PORT ANGELES — Police remained perplexed by the death of a Port Angeles woman who was found dead at a bank drive-up on Saturday but said the incident was probably an accident.
Port Angeles Police Detective Jesse Winfield said that a bank employee called police just a couple of minutes after Janice Tucker was probably injured in a low-speed collision at an automated teller machine at US Bank, Seventh and Lincoln streets.
Tucker, who lived in a home near Lake Sutherland, had lived in Port Angeles for about a decade, her son Gregg Tucker said in a phone interview from his Houston home.
The door to Tucker’s Oldsmobile Silhouette van was partially open and she was partially out of the van, Winfield said.
“We are still waiting to get the surveillance video from the bank,” he said.
He said he does not believe that anyone else was in the car, nor that another car or someone else was involved.
“Because we have no witnesses, we do have to eliminate those things,” Winfield said.
“Right now we are pretty sure those things did not happen, but we have not exhausted every single thing yet.
“We will have to see what is on the video.”
Winfield said an autopsy would be done to determine whether she suffered a stroke, heart attack or other illness, but that it is believed she died of injuries from the collision.
“She had some pretty severe head injuries,” he said.
Medics had to move the van in order to attempt to give her aid, Winfield said.
Winfield said that he “can’t say” where her ATM card was.
He said he did not know at what point in the transaction she was, whether she had withdrawn or deposited any money or if she had just arrived.
Tucker, who lived most of her life in Los Angeles, was enraptured by the beauty of the North Olympic Peninsula, Gregg Tucker said.
Tucker is survived by her son, Gregg Tucker, a daughter, Terri Fuchs, and four grandchildren.
Tucker spent most of her career working in office management and had come to the North Olympic Peninsula upon retirement.
“She was really passionate about cross-stitching,” Gregg Tucker said.
“She has always been an artist.
“She put down the brush for a while but lately she had picked it back up again and had been taking some painting classes.
“She has been really into oil painting.”
One cross-stitch pattern she made of a girl in a ballet costume placed first at the Clallam County Fair a few years ago, he said.
Moe Axelrod of California, who was Tucker’s boyfriend, said she was a “wonderful person.”
“She and I reconnected after being apart for about 12 years,” Axelrod said.
“I’ve been up here for about six weeks to be with her.
“We go for daily walks on the Discovery Trail, and she was just a wonderful person, a wonderful cook, just great to be around.”
__________
Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
