Police arrested a Mount Vernon man late Wednesday in connection with the fatal shooting of his 39-year-old niece, Julia Anderson, who worked with disabled children in the Bronx.
Investigators said it appears the murder was the result of a feud over who would inherit the house they shared.
NYPD officials said they took 58-year-old Michael Foster into custody just before 8 p.m., charging him with murder, manslaughter and criminal weapons possession. Police said he and Anderson lived at the same address about a mile away from the crime scene.
Anderson was killed on Monday just before midnight while sitting in her Jeep near the corner of Murdock and Nereid Avenues in the Bronx’s Wakefield neighborhood, according to the NYPD. Local residents said she worked down the block at a group home for children with disabilities.
Officers found her with several gunshot wounds to her abdomen, and took her to Jacobi Hospital where she was pronounced dead, the NYPD said. Police earlier said they were looking for a person who fled the scene on a moped.
“She didn’t deserve to die that way,” her sister, Jelisa Anderson, said through sobs on a phone call early Wednesday morning, hours before Foster’s arrest. She added that she had no idea why Anderson was targeted.
Alice Penrose, a neighbor who lives a few houses down from where Anderson was shot, said she would see Anderson outside with the children from time to time, helping load them into a van and buckle their seatbelts.
“I know there’s kids in there that can’t take care of themselves,” Penrose said of the facility. “It’s just crazy, I saw her last week."
Anderson is at least the sixth woman to die of gun violence in New York City so far this year, according to police data compiled by Gothamist.
Foster's attorney did not immediately return messages seeking comment. Foster pleaded not guilty Thursday in Bronx Criminal Court and was remanded without bail.
According to the criminal complaint, investigators recovered a cache of weapons during the investigation, including a revolver, two semiautomatic pistols, an AR-15-style rifle and ammunition. Prosecutors charged Foster with nine additional counts of criminal weapons possession stemming from the search, authorities said.
The complaint, citing Foster's New York state criminal history, also said he was convicted in Westchester County in September 1991 of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
Charles Lane contributed reporting.
