Growth Fuels Women's Fatal Road Rage

ALABASTER, Ala. - The two drivers had been battling for about four miles, jousting for position in the heavy rush-hour traffic streaming homeward from Birmingham along southbound Interstate 65. After one vehicle cut off the other one, they played a cat-and-mouse game, tailgating, lane-changing, slamming on brakes until they got off at the same exit.

Gena Foster, 34, was racing to pick up her daughter Francie, a 4-year-old with a mop of blond hair, at an after-school program for children with cerebral palsy. Shirley Henson, 40, was on her way home to her husband and dogs in a quiet cul de sac. But when the two cars came to a stop at a traffic light on the darkened exit ramp, Foster jumped out and started toward the immaculate black sport-utility vehicle idling behind her.

Inside the Toyota 4-Runner, Henson reached into the console next to the seat, where she kept a .38-caliber revolver and a cell phone. As Foster approached her door, Henson lowered the window about halfway and reached for the revolver. She fired a single shot, striking Foster in the left cheek. Foster crumpled to the pavement, blood gushing from her face, dying. She never made it to school.

Nor did Henson, a secretary at a prominent construction company, ever reach her home in one of the countless new subdivisions in one of the fastest growing counties in the South. She spent the night in the county jail charged with murder. Out on $50,000 bond, she awaits a Dec. 1 court hearing.

But while the Nov. 8 killing was unprecedented in the upper-middle-class community of Alabaster - consistently ranked as the safest place in Alabama - authorities say it shouldn't come as such a surprise. The county's explosive growth has turned a 20-mile commute to downtown Birmingham into a roughly hour-long ordeal of stop-and-go traffic, and guns are easily accessible. Law-enforcement officials estimated that at least half of all motorists in this part of Alabama - and perhaps significantly more - keep firearms in their cars.

"I expect there'll be more situations such as this because of heavy traffic and the guns being so prevalent and people not knowing when to use them and how to use them," said Police Chief Larry Rollan. "Everybody's got a gun."

"Both people were probably stressed out," said John Ward, state president of the National Safety Council. "Birmingham is growing, especially Shelby County, and the roads haven't been able to keep up. There's a lot of tension and pressure when you have bumper-to-bumper traffic."

But there's another reason it has become the buzz.

"They're both middle-class women, both responsible," Shelby County District Attorney Robby Owens said, noting that both had clean police records. "You're not dealing with two guys with short fuses and a lot of testosterone going on. You're not dealing with two kids who tend to overreact."

Unlikely confrontation

The shooter, Henson, is a former Cub Scouts den leader with an 18-year-old son away at college. The victim, Foster, was the mother of three children who earlier this year moved into a new home on three acres of land, where she was keeping two horses and teaching her teenage daughter to ride.

As congestion has followed sprawl around the country, so has road rage, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. It reported that these incidents have increased nearly 60 percent from 1991 to 1996, resulting in 218 deaths over that period. In only 4 percent of the cases, however, were women involved.

A study this year by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a research and advocacy group based in Washington, reported that aggressive driving was more frequently associated with the stress of driving in sprawling suburbs than in older urban areas. The analysis found that Alabama ranked third in the country for the highest aggressive-driving death rate. (This figure includes fatal crashes involving aggressive behavior, though not roadside slayings.)

Few here seem to fault Henson for keeping the .38 close at hand. "You take away someone's handgun only by prying it out of their icy dead grip," said Kevin Miller, host of the evening talk show on WERC radio in Birmingham. Nearly half his callers support Henson for pulling the trigger.

"If I'm in my car and somebody comes running up to my car, I sure would shoot them. I'm sorry, but that's just the way it's gonna be," said a caller named Becky.

Lure of the suburbs

In the mornings, Henson often left home before her husband, Mike. She would race home in the afternoon after leaving her job at Harbert Corp. to train her two beloved labs, JD and Emma, for competition.

Henson moved with Mike and their son, Steven, to Alabaster about a decade ago. It was a time when many office employees of Bell South, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and regional medical centers were crowding into Alabaster.

Foster was a transplant from San Diego. Barely 20 at the time, she fell in love with her future husband, Chris, during a monthlong vacation in Alabama and quit her waitressing job to move east. Last winter, she realized the dream of a dozen years, a neat three-bedroom prefabricated house on three acres of land in Shelby County. There, she would keep her horses, Daisy and Lady.

"She finally got what she wanted. She finally got it all in order," said brother-in-law Shane Foster, 22.

While Gena and Chris Foster divorced two years ago, they remained close. On the fateful Monday, with her Chevy Blazer in the shop for transmission repairs, it was her ex-husband's black Pontiac Grand Prix Gena was driving.

The fatal commute

That evening, Foster left her job at CMS Field Products at about 5 p.m. Coworkers said she was in a particularly jolly mood.

As Foster headed out into the dusk toward I-65, Henson was leaving her job at Harbert Corp. less than two miles away. They reached the interstate at nearly the same time and pulled into heavy but moving traffic.

About two exits to the south, Foster jutted into the left lane, cutting in front of Henson and almost clipping the SUV, said Jim Hardy, who was driving behind them. Henson seemed to flash her headlights at Foster, he said. Foster hit her brakes. "They go back and forth. The 4-Runner pulls up on the bumper and then gets back," Hardy said. The contest continued for four miles, police said.

Both vehicles left the interstate at the Alabaster exit, a straight ramp that slopes upward to a traffic light at an overpass. Henson moved into the right lane, preparing to turn toward Alabaster. Foster, who most evenings would move into the left lane and turn toward Columbiana, also pulled to the right, stopping the Pontiac in front of Henson, police and witnesses said.

Foster bolted from her car, leaving the door open. She headed back to the SUV, parked about seven feet behind. Her arms were out. She was yelling something no one could hear. "She was mad. Her eyes were wide open," Hardy said. As other cars pulled up to the traffic light, Foster came up to the partly open driver's window.

Since the incident, Foster's family has figured she approached Henson to put an end to the confrontation. "Gena was the kind of person who wanted to straighten everything out: `What's going on here? Let's stop it here,' " surmised her sister, Kimberly Pedigo.

Henson's lawyer, Johnson, said she saw it differently: "Shirley thought the lady had something in her hand, a knife or gun, and thought the lady was going to kill her. The lady gets close enough where she can spit in Shirley's face. Shirley almost reflexively, afraid to death, scared to death, she shoots the lady."

Foster dropped. Blood gushed from her face, painting a swath down the ramp nearly two feet wide. Henson dropped the revolver onto the passenger seat beside her briefcase. This time she reached for the cell phone and dialed 911. But she quickly became hysterical.

She remained frozen in her seat, weeping, said Lisa Adney, another motorist who helped her complete the call. Henson glanced at the body by the door and quickly looked away. "Oh my God, I shot her," she repeated over and over. "Oh my God, I can't believe I shot her. Oh my God, I can't believe she's dying."