Q&A with Prosecutor Michael McIntyre
(“When the Dust Settled,” Forensic Files)
After three hours of fruitlessly combing the internet for an epilogue for “Katy Doyle,” I tried watching “When the Dust Settled” one more time.
Sure enough, the end credits of the Forensic Files episode said that some names had been changed.
It turns out that the woman who murdered her husband so she could divert all of her bandwidth to a workplace Romeo was actually named Kathleen Ann Foley.
Her husband, whom she shot four times in his sleep on July 30, 1998, was Joe Foley.
Kathleen, a 36-year-old psychiatric aide at Allentown State Hospital in Pennsylvania, probably didn’t know that her boyfriend, George Fleming, was romancing another woman on the side, but she certainly knew that he was married.
Nonetheless, Kathleen happily cashed in a $1,177 savings bond to give George, who worked in housekeeping at the hospital, a down payment on a Chrysler Concord.
While the widow was looking forward to using her husband’s $212,000 life insurance payout to underwrite new escapades with her Casanova, the police were slowly building a case against her. They didn’t believe her story that an anonymous intruder killed her husband.
Results of an autopsy on Joe Foley, a union official and recreational therapist at the hospital, conflicted with the timeline of the story that Kathleen offered. And the clothing at the crime scene was arranged the wrong way.
Still, Kathleen Foley maintained that an unknown thief took her husband’s life, and her defense lawyer tried to finger everyone from a local trade organization to a foreign terrorist group.
A Lehigh County jury rejected those contentions, and she received a life sentence on October 2, 2000.
But the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections doesn’t list a “Kathleen Foley” as an inmate, and newspapers haven’t mentioned her name in years.
What happened to her?
Fortunately, former District Attorney Michael P. McIntyre, who prosecuted Kathleen in 2000, agreed to fill in a few blanks about the case for forensicfilesnow.com. Following are excerpts from our phone conversation:
Did anything about the case surprise you? I handled it from the arrest through the trial — I was the one pressing for the arrest. The amazing thing is how she remained free for 15 months after she shot her husband. It was soon after the time of the OJ Simpson trial, and the defense came up with the mantra “rush to judgment,” and investigators didn’t want to do that anymore.
What did you think George Fleming’s role was in the crime? The boyfriend was the whole impetus for this killing. Our theory was that he was selling Kathleen on something like “go ahead and kill him.” But he had an iron-clad alibi. We couldn’t find anything on him. He testified for the prosecution. In my heart of hearts, I thought he might have had something to do with it, but we couldn’t prove it.
Why did Forensic Files use the fictitious last name “Doyle” for Kathleen and Joe Foley? No clue.
I read that Joe Foley was one of nine children. Did you meet any of the siblings? Yes, I met at least two of them and they pushed for the prosecution. They assisted me and told me to talk to this person, talk to that person.
Was Joe Foley a prominent citizen around the area? Joe Foley was well-known in the Irish community. He started a program that brought poor Irish kids to the U.S. for the summer.
What do you recall about the defense’s attempt to shift the blame away from Kathleen Foley? I think there was some kind of defense that had to do with Joe’s work life with the union. Or over the Irish program — they were saying maybe the IRA did it. I never put any credence in it. It’s the defense’s job to come up with theories.
Kathleen Foley only made one appeal attempt. Did that surprise you? It’s very rare. There’s no downside [to an appeal], nothing to lose.
Kathleen Foley served her time in the SCI Muncy prison — what’s it like? I’ve never been there, but I think it’s brutal, one of our toughest prisons for women.
Pennsylvania doesn’t list Kathleen Foley as an inmate. Was she released? No. She died a year or two years ago.
Was a fellow inmate to blame? I heard it was natural causes, nothing traumatic.
How did you like working with Forensic Files? It was a good experience. They found some gunshot residue on the nightgown that she wore, and we used that as evidence.
Are you still working for Lehigh County? I retired from the DA’s office in 2001, but they brought me back for one more Forensic Files, the Patricia Rorrer case. It was my half hour of fame — Foley was my 15 minutes.♠
The time in the spotlight was even more fleeting for Kathleen’s paramour George Fleming. It ended with the trial and the 2003 Forensic Files episode.
The only subsequent mention of him that turned up in the media was a 2006 Morning Call item noting that his storage facility items would be auctioned off to satisfy a lien.
Incidentally, Kathleen Foley is not the only Forensic Files killer to sacrifice everything for a love object who ended up helping the prosecution. Sarah Johnson made the same mistake.
They both should have listened to my old hair-stylist’s advice, “Don’t lose your head over a little piece of tail.”
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — RR
Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube or Amazon Prime
