Elisha Marie Tucker, a 34-year-old mother from Leland, North Carolina, was living a troubled life in the summer of 2013. Her family knew she was struggling, and their worst fears were realized when she disappeared. The search for Elisha ended in the most tragic way imaginable, revealing a story of a predator who had killed before and was set free to kill again.
Her death is a grim chapter in the story of serial killer James Opelton Bradley.
Elisha was last seen in Wilmington in August 2013. Her mother, Rose Waldron, had filed missing persons reports for her daughter before, as Elisha battled heroin addiction, homelessness, and abusive relationships. But this time felt different. On October 21, 2013, her mother officially reported her missing, setting off a search that would last for months and leave her family in agonizing uncertainty. They had no idea that Elisha had already fallen victim to a man who had been released from prison just months earlier after serving a sentence for murder.
The break in the case came from a completely different investigation. In April 2014, Wilmington police were desperately searching for another missing woman, 53-year-old Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk. Their investigation led them to a man named James Opelton Bradley, Van Newkirk's co-worker. On April 29, 2014, following leads in the Van Newkirk case, investigators uncovered a shallow grave on a rural plot of land in Pender County that Bradley was responsible for maintaining as part of his landscaping job. They believed they had found Shannon.
An autopsy, however, delivered a shocking twist: the body was not Shannon Van Newkirk. It was Elisha Marie Tucker. The discovery opened a new homicide investigation, with Bradley immediately becoming the prime person of interest. Elisha’s body had been bound in a fetal position with duct tape, which was consistent with tape found in Bradley's apartment, and wrapped inside three black trash bags. Investigators also found her blood soaked into the floorboards of Bradley's truck.
The man responsible for Elisha’s death was no stranger to violence. In 1988, James Opelton Bradley murdered his 8-year-old stepdaughter, Alisa Ivy Gibson, by strangling her because the television was too loud. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 1990 and was sentenced to life in prison. However, due to North Carolina's Fair Sentencing Law at the time, his sentence came with the possibility of parole. In a decision that would have devastating consequences, Bradley was released on February 11, 2013, after serving about 25 years.
Within a year and a half of his release, Bradley murdered two more women. He killed Elisha by bludgeoning her to death in late 2013. In April 2014, he murdered Shannon Rippy Van Newkirk, whose body has never been found. Prosecutors argued that Bradley targeted vulnerable women he could control.
Bradley was first tried and convicted for the murder of Shannon Van Newkirk. On June 29, 2017, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder, and he was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison. Then, on December 5, 2016, a grand jury indicted him for the first-degree murder of Elisha Tucker. During his 2019 trial for Elisha's murder, the jury heard the extensive evidence linking him to the crime. On March 26, 2019, he was convicted of first-degree murder. The jury deadlocked on the death penalty, so Bradley was automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, ensuring he will never be free again. His conviction was upheld on appeal in 2021.
