August 14, 2025 • 13 mins
Season 22 : Family Annihilators Part 2
Christopher Foster made a lot of money from an invention that saved lives. Unfortunately, he spent the money faster than he could make it and he went from an inventor of safety to an annihilator of family.
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Christopher Foster made a lot of money from an invention that saved lives. Unfortunately, he spent the money faster than he could make it and he went from an inventor of safety to an annihilator of family.
Somewhere Sinister Podcast : https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sinister--5428204
Somewhere Sinister YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@SomewhereSinister
Our Regular Merch Hosted by FourthWall! : https://thisismonsters.com/
GTFOH Doormats : https://this-is-monsters.printify.me/
Socials:
LinkTree : https://linktr.ee/thisismonsters
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thisis_monsters/
Threads : https://www.threads.net/@thisis_monsters
My other shows:
This is Monsters YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@thisisMONSTERS
Vlog : https://www.youtube.com/@jileswithaj
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When firefighters arrived at the scene of a fire in Shropshire,
the driveway was intentionally blocked and the fire was so
intense they believed it could have been some sort of terrorism.
The property was home to a wealthy family, and the
fear was that they had either been kidnapped or killed
due to some shady business dealings gone bad. It took
(00:21):
five days for the fire to be extinguished and the
scene to be cool enough for investigators to start collecting evidence,
and when they did, they realized that the person who
had set the fire was much closer than they thought.
This is Monsters. Before we begin, I just want to
(01:02):
make sure you know that my other show, Sinister, is
back up and there are three episodes a week. They're
dark stories from history, and if you like this show,
you'll probably like that one. Give it a shot. There
are links in the description. Thanks. Christopher Foster did not
come from a wealthy family. He was working in sales
(01:23):
in nineteen eighty eight when the Piper Alpha oil platform
caught fire, killing one hundred and sixty five people. Because
of that, he invented a new chemical formula for oil
rig insulation that would protect the shut off valves on
the rig so the flow of fuel could be stopped,
effectively shortening the life of the fire. He mortgaged his
(01:43):
house in order to pay for a huge demonstration for
potential buyers, and it worked. The product, called Oliva Shield,
was a success and he was soon bringing in millions
of dollars. Christopher was married to his wife Jill, and
they had one daughter, Kirsty. With their sudden increase in income,
the Fosters were able to finance their dream lifestyle. They
(02:05):
purchased a one point two million pound home in Shropshire
on sixteen acres or six and a half hectares of land.
The property had a stable and they had horses for
their daughter, Kirsty. She was a strong rider who was
involved in neck one competitions. On the surface, the Fosters
looked like a loving family, but other family members saw
(02:25):
things differently. Christopher's brother Andrew Foster would say in a
documentary that his brother was a bully. He hadn't spoken
to Christopher in sixteen years due to a lifelong tumultuous relationship.
Jill told friends that Christopher was controlling. It seemed to
become and knowledge that they both had affairs and Christopher's
(02:46):
personal assistant would later say that they had an open marriage,
but there's no way to confirm that with the couple.
The Fosters had paid cash for the Shropshire house and
didn't slow down with their spending. They spent hundreds of
thousands from fishing their home. Christopher spent fifty thousand pounds
on landscaping. They took lavish trips around the world. Christopher
(03:08):
began collecting cars. He had two range Rovers, a Jaguar,
a Mercedes and Aston Martin, and he and Jill had
matching his and hers Porsches. He took up clay pigeon
shooting and pheasant hunting, which allowed him to start collecting guns.
He spent one hundred thousand pounds having custom guns made.
He always claimed that they were investments, but the guns
(03:30):
eventually started becoming more than that. The housekeeper would later
say that guns started being left out around the house.
Then Christopher would use them to shoot animals that belonged
to the family. Jill had a collection of doves on
the property and if they got into the garage, Christopher
would just shoot them. He had a number of black
labs on the property and most of them were as
(03:52):
hunting dogs, but one was a pet of kirst E's.
That dog was not as well trained as the others,
and when it got into the neighbour's property and started
chasing sheep, Christopher took it into the woods and shot it.
Christopher lived as if the money from his invention would
never stop, but it did. After the initial success, sales
slowed and he was bringing in less money than the
(04:15):
family was spending. In two thousand and three, Christopher made
a deal with a company called DRC, which gave them
exclusive rights to manufacture his product. That boosted his finances,
and it's estimated that Christopher was worth ten million pounds
by two thousand and four, but that number quickly dropped again.
