2nd trial for man convicted in teen’s death to start in spring

Matthew Foerster was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 18-year-old Taylor Van Diest

The retrial for the man accused of murdering a young woman near Armstrong is set to begin next spring.

Matthew Foerster, who is now in his 30s, was found guilty of firstdegree murder in April 2014 and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance at parole for 25 years.

A jury found he beat 18-year-old Taylor Van Diest to death with a metal flashlight along train tracks in Armstrong on Halloween night in 2011.

The cause of her death was determined to be diffuse bleeding in the brain caused by a series of blunt force injuries to the back of her head.

Foerster filed an appeal in September 2014.

His lawyer alleged BC Supreme Court Justice Peter Rogers made mistakes in his instructions to the jury around intoxication and on the attempted sexual assault as an element of first-degree murder.

In March, a panel of BC Court of Appeal justices agreed that two of five issues raised by Foerster’s lawyers were enough to grant a second trial.

“The judge’s instructions on post-offence conduct might have led the jury to believe that it could treat Mr. Foerster’s act of disposing of the flashlight and shoelace as probative of an intention to kill Ms. Van Diest,” wrote BC Court of Appeal Justice Harvey Groberman in his decision. “The instruction appears to have been given inadvertently, as the judge had agreed with counsel that it would be corrected before delivery.”

The trial judge also failed to give the jury careful instructions to ensure it did not use Van Diest’s last text message as evidence of Foerster’s state of mind, wrote Groberman.

April 3, 2018 has been reserved to deal with pretrial matters for the retrial, said Crown spokesperson Dan McLaughlin.

Jury selection is scheduled for May 28, with a threeto four-week trial to follow.