Its a tragedy, but can someone explain why he didn't just sell his 1.2 million pound house to help pay off his 0.8 million pound debt? He might not owe 100% of the house, but it would help.A one-time millionaire businessman in financial difficulties shot his wife and daughter dead before setting their luxury mansion ablaze and killing himself, British police say.
Christopher Foster's body was found next to that of his wife, Jill, 49, who had been shot in the head, in their burned-out mansion in Maesbrook in western England.
A third body is believed to be that of the couple's 15-year-old daughter Kirstie, although identification is still pending.
Foster owed more than 800,000 pounds ($A1.7 million) to creditors after his oil pipeline insulation business, Ulva Ltd, went into liquidation last year.
Police said closed-circuit television footage taken a week ago at the mansion showed a man who resembled Foster carrying a rifle.
The cameras, which somehow escaped the blaze, captured the man driving a vehicle to gate of the estate, then stepping out and shooting the tyres in an apparent attempt to delay emergency vehicles.
He then paced around the mansion, evidently aware he was being recorded. At one point he stopped and gestured to a camera.
"We believe that Mr Foster killed his wife and daughter before setting the fires, " said West Mercia Police Detective Superintendent John Groves. "We believe Mr Foster took his own life after setting the house alight."
The Foster family was last seen at a neighbour's barbecue on August 25. The family returned home that evening, and Kirstie is thought to have stayed up messaging friends online.
She and Mrs Foster are believed to have gone to bed at around 1am while Mr Foster stayed up fretting over his financial woes, the UK's Telegraph reported.
Police believe Mr Foster shot his wife and daughter sometime before 4am with a legally-owned .22 calibre rifle, the newspaper said.
He allegedly then went outside the 1.2 million pound ($A2.5 million) country house and shot the family's three horses and dogs, before driving the vehicle to block the gates as seen on the security vision.
It is believed he subsequently doused the mansion's surrounding buildings with petrol or another flammable liquid, then collected his gun and marched back into the mansion.
He is thought to have shot himself by the body of his wife at around 4.45am.
Investigators had to wait three days to get into the house because of the heat and falling debris. After entering the property on Friday, search teams discovered the bodies of Mr Foster, 50, and his 49-year-old wife. The third body was found along with a rifle and unspent cartridges.
Earlier this year, Foster was ordered to appear in court after another company claimed he owed them money. A judge ruled in May that Foster had stripped Ulva of its assets and transferred them to a new company. The judge said Foster was "bereft of the basic instinct of commercial morality" and "couldn't be trusted."
Although Kirstie's body hasn't been formally identified, her friends on the online social networking group Bebo paid tribute to her.
A close friend called Ben wrote on her webpage: "I still can't believe this has happened!!! I was away in America and I come back to all this."
Another friend, Samantha, said: "Seriously, how could this happen when just a few weeks back I was sitting next to you in chemistry? It just doesn't make sense. Everything just feels so weird and confusing and it will never be the same without you."
Moreover he at least 3 luxury cars in his garage (see the pictures from the article linked) as well as the car he drove to the gate along with horses. Why couldn't he just sell these?
Does it not occur to people to just scale back a bit, sell some assets and live less luxuriously?
