Ohio man arrested in cold case murder of teacher who was bridesmaid at his wedding

A beloved teacher found dead in Texas more than 26 years ago was murdered by an old school friend who requested she be a bridesmaid during his wedding to his first wife.

Mary Catherine Edwards was last seen alive the night of Friday, Jan. 13, 1995, the Beaumont Enterprise reported. Her parents called police the following day, after they were unable to get in touch with her and requested they perform a wellness check at her home.

When officers arrived at her Beaumont residence, “they found Edwards drowned in her bathroom,” a Department of Public Safety press release said. “She had been sexually assaulted and killed.”

Edwards was also handcuffed when her body was discovered.

The case remained unsolved for more than two decades, until this week — when authorities got a major break in the case thanks to new technology. According to a probable cause affidavit obtained by 12News, DNA from semen collected at the scene proved a match for Clayton Bernard Foreman.

Investigators were able to identify the 61-year-old suspect by matching his DNA to that of a second cousin found on a genealogy website. From there, authorities obtained more than 30 samples from additional family members to confirm Foreman’s identity.

He was taken into custody in Ohio and authorities plan to extradite him to Texas to face murder charges. He has not yet entered a plea in the case.

Amid their investigation into Foreman, initially sparked in April 2020, detectives also learned he previously pleaded guilty to raping a classmate at Forest Park High School in 1981.

In that case, police said that Foreman found the victim stranded at a gas station and then offered her a ride home. When they arrived, police said Foreman “bound her hands behind her back with a belt and held a knife to her throat” before sexually assaulting her.