By two thousand and five, he was struggling for money
(04:36):
again and tried to break his contract with DRC. The
company sued Christopher in one which allowed them to take
over the patent. That caused their financial situation to only
get worse. In two thousand and seven, the Fosters were
living on credit and Christopher's company was in liquidation. His
salary was stopped and his assets were frozen. By then,
(04:59):
Christoph had remortgaged the home three times and had twenty
different bank accounts, One of them was overdrawn by three
hundred and thirty thousand pounds. He also hadn't been paying
his taxes. In two thousand and seven, he owed close
to a million pounds to the tax authority. People said
that he had bragged about how his accountant did such
(05:20):
a good job making it look like he made no
money in order to owe zero taxes, as if the
tax authorities wouldn't eventually figure that out, which they did.
His world was crashing down around him, and it seemed
as though he was keeping it all a secret from
his family. He told people that he was on the
verge of closing a multimillion dollar deal, but that was
(05:41):
a lie. Leading up to August of two thousand and eight,
most people said they didn't see signs that Christopher was
going to do the unthinkable, but he did seem down.
He had spoken to his doctor about depression and he
was prescribed medication. When a concerned friend sent Christopher a
text message asking if he was okay, he responded, quote,
(06:03):
not really. I think everything's coming to a head for me.
He had confided in a business associate that he would
rather end his own life than lose his family. He
had said, quote, they're not having my stuff. They will
carry me out of the house in a box. Most
people saw his remarks as the venting of a frustrated man.
(06:23):
In August, the housekeeper found a notice of foreclosure pinned
to the front gate of the property. It's said that
authorities would be there on September second, but the Fosters
wouldn't make it to that date. On August twenty fifth,
two thousand and eight, the Fosters went to a barbecue
at a friend's house, where everyone said they all seemed
perfectly normal. If Christopher was upset or nervous about his plan,
(06:47):
he didn't show it. While there, Christopher participated in one
of his favorite hobbies, clay pigeon shooting. They left the
barbecue at eight thirty pm and arrived back home about
fifteen minutes late. Surveillance footage shows the Ranger over pulling
in and the family getting out of the vehicle. Then
Kirsty released the dogs from their kennel. For the rest
(07:10):
of the evening, it's quiet at the Foster home, with
only Kirsty communicating with a boy from her school via
text message on MSN Messenger a little before midnight, Kirsty
sent a message from her computer to the friend that
said her father was turning the internet off, and then
she sent a message via text message that said goodnight.
At around three am, Christopher retrieved a rifle and fixed
(07:34):
a silencer to it before shooting forty nine year old
Jill and fifteen year old Kirsty both in the head
while they slept. He then went out to the stable,
where he shot their three horses, and then did the
same thing to their dogs. He moved the horse trailer
in front of the gate to the house and shot
out the tires. It's believed that was an effort to
(07:55):
slow down anyone attempting to put the fire out. Then
he can be seen on survey liallants carrying pipes around
the house, which used a pump heating oil from the
oil tank into the house, which he then spread around
with rags to ensure the house thoroughly burned. He lit
both the stables and the house on fire and went
into the bedroom where he laid down next to his wife.
(08:17):
Though he had his rifle with him, he did not
use it. It's estimated that he died of smoke inhalation before
the flames reached his body. He had recently turned fifty
years old. Neighbors called emergency services about an hour later,
and firefighters started arriving at the property at four twenty
nine am. There would end up being twelve fire crews
(08:39):
on the scene by the time the fire was finally extinguished.
At the beginning, the fire was so intense that all
the crews could do was stop it from spreading. It
took three days before the fire was finally out. It
was two more days before the scene had cooled enough
for investigators to go into the remains of the home.
During those five days, nobody had any idea what had
(09:02):
happened to the Fosters. With the fire being so extensive
in the driveway intentionally blocked, authorities initially thought they were
dealing with some sort of organized reprisal. There was the
thought that the family had been kidnapped in their home torched.
There was also a rumor that Christopher had angered some
Russians and they might have sought retribution. It wouldn't take
(09:24):
long for those suspicions to be relieved, though. Inside the home,
the remains of two bodies were found, and when surveillance
was reviewed, it was clear that Christopher had intentionally set
the fire. The two bodies were on what was left
of a bed together that had fallen through the floor
of the master bedroom. He was determined that those remains
(09:45):
belonged to Christopher and Jill, but nobody was able to
find any sign of Kirsty. There was a glimmer of
hope that the teen girl had been somewhere else at
the time, but that hope was lost when a small
fragment of skull was found within her belongings. Udroom had
also collapsed and went through multiple floors and then was
buried by other rubble. It took days of sifting through
(10:07):
the charred remains of the house in order to find
more skeletal remains of all three members of the Foster family.
