By Jeff Goldman
nj.com
HAVANA, Cuba — A woman on the FBI’s most wanted terrorists list convicted of killing a New Jersey State Police trooper more than 50 years ago has died in Cuba, where she fled after an armed prison escape.
Joanne Debora Byron, also known as Joanne Chesimard and Assata Shakur, died in Havana at age 78 due to “health conditions and advanced age,” the Cuba Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday.
Byron was known as Joanne Chesimard when a gun battle broke out during traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike in Middlesex County in 1973.
Trooper Werner Foerster was shot and killed.
She broke out of a New Jersey prison in 1979 and escaped to Cuba.
Chesimard had been on the State Police’s most-wanted list for decades. A $2 million reward had been offered for her capture.
The car Chesimard and two others were riding in was pulled over by trooper James Harper and Foerster on the Turnpike, authorities have said.
All three were armed and members of the Black Liberation Army. Chesimard fired the first shot, wounding Harper in the shoulder, authorities said.
She got out of the car and continued to exchange gunfire with the troopers until she was wounded, authorities said.
The rear seat passenger, James Coston, Chesimard’s brother-in-law, also shot at the troopers until he was killed by Harper’s gunfire.
Foerster, authorities said, struggled alongside the car with Clark Edward Squire, the driver, until he was shot four times.
Once he was on the ground, someone took Foerster’s service revolver and fired two shots into his head, police said.
Chesimard’s attorneys denied she shot Foerster, saying she was too seriously wounded to pull a trigger.
She and Squire, also known as Sundiata Acoli, were convicted of murder in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison.
The state Supreme Court ordered Acoli’s release from prison in 2022, overturning previous parole denials and determining the then 85-year-old man was no longer a threat. Supporters of his release said he has dementia.
Two years after being sent to prison, three gunmen posing as visitors broke Chesimard out of what is now known as the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Hunterdon County.
Members of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground carried out the raid, authorities said.
Chesimard resurfaced in Cuba in 1984.
State Police didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from NJ Advance Media on Friday.
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