Man held in 1994 murder of South Portland woman

ATTLEBORO, Mass. – A Massachusetts man was arrested Monday for the 1994 murder of a South Portland woman, police said.

Maine State Police believe Foster Bates, 34, of Attleboro, Mass., sexually assaulted and killed 22-year-old Tammy Dickson in February 1994.

Bates was arrested without incident in Attleboro around 6 p.m., according to Stephen McCausland of the Maine Public Safety Department.

Bates is scheduled to be arraigned at Attleboro District Court on Tuesday where he will be charged with being a fugitive from justice.

Maine authorities have requested Bates be returned there, and it was not immediately clear whether he will fight the extradition.

Bates was secretly indicted on charges of murder and gross sexual assault last week by the Cumberland County grand jury, according to McCausland.

DNA evidence provided by the state police laboratory enabled authorities to break the case, McCausland said.

“State police and South Portland police have worked on this case continually,” McCausland said.

Seven state police detectives and one South Portland detective were in Massachusetts to coordinate Bates’ arrest, he said.

Bates, then a student at Southern Maine Technical College in South Portland, lived in the same apartment complex as Dickson.

A friend of Dickson’s found her body in her apartment after neighbors noted they had not seen her for a couple of days.