Ex-Fugitive Gets Life without Parole for Murder

SULPHUR SPRINGS (AP) – A man who was one of two inmates who escaped from an East Texas jail for two days has pleaded guilty to capital murder and drawn a life sentence without parole. Brian Allen Tucker pleaded guilty in a state district court in Sulphur Springs on Thursday. His attorney, Ronald Ferguson, told the Sulphur Springs News-Telegram that the plea came as a surprise. He attributed the plea to a desire to avoid a death-penalty prosecution. Tucker and another man escaped the Hopkins County Jail in Sulphur Springs on April 2. They were captured two days later in a barn in Cooper, 20 miles north of Sulphur Springs. Tucker was accused of strangling Bobby Riley to death in Riley’s Mahoney home in 2011.