Rutgers student on Cancun trip badly beaten

Joan Rucker said her grandson, Zeke, is a serious young man, always with his head in a book. To relax, he likes to settle into a beach chair by the Atlantic Ocean.

Two weeks ago, during a Cancun spring-break trip, the 21-year-old Rucker opted to hang out by himself poolside after friends returned to their hotel. What happened next in the early hours of March 14 is unclear, but Rucker eventually was found by a resort security guard, badly beaten.

Rucker, of Sewell, remains in a coma in a Miami hospital with skull fractures and bleeding of the brain. His parents, Anne and Joseph, also of Sewell, are in Miami.

"We're certainly hoping and praying that he will come out of the coma," Joan Rucker, of Brigantine, N.J., said in an interview Thursday.

Authorities have not determined what caused Rucker's injuries, but family members believe their son was the victim of a random attack.

"We don't really know," his grandmother said.

Her grandson's given name is Joseph. He picked up the nickname as a baby - a relative "looked at him and said he looks like a Zeke."

He graduated from Washington Township High School before going to Rutgers University. His sister, Jillian, 19, is also a Rutgers student.

"He was a very serious boy. He wasn't one of those boys who was just playing house," Joan Rucker said. "He was serious about his schoolwork. He was serious about what he wanted to do with his life."

And that was to go to law school, once he graduated from Rutgers in June, she said.

The trip to Cancun with Rutgers classmates was a gift from his parents, Joan Rucker said.

Her eldest grandson, though a serious student, was playful and introspective, too. He played with the younger grandchildren during holiday celebrations at her house close to the Atlantic Ocean.

"Zeke was one of those people who loved to sit and kind of relax," she said, "and take in the atmosphere."

When he got back from the beach, the two would share pizza.

"There's no two Zekes," she said. "He's just wonderful."