'He gets joy out of pain' Neighbors and classmates say teen accused in pipe attack often brought trouble
By BILL MURPHY, DAVID ELLISON and JENNIFER RADCLIFFE Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle
In the modest Spring subdivision where he grew up, David Tuck had people on edge.
A next-door neighbor once felt it necessary to warn Tuck that he might come after him with a gun if he harmed his teenage daughters.
A Klein Collins schoolmate knew Tuck as someone to avoid when angry.
"He gets joy out of pain," said Jason Savage. "Pain would set him off."
Neighbors and schoolmates expressed little surprise that Tuck, 18, stands accused of savagely beating a 17-year-old boy and kicking a pipe up his rectum. Tuck's friend Keith Robert Turner, 17, has also been charged with taking part in the April 22 beating at a home in a Spring subdivision near Tuck's.
Tuck and Turner, who are charged with aggravated sexual assault and being held without bail, uttered ethnic slurs as they beat and kicked the boy, who is Hispanic, authorities say.
Memorial Hermann Hospital, at the family's request, will not release any information on his condition, a hospital official said.
Neighbors and schoolmates portrayed Tuck as a skinhead who had Nazi symbols tattooed on his body and a tendency for unnerving anti-social behavior and violence.
His mother, Sharon Tuck, 54, has denied her son has Nazi sympathies.
Alvaro Rivera, who lives two doors from Tuck's home on Nutwood, said he once was forced to stop his car because Tuck was frozen in a Nazi salute, blocking Rivera, who had his wife and children in the car.
Tuck soon moved aside, and he and his friends laughed at the family as they drove by, Rivera said.
Tuck infuriated several families in the subdivision when he trained young children to bow down and praise Hitler, said Richard Rogers, Tuck's next-door neighbor.
Allegations of racismTwo years ago, Tuck hung a swastika flag above the family's garage, but it was later taken down on subdivision officials' orders, Rogers said.
Rogers and his family would sometimes wake up at 4 a.m. to rap music, with lyrics replete with racial slurs, blaring from Tuck's house.
On Martin Luther King Day about two years ago, Tuck paraded around the subdivision with a swastika flag, said Savage and Klein Collins sophomore Tommy Peterson.
Tuck, who lives with his mother and siblings, is "the neighbor from hell," Rogers said.
Peterson said he ran into Tuck and Turner at the Crawfish Festival in Old Town Spring about 10:30 p.m. on April 22 — hours before the victim was attacked.
"David said, 'Y'all want to become skinheads?' " Peterson said. "He was on something."
Some youths who were at the home where the boy was attacked later that night have told authorities that they smoked marijuana and took Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, at the party.
Tuck has told schoolmates and neighbors that he had been released from juvenile detention in the past month after serving time for stabbing a girl at a school a number of years ago, Rogers, Savage and Peterson said.
Wary neighborTuck once killed his stepsister's dog, breaking at least several of its limbs, Rogers said. Tuck deposited the carcass on a neighbor's lawn, said Rogers, who called Tuck "a psychopath."
Worried that Tuck may come after him if he is released on bail, Rogers sometimes answers his door with a handgun.
After a Houston Chronicle reporter knocked, a woman answered the door at Tuck's home and then slammed it shut. No one answered at Turner's home.
The victim, who attended Klein Collins until February but now goes to an alternative school, was injured at a party at the home of a schoolmate in the 21300 block of Glenbranch.
Residents of that block said Friday they saw several teenagers — sometimes Tuck and Turner — at the house all the time, including the day the boy was attacked. They said they didn't hear the attack early Sunday morning.
No red flags that dayPaul and Patti Downs, who have lived on Glenbranch for 23 years, said they hardly ever saw the mother, but the children were always sitting on the porch.
Neighbor Gary Kujawa said he saw a group of teens in his neighbor's front yard about 6 p.m. April 22, but it didn't appear there was a party at the house. "I saw young people sitting on porch. They were just sitting there talking to one another. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary," he said.
Nancy Benavides said her neighbor's children had visitors of all races.
"I saw the children there," Benavides said of the evening before the assault. "I thought nothing of it. There are always kids over there."
She said she was shocked by the attack, especially the alleged ethnic slurs uttered by the attackers.
"I'm a Hispanic woman in the area who has been here for 16 years. I went to (Klein Oak) high school out here. I never once was threatened," she said.
The victim was placed at the High Point School North, a Harris County Department of Education school for students at risk of dropping out. Educators said he hadn't made any close friends at the school, which has 205 middle- and high school students from the Klein, Spring and Spring Branch districts.
Victim called well-likedWhile school records are confidential, Jim Davis, senior director of special schools for the county, said students are referred to High Point for "anything from consistent misconduct to drug possession."
Administrators were shocked by the violent details of the attack.
"It's almost like beyond belief," Davis said.
The staff is collecting money for the family and offering counseling to students who may want to talk about the incident.
Students at Klein Collins — which the victim had attended for more than two years and hoped to return to for his senior year — said teens have been talking about the attack all week. Students are also raising funds for the family.
"It's like the main subject," said Michael Muratovic, a Klein Collins junior who has known the victim for two years. "It's kind of frightening to hear that stuff."
Muratovic characterized him as friendly and athletic. "He liked to play around and stuff. He was kind of tough. He was strong and he liked to show it."
Kendall Hilliard, 19, a senior at Klein Collins, said he's sure his friend of more than six years is going to recover.
"(He) is still in ICU," he said via e-mail. "He's getting better every day."
Claims raise doubtThe victim was beaten because he allegedly tried to kiss a 12-year-old girl living at the home where the party was held, authorities have said.
Zack Burton, 16, who has known the victim since junior high, said he doesn't believe it. He's had a serious girlfriend for four years, he said.
"They're like the model couple at school," Burton said. "(He's) cool. He's a real positive person — real loud, fun to be around."
Burton dubbed the gathering as a "coke party," but said his friend doesn't do cocaine and that when he tried to leave, a girl accused him of stealing drugs.
"That's the real story going around," Burton said. "I think it was more of a drug thing and a race thing at the same time."
In an e-mail to the Chronicle, Kelse Carmichael, 16, a sophomore at Klein Collins, said the victim "is a very well-known and liked student among the Klein Collins student body. News about his attack left the students in shock that something as horrible as this could actually happen in this everyday middle-class high school."
On the victim's MySpace profile are pictures of the dark-haired teenager with a broad smile and laughing eyes. He has his arm wrapped around a friend in one picture, in another he has a pensive stare. The profile also pays tributes to his favorite sports stars and musicians, and includes a photo of television star Eva Longoria.
He made it clear that he was eager to get back to Klein Collins, declaring, "I'm comin back sr. year" on the top of the page.
The space has more than 150 messages, most of them from shocked and saddened friends. One, from a friend named John, reads: "hey man, i went to see you today, your lookin good. i told you that we all love you and that we are prayin for you. i also told u that your gonna be back on that football field with us in no time."
Chronicle reporter Zeke Minaya contributed to this report.
the two boys that basically attacked the guy at the party both have criminal past. It is now stated that the mother of the girl was home.....and also that the fight was not over him attempting to kiss the 12 yearold girl..that they wanted the dope he had.
they were all drinking, smoking weed and popping handle bars. (xanax)
the mother was upstaris asleep.....and they tok him out back and attacked him and almost killed him.
both the attackers are no stragners to the courts, one had his probation revoked dure to this charge.
they are being cahrged as an adult and as ssex offenders due to the nature of the crime.
if the kid dies..................captail murder charges.
