Kansas man sentenced in murder of longtime girlfriend on cruise ship headed to Bahamas
A Topeka man who pleaded guilty to murdering his longtime girlfriend on a cruise ship in 2018 will spend 12 years in federal prison.
Eric Newman, 55, was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Kansas for the second-degree murder of 50-year-old Tamara Tucker of Lawson, Missouri. He pleaded guilty to the crime in December.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison and five years of supervised release.
The charges stemmed from a Jan. 19, 2018, incident while the couple was traveling on a ship headed from Florida to the Bahamas called the Carnival Elation.
Just after midnight, when the ship was about 30 nautical miles from New Smyrna Beach, the couple allegedly began arguing. Newman, prosecutors alleged, strangled Tucker and pushed her over a balcony railing.
She fell from their room on the 13th deck to the 11th deck and died from blunt force trauma as a result of the fall, prosecutors said.
“This is a sad tale of intimate partner violence,” said U.S. District Attorney for Kansas Stephen McAllister at a news conference following the sentencing. He was joined by Tucker’s family.
An obituary indicated Tucker died days after her 50th birthday. McAllister said Wednesday the cruise had been apresent from her family.
Tucker had a son and was a professor of social work at Park University. Before that, she served as a program director of the Child Abuse Prevention Association in the Kansas City area.
At the news conference, her family called for better domestic violence policies, including a national registry of offenders.
“Tamara was an advocate for everyone else,” Bo Tucker, her brother, said. “She took care of people.
“Our justice system does not take domestic abuse seriously.”
Bo Tucker said Newman had been arrested previously for domestic battery, unknown to the family until after Tamara’s death.
McAllister spoke on the need for preventative programs to reduce domestic violence, such as teaching safe relationships and supporting families. He said it is unknown if they could have altered Newman’s actions, but now in the wake of Tamara Tucker’s death, the prison time is the best the legal system can do to hold him accountable.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence the National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1−800−799−7233.
This story was originally published July 8, 2020 at 12:10 PM with the headline "Kansas man sentenced in murder of longtime girlfriend on cruise ship headed to Bahamas."
