After nearly three years behind bars for a double murder he didn’t commit, David Foster is finally free.
“I broke down in tears,” said Foster, 35, describing the moment he learned he would be released. “It’ll take time to understand I’m free, but I’m doing okay.”
Foster was arrested in July 2012 for a shooting outside the Shack nightclub in Miami-Dade. Prosecutors charged Foster and Periquo Taylor — who fled to the Bahamas — with the murders. Foster insists he was only trying to break up a fight that night.
An eyewitness account wrongly accused Foster of carrying a handgun. It took two years and expert testimony proving no handgun was involved for prosecutors to drop the charges.
“I think once the state attorney’s office saw the evidence and reconsidered, they did the right thing,” said Foster’s attorney, Jonathan Jordan.
“This case never should’ve been filed,” added attorney Andrew Rier.
The wrongful incarceration cost Foster dearly. He missed seeing his daughter grow from a baby to a young child and was unable to help his mother battle colon cancer.
“Before I got locked up, I had a life — an apartment, a car, paying my bills,” Foster said. “Now, I have to start from scratch.”
Foster was released March 19, just before his trial was set to begin — a trial that could have sent him to prison for life.
Authorities are now focused on locating Taylor, who remains at large and is accused of carrying out the killings with an AK-47.