The banks arrived at the property to collect anything they
could to pay off Christopher's debt, but the killer made
sure they left empty handed. It's believed that Christopher ensured
that everything in or around the home, as well as
the home itself, was completely destroyed. He was seen as
(10:30):
being bitter about his property being repossessed, and so he
burned it all. The home was completely gutted, with only
the shell remaining. His cars were all damaged, his stable,
his horses, his dogs. There was nothing for the bank
to collect, and people saw it as a big fuck
you to the system. But it was a system he
(10:50):
had abused, and it was nobody else's fault that he
was in the situation he was in. He chose death
and destruction, overtaking responsibility for his actions. At an inquest
regarding the case, the coroner urged that better communication between
doctors and the firearms licensing authority be put in place.
Christopher had discussed depression and thoughts of suicide prior to
(11:13):
the murder of his family, and if that had been
reported to the police force firearms officers, they might have
been able to intervene in some way and save the
lives of Jill, Kirsty and their animals. Mental illness and
firearms don't mix, especially when a monster like Christopher Foster
is determined to die and take everything with them, including
his family. If you're the victim of domestic abuse, please
(11:38):
reach out to someone for help. Please talk to your
local shelter, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one
eight hundred seven nine nine safe. That's one eight hundred
seven ninety nine seven two three three, or you can
go to the hotline dot org to chat with someone online.
If you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else,
or even just need someone to talk to, please contact
(11:59):
your local mental health facility call nine one one, or
call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine
eight eight in the United States. They're available twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week, and we'll talk
to you about any mental health issue you might be facing.
If you're a member of the LGBTQ plus community and
suffering from discrimination, depression, or are in need of any support,
(12:22):
please contact the LGBT National Hotline at one eight eight
eight eight four three four five six four, or go
to LGBT Hotline dot org. Thanks so much for letting
me tell you this story. If you're a fan of
true crime, you can subscribe to this show so you
don't miss an episode. My other show, Somewhere Sinister is
no longer getting new episodes, but you can check it
(12:43):
out if you like interesting stories from history that aren't
necessarily true crime, but true crime adjacent. It's available anywhere
that you listen to podcasts. You can also check out
my personal vlog, Giles with a Jay, which is sporadically
updated with stuff about my personal life, travel and music.
It's available on YouTube. If you'd like to support the show,
(13:03):
check out our merchandise at this ismonsters dot com. A
link is in the description. Thanks again and be safe
When firefighters arrived at the scene of a fire in Shropshire,
the driveway was intentionally blocked and the fire was so
intense they believed it could have been some sort of terrorism.
The property was home to a wealthy family, and the
fear was that they had either been kidnapped or killed
due to some shady business dealings gone bad. It took
(00:21):
five days for the fire to be extinguished and the
scene to be cool enough for investigators to start collecting evidence,
and when they did, they realized that the person who
had set the fire was much closer than they thought.
This is Monsters. Before we begin, I just want to
(01:02):
make sure you know that my other show, Sinister, is
back up and there are three episodes a week. They're
dark stories from history, and if you like this show,
you'll probably like that one. Give it a shot. There
are links in the description. Thanks. Christopher Foster did not
come from a wealthy family. He was working in sales
(01:23):
in nineteen eighty eight when the Piper Alpha oil platform
caught fire, killing one hundred and sixty five people. Because
of that, he invented a new chemical formula for oil
rig insulation that would protect the shut off valves on
the rig so the flow of fuel could be stopped,
effectively shortening the life of the fire. He mortgaged his
(01:43):
house in order to pay for a huge demonstration for
potential buyers, and it worked. The product, called Oliva Shield,
was a success and he was soon bringing in millions
of dollars. Christopher was married to his wife Jill, and
they had one daughter, Kirsty. With their sudden increase in income,
the Fosters were able to finance their dream lifestyle. They
(02:05):
purchased a one point two million pound home in Shropshire
on sixteen acres or six and a half hectares of land.
The property had a stable and they had horses for
their daughter, Kirsty. She was a strong rider who was
involved in neck one competitions. On the surface, the Fosters
looked like a loving family, but other family members saw
(02:25):
things differently. Christopher's brother Andrew Foster would say in a
documentary that his brother was a bully. He hadn't spoken
to Christopher in sixteen years due to a lifelong tumultuous relationship.
