Friends, family identify dismembered body as Woodbridge High graduate
The dismembered body dumped along a Sussex County road last weekend belonged to a 34-year-old Woodbridge High School graduate who grew up in Bridgeville.
Friends and family confirmed Tia Tucker was the woman state police said was shot to death and left along South Shell Bridge Road near Bethel, where she was discovered Saturday morning.
On Thursday, Tucker's mother, Yvonne Tucker, laid on the couch in her Seaford apartment, scrolling through her phone as cigarette smoke wafted from a nearby ashtray.
She offered an open invitation into her home but had no comment about her daughter or her death. Police told her not to share anything with the media, she said.
“All I want is her back,” she said as she started to weep.
Yvonne Tucker’s home was Tia Tucker's last listed address as of 2017, according to court records. Before that, she lived in at least two other places in Bridgeville.
Her daughter's death brought no shortage of prayers and sentiments on social media.
"I would like to say thank All Of You For Your Prayers For me And My Children.
Tia Mommy Loves You till the day I die. Fly high my precious daughter Jesus is waiting for you. You will truly be missed Rip," her mother, Yvonne Tucker, wrote on Facebook.
State police on Thursday released the results of an autopsy, only to say she died of a gunshot wound. They have yet to identify her or discuss the condition of the body.
The News Journal learned she was missing "one or more" limbs and hands from a public database that included a physical description entered by the Delaware Division of Forensic Science. The database entry was later made private.
Family members say it has been like "a guessing game" with police, who have given no indication whether a suspect has been identified, said her aunt, Lisa Cannon.
"They don't want to tell anybody anything," said Tucker's cousin and Cannon's daughter, Cassandra Cannon. "They keep telling [the family] to let them do their job."
Cassandra Cannon said police may be digging up a yard near the crime scene to search for more evidence related to the homicide.
"It's just something you can't wrap your head around," Lisa Cannon said. "She was a sweet person, but she wasn't a weak person. It had to have been someone really sick in the head to do this."
They said it had been several months since they last saw Tia Tucker, who they said they believed recently moved to Laurel after living in Bridgeville.
Former classmate Dorothy Wooleyhand last saw Tucker at Bridgeville's Apple Scrapple Festival in October. They were best friends from high school, but had lost touch.
"She looked good," Wooleyhand said. "We gave each other hugs and went on our way."
She recounted their high school days when they were "sidekicks" and "sisters," always hanging out together. She described her friend as funny, fun-loving and easy-going.
"She'd do anything for you," she said. "We were stuck to each other like glue."
One Halloween the duo got it in their heads to set up a haunted trail in the woods behind Wooleyhand's house, Wooleyhand said. They hung cobwebs and ran fog machines, Wooleyhand's brothers dressed up and revved up chainsaws, and on the gravestones, they wrote the names of deceased musicians such as hip-hop legend Biggie Smalls.
"We made all the cemetery parts and we invited all our friends over and took them through the trails. It was a really fun night," Wooleyhand said. "We had a blast."
In a more sentimental moment, Tucker and Wooleyhand found their fathers together. Neither knew their biological fathers before they came up with their plan.
"We both sat down and decided we were going to find our dads together, and we did. She found her biological father and I found mine," Wooleyhand said.
They used Internet searches and clues from their families to track the men down.
"We called and left messages. They both called us back. We were side by side when each one of us got the phone call," Wooleyhand said. "She was happy. She was crying."
Wooleyhand said Tucker had two children, a boy and a girl.
Tasha Thompson said she's known Tucker since she was 17 years old. The two were close, and Thompson said Tucker was always hanging out with her and her family.
The friends shared the same sense of humor, Thompson said and looked out for each other through the years. The friendship lasted — Tucker stood in Thompson's wedding.
Thompson described Tucker as funny and full of life.
Ashley Chronister said she and Tucker were neighbors in Bridgeville for five years before Chronister moved to Pennsylvania. They'd sit together enjoying warm, summer days, chatting about their kids, their lives and gossip in the neighborhood, she said.
Tucker was an amazing person who would help anyone, her old neighbor said. Tucker was a tough girl, Chronister said.
"Everyone is hurt and they want answers," Ashley Chronister wrote in a Facebook message. "She loved everyone around her."
Contact Adam Duvernay at (302) 319-1855 or aduvernay@delawareonline.com
MISSING