Justice for Barbara

Mike Taibbi Correspondent • Profile • E-mail

ST. PAUL, MINN. - It was a tragedy that unfolded in the spring of 1981, in Maplewood, a quiet suburb of St. Paul, Minn.

Barbara "Bobbi" Winn, 35, had written a breakup letter to her boyfriend telling him their volatile relationship was all over.

Bobbi didn't know that her then-14-year-old daughter, Tammi, was awake in the bed right next to her.

Tammi Winn: Being a nosy kid, I just peeked over to see what she was writing.

Mike Taibbi, Dateline NBC: What was the thing you saw? The words or the sentence you saw when you peeked over?

Tammi Winn: She was talking about, you know, she deserves more, basically. You know? He wasn't going to be a part of her life. You know, she was done. It was over.

"He" was Aaron "Bubbie" Foster, a security guard Barbara had been dating after a recent separation from her husband. Barbara's children, Tammi, Tyronne and Randy, were just youngsters then, and they say they didn't like Foster -- especially because they'd seen him getting physical with their mother.

Tammi Winn: I could hear them arguing. And I could hear her telling him, "Let go of me." So I go into the room. And he was holding her down on the bed. And of course when he looked up and saw me standing there, then he would kind of like just stand up and back away.

Mike Taibbi: Did you ever go to her and say, "Hey mom, what's up with this guy?"

Tammi Winn: She asked if I like him, and I told her no. And she asked me why, and I said "Well, you know, why would I like somebody that puts their hands on my mom?" And she just kind of nodded, and left it at that.

But Barbara made her decision: it was over. She wrote that letter, laying it all out.

Mike Taibbi: Some of the parts that struck me –"This is the last letter I'm ever going to write you." "I will not be abused." "I'm tired of bruises." "I am somebody, I don't have to be treated like a nobody." "Strike three ... and you're out."What did you feel when you read that? I'll bet you felt a mixture of pride and relief, both of those things?

Tammi Winn: Both. Because I thought she always deserved better.

Tammi never spoke with her mother about the letter, and says she didn't think of it again until she and her brothers, youngsters then, were jolted from their sleep in the middle of the night on May 8, 1981.

Tyronne Winn: I got woke up to some argument. And so I get out of my bed. And it was loud.

It was just after midnight. Tyronne, 12 at the time, said he and his 15-year-old brother, Randy, heard their mom and Bubbie Foster arguing in their mom's bedroom, right next to theirs.

Tyronne Winn: I opened up my door and I'm listening, and then I hear a gunshot. And then I hear my mama saying, "Oh, Bubbie. That hurt." And that's when we ran out the room.

According to the children, they headed toward the commotion in their mother's room and saw Foster running out.

Tyronne: As I'm coming in the room, he's running out of the room. And my brother Randy says, "What happened?" And he says, "She shot herself." And we, we knew that was not right. Immediately.

Tammi said she, too, saw Bubbie running away from whatever had happened.

Tammi Winn: As I'm running through the hallway, he's going down the first flight of stairs there.

Tyronne: She was bent over forward, so we run over to her.

Tammi Winn: And I run into the room, and I see Randy and Tyronne already in there. And everybody's looking in one direction. So then I turn and look and see my mom.

Her mom was unable to speak, her very life slipping away from a single gunshot through her heart. The gun was Bubbie Foster's, laying right there on the floor beside her.

Tyronne: She's not breathing good, and he's out of the room.

His older brother snapped.

Tyronne: And the gun was lying in front of her. Randy grabs the gun and he wants to go shoot Bubbie.

Mike Taibbi: How do you know he wants to shoot Bubbie?

Tyronne: He said that's what he was going to do. He grabbed a gun. He said "I'm going to kill him."

Tyronne talked his older brother out of it, but the nightmare had begun. There are the memories that would haunt Barbara Winn's children relentlessly. So profound was their grief that they couldn't talk about that night for decades, even to each other.

Tyronne: It's deep in there. You know, we've gone years without talking about it. We never discussed it. You just ... You bottled it up.

They finally open that bottle with Dateline.

We set up a camera in a quiet place in their home and invited anyone in the family to speak to that camera, about their feelings, about their pain, and about new developments in the case.

In-laws....

Patti Bruce: Trying to gather documents ... gone to court houses.

Nieces…

Jackie Steele: For what?

Siblings…

Bernadette: I want Aaron Foster to know what he's done to this family.

But most of all, about their hopes of bringing a man they say is a killer to justice.

Tammi Winn: Sometimes you wonder is it going to happen. Is it ever going to happen? We will get justice for Barbara, my mother.

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