The family of Barbara Winn, a Maplewood woman who died of a gunshot wound to the heart during a 1981 domestic dispute, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the man acquitted of killing her.
The filing came on the eve of a hearing today in Ramsey County District Court in which Aaron Walter Foster Sr. will ask to have the murder charge erased from his record.
Foster, 59, stood trial in 2008 after having been arrested, but not charged, immediately after the death of Winn, his girlfriend.
After the high-profile trial, a jury returned a not guilty verdict.
Most evidence was lost or destroyed in the intervening years, and several jurors said after the trial that they believed Foster was guilty but that the state hadn't proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.
Foster's attorney argued that Winn had committed suicide.
Winn's three children, who were home at the time of the incident, said Tuesday that their lawsuit is an attempt to make Foster accountable for what they remain certain he did.
"It seems like he's been getting away with things for so long and so many years," said Tammi Winn-Halliburton, who was 13 when her mother died. "My mother's not the first victim of his."
Foster was charged in 1974 with simple assault. In 1985 he was arrested for aggravated assault for allegedly pointing a gun at his estranged wife's head and threatening to kill her. He was not charged in that case, and he denied the accusations.
His attorney, Earl Gray, said Tuesday that he had not seen the lawsuit and had no comment.
Barbara "Bobbi" Winn was 35 when she died May 8, 1981, at her home in the 300 block of Dorland Road in Maplewood.
She and Foster had argued that night, and she told Foster to pack his things — she was throwing him out. Her children who were 15, 13 and 12 at the time, heard a struggle. Her youngest child, Tyrone, heard his mother's last words: "Oh, Bubbie, that hurt." Bubbie was Foster's nickname.
The jury did not hear certain evidence. One example was a "Dear John" letter that Winn wrote Foster, saying she would "not be abused."
After Winn was shot, Foster ran downstairs to call for an ambulance, and when he couldn't get through right away, drove to the nearby 7-Eleven for help, tossing the gun out the window on his way.
The case became a political issue in the race for Ramsey County sheriff in 2006, when then-Sheriff Bob Fletcher faced a bitter contest against former St. Paul Police Chief William Finney.
Finney was a close friend of Foster's and hired him to work at the police department. Fletcher reopened the cold case that year; Finney said that decision was politically motivated.
At the time of Winn's death, Finney was allowed to attend her autopsy as a police sergeant. Fletcher and Winn's family members called that improper.
Foster argued in an October 2010 petition to the court that he "presents absolutely no danger to the community" and that various prospective employers have held the murder charge against him even though he was acquitted.
The Foster case bears similarities to that of football star O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his estranged wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, the previous year. Goldman's father won a wrongful death lawsuit in 1997.
The burden of proof needed to prevail in a civil case in Minnesota is "a preponderance of the evidence" rather than the much higher "beyond a reasonable doubt" needed for criminal culpability.
Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522.
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