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Saturday, Feb 9, 2013 3:30 AM UTC

Arrested fugitive is Ala. football signee’s father

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Topics: From the Wires,

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Authorities say a man who was arrested after 16 years as a fugitive for allegedly shooting his estranged wife while she was holding their 18-month-old boy is the father of University of Alabama football signee Reuben Foster.

Danny Foster, 41, was captured Friday in Miami, said U.S. Marshals spokesman Scott Sides.

Authorities say Danny Foster was originally arrested in Randolph County, Ala., after the shooting, which the woman survived. A young Reuben was wounded in the back.

Danny Foster was indicted by a grand jury in 1996 but fled the state before being arrested in California, authorities said. Sides said he was extradited to Randolph County but escaped from jail in December 1996.

The suspect took on a new identity in Miami and will again be extradited to Randolph County, Sides said

Reuben Foster — who attends Auburn High School in Auburn, Ala., — signed with the University of Alabama this past week. Foster could not immediately be reached for comment.

“Tears pooring!!!” said a post on Foster’s Twitter account Friday night.

His mother, Inita Berry Paige, told AL.com that she had mixed emotions about Danny Foster’s arrest.

“I was relieved and sad all at the (same) time,” Paige said. “I was relieved because he got caught but I was sad because some of the pain and memories that our kids will have to go through about it.”

Paige said the shooting left her with a collapsed lung and it wasn’t until four days afterward when she returned for additional treatment that doctors realized Reuben was injured because a skin infection had concealed his wound. She said she did not discuss the incident with her son until he was 5 years old.

“I’ll be able to relax and not worry anymore. I’m just glad it’s over,” Paige said.

The high school linebacker, who was ranked as the nation’s No. 2 prospect by Scout.com and was widely sought after by college recruiters, announced he would attend Auburn University in December. He later changed his mind and said he had decided to attend the University of Alabama after Auburn’s head football coach Gene Chizik was fired along with his recruiter, Trooper Taylor.

Before finalizing his decision, Foster got Auburn’s logo tattooed on his right forearm. He added the name of cousin Ladarious Phillips above it. Phillips, a former Auburn player, was killed in a shooting last June.

Foster took to Twitter Wednesday to apologize for acting like “the brat I was” at times. Alabama coach Nick Saban said Foster “felt bad in some ways by the way he handled his recruiting,” but that he thought Foster has learned lessons from the experience about trying to “please everyone.”

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