Tucker Cipriano 'not a monster,' girlfriend tells radio station - Los Angeles Local News, Weather, and Traffic

Tucker Cipriano 'not a monster,' girlfriend tells radio station

"Tucker's not a monster.  If you met Tucker personally, you'd fall in love with him within five minutes," said Tucker Cipriano's girlfriend Sofiya Baskin.

Interviewing with WWJ Radio, she and another friend, Keauntae Williams, responded to questions about whether or not Cipriano is a monster.

"He's more of a person that will be there for anybody.  He don't even have to know you.  He doesn't have to like you, but he will take care of you.  He doesn't want to see anyone get hurt," Williams said.

A stark contrast to the Tucker Cipriano the public has come to know as a troubled teen with a history of drug and alcohol arrests, high on K2, who, along with Mitchell Young, is accused of bludgeoning his father, Robert Cipriano, to death with a baseball bat and nearly killing his mother, Rose, and brother, Salvatore.

"Tucker said he had no family.  I'm adopted.  He's adopted, too.  We had just that kind of connection," Baskin explained.  "What attracted me most to him, Tucker said he didn't have a heart.  He actually carved into his body a heart because he thought that maybe a new one would grow because of all the hurt and heartbreak he's been through -- his parents, his brothers, family, friends."

She says Young threatened to kill Tucker and his friends unless Tucker helped him rob the Cipriano family.  Now she says Tucker has spoken to friends on the phone and he's written her from jail and is full of regret for what happened, claiming Young did it.

"He broke Mitchell's jaw when he saw his father dead on the ground and he left," Baskin told the radio station.  "He loved him.  He worshipped the ground that his father walked on."

"He wrote on his letter, 'Dear anybody, please bring my daddy back.  No matter how many thousands of times I say it, I can never bring him back.'"

"He actually said he wanted to sue the K2 company.  He said, 'I want to give half the money to my family to pay for their medical bills and to buy my father a good gravestone.'"

The other half he said should go to a friend who he says helps troubled teens.

Meantime hospital officials say Rose Cipriano continues to improve and Tanner Cipriano posted on Facebook that his brother, Salvatore, put his baseball cap on all by himself for the first time and keep the prayers coming.

Tucker Cipriano and Mitchell Young will be back in court for their preliminary exam on Friday, June 8.  That is also the same date as a 5K walk and run to benefit the Cipriano Children's Trust Fund.  Click here for more information about the Cipriano Classic.