Drunk Driving and Injuries to Son Land Victoria Man in Prison

LUNENBURG – Wesley Eldridge Tucker, Jr., a 39-year-old man of 6684 Crymes Road, Victoria, Virginia, was sentenced to an active sentence of two and a half years in prison recently in Lunenburg County Circuit Court as a result of drunken driving and causing serious injuries to his six-year-old son when he wrecked his truck.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Robert Clement said Judge J. William Watson, Jr. made very poignant comments to Tucker, among them, after referring to the near-death of Tucker’s son, “If you can take a drink after this, then you are beyond hope.”  He also said that even if he imposed the maximum sentence of more than 15 years for Tucker to serve, he would still be the luckiest man on Earth since his son survived the crash.

Clement said that in his closing argument, he emphasized that Tucker’s child had been thrown from the truck, and suffered several skull fractures, spending weeks in the hospital where he had been taken by helicopter. Clement also argued that although Tucker was relying upon his acceptance of responsibility as a mitigating factor, when he carried his child in his arms to a nearby house, he repeatedly insisted that the resident take him to his father’s house instead of calling 911.  When the resident refused, he then used the resident’s phone to call his father, not the Rescue Squad.  The resident said the child was shaking and seizing and throwing up.  He also said Tucker was stumbling and smelled strongly of beer. He said Tucker asked him several times for beer.

Virginia State Trooper Jonathan Davis worked the investigation on December 3, 2019 and reported that the single vehicle crash happened about 10:00 p.m. on Mays Road off of Double Bridges Road.  The Dodge pickup truck was resting against a tree.  Tucker told the trooper, “I did it.  I’m guilty. Take me to jail.” Tucker said he had consumed “a few drinks,” but would not say how many.  

Trooper Davis found several empty 16-ounce Coors Light beer cans in the ditch line.  A car seat was in the front seat, but unsecured, and by law should have been in the back seat.  The mother of the child, Kristen Crenshaw, gave a statement that she had told Tucker several times that her son was not supposed to be riding in the front seat and needed to be in the back seat.  She said he would not pay attention to her.

In his interview with Trooper Davis, Tucker said he had supper in Farmville about 6:00 p.m. and consumed three 12-ounce Coors Light beers. He said he came home between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. and had a few more beers, but would not say how many.  He said his son asked to go to the hunt club, so he took him.  He said he did not remember going into the ditch on the left side of Mays Rd., but did remember snatching the steering wheel to the right, then the truck started rolling.  He said he must have blacked out or fallen asleep at the wheel.

He said he could not find his son in the truck, and found him lying on the ground on a dirt logging path across the road from where the truck had crashed.  The trooper said he learned from the hospital that the son had several skull fractures, but no internal injuries.  

Clement said he also recited Tucker’s  past criminal record ,  including felony convictions of Hit and Run in 2002,  Possession of Firearm by a Felon, and Unlawfully Shoot at Occupied Building in 2006 in Henrico County, and misdemeanors of Assault and Battery of a Family Member, Damaging Phone to Prevent Summoning Law Enforcement, and Assault in Nottoway County in 2017, a second conviction of Damaging Phone to Prevent Summoning Law Enforcement in Nottoway in 2018, and Destruction of Property in Lunenburg in 2019.  

In total Tucker received 16 and a half years on the convictions, with all suspended except two years and six months, subject to conditions of good behavior, substance abuse screening and follow-up, supervised probation, abstaining from and not possessing or consuming alcohol or illegal drugs.