Five years of seeking Alicia’s killer

Oct 13, 2013 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

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I can’t believe that it’s already five years since a cowardly gunman dragged Alicia Foster out of her own car and shot her dead.
James Foster relives that moment every day…the pressing of the front gate buzzer…his daughter on the parapet…the blood on his clothing…the frustration of having no closure.
And when I visited him, two days shy of Alicia’s fifth death anniversary, Mr. Foster still couldn’t talk about Alicia without struggling to hold back tears.
He almost certainly would have shed more tears when he visited her tomb yesterday.
Five years is a long time to wait for closure, but Mr. Foster still hopes that someone with a sense of justice and who understands his pain would step forward with the evidence that would lead to Alicia’s killers.  He strongly believes that person is out there.
Mr. Foster’s agony began on Sunday, October 12, 2008, with the persistent sound of the front gate buzzer. He had heard the gate being opened, a signal that his daughters, Alicia, 26, and her younger sister, Marissa, had returned to their David Street, Kitty home after attending a wake.
He knew that Marissa was the one who was opening the gate so that Alicia could park her car in the family’s driveway. It was close to 10:00 p.m., but Foster was feeling slightly feverish and decided to rest early.
But the way that buzzer was being pressed told him that something was wrong.
Mr. Foster and his wife rushed to the verandah, but before they could reach they heard a loud, explosive sound. The couple then heard their younger daughter scream: “Daddy, they just shot her!”
Mr. Foster and his wife reached the verandah in time to see someone heading east along David Street with Alicia’s gold-coloured Toyota Corolla.
But something else caught their attention. Alicia lay on the southern parapet, with a gunshot wound to the right side of the face. Mr. Foster rushed outside to his daughter’s aid. A mobile police patrol was passing at the same time and the ranks took Alicia to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead.
Early the following day, Alicia’s car, PHH 2263, was found near the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Well Road, North Ruimveldt. Apart from the keys, nothing else had been taken from the vehicle.
That seemed to suggest one thing: Alicia Foster was not the victim of a random carjacking. She had been executed.
From eyewitness reports, the killers had been watching the young woman for some time. They knew where she lived. They knew she had gone out that day. They were waiting for her to return home.
Some persons reportedly saw a red car parked on the northern parapet of David Street, about two houses away from the Fosters’ residence. A man was standing near the car, while another was standing under a nearby tree.
When the two sisters arrived, and while Marissa was opening the gate, one of the men, described as tall, slim, and wearing glasses, approached Alicia, who was sitting in the car. The man pointed a handgun at Alicia and ordered her to exit the vehicle.
Alicia reportedly said: “For what?” and refused to leave the vehicle.
She was reportedly heard shouting “Don’t touch me,” when the man grabbed at her.
The gunman then dragged Alicia out of her own car and shot her in the head. He then dumped the mortally wounded woman onto the parapet.
The gunman and his accomplice then drove off with Alicia’s car.
A North Ruimveldt resident later told me that he saw someone drive Alicia’s car into Well Road, around 10:30 p.m. that Sunday. That would have been about 30 minutes after she was slain. He said that the vehicle stopped in front of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church and two men exited.
He claimed that the men then headed in different directions. The day after Alicia was killed, police officials revealed that they had a possible motive.

The former Bishops’ High School student was a senior officer with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She was the EPA’s representative on the Board of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission and the National Water Council.
She had coordinated activities on the monitoring and closure of Omai Gold Mines Limited, and had also done a considerable amount of work in the forestry and mining sectors.
From information detectives gathered, about two months prior to her murder, Alicia had been threatened while investigating an alleged violation by a business entity.
But police apparently drew a blank while following that lead.
Police also arrested an individual who appeared to match the description of the man who had shot Alicia Foster. He was placed on an identification parade, but the victim’s younger sister failed to pick him out of the lineup.
Mr. Foster says that the attack occurred on a dark night and that his daughter, Marissa, had said that she did not see the killer’s face.

Strange Call
He’s not confident that the police have been making as great an effort as they should in finding his daughter’s killers. He disclosed that the first week after her murder, an unidentified male contacted the family by telephone.
Mr. Foster, who was out at the time, said that his young son took the call. According to Foster, the caller indicated that he knew “who had committed the act.”
The lad put the caller on hold while attempting to call another family member to the phone. However, by the time the family member came to the phone, the caller had already hung up. He never contacted the family again.

COLLEAGUES SILENT
Mr. Foster said that he passed this information on to the police. “But as far as I know, no attempt was made by investigators to trace the call,” Foster says.
According to him, the last contact that he had with the police was in December 2009, when he visited Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene (now deceased), to find out if there had been any progress in identifying his daughter’s killers.
“His words to me were ‘I thought you come to me with information’. He promised to get back to me, but since then, I have had no word from anyone.
“The Commissioner (Greene) took three telephone numbers from me, but he never contacted me. I went to the Commissioner’s office and the guy who I was told was in charge of the investigation did not offer any explanation about the stage of the investigation. After the initial statement by my (younger) daughter, none of them ever came back.”
Could the apparent lack of vigour in pursuing this investigation have anything to do with the fact that the person who ordered the killing may be someone influential?
”That’s the million-dollar question…There are a lot of questions in my mind left unanswered, and that is one of them,” Foster said.
”Was this a case of a stolen car, or a cover-up for something else? That’s the big question; whether the car was the target or she was the target. When you look at the area where she had worked, all the staff resigned a couple of months after (her murder.) Why? Even the head of the organization was transferred. There are questions that should be answered.”
And Mr. Foster did seek answers from Alicia’s former colleagues at the EPA.
”I tried asking questions. When I asked what was the last project she was working on they just looked at one another and never answered,” he said.
“As far as I am concerned the case has been dropped. What they (the police) have been saying is that we have not been cooperating.” But he insists that the family has assisted the police in every way possible.
“We are still baffled about a motive. Nothing in (my daughter’s) attitude suggested anything unusual.” According to the couple, the family is close-knit, and Alicia would have confided in them if there was anything amiss in her life.
“The way we lived, we would have known. The relationship we shared was a very open relationship.”
Mr. Foster says that the anniversaries of Alicia’s still-unsolved murder are “always a difficult time” for the family. “I have lovely memories of her. She was a wonderful child. She was involved in a lot of social activities at the church, and the Leo Club.”
As difficult as this may be, he’s appealing to any individuals with information about Alicia’s murder to come forward.
“There are people who are aware of what took place. I would ask them to supply the information to the right authorities so that closure could be achieved.”
And he’s convinced that someday, Alicia’s murder will no longer be a cold case.
“Someday it must come to light. But at present, with no faith in the police, we’ve just left everything in the hands of the Almighty. He will deal with them in his own time, if He hasn’t already started to deal with some of them.”
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On behalf of the Foster family, I am making a personal appeal to anyone with information on this heinous and cowardly act to contact the police or any figure in authority they feel they can trust.
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You can write to us at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown office. We can also be reached on telephone numbers: 225-8465, 225-8491 and 225-8458. You need not disclose your identity.
You can contact Michael Jordan at his email address: [email protected].

THE NOTORIOUS
NACET GANG
Kaieteur News is seeking assistance from anyone who can provide information about the notorious ‘Nacet Gang’ who preyed on women at Linden during the seventies. You can contact me on 645-2447 and at my email address: [email protected].
(Michael Jordan)

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