Deadly Obsession: The Ricardo Lopez Story

(Photo cred: bizarreperdia.com)

Quite a lot of us who consider ourselves true crime buffs have read a lot about stalking cases over the years. Some of us have been victims of stalking and some of us have read about our favourite musicians or actors who have fallen victim to an obsessed fan.

It's a frightening situation to be in and can turn your life upside down. I've covered a few cases of stalking here on my blog:

One of my readers suggested I write about the murder of Selena Quintanilla but I think that a lot of people are already familiar with the case and there's been a number of documentaries as well as the movie made about the case which you can find online. I was watching some true crime documentaries the other day when I stumbled across this case from 1996 which involved Bjork's stalker.

I had read years ago that Bjork, who is a legendary female singer and artist from Iceland, had a frightening experience with a stalker in the 90s but I didn't know the full details. Thanks to the internet I was able to find out a lot more about this stalker and what actually happened back in 1996 which I will share with you in this post.

As with all my true crime posts, you may find some details a bit distressing so you have been warned.

As I mentioned earlier, Bjork (Bjork Guomundsdottir) is an Icelandic singer who's featured in the music charts since the late 1980s. She was born on the 21st of November 1965 in Reykjavic, Iceland and started singing at the age of 11. She had her first taste of success whilst in the band The Sugarcubes. The Sugarcubes scored a hit with Birthday in 1987 which charted in the UK and the USA. Her unique sense of style, quirkiness, innocence, fun and vocal abilities, set her apart from other female artists. She is best known for her hits It's Oh So Quiet, Big Time Sensuality and I've Seen It All (which was nominated for an Academy Award).

It was in 1993 that Bjork's solo career really took off when she released her debut album which was a huge hit. It was also around this time that a young man, a shy eighteen year old by the name of Ricardo Lopez was flicking through the channels of his TV and stumbled across a music video of Bjork. He became transfixed as he watched the video for Human Behaviour. He thought that Bjork was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen and he wanted to know everything about her, where was she from?, what was she like as a person?

Up until this point, Ricardo had a huge crush on the actress Geena Davis and would watch her movies over and over again. He lost interest in Geena when he found out in a magazine that she was getting married and turned his attentions to Bjork.

Ricardo Lopez was born on the 14th of January 1975 in Uruguay. His family moved to the US when he was a young child and settled in Georgia. Ricardo was close to his parents and was known for being a well mannered, polite and shy young man. He wasn't very comfortable in social situations and had a small number of male friends. Ricardo struggled to talk to girls and didn't have any experience with dating. At 17 he became more and more drawn into his own world and used art to cope with his loneliness. He became fixated on celebrities and their lives and became obsessed with Geena Davis for a short while before he discovered she was getting married.

He had dreams of becoming a famous artist and dropped out of school. As much as he dreamt of becoming an artist he didn't apply to art school for fear of being rejected. He moved to a small apartment in Hollywood, Florida where he took a job as a pest control worker. He hated the job and felt that his hard work was never appreciated. His apartment was very small and hot most of the time because there was no air conditioning so he would walk around naked. His bed was a dirty, flat mattress that he kept up against the wall during the day and there were papers and empty food containers strewn about the floor. Ricardo could hardly move in his apartment due to his size and clutter everywhere. He had pieces of art that he had done, hung up on the walls along with pictures of Bjork.

Ricardo considered Bjork a muse for his art and he said that she inspired him with her beauty and innocence. He felt euphoric whenever he thought about her and likened it to feeling like he was in love and to him he was in love with her. He said he was obsessed with Bjork but didn't see her in a sexual way, he couldn't imagine himself sleeping with her because of how he felt about his body but he said he loved her like a daughter. As time went by, Ricardo wrote endless letters to Bjork as well as painting pictures of her and keeping a 803 page diary which was mostly filled with thoughts about her.

He sent her one of his paintings and would count the days in which he was waiting for her to respond. When she didn't respond he became more and more depressed and wrote about it in his diary.

Leading up to his 21st birthday, Ricardo was becoming more and more isolated in his small apartment and more depressed with his life. His family were concerned and offered to help him many times, they even offered for him to move in with them but he never took them up on their offer, he would visit and pretend that things were ok. His family and small number of friends knew that he was a big fan of Bjork but didn't think that he would be capable of doing anyone any harm, they did worry about him doing harm to himself though and his mother made him promise to never buy a gun or hurt himself.

He attended a psychiatrist appointment but withheld how he was really feeling with the suicidal thoughts and obsession with Bjork. As he continued to spiral down in his depression, things came to a head when he saw an article in a magazine which announced that Bjork was in a relationship with English musician and DJ Goldie

Rather than lose interest and move onto another celebrity as he did in the case of Geena Davis, he became enraged and decided that he would get Bjork's attention one way or another by making sure that he did something that would ensure that she remembered him for the rest of her life.

Ricardo was a racist and had an issue with black men dating white women. This was something that he already had negative views about but to see Bjork, who he considered an innocent angel, dating a black man who was a DJ and quite streetwise, enraged him.

As much as he was racist about Goldie, he had no plans to physically harm him as some obsessed people may have done. His sole focus was on Bjork and he realised that Bjork wasn't the innocent angel that he had built her up to be, she was human, she made mistakes and she drank and had relationships just like a lot of other people do.

