The Murder of Alicia Wasilewski

The Murder of Alicia Wasilewski
On May 29th 1996 Alicia Wasilewski, 30, left the Samaritan Medical Center, where she had had a premature child and had been nursing it. Witnesses say she got into a black minivan, driven by a man who matched the description of her estranged boyfriend, Michael Foster of Adams, NY.

She was never seen alive again.

Foster at the time had not been charged in the Wasilewski disappearance, though always suspected of it. But he was prosecuted on a weapons charge after police arrested him on possession of a sawed-off shotgun that he had dumped in the woods in the town of Ellisburg. He spent time in state prison for this crime.

Edwin VanVranken, Alicia Wasilewski's brother, said that she had told him, shortly before her disappearance, that her life was in danger.

Alicia Wasilewski's family offered a reward for the whereabouts of her remains, believing that she had been murdered.

Her remains were found eleven years later in September of 2007 by a man walking his dog along Ives Street Road. The remains provided evidence to arrest Michael Foster, 51 of Deferiet.

(Bizarrely, the remains of missing soldier Patrick Rust were found on Old Rome State Road in the Town of Hounsfield within two days of Alicia Wasilewski's remains being found.)

During Foster's preliminary hearing his lawyer, Gary Miles, objected to cameras in the courtroom. The motion was denied by the judge and Miles then waived the preliminary hearing.

Foster was arraigned on a charge of second degree murder, without bail.

At the trial various family members and a jailhouse informant testified, and Foster was found guilty on September 17th, 2008. He was sentenced to twenty five years to life on November 5th, 2008.

Notorious Jefferson County Crime