Jill told friends that Christopher was controlling. It seemed to
become and knowledge that they both had affairs and Christopher's
(02:46):
personal assistant would later say that they had an open marriage,
but there's no way to confirm that with the couple.
The Fosters had paid cash for the Shropshire house and
didn't slow down with their spending. They spent hundreds of
thousands from fishing their home. Christopher spent fifty thousand pounds
on landscaping. They took lavish trips around the world. Christopher
(03:08):
began collecting cars. He had two range Rovers, a Jaguar,
a Mercedes and Aston Martin, and he and Jill had
matching his and hers Porsches. He took up clay pigeon
shooting and pheasant hunting, which allowed him to start collecting guns.
He spent one hundred thousand pounds having custom guns made.
He always claimed that they were investments, but the guns
(03:30):
eventually started becoming more than that. The housekeeper would later
say that guns started being left out around the house.
Then Christopher would use them to shoot animals that belonged
to the family. Jill had a collection of doves on
the property and if they got into the garage, Christopher
would just shoot them. He had a number of black
labs on the property and most of them were as
(03:52):
hunting dogs, but one was a pet of kirst E's.
That dog was not as well trained as the others,
and when it got into the neighbour's property and started
chasing sheep, Christopher took it into the woods and shot it.
Christopher lived as if the money from his invention would
never stop, but it did. After the initial success, sales
slowed and he was bringing in less money than the
(04:15):
family was spending. In two thousand and three, Christopher made
a deal with a company called DRC, which gave them
exclusive rights to manufacture his product. That boosted his finances,
and it's estimated that Christopher was worth ten million pounds
by two thousand and four, but that number quickly dropped again.
By two thousand and five, he was struggling for money
(04:36):
again and tried to break his contract with DRC. The
company sued Christopher in one which allowed them to take
over the patent. That caused their financial situation to only
get worse. In two thousand and seven, the Fosters were
living on credit and Christopher's company was in liquidation. His
salary was stopped and his assets were frozen. By then,
(04:59):
Christoph had remortgaged the home three times and had twenty
different bank accounts, One of them was overdrawn by three
hundred and thirty thousand pounds. He also hadn't been paying
his taxes. In two thousand and seven, he owed close
to a million pounds to the tax authority. People said
that he had bragged about how his accountant did such
(05:20):
a good job making it look like he made no
money in order to owe zero taxes, as if the
tax authorities wouldn't eventually figure that out, which they did.
His world was crashing down around him, and it seemed
as though he was keeping it all a secret from
his family. He told people that he was on the
verge of closing a multimillion dollar deal, but that was
(05:41):
a lie. Leading up to August of two thousand and eight,
most people said they didn't see signs that Christopher was
going to do the unthinkable, but he did seem down.
He had spoken to his doctor about depression and he
was prescribed medication. When a concerned friend sent Christopher a
text message asking if he was okay, he responded, quote,
(06:03):
not really. I think everything's coming to a head for me.
He had confided in a business associate that he would
rather end his own life than lose his family. He
had said, quote, they're not having my stuff. They will
carry me out of the house in a box. Most
people saw his remarks as the venting of a frustrated man.
(06:23):
In August, the housekeeper found a notice of foreclosure pinned
to the front gate of the property. It's said that
authorities would be there on September second, but the Fosters
wouldn't make it to that date. On August twenty fifth,
two thousand and eight, the Fosters went to a barbecue
at a friend's house, where everyone said they all seemed
perfectly normal. If Christopher was upset or nervous about his plan,
(06:47):
he didn't show it. While there, Christopher participated in one
of his favorite hobbies, clay pigeon shooting. They left the
barbecue at eight thirty pm and arrived back home about
fifteen minutes late. Surveillance footage shows the Ranger over pulling
in and the family getting out of the vehicle. Then
Kirsty released the dogs from their kennel. For the rest
(07:10):
of the evening, it's quiet at the Foster home, with
only Kirsty communicating with a boy from her school via
text message on MSN Messenger a little before midnight, Kirsty
sent a message from her computer to the friend that
said her father was turning the internet off, and then
she sent a message via text message that said goodnight.
