Murder Charge

Arrest of a California feminist

Speeding down the Los Angeles freeway one morning last week to drop off a friend at Burbank airport, Ginny Foat was in high spirits. Her life was brimming with plans. President of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women and a respected figure in feminist and Democratic politics, Foat intended to go as a delegate to the Democratic state convention later in the week, attend law school next fall and, perhaps, pursue a political career. But her future was abruptly derailed by her past at the airport parking lot. Two policemen arrested Foat for the brutal murder of an Argentine businessman in New Orleans 17 years ago. Said she wearily: "I thought we'd been all through that."

It is the second time that Foat, born Virginia Galuzzo in Brooklyn 42 years ago, has been arrested for murder. Her case became an instant cause celebre last week among irate feminists, who say police are harassing Foat because of her politics but offer no evidence to support their charge. In 1965, according to Louisiana police, Foat lured Buenos Aires Visitor Moises Chayo out of a Canal Street cocktail lounge where she worked as a waitress and drove him to a deserted road outside the city. Police allege that Foat and her then husband, John Sidote, a bouncer at the lounge who had been hiding in the trunk, bludgeoned Chayo to death with a tire iron and robbed him of $1,400.

The case went unsolved until 1977, when Sidote suddenly confessed to the Chayo murder as well as to a similar 1965 slaying of a San Francisco hotel executive in the Lake Tahoe, Nev., area. Sidote implicated Foat, from whom he was divorced in the late 1960s, in both crimes. Remarried and living in a Los Angeles suburb, Foat was arrested for the first time on May 25, 1977, for the Nevada murder. At the trial in Carson City, however, Sidote abruptly refused to testify against Foat, and the judge released her for lack of evidence. Louisiana police promptly rebooked her as a suspect in the New Orleans slaying. But, in one of the case's many twists, no formal indictment was sought, and Foat was released on a writ of habeas corpus. She returned to Los Angeles, where she ran a catering business. Years passed, and the two cases seemed closed. All along Foat had denied any involvement. She told NOW associates that Sidote, the second of her four husbands, was a violent man who, she claimed, frequently beat her up as they drifted across the country.

News of Foat's arrest stunned California's feminist and Democratic circles. Last year she ran a close but unsuccessful race for vice president of NOW's national organization, and associates carefully scrutinized her past. Said Midge Costanza, former aide to President Jimmy Carter: "We believe her to be completely innocent. They have regurgitated this whole mess for political reasons." California NOW issued a statement of support for Foat, and is raising funds for her defense. At her arraignment in Los Angeles last week, Judge Michael Tynan refused to set bail and initiated extradition proceedings. Her attorney, Robert Tuller, said Foat would fight extradition and plead innocent. He questioned the timing of the arrest, saying that police in Louisiana and Los Angeles have known Foat's identity all along. Police deny that claim. Said Detective Warren Egger of the Los Angeles fugitive section: "Until ten days ago, we didn't know Galuzzo and Foat were the same person. In this business, it is not uncommon to have the wanted person living right under your nose." This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.