California man on honeymoon killed in Barcelona terror attack

By Veronica Rocha / Los Angeles Times

A California man was one of the 13 people killed in Thursday’s terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, his father told a San Francisco Bay Area television station.

The father of Jared Tucker, a 42-year-old Lafayette resident, told KGO-TV that his son’s wife had tentatively identified his remains.

Tucker and his wife, Heidi Nunes, were vacationing in Europe on their honeymoon, said his father, Dan Tucker. The couple married a year ago and had delayed their honeymoon, he told the station. Jared Tucker had three daughters, his father said.

On Thursday, the couple visited Las Ramblas, a pedestrian walkway popular with tourists in the heart of the Spanish city, Nunes, 40, told NBC News. They had drinks in an outside restaurant and briefly separated, she told the station.

Nunes told her husband she wanted to look at some jewelry, so Tucker, a construction worker, headed to the restroom, she said.

That’s when a white van jumped the curb onto the walkway and sped down the center of Las Ramblas, hitting crowds of people.

Barcelona police said 13 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in the attack. The extremist group Islamic State claimed responsibility.

Nunes, a Walnut Creek teacher, told NBC that during the attack she was pushed into a souvenir shop by crowds of screaming people running from the area.

“They were walking through downtown when he stopped to use the restroom, moments later all hell broke loose and Heidi was swept up in the terrified crowd and she lost sight of Jared,” Nunes’ brother-in-law Kalani Kalanui told KGO.

The State Department announced Friday that one American was killed and another was injured in the attack. It did not identify the victims.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and his friends,” Heather Nauert, a department spokeswoman, said of the dead American in a video statement.

The violence on Las Ramblas is believed to be linked to a similar attack in Cambrils, a coastal community south of Barcelona, and a deadly home explosion in Alcanar, farther down the coast. In Cambrils, five suspects were killed. Six civilians were injured and one died, police said.