School Crossing Guard Killed in Abduction

A school crossing guard, kidnaped by suspected carjackers only moments after she reported to work Monday on a Long Beach street, was found dead hours later in the trunk of her car near Long Beach Municipal Airport, police said.

Catherine Tucker, 46, a single mother who had struggled to raise seven children, was abducted at 6:55 a.m. from the intersection where she had worked for years helping students reach Lafayette Elementary School, authorities said. Her body was found by police five hours later, after the kidnapers apparently crashed her blue 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix into a parked van and fled on foot, said Karen Kerr, a Long Beach Police Department spokeswoman.

Tucker had been shot once in the head.

Acting on eyewitness reports of the crash, police arrested three suspects, two of whom were booked on suspicion of kidnaping and murder, Kerr said. Police identified one suspect as Virgil Jason Clarke, 18, of Long Beach. A 17-year-old also will be charged with kidnaping and murder, she said. The third suspect, also a juvenile, was questioned and released for lack of evidence, she said.

Tucker had just arrived for her regular morning shift at the year-round school when she was forcibly taken from the intersection of Burnett Street and Pacific Avenue, one of the two main crossing points for those attending the 930-student campus, school officials and witnesses said.

One witness, a teen-ager who asked that her name not be used, recalled standing at a window and hearing what sounded like a single gunshot.

“I looked outside and I saw two guys,” the witness said. “One was pushing her. . . . You could see he was struggling with her, trying to push her down. The other was trying to get in the car.”

The crossing guard appeared to be fighting back before being forced into her car, the teen-ager said. The witness ran into a bedroom to get her mother, and together they saw one of the men trying to start the car. By that point, the crossing guard was nowhere in sight, the mother said.

While the teen-ager dialed 911, her mother watched the driver try several more times to start the car before the two men drove away, the mother said. The mother then ran outside to look for Tucker.

“I didn’t think they would kill her,” she said. “They (didn’t) have to kill her--just tell her to get out of the car. They have no conscience.”

Items from the trunk of Tucker’s car were found in a nearby alley, perhaps indicating where Tucker’s body was placed in the trunk, police said. The car crashed less than two miles from the point of abduction when the kidnapers apparently lost control turning from eastbound Wardlow Road to northbound Cerritos Avenue, a few blocks west of the airport, Kerr said.

Police, who had obtained Tucker’s license plate number, matched it to the wrecked car. The three suspects were taken into custody less than 10 minutes later, two at a service station at 31st Street and Atlantic Avenue and the other a short distance away, police said. Tucker’s body was found soon after that, police said.

The apparent carjacking was one of 118 such incidents recorded this year in Long Beach, police said. One of those attacks resulted in the shooting of a Belmont Heights man, who was paralyzed. No statistics were available on other injuries or deaths, police said.

The site of Tucker’s kidnaping is a busy intersection surrounded by aging stucco offices and a smattering of restaurants. Apartment buildings fill much of a neighborhood that residents say is crowded and noisy during the day and noisier and more dangerous at night.

Tucker, described as friendly and dedicated to her city-paid job, was considered a fixture at the intersection, where an anonymous mourner placed a bouquet of yellow flowers Monday with a card saying, “We’ll miss you.”

She was known for arriving early and staying well past the time school got out. During the school day, she often stayed in the neighborhood, reading in her car.

“I don’t know of any other crossing guard that will stay after her time and even walk adults across (the street),” said Audrey Lawrence, a nearby resident. “She worked over and above the call of duty.”

After school Monday, several children said their teachers had talked to them about Tucker. “They said she was kidnaped,” said one third-grade girl.

“She’s in the hospital now, ain’t she?” asked a boy.

“No, she’s dead,” the girl replied.

As news of Tucker’s abduction and death reached her close-knit west Long Beach neighborhood, family and friends gathered at the blue-trimmed home to be near Tucker’s children. Shock and tears were evident on almost every face.

Tucker was known widely as “the crossing guard lady” and recognized as the woman who played tennis almost every afternoon at the Silverado Park courts, said daughter Tracy Tucker, 28.

“She was a little worried about crime around here, being out on that busy street all day. She had the riskiest corner, but she loved her job,” Tracy Tucker said. “She never missed a day because of weather, even when she had to be out there in double rain gear.”

Catherine Tucker worked for many years as a baby-sitter while raising her seven children. She began working as a crossing guard about six years ago because she loved children, Tracy Tucker said.

And after guiding youngsters across busy streets all day, she often came home to look after one or more of her seven grandchildren, Tracy Tucker said.

Everyone called her “Grandma Cathy,” Tracy Tucker said. There are two more grandchildren on the way.

“She took care of all of us, right up until today,” said a nephew.

Bringing up seven children alone was not easy, said George Tucker, 23, one of Tucker’s five sons. In lean times, Tucker’s children found jobs to help support the family, but mostly they looked to their mother, he said.

“It was a struggle. But whatever we needed, even if it broke her back, she would get it for us,” George Tucker said.

Often, the boys were in one kind of trouble or another, George Tucker said. Catherine Tucker did the best she could with discipline, her son remembered.

“She would always tell us she wouldn’t be here forever, and what would we do when she was gone?” George Tucker said.

Tucker also is survived by another daughter, Pam Penrod, 28, and four other sons, Timothy, 26; Andy, 24; Reggie, 19, and Lenny, 16.

Times staff writers David Ferrell, Howard Blume and Tina Griego contributed to this story.

Fatal Kidnaping

School crossing guard Catherine Tucker, 46, was kidnaped from her post outside Lafayette Elementary School in Long Beach about 7 a.m. Monday by suspects who commandeered her 1981 Pontiac, police said. She was found shot to death in the trunk of the car five hours later near Long Beach Airport.