Story of Danielle and Brittany Tucker

In November 1997, authorities found Bri*, a 6-year-old adopted girl, starving in a locked basement room. Crouched up in the fetal position, the girl was pale and sickly -- weighing just less than 32 pounds when, once again, state officials took custody of her. She was wearing only a T-shirt and shoes several sizes too big. The girl was dirty, unkempt, and emaciated. She also had head lice so bad they could be felt moving in her hair. The young adoptee was said to look like a corpse -- her face devoid of expression.

Bri had a number of injuries on her forearms and buttocks, which she said came from her female adopter hitting her. The basement room was furnished only with bare metal bedsprings, a wooden spool, and a metal tub containing dirty brown water, which the girl drank from and bathed in. The room smelled of urine.

The adopters, Chris and Becky Tucker, were arrested and charged with felony child abuse, the harshest child-abuse penalty allowed under Utah law. Chris Tucker admitted that Bri had been locked in this basement for at least 5 months. The adopters eventually admitted to starving and neglecting their 6-year-old adoptee. Chris Tucker pleaded guilty to second-degree felony child abuse and his wife pleaded guilty to a third-degree child abuse charge – in March of 1998.

Bri and her 4-year-old sister were adopted by the Tuckers in Lansing, Michigan in January 1996. In Michigan it is standard practice to reimburse those who adopt children from government custody, as the Tuckers did. People who adopt foster children with mental or physical disabilities are usually granted approximately $585 per month until the child reaches the age of 18.

As with most information regarding adoption, Michigan authorities we not allowed to reveal how much the Tuckers may have been paid while abusing the two girls and their sister -- Danielle: who died on Dec. 8, 1995 at the age of 3, after allegedly falling down a flight of stairs in the Tuckers' house in southern Michigan.

The Tuckers received $1,500 a month in subsidies from Michigan for the girls in their

. That payment apparently dropped to $1,000 a month after Danielle's death.

Monthly payments the Tuckers received from Michigan taxpayers stand in stark contrast to the horrible conditions in which Bri was living.

Witnesses testified that the Trenton couple seemed like devoted parents to their two boys while at the same time neglecting the 6-year-old adoptee they kept in a basement room. Police say Bri was regularly burned and beaten.

A woman who met the Tuckers over the Internet while the Tuckers lived in Michigan said that the Tuckers had come to visit once in 1996, with all the children. At that time Bri was already quite thin and her belly protruding; she was constantly eating. When the Tuckers decided to move to Trenton, the families made the drive together in October 1996. The woman said that the Tuckers kept Bri strapped into her car seat for the entire trip without food or water. She also was not allowed to use the bathroom. Even after arriving in Utah, they left her in wet, soiled clothes for several days. She never saw Bri after Christmas 1996, at which time the girl had told her that she didn't get any gifts because she had been bad. In 1997, she visited the Tuckers, and became concerned when she didn't see Bri and got conflicting stories about her whereabouts from the Tuckers.

The grandparents of the three girls want custody of their two surviving granddaughters. All three of the girls given to the Tuckers are their REAL grandchildren. Nevertheless, the girls will be put up for adoption – again! There's no money in family reunions.

The couple had been caring for their granddaughters until 1993, when authorities placed the girls in foster care with the Tuckers so the children would be closer to their mother, who was living in Union City, Michigan, at that time.

As soon as the girls were placed in their custody, the Tuckers began accusing the grandparents of abuse and refused to allow the children to see their grandparents. The couple were not even permitted to attend the funeral of their granddaughter who died in the Tuckers’ custody. They deny ever abusing any of their granddaughters.

In January 1996, the Tuckers were allowed to adopt the two surviving girls, after their sister’s death in the Tucker home.

The third sister, Danielle died December 1995, in Michigan after falling down a flight of stairs, according to Chris Tucker, while Becky Tucker had claimed to have an autopsy report that said the child actually had died from an aneurysm. The Michigan state agency in charge of investigating child abuse and neglect cases, never reviewed Danielle’s death. The agency also never forwarded information about her death to local law enforcement offices. I do not believe this would have been their reaction if the Tuckers were parents instead of adopters.

The Tuckers claimed Danielle had fetal alcohol syndrome and would have fits during which she threw herself around and hit her head against the wall. However, the girls’ grandparents, who cared for Danielle the first 2 1/2 years of her life, contradict those claims by the Tuckers. They neveer believed their granddaughter’s death was an accident.

The truth about the death of 4-year-old Danielle Tucker may have never been known if her killer had not been caught abusing the dead girl's sister in Utah two years later. Becky Tucker, 34, has admitted to deliberately pushing Danielle down the stairs in 1995 -- only after she failed a polygraph examination about the incident.

There is good reason to believe the Tuckers decided to move to Utah in 1996 in order to escape questions about Danielle's death and their poor treatment of Danielle's surviving sisters. Baby sitters and schoolteachers in Michigan were beginning to complain about signs of abuse.

On April 5, 1999 -- Becky Tucker was charged with second-degree murder and first-degree child abuse in the 1995 death of Danielle. The Michigan charges were filed 10 months after authorities exhumed the child's body. The adopter faces up to life in prison if convicted on those charges.

Becky is currently serving only a 5-year sentence in Utah for nearly killing Danielle's sister Bri.

Christopher Tucker is serving a sentence of 1 to 15 years in Utah for abusing Bri.