Bjork wasn't fitting into what he envisioned her to be and there was still no response from the letters and painting that he had sent her. He decided that he wanted to end his life and leave a devastating mark on hers. He bought a camera and decided on his 21st birthday that he would begin to document and plan the end of his life and his plans for Bjork.

His original idea was to create an explosive device that would give Bjork HIV. The bomb would be full of hypodermic needles which contained infected blood.

He decided against this idea because he had no way of acquiring the items that he needed and planned to create an ''Acid bomb'' which would be hidden in a hollow hardback book which would explode in Bjork's face as she opened it. He hoped that the sulphuric acid from the bomb would ruin Bjork's looks so that every time she looked in the mirror she would think of him.

Having no criminal history and using his job as a pest control worker, he found it easy to obtain sulphuric acid as well as other chemicals.

Ricardo was excited about this idea and started recording his video diary on his birthday (14th of January 1996). He would record 22 hours in total and the videos featured his decline further and further into madness. He quit his job so that he could focus on making the acid bomb and he planned to send Bjork the package on the same day that he committed suicide.

From the 14th of January 1996 to the 12th of September 1996, Ricardo filmed himself in his apartment, often naked, talking about Bjork and how angry he was about her relationship with Goldie and that he wanted to punish her. He bought true crime books and had music on in the background throughout his videos. He explained how he would make the bomb and demonstrated what the acid would do when it hit Bjork's face by pouring some acid on a piece of meat.

He bought a gun and on the morning of his suicide, he took the completed bomb which was wrapped up in a package that he designed to make it look like it was from a record company, to the post office. Before leaving he held the gun up to the camera and said that he was taking it with him just in case somebody found out what he was doing. When he was back from the post office, he switched the camera back on and set about his plans for his suicide.

Ricardo, who was naked, shaved off his hair and covered his face and head in green and red paint. Sometime later, he was sat down with the gun and an image of Bjork paused on his TV screen. Bjork's music was also playing in the background.

At some point he had written on the wall in black paint ''The 8mm videos are documentation of a crime, terrorist matter. They are for the FBI.''

On the wall behind him he had written the words ''The Best Of Me'' on a white board which was placed there so that when he shot himself his remains would splatter across it.

In the last few moments before he pulled the trigger he admitted that he was nervous and tried to psyche himself up to do it. He said to the camera ''This death is for you Bjork. No, excuse me...uh...for you to see it. In some compensation for the pain that I have caused you and or maybe will cause...uh...Everything else in my life that I've fantasised about, I have accomplished. This is...uh...this is the last song, after this, I am dead.''

He then takes some deep breaths and says ''This is for you'' and puts the gun in his mouth and fires. His body then slumps to the floor.

Ricardo's body laid on the floor of his cramped apartment till the manager of his apartment block had spotted a discoloured liquid coming through the ceiling on the 16th of September 1996. The police were called and they were shocked at what they had found. It was quite a gruesome scene with Ricardo's body heavily decomposed due to the heat, the writing on the wall, the paused image of Bjork still on the TV screen and pictures of Bjork and Goldie on his refrigerator door with the words ''N**ger lover'' underneath.

Luckily the police quickly checked the tapes and discovered that Ricardo had sent the package to Bjork's address in London a few days earlier. They knew the package would take a few days to get there and they only had a number of hours left.

Scotland Yard in London had a system for checking suspicious packages and they were alerted just in time. They found the package before it reached Bjork and conducted an isolated explosion. They found that the device not only worked but it sprayed sulphuric acid in all directions meaning that if Bjork had opened it, she would have not only been horrifically disfigured but possibly killed and anyone else who happened to be with her at the time would have been harmed.

Bjork was understandably shaken up by the whole situation and appeared to the public as quite strong, she spoke about her son who she said she was more concerned about. Goldie and Bjork had been broken up for quite some time but it wasn't reported in the press. Investigators believe that it wouldn't have made a difference if Ricardo had been aware of this information, he would have waited for her to do something else that would have upset him.

Ricardo was that type of fanatic who would idolise someone and then snap if that person did the slightest thing they didn't approve of. Experts say that it wouldn't have made a difference if Bjork had written him back, if she did, this would have just reinforced the obsession even more and he would still have turned against her eventually.

As you can imagine, Bjork's life was turned upside down by what had happened but she still went out of her way to send a card and flowers to Ricardo Lopez's family. She quickly left London and went to Spain for a while and recorded a new album. She also hired security for her son. She said in an interview some time later ''I was very upset that somebody had died. I couldn't sleep for a week and I'd be lying if I didn't say that it scared the f!ck out of me. That I could get hurt and that most of all my son could get hurt.''

After this incident, Bjork continued to release music and went on to have a glittering career. She is still touring and releasing music to this day and is regarded as one of the most influential female artists in the music industry.


Further reading & sources:



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The Millionaire And The Mansion Of Horror | Christopher Foster | Part Three


(The last known picture of The Fosters taken at a friend's barbecue on the afternoon of the 26th of August, 2008. Photo credit: The Telegraph) 

Continued from part two, please be aware that some details included in this post may be distressing.

During that weekend before the bank holiday Monday, Christopher researched suicide websites online but gave no hint to anyone who had seen him that he was seriously troubled or planning to take his own life.

On Monday the 26th of August 2008, The Fosters attended the bank holiday barbecue and were said to be in good spirits. They left around 8:30pm. The police believe that neither Jill or Christopher spoke to anyone on the phone or online when they returned home but they do know that Kirstie went online to talk with friends.

