12-2-2010 Michigan:Family members call claims ‘absurd,’ say he used her money for drugs
The brothers of a Roseville woman allegedly murdered by her adult son scoffed at claims by the son that he killed her because she molested and picked on him.
Art and John Bush, brothers of murder victim Mattie Foresi, countered Charles “Chuck” Foresi’s statement to police that she “needled him” about his “fatherhood” and molested him since age 12.
“It’s ridiculous, it’s absurd,” Art Foresi said. “He actually broke her of all the money she had, for drugs and getting him out of jail. It wasn’t because she molested him.”
Roseville police Detective Sgt. Steve Kostenko testified Wednesday about what Foresi told him during an interview at the Macomb County Jail.
“His explanation was that she had picked at him and was needling him about his fatherhood,” he said. “And he said from the time he was 12 years old, his mother had sexually molested him.”
The comment prompted a gasp in the courtroom from about 10 family members and relatives of the victim.
Living in the house in addition to the defendant and his mother were Charles Foresi’s girlfriend, Dawn Nixon, and their young son.
The Bushes said their nephew killed his mother because she wouldn’t give him money to buy crack cocaine. They said Foresi, 38, has had a drug problem since his early teens and has often stolen from people and for years has drained his mother’s finances to support his habit.
“He would guilt-trip her,” he said, referring to the fact that Foresi often used his late brother as a tool to gain sympathy from his mother. His brother was killed in a car crash in the 1980s, he said.
Foresi was ordered Wednesday to face a charge of first-degree, premeditated murder in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens. Judge Marco Santia made the ruling in 39th District Court in Roseville following a preliminary examination. The ruling, however, was approved conditionally pending the outcome of a forensic psychiatric exam that has been completed, but which had not yet been received by the attorneys or judge. Dec. 15 was set for a potential final approval of the bind over.
A friend found Mattie Foresi, 62, dead in a pool of blood on the living room floor of her Loreto Street home the morning of Aug. 11, the victim of more than 43 stab wounds — 34 to the chest, nine to the head and more to her hands. Paul Shrum is a friend of the family who was asked to stop by the house due to suspicions. Police believe Charles Foresi killed his mother about 10:30 or 11:30 p.m. Aug. 10 and fled in car kept at the home to get drugs.
Santia dismissed a second charge, auto theft, which prosecutors attempted to secure based on Foresi driving away a Saturn car that was at the home.
Santia rejected the argument by Foresi’s court-named attorney, R. Timothy Kohler, to reduce the charge to second-degree murder, claiming that if Foresi did commit the murder, he didn’t plan it but acted out of emotion.
But assistant Macomb prosecutor William Cataldo noted that premeditation can occur in “seconds,” and Santia noted Mattie Foresi’s defensive wounds.
“The defendant would’ve had a chance at some point to say, ‘I’m not going to do this,’” Santia said from the bench. “He made a conscious decision to say, ‘I’m going to stab her until she is dead.’”
The night of Aug. 10, Foresi first went next door to Corinne Schutz’s house to ask her to give him a ride to the area of Gratiot Avenue and Six Mile Road in Detroit — an area known for drug proliferation — and to borrow her vehicle to drive there. But she said no.
Schutz described Foresi as “kind of anxious … like something was wrong.”
He immediately went to his next-door neighbor on the other side, Sherman Mace, and asked for a ride. Mace said yes, but Foresi quickly jumped off Mace’s porch and returned to his home. Mace was discussing the matter with his wife, who along with his daughter over the telephone begged him to change his mind, when Mace saw through his front window the burgundy Saturn speed away.
Police believe Foresi killed his mother during the approximately 10 minutes from when he left the Mace house to driving away in the car.
Mace said after he saw the car drive away, he went to the Foresi house to tell Charles he couldn’t drive him, but there was no answer.
Police also found a palm print on one of two knives found in the living room near Mattie Foresi’s body, Cataldo said, reading from a police report. ..Source.. by Jameson Cook, Daily Tribune Staff Writer
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