Teen found guilty in murder of aspiring chef

The confession D’Marcus Tucker gave to detectives was not coerced, and his DNA, found on the victim’s comforter, was not misidentified, a jury decided Friday as they found the teen guilty as charged of first-degree murder, burglary and petty theft.

Tucker, 18, now faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for the June 2014 stabbing death of aspiring chef Nicole Franco during a burglary in her home.

Franco, 19, was asleep in her bed when she was awakened by Tucker, who had slipped into her apartment at the Bridgewater Place complex in Oakland Park, prosecutor Maria Schneider said in closing arguments Wednesday. Tucker, 15 at the time, stabbed the woman in the chest multiple times, Schneider said.

Desperate and afraid, Franco reached for her cellphone and called 911, telling a dispatcher there was an intruder in her home and that she was hurt; Schneider suggested Franco did not know she had been stabbed.

Within a few short minutes of the stabbing, Franco was dead, the call with the 911 operator still connected. Jurors listened to that recording when the trial opened a week ago, then watched a video recording of Tucker’s statement to Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives five months later, during which he coolly described standing in her bedroom doorway and watching her make the call.

Tucker initially got away and went home — he lived in the same neighborhood as Franco but did not know her. Detectives identified him as a suspect months later through the DNA that was found on Franco’s