At 11:30pm, Christopher went upstairs to check on Kirstie and told her it was time to turn the Internet off and go to bed. Kirstie send a message to her friend which read ''Sorry, Dad's turned the Internet off.''

A little while later the friend texted her to ask if she would be going back online. Kirstie texted back ''No. Dad's too close. Night Night. Love U. Kirstie X x x.'' This was the last known message that she had sent.

With Kirstie in bed and Jill upstairs in the bedroom asleep. Christopher Foster was downstairs looking through photo albums.

Some time before 3:34am, he went into Kirstie's bedroom and shot her in the head as she slept. He did the same to his wife Jill. The gun he was using had a silencer.

Christopher Foster took one of his shotguns and went outside to the where the dog kennels were. He shot each of the dogs in the head. He then walked over to the barn where the horses were and also shot them in the head.

Some of the animals were still alive despite their serious life threatening injuries. He returned to the kennels and began to drag the dogs to the barn to where the horses were. He then set the barn on fire with all of the animals inside.

He drove the horse carriage and parked it in front of the main gates where he also shot out the tyres. This was done so that emergency services would have difficulties getting to the fire.

Christopher then placed hose pipes that pumped 200 litres of oil into the cellar of the house from his domestic oil tank. Being the expert that he was about fires, he knew what it would take to completely destroy Osbaston house.

The security cameras picked up images of Christopher carrying guns and the hose pipes. He didn't seem drunk or distraught, he seemed focused and almost robotic. He murdered his pets the same way that he murdered his wife and daughter.

The fire took hold very quickly and ferociously. Christopher went back into the house and went to the bedroom where Jill's body was laid. He lay beside her as the fire surrounded them. Investigators believe that the smoke killed him before the fire did. 

By 4:11am, the security cameras had shut down and a neighbour called the emergency services.

12 fire crews arrived at Osbaston house and the fire was so overwhelming that it was difficult for the fire crew to get the fire under control. The main gates to the house being blocked by the horse carrier made things even more difficult. The fire crews did the best that they could.

As the fire fighters battled the blaze, neighbours and members of the public were horrified to see the beautiful estate up in flames and everyone was extremely concerned about what had happened to the Fosters. Because of the ferociousness of the fire, the police and neighbours assumed that Christopher must have gotten involved in a bad business deal and that some underground organisation must have done this. It didn't seem to cross anyone's mind that the family would still be in the house. They thought that they had fled the property for another country to escape a debt or something.

The bailiff's were on their way as planned to Osbaston house but were stopped on the road on the way to the estate and were informed of what was happening. The housekeeper who was due to go to work that morning received a phone call from a friend telling her that she'd heard there was a fire at Osbaston house. The housekeeper didn't think that it was going to be as serious as it was, she jumped into her car thinking that she could go and help. She was also stopped on the way there and informed of what was happening.

Enid and Andrew, Christopher's mother and brother, were informed of what had happened later the next day as they hadn't been at home. They also thought that there must have been some kind of electrical fault in the house.

The newspapers and TV stations put out an appeal to find the family but to no avail. Nobody could get near the house as it was too dangerous. Three days after the fire, investigators were finally able to carefully enter the ruins of the house where they found Jill and Christopher's remains. Their remains were bound together because of where they were laid on the bed and the room had collapsed down to the living room area below which is where they were found.

There was no sign of Kirstie. Everyone hoped that she had managed to get away, others thought she may have been kidnapped.

(Osbaston house. Photo credit: Shropshire Star) 

Six days after the fire, some tiny fragments of Kirstie's remains were found. Investigators had to delicately use brushes to move Kirstie's remains into a waiting hearse. A piece of Kirstie's skull had been found and it was from this that they found that she had been shot in the head.

With the neighbours and local public still speculating what had happened to the family, the news of the remains being found had devastated them and they thought that they must have died due to an electrical fault or that someone had committed an arson attack.

200 investigators were working on the case to determine what had happened to the Fosters and it soon became clear looking into Christopher's business dealings and what was left of the security camera footage, that he had murdered his family and his pets, then committed suicide by smoke inhalation.

Enid had struggled with this news, as did everyone else but she refused to believe that Christopher could be capable of doing such a thing. Even to this day she defends him and seems to have a lot of sympathy for him. In her mind she thinks that he did it to protect his family because he loved them and didn't want to see them lose everything.

Christopher's brother Andrew has a different take. The brothers hadn't spoken for 16 years and although there was times that Andrew did think of patching things up with Christopher for the sake of their mother, he was too scared to go to Osbaston house in case he had a gun pointed at his face. He claims that Christopher bullied him for years as a child and also sexually abused him. Andrew said his brother was a bully and a control freak who sent him a note written on yellow paper with the words ''You've got to beg and scrape on bended knee to come to me and Jill. I want a written apology.'' In response to a letter from Andrew in 1999, offering to sit down and properly talk things through as adults.

Christopher would never admit to being in the wrong about anything and would hold grudges according to his brother Andrew.

Today, Andrew is married with two children and is still looking for answers as to why his brother did what he did and why he was allowed to own guns.

4 months after the fire on the 19th of December 2008, the funerals of 15 year old Kirstie and 49 year old Jill took place at their local village church. The joint funeral was quiet and respectful with only a small number of close friends and family present. They were both buried in the same plot. At the request of Jill's family, Christopher was to have a separate funeral and buried away from Kirstie and Jill.

