[url]http://www.channel3000.com/news/1578329/detail.html[/url]Ring

Robbers Remove 90-Year-Old's Finger
Crooks Cut Off Digit To Get Wedding Band

POSTED: 9:11 p.m. EDT July 25, 2002
UPDATED: 9:58 p.m. EDT July 25, 2002

IRVING, Texas -- Two men maimed a 90-year-old Irving woman after breaking through her front door, robbing her and cutting off her finger to remove her wedding ring, according to police.

According to investigators, Mary Tucker's ring was outfitted with a special clasp that allowed her to wear it despite a sever case of arthritis.

When the robbers could not easily pull the ring the unwilling woman's finger, they held her down and cut off her finger, police said.


Friends and neighbors said that they were not only shocked by word of the crime, but also enraged. "I hope the cops get them before I do," friend John Smith said.

"They'd cut her finger to get her ring off, and all they had to do, the stupid idiots, was push a button right there, and the ring would of slid off sideways," Smith also said.

The blood-soaked mattress and box spring in Tucker's room had been removed Thursday, revealing boxes of old memories below.


And as Tucker recovered at a North Texas nursing home, police said that they hoped they would recover the one memory that means everything to her.

According to those who know her, the frail senior's wedding ring was her one prized possession, a reminder of the one great love of her life, who died 44 years ago.

Tucker's home now stands on a busy corner, but it was once the center of a cattle ranch that she ran with her husband.

She has lived at the home most of her life and, according to friends, plans to return once she recovered from the attack. However, friends said that they were trying to convince her to stay at the nursing home.

The front door on Mary Tucker's home Thursday was the second that had been on her house in a week because robbers had busted through it twice in as many days, police said.

Because of the brutal nature of the second robbery, Irving police said that they are putting more resources toward solving the case than they would any other.

In fact, police said that this one of the most blatantly cruel cases they had ever seen.