Photo: Image of suspect Rothrie Durell Foster| Ventura County Sheriff’s Office
In January of 2023 Ventura County resident Jose Velasquez was reported “missing under suspicious circumstances.” According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt.Albert Ramirez, when his remains were later recovered, homicide investigators gathered enough evidence to implicate 38-year-old Camarillo resident Rotherie Durell Foster as the individual responsible for Velasquez’s death.
That suspicion led to Foster’s arrest on January 13, 2023; he has been sitting in Ventura County Jail since that time awaiting trial on a charge of murder.
While Foster has been in custody, another investigation into the unsolved January 10, 2022 murder of 74-year-old Bill Dean Levy which occurred in his residence has been ongoing. Conducted by VCSD Major Crimes Bureau detectives working hand-in-hand with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, the D.A.’s Bureau of Investigation, and the Los Angeles Police Department, research into the Levy murder scene evidence lead to the determination that Foster is “responsible” for that killing as well.
On May 20th, Foster—while in custody—was arrested once again and newly charged with the murder of Levy. He remains in custody on a no-bail hold awaiting what will now be a pair of murder trials.