A few hours later, 50 year old Christopher's funeral took place and he was buried in the same church yard as Jill and Kirstie.

For a few years after the horror at Osbaston house, the remains of the buildings and the families charred belongings were still there. Police tape and fencing was put up around the estate but people still managed to get in to take selfies and macabre souvenirs. Groups of people were also said to have entered the site to pay tribute to Kirstie on her birthday each year since her death.

There were rumours that someone had left a note on the main gate which read ''Money is the root of all evil.''

In 2014, the 16 acre estate was bought and plans were made for a new six-bedroom house to be built there. Christopher's brother Andrew at the time said that he hoped that the new owners would allow him to have a memorial built to Kirstie somewhere in the grounds.

All of the remains of the house and rubble were cleared in 2011 and the site was put up for sale in 2012 but wasn't sold until 2014 after the price was said to have been reduced.

The neighbours were happy about the new plans for the site and hoped that it would help everyone to move on from what happened and also stop people from going there for selfies.

This was a really disturbing case to research and demonstrates how dangerous it can be (for someone with a certain mind frame) to come from humble beginnings to having a lot of money. Christopher spent money like it was going out of fashion and Jill didn't seem to mind the luxury lifestyle either. A number of people who knew Christopher have said that he was never a long term thinker, he was impulsive and wanted everything right now. A lot of what he had was on credit and the money became an addiction. He enjoyed the admiration and the attention that the money gave him.

He strikes me as someone who was a narcissist and I agree with what his brother said about him being a control freak. I also believe that he was a narcissist based on what I have researched. Kirstie and Jill would have lost the luxury lifestyle, there was no mistake about that but they did not deserve to lose their lives. That was not his decision to make. He wanted to destroy everything because he couldn't have it anymore and couldn't face the idea of facing people after he had played the Lord of the manor for so long.

His mother Enid, believes that he was protecting his wife and daughter and that's why he murdered them. I don't think he thought about anyone but himself. Maybe he thought that Jill would leave him if he told her the truth. Maybe he couldn't face the fact that if he took his own life, there would be the possibility that Jill would meet someone else and get married? Who knows what his reasons were but the fact that he could also shoot animals without a care in the world, was obsessed with guns and bragged about shooting up to 500 pheasants, says to me that he was a heartless person who didn't seem to care who suffered as long as he was king of the castle.

R.I.P Kirstie & Jill

Further Reading & Sources:



Thank you for reading parts one, two and three of this case. See you in the next post x

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- Stalked To Death: The Alissa Blanton Story

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The Millionaire And The Mansion Of Horror | Christopher Foster | Part Two


(The living room in Osbaston house as it was. Photo credit: Daily Mail) 

Continued from part one...

At the time that Christopher Foster bought Osbaston house, he had entered into a contract with DRC to manufacture his product. In 2004, Christopher was said to be worth £10 million pounds but by 2005 his spending was so out of control that he had more money going out than he did coming in.

There were rumours that all was not as perfect as it seemed with Christopher and Jill's marriage. His personal assistant said that she overheard conversations that led her to believe that they were having an open marriage. Christopher was rumoured to have had up to eight mistresses. There was also rumours that Jill had affairs but this was never confirmed. Christopher wasn't described as a good looking man by those that knew him but his money and the fancy cars that he drove made him attractive to some people.

By 2007, the damage of the overspending was coming to a head and he tried to break the contract with DRC who successfully sued him and took over his patent which they made into a global success. At the same time as this was happening, he had a dispute with his accountant who reported him to the Inland Revenue for not paying taxes. Christopher didn't pay VAT, national insurance or any other kind of tax. He started borrowing from banks to try and pay back some of the tax that he owed. He also remortgaged Osbaston house three times and had 20 different bank accounts.

Christopher Foster faced bankruptcy and his company went into liquidation in 2007 with £3 million worth of his assets frozen and salary stopped. He was in a desperate situation but continued on as if nothing was happening.

Over the next 12 months he continued to do his hobby of clay pigeon shooting and driving around in his expensive cars. People who knew Jill don't know for certain if she knew the full extent of Christopher's financial problems or if he kept it from her, she certainly didn't seem to be cutting back that much on spending and didn't confide in her friends that anything was wrong. Christopher didn't tell his mother either of his problems.

Christopher was struggling to cope, he knew that time was running out and feared that he would lose everything. In a conversation with a friend they got onto the subject of houses and Christopher said that he would never leave Osbaston house unless it was in a body bag. He also said that he would take his own life rather than lose his family.

With the pressure to keep up appearances and knowing that the money and time was running out, Christopher went to the Doctors and was placed on anti depressants.

7 days before the August bank holiday weekend of 2008, Christopher found a letter from the bailiffs attached to the front gate. The letter informed him that they were coming back on the following Tuesday to repossess the house and other assets. The nightmare that Christopher had been avoiding was coming true, he had no money, he was on the verge of losing all his material possessions and everyone was going to know about it. He must have thought about how Jill and Kirstie would be devastated and that Kirstie would be distraught because her horses were considered assets and would be taken away. The family would have to return to Wolverhampton and say goodbye to the luxury lifestyle. For a proud man like Christopher, this would have been humiliating.

On the 21st of August 2008 a friend sent a text to Christopher asking how he was doing and he responded ''Not good. Things are coming to a head for me soon.'' This was the only communication the friend had received from Christopher and he wasn't aware of Christopher's financial problems.

