Warren Tucker is heading to prison for a manslaughter conviction for a second time — this time for a stabbing prosecuting attorneys allege was over a broken necklace.
Tucker, 35, of Columbus’ East Side, pleaded guilty on Friday in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to voluntary manslaughter with a repeat violent offender specification as part of a plea agreement to avoid a murder trial scheduled for this week. Tucker admitted he fatally stabbed 34-year-old Clyde Woods Jr. during a 2021 fight at a Far East Side strip club.
Judge Sheryl Munson immediately sentenced Tucker to 19 years to 24½ years in prison, as recommended by prosecutors and Tucker’s attorney in a plea agreement.
Tucker previously went to prison for a decade after pleading guilty in 2010 to voluntary manslaughter in the 2009 fatal shooting of Kendall W. Freeman.
Woods was co-owner of the Double Take Bar & Grill in the Brewery District and an incident the night before at that bar precipitated the stabbing, said Assistant Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Jason Manning, who was for 14 years director of the office’s gang unit, since renamed the major crimes unit.
A bouncer at the bar broke a chain necklace on Tucker’s neck, and Tucker wanted the Double Take’s owners to pay for it, according to Manning.
Tucker’s defense attorney, Joseph R. Landusky II, told The Dispatch that a bouncer severely beat Tucker, but Woods had nothing to do with that.
Sometime between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. on June 12, 2021, Tucker confronted Woods inside the Confidential Gentlemen’s Club on Lake Club Drive on the Far East Side, according to Manning.
A fight broke out between multiple individuals, and during the melee Tucker stabbed Woods four times, Manning said.
If the case had gone to trial, Landusky said he intended to argue Tucker acted in self-defense, a defense that The Dispatch has reported has become increasingly popular in murder trials in Columbus.
Woods was transported by medics to a hospital in critical condition, where he later died around 6 a.m. Manning said Woods’ family supported the plea agreement.
The stabbing was one of four homicides at the Confidential Gentlemen’s Club in recent years.