Twenty-four years after a Weimar couple was found shot to death in their home, Placer County sheriff’s detectives have arrested the man believed responsible for killing them.
The suspect, Joseph Victor Foster, was arrested at Soledad State Prison Wednesday, where he has been serving 50-years-to-life for kidnapping and raping a family member in Modesto in 2006. He was transported to the Placer County Jail yesterday, where he was booked on two counts of murder.
Foster, 54, is suspected of killing Jacqueline Barton, 33, and Hugh Cleveland Gresham, 37, at their Ponderosa Way home on Jan. 7, 1991. The two were living together at the time. Dozens of people were interviewed, but leads eventually dried up and the case went cold.
Recently, while detectives from both the Placer County Sheriff’s Office and the Placer County District Attorney’s Office worked together to solve years-old investigations, or “cold cases,” they found forensic evidence that linked Foster to the crime. This information led to yesterday’s arrest.
When Foster kidnapped and raped the family member in Modesto in 2006, he was on parole for a kidnapping, assault with intent to commit rape and false imprisonment case that occurred in Placer County on Feb. 14, 1994. He was sentenced to 22 years in state prison, but was released in April, 2005, just short of 11 years into his sentence.
Foster is scheduled to be arraigned today at 1 p.m. at the Placer County Jail courthouse in Auburn.
Anyone who may have information on the 1991 killings is asked to call Detective Bryan Mattison or Detective Chris Joyce at (530) 889-7889.