It was later found that the total of Christopher Foster's debts had amounted to over £4 million pounds.

The bank holiday weekend was fast approaching and The Fosters had been invited to a friend's summer barbecue which they held every year around that time. Jill called Enid, Christopher's mother and invited her to come along but Enid had other plans and said that she would see them at another time. The housekeeper and personal assistant said that the family were acting as normal and seemed to be in a pleasant mood, enjoying the bank holiday weekend and looking forward to the barbecue on bank holiday Monday.

What they didn't know was that behind Christopher's fake smile and chirpy persona, he was planning on murdering his family and destroying everything.


Continued in part three...


If you enjoy my content and this latest post and you would like to donate a coffee to me, you can do so here

Check out some of the true crime cases I have covered previously:

- Stalked To Death: The Alissa Blanton Story

- Rod Ferrell And The Kentucky Vampire Cult

- What Happened To Dominique Dunne?




Keep up to date with my latest posts on: @CaledonianTweet & Bloglovin  

My personal twitter page where I share my latest posts and everyday general stuff: @CaledonianKitty 

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The Millionaire & The Mansion Of Horror | Christopher Foster | Part One


(The Foster family; Christopher, Kirstie and Jill. Photo cred: The Telegraph) 

As with all the true crime cases that I cover, please be aware that some distressing details may be included in this post.

To the outside world, The Foster family seemed to have it all. They lived in a beautiful mansion, had a number of expensive cars. They also had horses, dogs and even doves. Money seemed to be no object. To everyone around them, they seemed like the perfect family who had it all. Their extravagant lifestyle was down to Christopher Foster's success as a self made millionaire.

Christopher was just an everyday salesman from Wolverhampton who had witnessed the horrific Piper Alpha disaster being reported on the news back in 1988. An explosion occurred on the Piper Alpha oil platform and caused a catastrophic fire which seemed to burn for days and 167 men sadly lost their lives. Christopher, who was already fascinated with fire, was transfixed by what he had seen on the TV screen and set about inventing a protective material that would prevent another disaster like that happening again.

He came up with a protective material that proved to be a success and soon enough all of the major oil companies were interested in Christopher's product. The numbers on his bank account began to go up and up and all of a sudden he had so much money he didn't know what to do with it.

Christopher Foster was always destined to be successful at something, his mother described him as a go-getter and an achiever. He was always looking for ways to make money and coming from humble beginnings to a self made millionaire demonstrates how hard Christopher worked and how focused he was to being a success. His late father was a sales director so both Christopher and his brother Andrew wanted to follow in their father's footsteps and become successful businessmen.

His younger brother Andrew and he, always had a tense relationship growing up. From the research I have done into this case, it seems to me that Christopher was the more confident one and self assured. Andrew was quite quiet and struggled a little bit but he did have his own achievements too. Both boys were close to their mum Enid who they would call ''Mummy'' even as middle aged men. Enid adored both of the boys and would never hear a bad word said against them but she had a particular soft spot for Christopher who she and her husband nicknamed ''Little Nero''.

As more of the money continued to roll in and Christopher's company was signing lucrative contracts, he and his long term girlfriend Jill decided to get married and start a family. They had a daughter called Kirstie and life seemed to be getting better and better for them. Despite being a successful businessman, Christopher was never a long term thinker, he was described by those who knew him as impulsive, someone who needed to have everything instantly and he was quick to cut you off and hold a grudge if you were to do or say something that he didn't like.

He was fiercely competitive and always wanted to be the best at everything. He lived in a modest house with Jill and Kirstie, was a millionaire and successful businessman and everyone knew about it but he wanted more.

One day Jill was shopping in a local supermarket when she spotted a beautiful mansion in a magazine. It was like a fairy tale 16 acre estate with stunning countryside, stables and outhouses. She told Christopher that she was in love with the house and a few days later he bought it in cash. They agreed it would be perfect, especially for Kirstie who had her heart set on horses and they thought that she would have plenty of space to train her horses and take care of them in the stables, they'd also be able to keep an eye on her too.

In 2003 the excited family moved into Osbaston house in Maesbrook, Shropshire. Maesbrook was known for being a very affluent village situated on the Welsh borders. A lot of the residents were said to be self made millionaires who drove expensive cars like Porches and Range Rovers. This is exactly the type of people that Christopher longed to be around and wanted to be seen as one of them. He did his best over the years to portray himself as a country gentleman and tried to forget and hide his past back in Wolverhampton.

Once the family had settled into the house, Christopher decided that he, his wife and daughter were going to have the best of everything even more so. He bought two Porsche's (one for himself and Jill), an Aston Martin, a 4x4, a tractor, 3 horses, four dogs and doves. He hired a housekeeper and a personal assistant. £50,000 was spent landscaping the property and the house was furnished with over £200,000 in antiques.

He became obsessed with guns and would spend thousands having them custom made. The housekeeper would later remark how Christopher had a habit of leaving guns lying about on the kitchen counter and he'd keep some of them leaning up against a wall in one of the bedrooms. As well as the collection of guns, he enjoyed shooting Pheasants and would practise pigeon clay shooting every Tuesday. He would sometimes go on shooting weekends where he thought nothing of spending up to £80,000.

Sometimes the doves would mess on his cars and he would shoot them which would upset Jill. He also took one of the dogs (which belonged to Kirstie) and took it down a country lane to shoot it because he couldn't control the dog.

