A Woodbury man who killed his girlfriend and posed her body to look like a suicide was sentenced to 12 years in prison Friday.
Joseph Foy, 41, pleaded guilty in June to strangling 35-year-old Kathyleen Trimble, of Mantua, on a snowy winter night on Feb. 9, 2010. After Foy killed Trimble outdoors on South 4th Street in Camden, he left her body by a tree to make it look like Trimble had killed herself.
Trimble’s body was found the next day partially buried in snow from the overnight blizzard. Authorities initially believed Trimble had committed suicide, but the woman’s mother, Rita Mills, always suspected her daughter was murdered, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
Mills suspected Foy from the start. On Friday, she brought her daughter’s ashes to the courtroom where Foy received his sentence.
“I think of the horror … that she must have felt knowing that she was about to die all alone,” Mills said. “I can hear her calling to me, ‘Help me, mom,’ the way she did when she was in trouble, after the defendant beat her and took all of her money.”
In the days after Trimble’s death, Foy called Mills several times, tormenting her.
“The defendant then tortured me for five days after he killed my daughter by calling me and asking me, ‘Hey, Miss Mills, how’s it going?’ and ‘What are you doing?’ and ‘What the hell are we going to do about Kathy’s funeral?’” Mills said. “Or, ‘Just called to tell you to have a nice day.’ What a piece of garbage the defendant is.”
Trimble left behind two children, son Derrick Johnston and daughter Angela Marie Trimble. She was also survived by her parents, two brothers, two grandmothers and other family members.
Foy, who pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, must serve 85 percent of his 12-year sentence—more than 10 years—before he’s eligible for parole.
Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk credited Camden Police Detectives Shawn Donlon and Robert Perkins, who also doubted the initial suicide ruling. The detectives found witnesses who contradicted Foy’s statements to police, and on March 3, the medical examiner changed the cause of death from suicide to homicide.
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