Grieving mother recalls sons who drowned in pool
| Thursday, Mar 18 2010 08:18 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Mar 18 2010 08:18 PM
Donations may be made to The Tucker Funeral Expense Fund at any branch of Kern Schools Federal Credit Union. The account number is 2471890.
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Michele Criddle, left, comforts her sister Candiace Tucker as she talks about her children Marcus, 4, and Micah in Michele's kitchen in Bakersfield on Thursday afternoon.
Photo courtesy of the Tucker family Candiace Tucker with her children Marcus Nevaeh Tucker, 4, and Micah Emmanuel Tucker, 1, in this August 15 photo from last year.
The nicknames of the two drowned children say a lot about who they were.
The 1-year-old, Micah Emmanuel Tucker, went by "Kool-Aid." Think of the smile on the Kool-Aid package.
The 4-year-old, Marcus Nevaeh Tucker, was "Curious George."
"He just talks and talks and talks. Mommy this and mommy that. If you don't answer right away, he just asks a whole load of questions."
That's what their grieving, tear-filled mother, 23-year-old Candaice Tucker, said Thursday about her children who drowned Wednesday in a backyard pool as they were in the care of her roommates, Colt Powers, 21, and Joshua Valenzuela, 22.
Bakersfield police would not release the names of the men, but distinguished them by their ages. The names came from the mother and the men confirmed they were at the home. Powers was watching the children as Valenzuela slept in a house owned by Valenzuela's foster parents. The men and the mother have been at that home several times before and the men have watched the children before without any problems, Tucker said.
Powers told police he went to use the bathroom, leaving the boys in the den. When he returned, he couldn't find the children and looked in the house first and then outside when he found them in the pool, police reported. He pulled them from the pool and called 911, following a dispatcher's instructions on how to revive them.
The boys later died at separate hospitals.
"I feel sorry it happened," Powers said Thursday. "They were bright young boys. It was an accident."
Asked how long the boys were out of his sight, he said, "It wasn't very long. I send my condolences out to the families of the boys. That's all I'm going to say."
Valenzuela said he loved the boys and bought them car seats to help make them safe. He said he was asleep when the boys went in the pool, but he feels "it was an accident. The first rule at my mother's house was no kids in the backyard. I wish I could rewind that day. It hurts me," he said.
Tucker said she didn't want to use the words that came to her when she was asked how she was feeling about her roommates. "I think they should go to prison," was all she would say.
Police are still investigating the incident and plan to send their reports to the Kern County District Attorney's staff for review.
Tucker, a teacher's aide in the Bakersfield City School District, did talk about her children. "My kids were my whole life," she said.
Both demanded a lot of attention and she said she gave it to them. That left her spent and she turned over her children to her roommates the night before to give herself a break, she said.
She said she had no reason to fear that her children would not be kept safe. She said when her children tried to go to the pool at the house before, "I was always on top of it."
The older boy was a bundle of energy who loved to listen to the late pop singer Michael Jackson "and tried to do the moon walk" that Jackson was so famous for. He also liked the rapper Lil Wayne and his songs "Pop Bottles" and "Milli." Whenever he heard one of the rapper's songs, he'd call out, "Mom, it's Lil Wayne. I want to listen."
Marcus also "liked to play with pens," his mother said. "Oh, my Lord, on my walls. I still haven't taken it off my walls and I probably won't now. Because my babies are not breathing now" and it will be a memory for her.
One of the only times her elder boy settled down was to watch "SpongeBob SquarePants" cartoons on television, mom said.
Marcus seemed to understand that children could be a bit exasperating at times. "His new saying was, 'Micah, you're getting on my nerves,'" his mother recalled with a smile about how the older son sometimes felt about his 20-month old baby brother.
Micah "is mommy's boy," his mother said. "He loved to eat. He would eat everything. He liked vegetables. And after he would eat, he wanted to go to sleep."
He too had a favorite game. "He would open a kitchen cupboard door and take all the pots and pans out and then close it," mom said.
He learned to get out of his play pen. "It was funny to see him with one leg out and one leg in," she recalled. "'Almost out, momma,' he would say."
And true to his Kool-Aid nickname, "he was always smiling," his mother said.
The morning of the drownings, Tucker was at the east Bakersfield home she shared with the roommates. She said she got a call from Valenzuela, who told her that Powers woke him up "saying the kids were in the pool."
She tried to call Powers and when he finally answered, he said the police and ambulance were leaving. She wasn't sure what happened. "I was feeling lost, like I'm feeling now," she said.
A police officer called her and told her to go to Mercy Hospital where her youngest was.
"I thought my babies were going to come back to me and they didn't," she said.
She's now with her sister, Michele Criddle, 35, and other family and friends. She said she'll be talking to her church, Grace Christian Fellowship on Baker Street, about funeral arrangements.
She volunteered in the nursery at the church where her sons went every Sunday and Tuesday. Micah "always clapped his hands and church" and Marcus "would say, 'Thank you, Jesus.'"
She wants her children to go to heaven. That's why the middle name of her older child is Navaeh. "That's heaven spelled backward," she said. "I wanted them coming and going to heaven."