Jill loved shopping and would spend her days getting her nails and hair done with the occasional trip to get some beauty treatments such as botox. Kirstie loved spending time with her horses when she wasn't at school and would take part in riding competitions. Kirstie had a lot of friends who described her as quiet, caring and kind.

The family loved going away for holidays and would travel first class, stay in the most expensive hotels and lived the high life. Their favourite place to go to was Mauritius.

They lived the life of luxury and Christopher enjoyed the attention and trappings that being a millionaire brought him and his family, he never thought that he'd have to worry about a single penny again.

The next few years, the family continued to enjoy their lavish lifestyle and continued to spend money like it was going out of fashion. Christopher bragged to his friend that he and Jill could claim welfare benefits because he'd found an accountant who doctored the books for him so Christopher and Jill were down on paper as having no income. It seemed to be that Christopher's greed was spiralling out of control.


Continued in part two...



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- Stalked To Death: The Alissa Blanton Story

- Rod Ferrell And The Kentucky Vampire Cult

- What Happened To Dominique Dunne?




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William Beggs: The Limbs In The Loch Killer (One Of Scotland's Most Prolific Serial Killers?) Part Four

(Pic credit: Daily Record)

As with parts one, two and three, details in this post may be distressing.

Barry Wallace's remains were forensically examined and the findings were horrifying. Barry had been handcuffed on the wrists and ankles, he'd struggled in these restraints and it was clear he suffered a great deal. He had been violently raped and had bruising to his face. There was also a puncture wound on his arm that looked like he'd been injected by a needle. After this horrific ordeal, Barry's body had been cut into eight pieces, his head was placed in a plastic carrier bag and his other remains were wrapped in black bin liners where William Beggs had disposed of them whilst travelling back and forth on Ferries between Belfast and Troon.

One of the red flags the police discovered whilst searching William's house was a distinctive carrier bag with the DFDS Ferry line logo. This was the exact same type of bag that Barry's head was placed in. They also found Barry's blood in the house as well as William's semen stain along with drops of Barry's blood on a bed.

The police had noticed that William had tried his best to bleach and clean his house from top to bottom as a way to try and get rid of any evidence. They could smell fresh paint and noticed some of the decor had been replaced as well as the carpets which were brand new.

By the 18th of December 1999 it seemed like every Scottish newspaper had William Beggs on it's front cover. He was branded ''The Limbs In The Loch Killer'' and ''The Gay Ripper''. The newspapers also detailed his past violence towards men. As he was using the name ''William Frederick'' whilst travelling, the police couldn't track him down and assumed he was still in the UK somewhere.

There was a warrant out for William Beggs arrest and on the 28th of December 1999, he walked into an Amsterdam police station with his lawyer and handed himself in. He was remanded in custody and appeared in court the next day.

There was a sigh of relief from everyone when they heard that he was in police custody but the battle wasn't over yet. Scottish police wanted him extradited back to Scotland to face justice but William knew this would be a lengthy process and started to play games with appeals, trying to prolong the extradition for as long as possible.

On February the 29th of 2000, Barry Wallace's funeral took place, his friends and family called it a celebration of his life. 750 people attended the service and friends and relatives spoke fondly of Barry and the lovely person that he was. As his coffin was being carried out of the church, one of his favourite songs was playing, Angels by Robbie Williams.

William's extradition hearing opened in Amsterdam four weeks later in the District Court Of Justice. On the 11th of April 2000, the court decided that William should be extradited back to Scotland to which he appealed on the 25th of April. Five months later the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that William should be returned to Scotland but the decision was referred to the Justice Minister who upheld the decision to extradite him. His lawyers tried a last ditch appeal at Civil Court stating that the media coverage had jeopardised any chance of William Beggs having a fair trial in the future. On the 5th Of January 2001 the Dutch Court finally ruled that William Beggs be returned to Scotland.

Four days later, William Beggs arrived at Edinburgh Airport under heavy police surveillance and appeared in court the following day. He was charged with the murder, sexual assault and dismemberment of Barry Wallace. His trial began on the 18th of September 2001 where he plead ''Not guilty.'' He claimed to have been at a party at the time that Barry had gone missing but witnesses said that he appeared at the party for an hour but soon left. He told one of the guests that he couldn't drink anything alcoholic because he had to drive back to Kilmarnock.

After 17 days of evidence being presented to the court and a very long extradition process, William Beggs was finally found guilty and sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison.

After the trial was over, the police released details of what they had found in William's house. Along with Barry's blood, they found blood belonging to 17 men as well as what they called ''Souvenirs'' and ''Trophies''. There was pictures of young men everywhere and police believe that he could be responsible for the deaths of many other men. They have since contacted authorities elsewhere in the UK and abroad to check their missing people and cold case files. They also believe that he may be connected to three unsolved murders of young men in Scotland, one of which had some of his remains found on a beach in Largs.

As you can imagine, William Beggs being behind bars hasn't stopped him from being as difficult as possible. If he wasn't spending the majority of his time trying to appeal and have his sentence of 20 years reduced, he was trying to take Scottish prison officials to court because they wouldn't let him buy his own laptop or have a treadmill in his cell.

There was outrage when a newspaper reported that William had won £5000 compensation when he took prison bosses to court over taking too long to process his appeals. He was also reported to be engaged to a paedophile and was attacked with boiling water when he made a joke about a fellow prisoner's deceased relative.

