Woman accused of helping killer of Wash. trooper

Published 1:24 pm Friday, February 24, 2012

SEATTLE — A former girlfriend of a man who killed a Washington state trooper has been arrested for trying to help him evade capture, the Kitsap County sheriff’s office said Friday.

The sheriff’s office didn’t immediately release the woman’s name, but jail and court records show that it is Jessi Leigh Foster, 32, the mother of one of Joshua Blake’s children. Blake, an ex-con with a history of antagonizing police, shot and killed Trooper Tony Radulescu early Thursday morning during a traffic stop, then committed suicide with a single shot to the head hours later.

Shortly after the trooper’s death, Blake called Foster and told her he did something bad and needed help to escape, sheriff’s Sgt. Ken Dickinson told a news conference.

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She met him at a home on a dirt road a few miles away, where she pressed him on what he had done, he said, and even after Blake acknowledged that he “shot a cop,” she continued trying to help.

“She was actively trying to find a way for him to get out of the area,” Dickinson said.

She was still in the home with him when he killed himself as a SWAT team closed in, Dickinson said. She was arrested for investigation of rendering criminal assistance; bail was set at $500,000.