Sentencing delayed for Matthew Foerster, man guilty of 2nd-degree murder in Taylor Van Diest’s death

A sentencing hearing for Matthew Foerster that was set to start Monday has been pushed back to June.

Foerster pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in March after he successfully appealed his conviction for first-degree murder in the death of Taylor Van Diest.

The Armstrong teenager was strangled with a shoestring and then murdered by repeated blows to the back of her head with a heavy flashlight in October of 2011.

On Thursday, a judge granted a request from defence counsel to have Foerster’s sentencing hearing delayed.

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Foerster’s lawyer argued that the delay was needed because Foerster had been moved from a correctional facility in Abbotsford to the Okanagan Correctional Centre in Oliver.

The move meant Foerster’s lawyer couldn’t communicate with him adequately to prepare for sentencing.

Crown counsel opposed the delay, arguing that pushing it back would affect Van Diest’s family and a community looking for closure.

A new sentencing hearing has been scheduled to start in Vernon on June 4.

– with files from Blaine Gaffney and Jules Knox