Another horrible fact which dawned on me during my research of this case, is that it's nearly 20 years since Barry Wallace was murdered and William Beggs will be able to apply for parole in December (2019) which makes my blood run cold. Due to his ability to get off lightly with horrific things that he has done in the past I worry that he may be released again and who knows what else he will do. It's clear to me that William Beggs has been violent towards men for a very long time and it seems to be a way of life for him. I do believe that he is responsible for more murders but because of the way he disposed of the remains and lack of evidence, he's managed to get away with it so far.

And what of the 17 samples of blood that were found from other men in his house? I know one of his previous lovers had mentioned earlier that he hated his sexuality and would attack men after having sex with them. It seems to me (and this is my opinion) that he enjoyed the cutting of his victims. In the beginning he would attack people with knives and razors but it soon progressed, you could see that he tried to dismember Barry Oldham but failed. It was almost like he was practising and by the time that he had murdered Barry Wallace, it was so quickly done, the attack, the dismemberment and disposing of the body, like he'd done this many times before.

I think that William Beggs is a dangerous individual and should never be released. He is reported to still own the same house in Kilmarnock where he murdered Barry, where he attacked the man who jumped through the glass window to escape from him and where the 17 samples of blood from different men were found. It is a house of horrors and before he was jailed he continued to live there quite happily to the disgust of his neighbours. Like I mentioned before, he has no shame, no care for what anyone else thinks of him and I wouldn't be surprised if he returned to live at that house if another mistake is made and they let him back on the streets.

The English police force lost their battle in trying to persuade the Crown Prosecution Service in England to try William Beggs again for the murder of Barry Oldham.

I will be keeping a close eye come December and I hope and pray that he will remain in prison. He's 55 years old now and he may be responsible for the deaths of a lot of young men. I've heard it said many times that he could be one of Scotland's most prolific serial killers and I believe that to be true.


Thank you for checking out my four posts on this case, I really appreciate it x



RIP to Barry Oldham and Barry Wallace.




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William Beggs: The Limbs In The Loch Killer (One Of Scotland's Most Prolific Serial Killers?) Part Three


 (Credit: Daily Record)

As with parts one and two, some of the details in this post may be distressing.

Richard recalls phoning William on the Sunday afternoon of December the 5th 1999. He said that he could hear that William was driving and the call lasted approximately 10 minutes. William sounded like he was in a cheery mood and bragged to Richard about a cute young man that he had made out with the night before.

At the same time that this phonecall was taking place, Barry Wallace's parents were wondering why he hadn't come home. They went through a list of Barry's friends and called them to see if he'd stayed the night at their house. Nobody knew where he was. The next morning after Barry hadn't shown up for work, they contacted the police to report him missing.

On the 6th of December 1999, whilst the search began to find out where Barry was. William Beggs had called his work at the call centre in Edinburgh (where he was working as an IT Technician) to say that he wouldn't be in due to feeling unwell.

As I mentioned in part one, the police divers were doing their training exercise in Loch Lomond as well on this day and had found human remains wrapped in black bin liners.

The next day (Tuesday the 7th of December), William Beggs went into work that morning for a couple of hours but left early, telling colleagues that he still wasn't feeling well. A neighbour would later recall seeing William dashing quickly out of his car and into his house before coming out again, jumping into the car and speeding off. He said that William seemed to be flustered and in a hurry, he also noted that the backseat of the car was full of bags.

William took a ferry from Troon to Belfast where he stayed with some relatives. It was during this time that he was said to have thrown the black bin liners containing Barry Wallace's remains into the sea. On the 10th of December he returned to Scotland but returned back to Belfast the following day. On the 12th of December he returned to Scotland taking the ferry from Belfast to Troon. He returned to work the next day and worked as normal up until the 17th of December.

Barry Wallace's severed head was found 10 days after he was reported missing and his other remains had been found. His father had the heartbreaking task of going to formally identify him. The police started questioning everyone who knew Barry and witnesses who had seen him on the early hours of the 5th of December 1999. They also examined Barry's remains to try and find out how he died. Their findings were horrific and they entered the details of the case onto their database to see if there was anyone who had committed a similar murder. William Beggs was highlighted very heavily on their database and he became their prime suspect.

Whilst William was driving home from work on the 17th of December he heard on the radio that the police were searching a house in Kilmarnock in relation to the murder of Barry Wallace. He heard his name mentioned and realised that the net was closing in on him. He quickly turned the car around and drove to Luton Airport, north of London where he bought a plane ticket for Jersey using the name ''William Frederick''.

On the same day a foot and lower leg were found washed up on the banks of Loch Lomond. A month later, police found a human torso in the same area of the Loch. All of the remains were wrapped in bin liners except for the torso and all of the remains belonged to Barry Wallace.

Once William Beggs arrived in Jersey, he bought a ticket to France and from there he travelled to Amsterdam.


Continued in part four 









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William Beggs: The Limbs In The Loch Killer (One Of Scotland's Most Prolific Serial Killers?) Part Two


(Pic credit: Caledonia/Daily Record)

As with part one, please be aware that some of the details mentioned in this post may be disturbing.

William Beggs: 

William Frederick Ian Beggs was born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland in 1961. He was the eldest of five children and he came from a respectable family. Not much is known of his early years or his relationship with his family but someone who had gone to school with William had mentioned that he once tried to pull the trousers down of a young boy in a park. The boy's brother found out what had happened and confronted William about it, ending with William getting a beating from the boy's elder brother. After this incident, William kept himself to himself, he left school with nine O levels and two A levels and was said to have been a polite and well mannered student.

