A New York man pleaded guilty to murdering and dismembering his ex-girlfriend after she left him, and police found her severed head stored in a suitcase at his home.
Damon Foy, 50, entered a guilty plea on Oct. 7 to second-degree murder in the 2024 death of Alberta Dale, 44, in Ulster County, N.Y. Prosecutors say he killed and dismembered her between March 31 and April 1, 2024, then began disposing of her remains before law enforcement stopped him.
The plea closes a case that began with a family welfare check, a missing-person investigation, and a search that uncovered partial remains, including Dale’s severed head, inside a suitcase in Foy’s closet. Sentencing is set for Dec. 16.
True Crime News reported that an active stay-away order of protection was already in place when Foy killed Dale, after an alleged incident involving a gun. Dale had ended the relationship. She had also told a crime victims unit that if she ever went missing, it was because Foy had killed her.
That warning did not save her. Family members grew concerned, police checked her home, and a missing-person case followed. The next day, investigators recovered her remains.
During the search of Foy’s home, officers opened a suitcase in a closet and found what prosecutors later described in court papers.
Prosecutors stated:
"Officers opened the defendant’s suitcase and found Alberta Dale’s partial dismembered remains, including her severed head.... The remaining portions of her dismembered body were not located during the execution of the search warrant."
Fox News reported that the suitcase also contained a flower, and that Foy whispered a confession as investigators worked the scene. Court documents cited in that coverage record him saying he killed her.
Foy told officers, “She’s in there,” and “I killed her.”
Order of protection was already active
Dale was a mother and grandmother who worked as a certified nursing assistant. Her daughter, Chastity Fox, later described her as a steady force for the people around her even when her own life was under strain.
Fox said:
"My mom was a fierce, unshakable, full-of-fire woman yet had a presence that could calm any storm.... She had a way of making anyone feel at ease even when her own world felt heavy or unfair."
Two months before the killing, Dale posted on Facebook: “Do you ever wish there was an erase button for your head and heart? I just want to forget.” The post sat in plain view while the relationship history that produced it remained unresolved.
Foy’s record with Dale included prior domestic violence and the stay-away order that was still binding when he killed her. Paper protection did not stop the crime. That gap sits at the center of this case, much as it does in other brutal domestic killings covered in cases like a California breakup revenge murder plea.
Ulster County District Attorney Emmanuel C. Nneji did not soften the point after the guilty plea. He framed Foy’s conduct as the purest form of domestic violence: total disregard for another person’s life and dignity.
Nneji said:
"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. We must recognize in our laws the rights of victims of domestic violence to be physically, psychologically, and emotionally safe from their tormentors and the dangers specifically targeted for them, and demand procedures that actually protect victims for real, not just on paper."
Police stopped him while he disposed of remains
According to the district attorney’s account, Foy killed and dismembered Dale over that March 31, April 1 window and was still disposing of remains when officers intervened. The search that followed recovered only part of her body. Other portions were not found when the warrant was executed.
The New York Post reported the killing occurred in Kerhonkson, and that Foy later told police he loved Dale but claimed she had played him “like a sucker.” He is expected to face 23 years to life at the December sentencing.
The sequence is blunt. Breakup. Existing protection order. Prior warning to a crime victims unit. Family alarm. Welfare check. Missing-person case. Suitcase in a closet. Guilty plea to second-degree murder.
Body-disposal cases keep landing in courtrooms for the same reason: the killer tries to erase the victim and fails. Readers have seen that pattern in a Minnesota case where a father dumped his teenage son’s body in a landfill and still faced a murder verdict.
Dale had already named her killer
Dale’s earlier statement to the crime victims unit stripped away any mystery about who she feared. She told them that if she went missing, Foy had killed her. When she did go missing, that is exactly what investigators found.
That kind of prior warning should force systems to move faster and hold tighter. Orders of protection, victim reports, and family alerts only matter if agencies treat them as live risk, not paperwork. The same demand for real accountability runs through other extreme violence cases, including a Fort Bragg soldier sentenced to life for killing his toddler daughter.
Foy is 50. Dale was 44. She leaves children and grandchildren. He leaves a signed plea and a sentencing date.
Court records and charging histories in related coverage often show how prior violence foreshadows the next crime. That is a familiar thread in reporting on a Hollywood triple-murder suspect with a prior murder conviction as well.
On Dec. 16, a judge will impose the sentence for second-degree murder. The expected range reported after the plea is 23 years to life. The remaining unrecovered portions of Dale’s body were not located during the search that found her head.
No order of protection is worth the paper it is printed on if the man it names can still kill, cut apart, and pack away the woman it was supposed to shield. Accountability after the fact is necessary. Protection that works in time is the point.
