1 week Ago
MONCKS CORNER — Clad in wrist and ankle cuffs and dressed in a bright orange jail jumpsuit, a Goose Creek man shuffled into a courtroom Nov. 13 to reject a plea deal that would have cleared his pending murder cases. Aubrey Dupree Tucker, 40, is charged in two unrelated fatal shootings that occurred just over a year apart.
He is accused of killing his girlfriend Jessica Ancrum in 2021 while on house arrest for the 2020 slaying of Anthony Myers . Multiple bailiffs positioned themselves around the Berkeley County courtroom providing additional security during Tucker's hearing as Ninth Circuit Senior Assistant Solicitor Wilton McNeely presented a rundown of the charges and the plea offer extended to Tucker. Prosecutors originally offered Tucker the plea in June 2022.
It would cap his sentence at a maximum 40-year prison term and close out active murder cases in Charleston and Berkeley counties, McNeely said. On Nov. 13, the prosecutor formally put the offer into the court record before Circuit Judge Deadra Jefferson.
As he did two years ago, Tucker rejected the offer. A trial date for February will be set and the prosecutor will seek a sentence of life without the possibility of parole if a jury finds Tucker guilty of murder in his girlfriend's death. In addition to the murder and weapon charges in Berkeley and Charleston counties, Tucker faces unrelated charges of illegal drugs, assault of an officer while resisting arrest and furnishing contraband while incarcerated in Berkeley County.
Tucker also faces another charge of attempted murder in Charleston County. According to arrest warrants filed in the death of his girlfriend, on the afternoon of June 9, 2021 Tucker was arguing with Jessica Ancrum, 35, over their impending breakup. The argument took place in a back bedroom of a Goose Creek home where Tucker lived with his parents, according to the warrant affidavit.
Columbia man on death row resentenced to life in prison following court appeal Tucker's mother, who was home but in a different room, reportedly heard two gunshots and watched as her son left the house with a gun in his hand, the affidavit states. Tucker cut off a GPS ankle monitor that day. He was granted bond in the other homicide case under the condition his location be electronically monitored.
He was apprehended four days later, according to Berkeley County inmate records. At the time of Ancrum's fatal shooting, Tucker was on house arrest with the GPS monitoring. A judge, Jefferson, granted Tucker a $200,000 surety bond in October 2020, according to court records.
The 2020 homicide case started as night shifted to morning on June 11, 2020, when Tucker was allegedly embroiled in a group argument outside of North Park Grill, 8780 Rivers Ave., according to an incident report. North Charleston police arrest 2 suspects in connection with June homicide An unnamed witness told police officers that that she and her friend decided to leave the restaurant as the argument escalated.
As they were leaving, she saw one of the men who had been in the argument run past her and then a volley of gunfire exploded. One of the bullets pierced her left arm, shattering the humerus bone. When officers with the North Charleston Police Department arrived on the scene, they found Anthony Myers, a 24-year-old Ridgeville resident, on the ground, according to the incident report.
He had been shot in the head. Berkeley County public defender Keshia White told Jefferson that her client's rejection of the solicitor's plea offer was against her advice. It was the same advice Tucker got from defense attorney Blair Jennings who is representing Tucker in the Charleston County case, Jennings said.
A jury trial for Tucker is now tentatively set for February 2025, in Berkeley County, according to Jefferson. Tucker will remain incarcerated at the Hill-Finklea Detention Center in Berkeley County, awaiting his trial date..