At around three am, Christopher retrieved a rifle and fixed
(07:34):
a silencer to it before shooting forty nine year old
Jill and fifteen year old Kirsty both in the head
while they slept. He then went out to the stable,
where he shot their three horses, and then did the
same thing to their dogs. He moved the horse trailer
in front of the gate to the house and shot
out the tires. It's believed that was an effort to
(07:55):
slow down anyone attempting to put the fire out. Then
he can be seen on survey liallants carrying pipes around
the house, which used a pump heating oil from the
oil tank into the house, which he then spread around
with rags to ensure the house thoroughly burned. He lit
both the stables and the house on fire and went
into the bedroom where he laid down next to his wife.
(08:17):
Though he had his rifle with him, he did not
use it. It's estimated that he died of smoke inhalation before
the flames reached his body. He had recently turned fifty
years old. Neighbors called emergency services about an hour later,
and firefighters started arriving at the property at four twenty
nine am. There would end up being twelve fire crews
(08:39):
on the scene by the time the fire was finally extinguished.
At the beginning, the fire was so intense that all
the crews could do was stop it from spreading. It
took three days before the fire was finally out. It
was two more days before the scene had cooled enough
for investigators to go into the remains of the home.
During those five days, nobody had any idea what had
(09:02):
happened to the Fosters. With the fire being so extensive
in the driveway intentionally blocked, authorities initially thought they were
dealing with some sort of organized reprisal. There was the
thought that the family had been kidnapped in their home torched.
There was also a rumor that Christopher had angered some
Russians and they might have sought retribution. It wouldn't take
(09:24):
long for those suspicions to be relieved, though. Inside the home,
the remains of two bodies were found, and when surveillance
was reviewed, it was clear that Christopher had intentionally set
the fire. The two bodies were on what was left
of a bed together that had fallen through the floor
of the master bedroom. He was determined that those remains
(09:45):
belonged to Christopher and Jill, but nobody was able to
find any sign of Kirsty. There was a glimmer of
hope that the teen girl had been somewhere else at
the time, but that hope was lost when a small
fragment of skull was found within her belongings. Udroom had
also collapsed and went through multiple floors and then was
buried by other rubble. It took days of sifting through
(10:07):
the charred remains of the house in order to find
more skeletal remains of all three members of the Foster family.
The banks arrived at the property to collect anything they
could to pay off Christopher's debt, but the killer made
sure they left empty handed. It's believed that Christopher ensured
that everything in or around the home, as well as
the home itself, was completely destroyed. He was seen as
(10:30):
being bitter about his property being repossessed, and so he
burned it all. The home was completely gutted, with only
the shell remaining. His cars were all damaged, his stable,
his horses, his dogs. There was nothing for the bank
to collect, and people saw it as a big fuck
you to the system. But it was a system he
(10:50):
had abused, and it was nobody else's fault that he
was in the situation he was in. He chose death
and destruction, overtaking responsibility for his actions. At an inquest
regarding the case, the coroner urged that better communication between
doctors and the firearms licensing authority be put in place.
Christopher had discussed depression and thoughts of suicide prior to
(11:13):
the murder of his family, and if that had been
reported to the police force firearms officers, they might have
been able to intervene in some way and save the
lives of Jill, Kirsty and their animals. Mental illness and
firearms don't mix, especially when a monster like Christopher Foster
is determined to die and take everything with them, including
his family. If you're the victim of domestic abuse, please
(11:38):
reach out to someone for help. Please talk to your
local shelter, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one
eight hundred seven nine nine safe. That's one eight hundred
seven ninety nine seven two three three, or you can
go to the hotline dot org to chat with someone online.
If you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else,
or even just need someone to talk to, please contact
(11:59):
your local mental health facility call nine one one, or
call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine
eight eight in the United States. They're available twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week, and we'll talk
to you about any mental health issue you might be facing.
If you're a member of the LGBTQ plus community and
suffering from discrimination, depression, or are in need of any support,
(12:22):
please contact the LGBT National Hotline at one eight eight
eight eight four three four five six four, or go
to LGBT Hotline dot org. Thanks so much for letting
me tell you this story. If you're a fan of
true crime, you can subscribe to this show so you
don't miss an episode. My other show, Somewhere Sinister is
no longer getting new episodes, but you can check it
(12:43):
out if you like interesting stories from history that aren't
necessarily true crime, but true crime adjacent. It's available anywhere
that you listen to podcasts. You can also check out
my personal vlog, Giles with a Jay, which is sporadically
updated with stuff about my personal life, travel and music.
It's available on YouTube. If you'd like to support the show,
(13:03):
check out our merchandise at this ismonsters dot com. A
link is in the description. Thanks again and be safe
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