A Father’s Agony at Turning In His Son

Two awards naming Bill Foster parent of the year and an unshakable faith that has kept him sober for two decades couldn’t prepare the 62-year-old Willowbrook man for the desperate choice he faced: Protect his troubled, youngest son as he had always done or provide dignity for a little girl he had barely met.

On Wednesday, his decision led a team of investigators to chisel the body of 3-year-old Milan Anjonet Scott Wilson out of a 190-pound chunk of concrete, ending a disturbing mystery that began six months ago.

Milan was last seen in December in Gardena, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Peavy. The girl lived with her mother, Rakeisha Scott, and Foster’s son, Randy, a troubled wannabe rapper who had a history of criminal behavior and emotional problems, his father and investigators said.

Randy Foster and Scott, who had known each other for 15 months, bounced from motel to motel in Gardena before moving into a rundown Long Beach apartment complex with an infant son three months ago, Peavy said. By that time, Milan wasn’t with them.

Scott and Randy Foster, both 22, were arrested on suspicion of murder Tuesday night after investigators discovered the entombed body in the trunk of a car parked behind Bill Foster’s house. The next day, the concrete block was taken to the county coroner’s office, where it was X-rayed. Once they determined a body was inside, technicians broke apart the block with hammers to reach the body, which was naked, said coroner’s spokesman Scott Carrier.

The cause of death was not immediately clear, and an autopsy was scheduled for today. Detectives plan to present the case to prosecutors today, Peavy said.

Without Bill Foster, the body might never have been found, Peavy said. “He did exactly what a concerned family member should do in a case like this,” the lieutenant said.

But Wednesday, Foster was still “wrestling” with his decision to call police. He loves his son and doesn’t want him in jail, he said.

The 3-year-old girl, whose name he had not known, deserved better. “Bottom line is, if it wasn’t discussed, there’s no telling where she would be--maybe in the desert, never buried,” a weary Foster said, leaning heavily on the fence around his house.

On Father’s Day, Foster’s son called him to say there was something he needed to talk about.

“He sounded upset, all broken up, so I knew it was something serious,” the elder Foster recalled. It took another week for Randy Foster to tell his father the terrible secret: that Milan had died in a bathroom several months ago. Something had made her dizzy, Foster recalled his son telling him, and her mother put her to bed. When the couple awoke the next morning, Foster said, the little girl was dead.

The couple, frightened by the death, put her body in a box and filled it with concrete, Bill Foster said. Later, Randy Foster allegedly placed the 4-by-5-foot box in the trunk of his 1980 Buick Skyhawk parked behind his father’s home. Bill Foster bought the car for $1,500 as an incentive for his son to get his high school equivalency degree and find a job, he said. It didn’t work.

Randy Foster was remorseful as he unburdened himself of the secret, said his father, who felt for his son but knew what he had to do.

So on Tuesday afternoon after much agonizing, he called the neighborhood sheriff’s station and told officials what he knew. Hours later, deputies arrested Randy Foster and Scott at their second-floor apartment in Long Beach and booked them on suspicion of murder.

Peavy said it couldn’t have been an easy choice for the elder Foster, who stands by his son. While the young man has led a troubled life, it is not in his nature to kill anyone, his father said.

Randy, who grew up near 97th Street and Central Avenue with his mother, grandmother and aunt, had low self-esteem and a temper he found difficult to control, his father said. Bill Foster, a recovering alcoholic who runs a program for substance abusers and sings first tenor with the doo-wop group the Medallions, tried to help, he said.

He persuaded his son not to join the Crips gang and to study hard at the Slauson Learning Center, for which the elder Foster received Parent of the Year plaques in 1990 and 1992. The plaques hang in the office inside his home, he said.

There were also two years of counseling to help the boy improve his outlook, he said.

Still, Randy Foster was sinking. He dropped out of school in the seventh or eighth grade, his father said. He tried being a rap artist, “but couldn’t even pursue that” for long.

And Peavy said Randy Foster had been arrested numerous times, sometimes for serious crimes, although he couldn’t provide details.

“I wonder if I’d forcibly made him stay with me, whether that could have made a difference” in how things turned out, Bill Foster said. “But he knew I was more the disciplinarian. Where he lived, he ran stuff.”