James Neil Tucker

Tucker was executed in the electric chair on May 28, 2004. His final statement was read by his lawyer:

In separate trials in 1993 and 1994, Tucker was sentenced to death twice, once for the murder of Mellon and once for Oakley. The death sentence in the Mellon case was later overturned, because jurors had not been told that Tucker would be ineligible for parole under a life sentence; after a second sentencing phase the death sentence was reimposed.

Rosa Lee Dolly Oakley was gardening in the front yard of her Sumter home on June 25, 1992, when Tucker drove his car up her driveway. After talking to her and making sure she was alone, he pulled out a .25-caliber handgun, and forced her inside into her bedroom. Joe Black and James Howard then arrived at the house, looking for Oakley's husband. Tucker allowed her to answer the door, where she told them that her husband wasn't home. They left, but as they backed down the driveway, she ran out of the house screaming "Don't leave me, he's going to kill me." Tucker dragged her back into the house and stole $14 from her purse. As she went for the telephone, Tucker fired the gun, hitting her in the head. According to Tucker, "I shot her again before I left just because, as stupid as it sounds, I thought she was suffering. So I put her out of her misery."

While in prison, he became friends with a fellow inmate from South Carolina. The two went to Calhoun County, South Carolina, where in 1984 they worked at the Webb Carroll's Training Center, a horse farm east of St. Matthews. He went back into prison in Spartanburg County after being arrested for housebreaking and larceny. He was sentenced to 10 years. After being released in 1988, he was sent back to Utah where he received another one to 15 year sentence for escaping prison. On being released in March 1992, Tucker returned to South Carolina. He married his pregnant girlfriend, Marcia, in Sumter. After he was sentenced to death, she divorced him.

In 1974, Tucker was convicted of raping an eight-year-old girl and an 83-year-old woman. He received a sentence of one to 15 years from the Salt Lake County District Court. Four years later he was again before the courts, this time for escape and theft, receiving another one to 15 years sentence. He would spend most of his adult life in jail, escaping a total of three times. His longest time as a fugitive was five years in the 1980s.

James Neil Tucker (January 12, 1957 – May 28, 2004) was a convicted murderer executed by the U.S. state of South Carolina by means of the electric chair. He had been convicted of the murders of Rosa Lee Dolly Oakley and Shannon Lynn Mellon.