Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Slain man was popular youth football coach
Suspected serial killer in jail; victims not targeted, cops say
Derick Tucker had moved out of his apartment and it would be two or three days before he settled into a new place. One of those nights, he slept in his Fort Lau- derdale storage unit.
That decision put him in the path of a serial killer, police say.
While he slept, Tucker — a popular coach, chef and father of eight — was slain and a message in blood was scrawled next to his body, police say.
Nathaniel Maurice Petgrave, 22, who was living in a homeless camp in Plantation, killed Tucker and two other men over three
nights in October, Lauderhill and Fort Lauderdale police say.
Petgrave is being held without bond in the Broward County Jail on three counts of premeditated murder.
Tucker was an assistant youth football coach to hundreds of boys and girls over the nearly two decades he volunteered in Hallandale Beach, and will be remembered today at his funeral at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church.
“He was selfless,” said Jonathan Carrillo, Police Athletic League program coordinator for Hallandale Beach and the police department. “The kids respected him, he was a fixture in the community, very passionate and always there. A lot of kids need that stability in their lives, and he was one they always turned to.”
In recent years, Tucker was a chef at Bahama Breeze Island Grille at Sawgrass Mills mall. He was a fan of a Japanese animated TV series called “Dragon Ball Super” and talked about it like a kid would, along with his love of sports and coaching, restaurant manager Loren James said.
“He was hardworking,” James said. “He did things correctly, followed the recipes and he was good. People liked his food. The staff was in disbelief.”
Tucker spent the night of Oct. 26 in his rented unit at Public Storage, 1020 NW 23rd Ave. in Fort Lauderdale, his brother James Keith Tucker said Friday.
Tucker was asleep when police say Petgrave used a stolen 9-pound pipe wrench, machete and handsaw as murder weapons. Written in blood next to Tucker’s body was a message: 4 STOP WAIT TIME.
Tucker was Petgrave’s third and final victim. He thought he’d killed four men, and was declaring that in the gruesome message, according to investigators.
First to die was Larry Scott, 65, originally from Texas. He and another homeless man took shelter at an abandoned gas station at 3609 W. Broward Blvd. in Lauderhill, Police Chief Constance Stanley said Wednesday.
On Oct. 20, Scott was shot in his head and body and died there. The second man survived a bullet fired into his neck and remains in a hospital. Marks on bullet casings connected the shootings to Petgrave, police said.
“Family tried numerous times to get [Scott] to move home, but he preferred to live on the streets,” Lauderhill Police Lt. Michael Santiago said Friday. “A homeless advocate group got him housing, but he didn’t want to share it with a roommate and walked away from the facility.”
Scott’s sister, Wilma Collins of Houston, said her brother grew up in Texas and spent most of his time near Lake Charles, La., working in a family bricklaying business before coming to South Florida in the early 1980s. He would travel back and forth between the states, she said.
“Independent to a fault, he’d rather live on the streets than in the facility,” Collins said. “He stayed with his son in Louisiana for a while. I think he was so used to being on the street, he was comfortable there, I guess.” She last saw her brother about two years ago and said he had been living in South Florida with a friend who was shot dead in the home they shared. Scott lived in shelters after that, she said.
“He was very kind,” Collins said. “I don’t think he met a stranger. Early on in his life as a teenager, he got into trouble and didn’t follow any strict rules and that may be the reason why he didn’t want to live with anyone.”
She said her brother “didn’t bother anyone. Just to hear that is the way he went, that someone took his life for no reason, as a matter of convenience, that’s just bad. But I know he’s with my [late] mother and in a better place.”
A father of five adult children, four still living. Scott also had 13 grandchildren, Collins said.
The third victim, John Jackson, 50, was trying to help fix a stranger’s car outside a convenience store when police say Petgrave shot him once in the head. The shooting happened Oct. 20 at 110 NW 11th Ave., two blocks from Fort Lauderdale police headquarters.
The fatal encounter was recorded on the store’s surveillance video, police said.
Faith Patterson, Jackson’s partner of a decade, said he stayed with her, but Fort Lauderdale Police Sgt. Steve Novak said Jackson spent most of his time on the streets.
Patterson said after Jackson’s killing that she would remember his “smile, his jokes and his laughter, playing games.
“I always said if he’d listened to me and stayed home, he would have still been here today.”
As for Petgrave, Patterson said, “I’m glad that he’s locked up and he’s not getting out. My fiance didn’t deserve to die, and those other people didn’t deserve to die, neither.”
All the killings happened after midnight. Novak said he didn’t believe homeless people were specifically targeted by Petgrave.
“I think the victims that he chose were just available at the times he was out,” he said. “To the best of our knowledge and everything we’ve looked at in the case, we don’t think he specifically targeted those victims for any reason other than their availability.”