Affidavit filed in Oklahoma over bones found in Santa Fe

Thursday, January 27th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Police who are trying to link an Oklahoma man to human bones buried in a Santa Fe backyard plan to compare his DNA to that of the bones. Santa Fe police Detective Mark Clayton filed an affidavit this week in Creek County, Okla., for a search warrant to get blood, hair and saliva samples from Roy Douglas Foote II, a Sapulpa, Okla., antiques appraiser. He wants to compare the samples to that of the skeletal remains found here nearly seven years ago beneath a rose bush.

Police believe the bones belong to Donna Walker Foote, Foote's mother, with whom he lived for several months. Investigators think the woman was killed in late 1975. "Should the identity of the remains be confirmed as those of Donna Walker Foote, there is probable cause to believe that her death was caused by Roy Douglas Foote," Clayton wrote in the affidavit.

The affidavit said Foote told the detective he "might have" signed his mother's name on two documents -- signatures polic ebelieve were forged after she died. One of the documents is the deed to the Santa Fe house that Foote and his mother co-owned and which was sold in June 1976. A state crime lab examiner determined that the signature, necessary to sell the house, was not written by Donna Foote. Her signature also appeared in a register for her father's funeral in April 1977 in Sapulpa, but the funeral director told a Sapulpa police detective he did not see her at the services.

In both cases, Foote told Clayton he "might have" signed his mother's name. He was interviewed by Clayton and other detectives in May 1993, shortly after a subsequent owner of the Santa Fe house unearthed a human skull and two plastic garbage bags of bones. Neither Douglas Foote nor his attorney, Allen Mitchell, could be reached in Sapulpa. Mitchell has filed a motion to suppress DNA evidence. A hearing is expected in about two weeks.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Police who are trying to link an Oklahoma man to human bones buried in a Santa Fe backyard plan to compare his DNA to that of the bones. Santa Fe police Detective Mark Clayton filed an affidavit this week in Creek County, Okla., for a search warrant to get blood, hair and saliva samples from Roy Douglas Foote II, a Sapulpa, Okla., antiques appraiser. He wants to compare the samples to that of the skeletal remains found here nearly seven years ago beneath a rose bush.

Police believe the bones belong to Donna Walker Foote, Foote's mother, with whom he lived for several months. Investigators think the woman was killed in late 1975. "Should the identity of the remains be confirmed as those of Donna Walker Foote, there is probable cause to believe that her death was caused by Roy Douglas Foote," Clayton wrote in the affidavit.

The affidavit said Foote told the detective he "might have" signed his mother's name on two documents -- signatures polic ebelieve were forged after she died. One of the documents is the deed to the Santa Fe house that Foote and his mother co-owned and which was sold in June 1976. A state crime lab examiner determined that the signature, necessary to sell the house, was not written by Donna Foote. Her signature also appeared in a register for her father's funeral in April 1977 in Sapulpa, but the funeral director told a Sapulpa police detective he did not see her at the services.

In both cases, Foote told Clayton he "might have" signed his mother's name. He was interviewed by Clayton and other detectives in May 1993, shortly after a subsequent owner of the Santa Fe house unearthed a human skull and two plastic garbage bags of bones. Neither Douglas Foote nor his attorney, Allen Mitchell, could be reached in Sapulpa. Mitchell has filed a motion to suppress DNA evidence. A hearing is expected in about two weeks.