Damon Foy, a 50-year-old upstate New York man, has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for killing and dismembering his ex-girlfriend Alberta Dale shortly after she broke up with him.
Court records and police findings show Dale’s severed head was recovered from a suitcase inside Foy’s apartment, along with a flower. Other remains turned up in a dumpster on Hideaway Lane in Marlborough. The Ulster County District Attorney’s Office says Foy murdered the 44-year-old sometime between March 31 and April 1, 2024.
Foy is now in custody at the Ulster County jail and is due for sentencing on December 16, 2026. The case lays bare a familiar failure: prior domestic violence, a restraining order, low bail, and a victim who had already warned authorities what would happen if she disappeared.
The Daily Mail reported that Foy told police Dale had “play[ed] me like a fool, play me like a sucker.” The killing followed that breakup. Ulster County District Attorney Emmanuel C. Nneji framed the plea in stark terms.
Nneji said in a statement:
“This case exemplifies in one person the evil of domestic violence. The total selfish disregard for the life and dignity of another person is at the heart of domestic violence; Damon Foy has shown that to us.”
Dale’s family in Pennsylvania contacted authorities when they grew concerned. On April 1, 2024, the Ulster County Sheriff’s Office opened a missing-person investigation. A welfare check found she was not at her home. An urgent search followed.
Her empty car sat outside Foy’s apartment even though an active order of protection was supposed to keep him away. Police also recovered Dale’s phone after a local resident found it on the roadside the next day and turned it in.
Court documents show Dale had previously told authorities that if she went missing, Foy had killed her. Months earlier, in January 2024, he faced domestic violence charges for assaulting and strangling her. He was out on $5,000 bail at the time of her death and violated that order of protection.
That pattern of prior violence and weak restraint is not unique in high-profile murder cases that later end in guilty pleas, including the federal admission by Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
When officers returned to Foy’s apartment, they found a suitcase with dried blood. He refused to let them touch it and offered an excuse for the blood.
Body-cam transcript material entered in court filings captured his response:
“What blood? Oh, that come from the other day, that was from lifting breaks. That was just from lifting f, king breaks.”
Inside the suitcase, police found Dale’s decapitated head and a flower. Other dismembered remains were later located in the Marlborough dumpster.
Foy’s own words during the investigation painted a picture of denial that quickly collapsed. He asked officers a question that now reads like a grim admission of what they were about to find.
According to court filings referenced in coverage of the case, he said:
“Let me just ask you guys, do you smell a body in here?”
He also claimed Dale had left on her own. He told police she had supposedly taken an Uber or Lyft, or otherwise caught a ride out of town. He pointed to her car and said the gas tank was empty and she “didn’t bother to move it.” He further claimed she had stolen his car and had been “squatting” at his place before leaving.
Those accounts did not hold. The New York Post reported that Foy ultimately admitted the truth to police: “She’s in there, I killed her.” Under the plea deal, he is expected to receive 23 years to life, a resolution Dale’s family has backed. Sentencing remains set for Dec. 16.
Foy’s recorded grievance against Dale centered on the breakup and his claim that she had used him. Court materials preserve the language he used about the relationship.
“The only thing she kept doing after the time throughout the whole relationship was just play me, play me like a fool, play me like a sucker, and just took advantage of the whole f, king system.”
That statement is the clearest window into the motive he offered: revenge after she ended things and, in his telling, made a fool of him.
Foy’s history did not begin with Dale. Court records show a 1994 conspiracy conviction for teaming up with his cousin to murder his cousin’s brother-in-law. In 2014, he slashed his uncle, William Richardson, in the face.
Then came the January 2024 domestic violence charges for assaulting and strangling Dale. He remained free on modest bail. The order of protection did not stop contact. Her car was outside his apartment when she was already dead.
Readers following other guilty-plea murder cases have seen similar arcs of prior abuse followed by a final killing, including a Cal Fire captain’s wife who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after earlier serving time in another spouse’s death.
Ulster County Court has told reporters that Foy filed a plea last week that will not be formally received until after sentencing. He remains locked up locally while that date approaches.
The mechanics of the killing beyond the second-degree murder plea and the dismemberment discoveries are not fully detailed in the public materials. What is clear is the sequence authorities describe: breakup, murder in the March 31, April 1 window, missing-person report on April 1, empty car at his door, phone on the roadside, suitcase with the head and a flower, dumpster remains, then the guilty plea.
An active restraining order existed. Dale had already been assaulted and strangled months earlier. She had told authorities Foy would be responsible if she vanished. Family members had to raise the alarm from Pennsylvania. Bail had been set at $5,000.
None of that prevented the outcome. Orders of protection are paper. Low bail for a repeat domestic offender is a policy choice. When the person who needed protection ends up decapitated in a suitcase, the gap between paperwork and reality is not theoretical.
Comparable true-crime pleas have driven the same public questions about warning signs ignored, including the case of a former TV news anchor who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the Halloween stabbing of her mother.
Foy’s apartment became the crime scene. Hideaway Lane became the disposal site. Ulster County Court will be the sentencing venue. Dale’s family, having supported the plea framework, will watch a man with a documented violent past receive a decades-long term that still cannot restore what was taken.
Lawful residents and victims’ families are left with the same hard lesson each time a known abuser walks free long enough to finish the job. Paper orders and bargain-basement bail do not equal safety.
Accountability arrived only after the suitcase was opened. That is the record Ulster County now carries into a December 2026 sentencing date, and it is the record voters should remember whenever officials treat domestic violence as a paperwork exercise instead of a public-safety emergency.
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