Phila. kidnapping suspect is released after acquittal

The only person charged in the 2006 disappearance of Shamari Taylor was free last night after a Philadelphia jury acquitted him of all charges in the kidnapping of the son of State Rep. John Myers.

Kenneth Tuck, a tall, stocky man with a shaved head and long, bushy beard, smiled broadly and embraced his attorney, Gary Silver, several times after the verdict.

"He will be released this evening after two years in jail for a crime he did not commit, and he is excited to be going home to see his family," Silver said.

Tuck, 36, of West Philadelphia, was quickly removed from the courtroom by sheriff's deputies to go back to Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility to be processed and reclaim personal possessions.

The 12-member Common Pleas Court jury retired Friday afternoon and deliberated 20 hours before returning not-guilty verdicts at 2:20 p.m. yesterday. He was acquitted on all nine charges, including kidnapping, robbery, criminal conspiracy and gun violations, involving Taylor, whose father is a Philadelphia Democrat.

It was Tuck's second trial - the first ended last year in a hung jury - involving the Aug. 26, 2006, late-night disappearance and apparent murder of Taylor, 26, in what trial witnesses described as a drug deal gone awry.

"We strongly disagree with the verdict, but the jury has spoken," Assistant District Attorney Gonen Haklay said. "We felt that the evidence was far more than we needed to link him to the man who clearly set up the crime."

Tuck denied having anything to do with Taylor's disappearance. His testimony, corroborated by his mother and sister, was that he spent that afternoon and night playing cards on the front porch of his mother's West Philadelphia house.

Tuck's family was not in court for the verdict. Members of Taylor's family listened quietly and then quickly exited the courtroom.

"I'm very disappointed," said Kathryn Gaines, Taylor's maternal grandmother, outside the Criminal Justice Center. "The D.A. and the detectives did a fantastic job, and I'll never understand how the jury came back with not-guilty verdicts."

"There is no justice," said Michelle Taylor, the victim's aunt, who asked anyone who knows the location of Taylor's body to come forward.

"Please, just send an anonymous note with the general area," Taylor added. "This family needs closure."

Myers attended most of the trial but was called back to Harrisburg on Friday afternoon to vote on the state budget. He could not be reached late yesterday.

The jurors were held behind closed doors for a meeting with Judge Lisa M. Rau and were not available for comment.

But their questions for the judge over the last two days suggest they had the same problem as the first jury: Caren Murphy's testimony.

Murphy, 23, was the only witness who identified Tuck as one of the armed men who abducted her and Taylor.

Murphy, a friend of Taylor's, said Taylor called her that night and asked her to drive him to what she believed was a drug deal.

Murphy said she and Taylor got to a West Philadelphia intersection when their car was blocked in by a sedan and van with blue flashing lights. Murphy said she first assumed they were being arrested but then recognized Tuck, with whom she'd had a sexual relationship six years earlier.

The pair were removed from their car, blindfolded and handcuffed, and taken to another site, Murphy testified. Murphy said she heard Taylor begging for his life and screaming as if being tortured. Murphy was released four hours later; Taylor's body has never been found.

The jurors asked Rau three times to redefine reasonable doubt, the legal standard they used to determine the credibility of witnesses and evidence. They also asked her to redefine the crime of kidnapping and whether the testimony of one eyewitness - Murphy - was sufficient to convict.

In the second trial, Haklay introduced newly uncovered evidence: cell-phone records that the prosecutor said linked Tuck to calls with an alleged drug dealer named Kevin "Muhammed" Andrews, 30.

Andrews, who is Tuck's cousin, was identified by one drug broker as the man Taylor was to meet the night of Aug. 26, 2006, to sell two kilograms of cocaine for $40,000.

Also unidentified are two armed men who entered Taylor's West Philadelphia house the day after he vanished. They shot and wounded his mother and sister before leaving with thousands in cash from his bedroom.

"This investigation is continuing," Haklay said.