LIZEMORES, W.Va. — A double-murder and suicide in Clay County from late September started with an argument over drugs, MetroNews has learned.
Joshua Foster, 30, of Lizemores, committed suicide on October 1, 2019 a day after State Police believe he murdered Alecxandria Auxier, 28, of Indore and her boyfriend Michael Sumpter, 26, of Burnsville.
Investigators in the case were originally called to the home at Lizemores on October 1st to investigate Foster’s suicide. Evidence and a witness shows he climbed down through a trap door in the floor of his home and shot himself in a cellar area. State Police Corporal F.L. Raynor investigated the case as a suicide.
However, two weeks later, the mother of Alex Auxier, who lives in Clay County, came to the State Police detachment in Ivydale and filed a missing persons report on her daughter. Corporal Raynor just happened to be the trooper who took the report. He remembered the victim’s name and that of her boyfriend from his investigation of Foster’s suicide more than a week earlier. He returned to question a witness in the case who detailed the rest of the story.
The fight started in an argument over drugs purchased earlier in the evening. Investigators believe all of the participants were using bath salts and Foster argued they had been cheated in the deal. The argument escalated into a physical confrontation and eventually he shot both Auxier and Sumpter in the bathroom.
Auxier’s body was discovered wrapped in trash bag and dumped over a hillside in a remote area near the community of Vaughn in Nicholas County. Sumpter’s body had been concealed in a tarp and dumped miles away in the Independence Mountain area in Clay County near a the Adonijah community. Both bodies were heavily decomposed, according to State Police, after being dumped nearly two weeks earlier.
Troopers believe if Corporal Raynor had not made the connection, the bodies may never have been found.
The investigation into the bizarre case continues.