State inmate’s death saddens his ex-captive

In 2001, convicted murderer Vann Tucker, then 17, tried to escape from the Pope County jail by crawling through the air-conditioning vents.

A year later, he successfully sneaked out of the Arkansas Department of Correction’s Grimes Unit near Newport byburrowing under a pile of mud in an outgoing dump truck. During his time on the lam, Tucker broke intoa 60-year-old woman’s home and held her hostage for several hours.

Now - after a Saturday attempt to scale the Varner Unit’s lethal, 5,200-volt fence - Tucker, 29, is dead.

The news upset Lugene Mingues, who never held a grudge against the teenager who once made her a captive in her own home. Her husband, Ivan, also expressed dismay upon hearing of Tucker’s third - and fatal - escape.

“I hate to hear that,” Ivan Mingues said with a heavy sigh. “He’s a young kid. I’m so sorry this happened.”

Tucker is believed to have climbed the Varner Unit’s internal fence shortly before 9 a.m. Saturday. He made it over and then attempted to climb an insulated pole connected to the electric fence, Correction Department spokesman Shea Wilson said.

“It shocked him, knocked him off of it, and he went down head first,” Wilson said. “This is the first time that someone has attempted to take on that fence. We’re hopeful that other inmates will take notice and realize that fence is meant to be a deterrent and that it can kill you.”

Tucker suffered a serious head injury when he fell to the concrete. He also suffered electrical shocks and burns.

The injured inmate was found by a “rover” - a correctional officer who makes rounds on the prison’s perimeter - and was taken by ambulance to Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff, Wilson said. It was at the hospital that doctors determined that Tucker’s head trauma required emergency intervention. He was airlifted to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, where he was hospitalized.

On Tuesday at 8:57 p.m., Tucker succumbed to his injuries, Wilson said.

In 2001, Tucker pleaded guilty to killing his 71-yearold neighbor, Frederick Kain. Tucker was 17 at the time.

The murder occurred on Dec. 13, 2000, when Tucker crept to Kain’s house, cut the phone lines and shot the elderly man through a window.

Pope County sheriff’s investigators found Kain’s body on Dec. 16. It appeared that he had been trying to use a phone to call for help as he died.

Initially, prosecutors charged Tucker with capital murder. But they later agreed to a plea bargain after evidence surfaced that bolstered Tucker’s explanation for the killing.

“He stated the reason he shot [Kain] was because the neighbor [Kain] had forced him to perform sexual acts,” Pope County Prosecuting Attorney David Gibbons told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a 2001 article.

In that same article, then-Sheriff Jay Winters said DNA evidence found at Kain’s home supported Tucker’s version of events.

“He gave a story that we could not disprove, and he had been given a mental evaluation,” Winters said. “The evaluator was going to testify that the actions [Tucker] took were consistent … with him being sexually abused.”

Tucker subsequently pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a 20-year sentence.

But after Tucker tried to flee the Pope County jail on Jan. 11, 2001, an additional three years for second-degree escape were tacked on to his murder sentence.

On Dec. 23, 2000, Tucker demanded to be taken to Winters’ office to discuss his case. During that discussion, Tucker grabbed a gun that was in the office and held Winters and some deputies for six hours. Negotiators finally persuaded him to hand over the gun and surrender.

Tucker entered the state prison system on Oct. 4, 2001,to serve his murder sentence. His conviction on the second-degree escape charge meant that he wouldn’t be allowed to do some types of labor - working with livestock or driving farm equipment, for example - but as a “C1 inmate,” he could be assigned to construction crews working behind the prison walls.

On Feb. 1 5, 20 02, an 18-year-old Tucker stowed away in a mud-laden dump truck and fled the Grimes Unit. His absence was discovered about 10:15 a.m. By that time, he had rolled out of the truck and was looking to get out of Newport. Tucker - so muddy that his white pants were later described by an Arkansas State Police trooper as brown - flagged down a motorist.

Despite the signs posted near each prison unit warning drivers against picking up hitchhikers, somebody agreed to give Tucker a ride to a nearby Exxon station. Tucker told the driver that his car had broken down and that he was trying to get to Pocahontas.

As Tucker loitered at the Exxon station, considering his options, a state trooper spotted him. The officer called in the sighting and gave chase, but Tucker vanished into a neighborhood across the street.

He ran between two houses, climbed a fence, ran across a lawn, scaled a second fence and leaped into the backyard of the Mingues home. Within seconds, Tucker was hiding inside, having found an unlocked back door.

Lugene Mingues awoke from an afternoon nap to discover Tucker in her bedroom. Tucker told her that he just needed a place to hide out for a while and that he wouldn’t hurt her, according to the state police, who assisted in the pursuit.

For a time, he brandished a .22-caliber pistol that he had found in the Mingueses’ home. But when he put it down to go to the restroom, Lugene Mingues threw the gun over a cabinet. Tuckerwas unable to retrieve it from where it landed.

Meanwhile, officers were conducting a door-to-door search in the neighborhood when they got a call at 2:30 p.m. from Lugene Mingues’ worried husband, Ivan.

Ivan Mingues told police that he became concerned after talking to his wife on the phone. She sounded “really strange,” he explained.

Within moments, officers had surrounded the Mingueses’ home. Two hours later, after requesting a pack of cigarettes and talking to hostage negotiators, Tucker surrendered.

A correctional officer was later fired after prison officials decided that he hadn’tfollowed policies that would have prevented Tucker’s escape.

Tucker was transferred to the Tucker Maximum Unit. In 2008, he was paroled.

Less than a year later, he was back in prison, this time serving a life sentence for aggravated robbery, aggravated residential burglary and being a habitual offender. The charges came from Pope County.

The Mingueses learned in a phone call from the Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday that Tucker had died trying another escape.

Both were saddened by the news.

After Lugene Mingues was taken hostage by Tucker, thecouple did some research on his past. Upon learning the motivation for Kain’s murder, they immediately sympathized with Tucker.

Ivan Mingues said he talked to a prison official after Tucker’s surrender. “He said that boy grew up close to him and that if he had went to trial, he never would have went to the pen.”

Ivan Mingues agreed with the prison official’s assessment, saying, “He shouldn’t have been sent up there.”

“It was fear of molestation [in prison] that made him escape,” Ivan Mingues concluded. “That happened to him when he was only 10 or 11 years old. He thought it would happen again.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/27/2013

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