Police arrest father of toddler left at church

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, June 23, 2005

TACOMA – A man who had been sought after his 2-year-old son showed up unattended at a church was arrested Thursday morning, and the toddler’s mother was being sought, authorities said.

Robert Tucksen, 34, was arrested Thursday on a probation violation warrant, sheriff’s Detective Ed Troyer said.

Tucksen said he had not known authorities were looking for him because he lives in a tent and had not heard that the boy had been found abandoned Tuesday at the First Baptist Church in nearby Parkland.

The toddler’s mother, Pamela Kuich, 42, was still missing Thursday, but the child’s father provided some possible leads about her whereabouts, Troyer said.

Tucksen said Kuich took off with the child on Sunday night because she did not want to stay in the tent, Troyer said.

Associated Press

Man killed, girlfriend assaulted in carjacking

A man was shot to death and his girlfriend was pistol-whipped in a carjacking early Thursday, police said

Police said a woman approached the couple outside a check-cashing store shortly before 12:30 a.m. and asked for a ride. The couple refused.

Two men and the same woman asked again for a ride after the couple cashed a check, then shot the man and commandeered his red 1990s Mitsubishi, police said. The woman was pistol-whipped and pushed out of the car at a nearby intersection.

Associated Press

Man whose assault case led to law dies in wreck

A man who was mutilated at age 7 in an attack that was instrumental in adoption of the nation’s first law for indefinite confinement of sexual predators has died in a motorcycle wreck.

Ryan Alan Hade, who enjoyed daredevil sports, died June 9 when his recently purchased yellow Suzuki motorcycle collided with a pickup truck near Yelm, law enforcement officials confirmed.

Hade was the victim of an attack in 1989 that made national headlines. A convicted sex offender, Earl Kenneth Shriner, was sentenced the next year to 131 years in prison for ambushing and raping the boy, cutting off his penis, stabbing him and leaving him for dead in a Tacoma park.

Legislators cited the case in adopting the nation’s first state law to allow indefinite civil confinement of sexual predators. Now 55, Shriner remains in prison.

Associated Press

Spokane: Museum fire destroys historic photos

A small fire at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture destroyed about 700 historical photographs, officials said. The images, taken by Spokane photographer Charles Libby or his son in the early part of the 20th century, were never copied.

Associated Press