January trial scheduled in abandoned-baby case

Kim Smith

Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2001 | 8:52 a.m.

The trial of a Las Vegas woman accused of abandoning her newborn daughter in a trash bin has been scheduled for Jan. 14.

District Judge Jeffrey Sobel on Tuesday set Monique Tucker's trial date after she pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted murder.

Authorities believe Tucker gave birth to a healthy baby in her bathroom on Aug. 6 and then placed the infant girl inside a plastic bag, which she placed in a shoe box. Police allege Tucker, a 28-year-old mother of three other children, discarded the box in a trash bin at her Charleston Boulevard apartment complex.

A groundskeeper at the complex found the baby alive, and Tucker was arrested after another resident of the complex, John Napoleon Jr., told police he had seen blood on Tucker's legs that morning.

Tucker's mother-in-law, LaVonne Tucker of Lancaster, Calif., said in a telephone interview Tuesday that the baby is named Faith.

Tucker's husband, Kenlon Tucker, 35, is taking care of the baby. The other three children are being cared for by relatives, LaVonne Tucker said.

LaVonne Tucker said that although she disapproves of her daughter-in-law's actions, she believes the media has been overly harsh in its portrayal of Tucker.

"She's an excellent mother," LaVonne Tucker said. "She's always been very attentive to her children, and I've always been very happy with the way she was raising them.

"In my opinion, this was something way out of the norm. We're still trying to figure out what happened."

LaVonne Tucker said Monique Tucker worships her son, and perhaps his reluctance to have more children, combined with marital problems, prompted her actions that day.

"I believe she went into a hysteria at the time she did that act, and I just want people to know that she's not that type of mother," LaVonne Tucker said.

Family members are trying to raise Tucker's $50,000 bail in the hope that Tucker would be permitted supervised visits with her children, LaVonne Tucker said.

"She's very sorry for what she did," LaVonne Tucker said.