When he turned 19 he decided that he wanted to leave Ireland and study in England. He settled in the North East and attended Teeside Polytechnic where he studied Public Administration. He also became interested in politics, especially right wing. He became the regional chairman of The Federation Of Conservative Students and was once invited to 10 Downing street for a Burns supper with the British Prime Minister and he told friends that this fuelled his desire to become an MP.

Through his interest in right wing politics he had connections with The National Front and he was a heavy supporter of Ian Paisley's Anti-Gay campaign which was called Save Ulster From Sodomy. William was later expelled from The Federation Of Conservative Students over his extreme homophobic views. In 1985 he gave up his interest in politics and desire to become an MP and became interested in computers.

William Beggs first came to the attention of police when they were investigating a number of razor attacks on gay students in the Teeside area. In December 1986, William had attacked his roommate with an open razor. Four attacks involving open razors were reported to the police and William's name would regularly come up. He was also suspected of attacking a middle aged man with a knife. The man said that he had slept with William and was woken up in the middle of the night to find him stood over him, carving symbols into his thighs with a knife.

William was never prosecuted for the razor attacks or the attack on the middle aged man. Witnesses were too frightened to take the matter any further and didn't want to attend court.

On May the 27th of 1987, the body of a 28 year old man was found in woodlands in North Yorkshire. The man who was later identified as Barry Oldham, had his throat slit with his head almost decapitated. He had severe injuries on his body that indicated that someone had tried to dismember his legs and arms.

Barry was originally from Bolton and had been born there in 1958. He moved around quite a bit in his twenties and worked as a Barman in pubs and nightclubs. He had just moved down to Newcastle in that May of 1987. He was looking for work and a change of scenery. When he arrived at Newcastle Bus Station, he put his belongings in a locker and headed for the nearest gay nightclub. It is believed that is where he met William Beggs. Just hours after his attendance at this nightclub, his body was found.

During the investigation into Barry Oldham's murder, a female friend of William's said that he told her he was being investigated for Barry's murder. She asked him if he had done it to which he replied ''Yeah I did and you're next.''

William Beggs was found guilty of Barry Oldham's murder and the attempted dismemberment and disposal of his body. At Teeside Crown Court, William was sentenced to life imprisonment which he appealed. In a shocking miscarriage of justice, the appeal court made the decision two years later that William Beggs was to be released from prison due to an unfair trial. They argued that his past history of violence against men should not have been available to the jury and believed that this information had prejudiced his case. William spent just two years in prison for the gruesome murder of Barry Oldham.

The former head of Yorkshire CID, who was in charge of the investigation into William Beggs, couldn't believe that he had been set free. He said ''When we caught Beggs, we seriously thought we'd caught a serial killer in the making.''

William Beggs had a violent history against men. He would pick up men in gay nightclubs, take them home, have sex with them and at one point during the night he would attack them with knives or razors. A former lover of his said that William hated being homosexual and always got violent after sex.

He also loved to target straight young men who had been out drinking and would befriend them, promising them more drinks back at his place when the pubs and nightclubs closed. The young men, being too drunk and not in the best condition to make reasonable decisions, would go to William's house where he would sexually assault and attack them. Nobody knows for sure, how and if these men had managed to get away from William's house as they've never came forward. William bragged that he enjoyed targeting straight men because they would be least likely to report the incident to the police due to them feeling embarrassed or that they didn't want their family and friends knowing about it. Some people believe that some of the men may have been murdered by William.

One man did come forward though in 1991, he escaped by jumping through a glass window in William's bathroom. He'd met William previously that night in a gay club. William took him back to his house in Kilmarnock, Scotland where he was now living. The pair had sex and like so many times before in William's history, the man woke up in the middle of the night to find William trying to stab him with a knife. The man jumped up and tried to grab William by the wrists to stop him. William had a strange calmness to him and was completely different to the man he had met in the club hours before. He said that William had a vacant look in his eyes and said ''Come back to bed, everything will be ok. Things will be over soon. You've made me do this.''

The man ran as fast as he could towards the bathroom and jumped through the glass window from the first floor of the house. He felt certain that he was going to die but at that moment all he could think about was that he didn't want to die at the hands of this man and he wanted the neighbours to hear and see what was going on so that William Beggs would be caught. Luckily the man survived the jump and had minor injuries. The police were called, Beggs was arrested and was charged with attempted murder and sentenced to six years.

In another miscarriage of justice, William was released in 1994 after serving just three years of his six year sentence. He had been released due to good behaviour. William didn't have any remorse or sense of decency, he made it clear that he was moving back into his house in Kilmarnock despite the neighbours complaints.

Once he was back in his house and settled, he began studying computing and got a job as a computer consultant whilst he was working towards his PhD at Paisley University. He also did some tutoring and struck up a close friendship with a University lecturer named Richard Bash. Richard was also gay but there was no sexual relationship between the pair, they were just close friends.

Richard and William would often go on road trips around Scotland, especially Loch Lomond. Richard commented on how William seemed to know the area really well and was always the driver. He described the William that he knew as a fair man who would always pay his share whenever they ordered dinners or paid for petrol. As far as he was concerned, he thought that William was a model citizen and had no idea of his past or his violent tendencies towards men.


Continued in part three 









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