are now underway. The prosecution and the defense completed jury selection late Saturday afternoon, a process that took 6 days.

    Lamondre Tucker is charged with first degree murder in the murder of his girlfriend Tavia Sills in September of 2008. Sills was five months pregnant at the time of her murder, and had just started her first year at SUSLA. She was found shot to death in a pond off of Legardy in the Martin Luther King neighborhood.

    If convicted, Tucker faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty.

    http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=14284211

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    Capital murder trial gets under way

    A Shreveport man facing the death penalty in killing of his ex-girlfriend and her unborn son wasn't the baby's father.

    Prosecutors say LaMondre Tucker, 20, shot Tavia Sills and dumped her body in a secluded pond in Shreveport's Martin Luther King Jr. neighborhood in 2008 after she named him as the father of her baby.

    But DNA testing showed the baby wasn't his, lead prosecutor Dale Cox said in his opening statement as the trial got under way Sunday in Caddo Parish District Court.

    Silence followed his statement in Judge Ramona Emanuel's courtroom, where Sills' and Tuckers' relatives sat inches apart. The 11-woman, one-man jury listened raptly. The trial continues today.

    Cox described how — nearly two years after the killing — technicians collected Sills' DNA from chewing gum she left on her bedpost and dresser. Sills' body was too decomposed to provide DNA samples. Technicians collected DNA samples from Sills' unborn baby and Tucker after Sills' body was discovered in 2008.

    Tucker already had a baby with Tamara Bates, a fellow student at Booker T. Washington High School in Shreveport. Prosecutors allege he continued the relationship with Bates while dating Sills.

    Bates testified that she started hearing rumors of Sills' pregnancy in summer 2008 and eventually told Tucker she was going to put the brakes on their relationship until "I found out the truth about it."

    Bates said she didn't believe Tucker fathered Sills' baby.

    However, Sills' family members did. They testified about showing an ultrasound image of the baby to Tucker and Sills' assertion that he was the father. They said Sills was excited about having her first child and had planned to name him Tavian.

    Sills' mother, Vickie Britton, recalled showing the ultrasound to Tucker two or three weeks before her daughter's death.

    "He said it looked like his other child," Britton said.

    Britton described her unease when Sills decided to go with Tucker to meet Tucker's sister Sept. 9, 2008. She said her daughter did two unusual things. The first was a request for prayer. Britton and Sills prayed together.

    "Just before she left, she told me if something happened to her or she came up missing, here's his (Tucker's) phone number," Britton said.

    Tucker returned about an hour later without Sills but with Marcus Taylor, a friend. Tucker said he dropped Sills off at her sister's apartment, but that rang false with Britton. Sills' sister was in the hospital with pregnancy complications.

    Britton described her family's increasingly frantic search for Sills. Separately, Sills' stepfather, Prentiss Britton, searched near Cross Lake and the pond where Sills' body was found.

    http://www.shreveporttimes.com/artic...gets-under-way

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    Investigators describe body, crime scene in murder trial

    LaMondre Tucker was unable to hold back tears Monday as prosecutors unveiled photos of Tavia Sills' body floating on top of a north Shreveport pond.

    And when a Shreveport police officer described her findings — the decomposed body of a female, swollen, faced down and covered with flies — to the jury, Tucker held his head down with his face in his hands, constantly wiping tears away.

    "She had on blue jeans, a white shirt and black shoes," said Cpl. Hanna Clark, who was the first officer on the crime scene. "You could tell she'd been there a while because the body was bloated."

    Sills, 17, was found three days after she disappeared from her residence. The mother-to-be left home with Tucker to visit his family, but never returned. Prosecutors say Tucker plotted to kill the teen and burn her body after she named him as the father of her baby. But he shot Sills and instead left her in the secluded pond.

    A couple fishing found the body.

    Tucker's capital murder trial before Caddo District Judge Ramona Emanuel continued Monday with testimony from police detectives.

    Crime scene investigator Cpl. Skyler Vanzandt was the second state's witness to take the stand. He told the court he took the majority of the photos related to Sills' murder.

    It was the close-up photo of the victim on the stretcher, showing a wound to her back that evoked the most emotion from jurors, the defendant and others in the courtroom.

    Vanzandt testified he was among the officers who responded to the wooded area off of Legardy Street on Sept. 12, 2008, and several days following. He gave detailed testimony about what they found.

    A Shreveport Fire Department diver pulled the handgun believe to be the murder weapon from a nearby drainage ditch. And investigators combed through chopped grass for hours to find three shell casings, Vanzandt said.

    "Looking at the wound, it appears the victim was shot," Vanzandt said.

    DNA testing later showed that Tucker was not the father of Sills' unborn child, authorities said.

