A Mount Vernon woman and her uncle – who decades ago fatally shot the father of football star Ray Rice – were embroiled in a fight over ownership of their home when he allegedly shot her to death in the Bronx.
The fight first led to Julia Anderson’s arrest last year after Michael Foster claimed that she had forged his name on a deed for the family’s home at 18 Bell Avenue. And when that criminal case was dropped months later she sued Westchester County in federal court, alleging malicious prosecution by the county District Attorney’s Office.
Late on Monday, July 13, as Anderson was approaching her car after leaving a group home where she worked, she was shot multiple times at Murdock and Nereid avenues by a man who then drove off on a moped.
Foster, 58, was arrested two nights later on charges of second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter and second- and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He was arraigned in Bronx Criminal Court on Thursday and ordered held without bail.
NYPD detectives executed a search warrant at the Mount Vernon home on Wednesday and recovered a revolver, two semi-automatic pistols, a Bush Master AR-15 style assault rifle and ammunition, according to the criminal complaint filed in court.
The shooting occurred half a mile from the family’s home, on a dead-end street near the Bronx border.
It is still listed on the Mount Vernon assessment roll as owned by Aston and Icilda Foster, who bought it in 1978. They were Michael Foster’s parents and Anderson’s maternal grandparents. Aston Foster died at the age of 76 in 2005 and Icilda three years ago when she was 82.
Westchester land records show that in 2017, Icilda deeded the home to Michael Foster, Anderson and Beverley Foster, Anderson’s mother. Another deed filed last year listed all three as the owners with language that the new deed “reflects an internal agreement among the listed parties to formalize and reaffirm legal ownership while removing previous record holders.”
It was that deed that led to a misdemeanor charge in April 2025 accusing Anderson of forging the signatures of her uncle and mother. The criminal case was dropped in late summer because the complainant, Foster, stopped cooperating with prosecutors, the Westchester DA’s Office said.
In her pro se federal lawsuit filed in October, Anderson faulted the prosecutor and two DA investigators for pursuing a criminal case against her “not through evidence or probable cause but through the unvetted statements of a known felon with a violent criminal history and a personal vendetta.”
Westchester court records show Foster was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in a non-jury trial in 1991 after initially being charged with murder in the 1988 fatal shooting of Calvin Reed in Mount Vernon. He was sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison and denied release three times before being paroled after nearly eight years.
Reed, a body builder and supermarket stock clerk, was the father of Ray Rice, who was a toddler at the time and went on to become a star running back for New Rochelle High School, Rutgers University and the Baltimore Ravens.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Exclusive| Fight over Mount Vernon home deed ended with fatal shooting
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News | USA TODAY Network
