THE burned-out mansion of a troubled millionaire and his family finally began to reveal its horrific secrets yesterday as officers carried out a painstaking search of the property that could last for weeks.
Officers discovered two bodies in the main part of Osbaston House, Maesbrook, Shropshire, overnight on Friday although the remains were so badly burned it was not possible to confirm their gender let alone their identities. That will require DNA an
d dental tests.
Oil industry tycoon Christopher Foster, his wife Jill and their 15-year-old daughter Kirstie have been missing since a fire – deliberately set in three locations – consumed their £1.2m country home in the early hours of Tuesday.
The discovery of the bodies came as new claims emerged about the family's last moments before the blaze started at 4am, engulfing the house, stable block and garage area.
On Friday police entered the main part of the mansion but were forced to withdraw after debris began to fall. They resumed their search later that day following more work to shore up the structure.
Superintendent Gary Higgins, of West Mercia Police, said yesterday: "We can confirm that two bodies were recovered last night from the main part of Osbaston House. The remains will be examined by a Home Office pathologist and postmortems are due to be carried out to establish the cause of death."
Higgins said it could take several weeks to sift the debris. "It is going to be a painstaking and lengthy process before the full examination of the house and its surrounds is completed. In the meantime we will keep an open mind concerning what we may or may not find."
He added DNA tests may be used to identify the remains.
He could not say if the bodies were male or female or give any idea of age. "We must stress that the Foster family still remain unaccounted for," he said.
Neighbours yesterday spoke of their shock at the discovery. An 85-year-old woman, who did not wish to be named, said: "I did not think they would find them in there. It's very upsetting. I did not think they would find any bodies. I thought maybe they had gone away. It's terrible."
Another neighbour said he was not surprised. "It's very tragic. I would not be shocked if they found a third body. The police said they had got all the ports on alert and nothing came of that, there's been no sighting of them.
"You tend to think then, it's a process of elimination."
The remains of the family's three pet dogs have also been found, but police have refused to comment on reports that the animals had been shot. Postmortem exams have now been carried out on horses found dead at the scene, also believed to have been shot, with police awaiting the results. Ducks and chickens are also reported to have been slaughtered, leaving the ground littered with spent cartridges.
Foster, 50, had been out on a day-long clay pigeon shoot with friends the day before the fire. He joined his wife, 49, and teenage daughter at a car-dealer friend's barbecue on Monday, before the family returned home later that evening.
He was said to have been on good form at the gathering, laughing and joking, and was among the last to leave, at about 8.30pm, walking the 20 minutes home.
Friends claimed he was the worse for wear after a few drinks but there was no hint that anything was amiss. Witnesses say he did not have the demeanour of a man who had anything to fear.
It has also emerged that the couple's daughter was chatting online to friends before the blaze. Her conversations on a social networking site are thought to have been interrupted, possibly by a power cut, at 1am on Tuesday, just three hours before the fire started. Police are reportedly taking the internet contact as evidence that the family returned home.
Firefighters who arrived at the scene had found the entrance of the premises blocked by a horsebox, its tyres flat, in an apparent bid to slow down the firefighting operation.
The family enjoy an apparently idyllic lifestyle, with expensive cars including a Porsche, an Aston Martin and a Range Rover. Kirstie is shortly due to return to her nearby private school, Ellesmere College. She was described last week by the school's headmaster as "a charming, popular and hard-working girl with many friends".
Foster is said to have relished the "country squire" existence. The couple have sympathetically restored their red-brick property, spending around £500,000 on it. They have planted a small wood in their six-acre grounds and were putting in a second lake to be stocked with fish.
But despite the apparent wealth, it has been suggested the businessman might have been struggling with serious financial difficulties, possibly for some time.
There has been speculation that Foster may have had business enemies of whom he was nervous. Cameras were installed to monitor the outside of the property and there are said to have been further devices inside.
He is said to have told a friend that a burglary at the house two years ago was the result of a vendetta. It has been claimed that he had approached police in the weeks before the fire but sources say there was no official request for protection. It has also been reported that bailiffs had arrived on Tuesday morning, unaware of the fire, to begin seizing possessions.
As the house was meticulously searched yesterday, with up to 100 officers working on the investigation, a stream of claims emerged in newspapers, including new speculation about the family's supposed financial problems.
One report suggested yesterday that Foster had money troubles for a decade. His company, Ulva Ltd, had initially made huge profits from developing insulation technology for oil rigs but it went into liquidation late last year and he owes £1.8m in debt and tax bills.
As well as his business collapsing, he was forbidden to sell the house without permission of the liquidator, meaning he could not cash in any increase in its value. Land Registry documents reveal that the liquidators had made an interim charge on the family home, which could have opened the way for repossession. There is speculation among his business associates that he "flipped" when he could no longer keep up the façade of his country gentleman lifestyle.
Terence Baines, a former director of Ulva, said: "It's anyone's guess, but it seems that the people he owed money to are big companies and I can't see them behind something like this."
Speaking from his home near Tamworth, Staffordshire, Baines, an accountant, speculated that Foster "just flipped because the pressure of it was too much for him".
He added: "He was just an ordinary everyday chap, well dressed, a good businessman."
Jill Foster's sister Anne Giddings said: "We are devastated. This just does not happen to your own family. It's like something you see on television."
Special prayers will be said for the Foster family at a church service in Maesbrook today.
The full article contains 1199 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
