Interview with a killer: Remembering Cleve Foster -- and his victims

By Melody McDonald

Special to the Star-Telegram

Tarrant County killer Cleve Foster was executed last night, pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m.

I received the news in an email from Assistant District Attorney Steve Conder, who handled Foster's appeal for the district attorney's office.

My thoughts immediately went to the families of his victims, who had readied themselves to witness his execution three times, only to be devastated when U.S. Supreme Court justices stopped his scheduled punishment.

Finally, I thought, they have some peace.

Last spring, when I was a reporter for the Star-Telegram (I'm now the public information officer for the DA's office,) I traveled to Texas' Death Row to interview Foster.

At that time, he had already had his first date with death, before he was granted his first of three stays literally moments before his scheduled execution in January 2011.

Last night, I reflected back on my interview with him and noted what stuck out in my mind.

I remember his size -- he was huge with thick, beefy hands. I remember his heavy drawl and that, at times, he seemed almost jovial.

I remember him talking about eating his last meal, telling his family goodbye and the elation he felt at having his life spared at the last second.

I remember him professing his innocence -- denying that he participated in the rape and slaying of Mary Pal, the 30-year-old immigrant from Sudan for whose death Foster and his buddy, Sheldon Ward, were tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

(Ward died on Death Row from a brain tumor before he could be executed).

And I remember that Foster seemed surprised when I questioned him about the second woman he was accused of killing -- Rachel Urnosky, who was found dead in her southwest Fort Worth apartment, shot in the head, two months before Pal was killed.

"I have been asked not to even mention her," Foster said.

Not even mention her.

It was that statement that I remember most about that interview. That sentence stuck with me, I think, because I had also been talking to Urnosky's family, who described the anguish they felt when they were told, the first time, that Foster's execution would not happen.

"I just started crying and went to my husband," Pam Urnosky said in the spring of 2011. “We waited about 10 minutes and we drove all the way back (home) to Lubbock. We drove all night. It really threw me for a loop. ... It's just all about him."

And so, after Foster was put to death yesterday, it was Pal and Urnosky's families who I thought of, not Foster.

I was glad for them, glad that it was no longer about him.

Follow Melody McDonald's reports from the Tarrant County district attorney's office on Twitter, @TarrantDAOffice, and get more information on the D.A.'s office at tarrantda.com.