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Carlos Graham was convicted of second-degree murder and other charges by a Greene County jury in February 2019 in the death of Brandyn Foster, of Catskill.
According to police, Foster’s body was found on Feb. 6, 2018, buried in the crawlspace of a Catskill home that Graham shared with Foster’s ex-girlfriend, Sadie Knox. He had been covered in cement, dirt, and gravel.
The discovery came 13 months after Foster’s mother reported him missing to Woodstock Police in January 2017.
Throughout that entire time, Graham and Knox slept in a bed located directly above where Foster’s body was buried, according to the Greene County DA’s Office.
During his murder trial, Graham argued that he acted in self-defense when he shot and killed Foster, Albany station WRGB reports. But a jury wasn’t convinced and convicted him of second-degree murder.
A Greene County judge sentenced Graham to 25 years to life in prison in April 2019.
In April 2023, the Appellate Division upheld Graham’s murder conviction. Unhappy with the decision, he made an application to appeal to the New York State Court of Appeals seeking a reversal of the lower court’s decision.
The Greene County DA’s Office opposed the application.
On Monday, June 26, the Court of Appeals notified both Graham and the DA’s Office that it had ruled in favor of prosecutors and denied Graham’s appeal, leaving in place his conviction and life sentence.
Knox and another man, Ashton Adams, were initially charged with second-degree murder in Foster’s death, but the DA’s Office later dropped the charges. Instead, the two were given a plea deal and copped to a single charge of criminal facilitation.
They are expected to be sentenced to between five and 10 years.
Foster’s mother, Bonnie Steinberg-Foster, has since created a Change.Org petition on which she blasted the plea bargain as a “miscarriage of justice.”
“Brandyn’s son will not have his father back in five or 10 years, and I will not have my son back in five to 10 years, but Sade will have her life back in 5 to 10 years,” she said on the campaign.
“Sade Knox and Ashton Adams have not been held accountable for conspiring to murder and for the murder of my son.
“Judge Wilhelm and (Greene County DA) Joe Stanzione have sent a message to all; that in Greene County, one can take another person’s life, and hide that person under their house for 13 months, and not be held accountable for their murder.”
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