    The trial continues today and is expected to last throughout the week. Tucker faces the death penalty if convicted as charged.

    Demarcus Taylor, his co-defendant, awaits trial. Prosecutors say Taylor gave Tucker the gun used in the murder.

    http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/D...yssey=nav|head

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    Tucker found guilty of first-degree murder

    LaMondre Tucker could face the death penalty after being found guilty of the first-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend Tavia Sills after about an hour of jury deliberation Tuesday.

    "There's no doubt on this earth LaMonde Tucker went to her home with the thought in mind to lure this beautiful young girl away from her parents so he could kill her," lead prosecutor Dale Cox said in his closing statement. "That's the real tragedy in this — she loved him so much and he couldn't care less."

    The jury, those in attendance and the defendant remained emotional throughout the trial, many breaking into tears as the proceedings progressed.

    Shreveport police detective Rod Demery spent hours on the stand Tuesday. During his testimony, 11 women and one man listened to recorded statements Tucker made after his arrest.

    Tucker, 20, was accused of killing Sills after she revealed she was pregnant. Sills, 18, named Tucker as the father of the baby. DNA evidence revealed during the trial, however, showed Tucker wasn't the baby's father.

    Sills' family searched for her for three days after her disappearance in 2008. Two people fishing at a pond in Shreveport's Martin Luther King Jr. neighborhood found the woman's body.

    Demery, the lead investigator in the case, said for nearly two days Tucker appeared detached and denied any involvement in Sills' death.

    At one point, investigators questioned Tucker about his unusual demeanor. Tucker responded, saying "if it was my baby, I have to take that loss. I feel sorry that it happened, but I can't say nothing. I can't say nothing," according to the recorded statements.

    Tucker later said he found the gun and it accidentally discharged when he picked it up and the bullet hit Sills, Demery testified. Demery said the truth came out after further investigation.

    "Before it was all over with, he gave me the entire story and took me where the murder weapon was," Demery said.

    Tucker told investigators he shot Sills twice, and after that, co-defendent Marcus Taylor decided to burn Sills. Taylor has denied involvement in Sills' death.

    Demery testified Tucker said Taylor doused Sills with a flammable liquid and that's when she jumped into the pond.

    Tucker told investigators he shot Sills a third time after she was in the water, Demery testified.

    Tucker's attorney urged the jury, during closing arguments, to rule in favor of a second-degree murder conviction. He said it wasn't the facts of the case, but its legal analysis that he disputed.

    During closing arguments, Tucker became physically agitated to the point that Caddo deputies had to hold him in his seat.

    "It's my life on the line," he said while deputies told him to quiet down. "How am I just going to let him lie on me like that?"

    Tucker was then excused from the courtroom until the verdict was read.

    Court proceedings and sentencing for Tucker will continue at 9:30 a.m. today.

    http://www.shreveporttimes.com/artic...-degree-murder

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    Tucker sentenced to death

    LaMonde Tucker, the 20-year-old convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend two years ago, will be executed by the state.

    After three days of trial, the jury unanimously agreed Tucker’s crime was worthy of the state’s strictest penalty. Tucker was removed from the court by deputies while family members on both sides wept.

    “The evidence was uncontested and overwhelming, and it supported the verdict of guilty and the verdict of the death penalty,” said lead prosecuting attorney Dale Cox. “I know the family has been waiting for this day for two-and-a-half years, maybe this will bring some closure to them, that is my prayer.”

    http://www.shreveporttimes.com/artic...yssey=nav|head

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    Tucker Sentenced To Death Mother Arrested

    Lamondre Tucker, the man accused of murdering his pregnant ex-girlfriend has been sentenced to death after he was found guilty of first degree murder. The Jury deliberated for less than an hour before reaching a decision.

    Tucker was convicted of killing 18-year old Tavia Sills. The murder happened in September 2008. Sills was five months pregnant when she was killed.

    KSLA News 12 has also learned that Lamondre Tucker's mom, Alicia Tucker, was arrested right after the sentencing. She's charged with conspiracy to tamper with a juror.

    We've learned that during the jury selection phase of the trial, she and Lamondre called a prospective juror who they knew to convince her to change her testimony. Originally that juror had testified before the court that she was against the death penalty.

    "This juror did, in fact, change her testimony in an effort to get on the jury. But because the police had tape recorded Mr. Tucker's phone conversations from jail, we were able to learn about this," says Caddo Parish Assistant District Attorney Dale Cox.


    Cox adds that the prospective juror admitted that she had spoken with the Lamondre Tucker, and that she had testified falsely and changed her story.

    Alicia Tucker was booked into the Caddo Correctional Center around 9:30 p.m. If convicted, she could face up to 99 years of hard labor.

    http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=14310604

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