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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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?




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2 comments:

  1. That is a big sign when Christopher starts killing animals, especially when he was doing it as an adult like that. Especially the dog when the family had an emotional attachment to him. and was his daughter's dog. The fact that Christopher was that money hungry and greedy that he would lie and steal was a sign as well. The fact that he wanted to hid this past is sad for his family.

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    1. I love your comments! You always get it spot on! Thanks for reading and commenting : ) x

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