The Murder of Hannah Foster

n a cold March night in 2003, 17-year-old Hannah Foster left a Southampton nightclub and began the short walk home. She was a bright, ambitious teenager with dreams of becoming a doctor, loved by her family and friends, and looking forward to her future. But Hannah never made it home.

In the early hours of the morning, a desperate call to emergency services captured the terrifying final moments before she disappeared. What followed was a heartbreaking investigation, an international manhunt spanning thousands of miles, and a years-long battle to bring her killer to justice.

In this episode of Recipe for Murder, we explore who Hannah Foster was, retrace the events of her final night, examine the investigation that gripped both the United Kingdom and India, and discuss the extraordinary determination of Hannah's family as they fought for answers. This tragic case remains one of the most haunting and significant murder investigations in modern British history.

For case and recipe submission contact: recipeformurderpod@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, true crumb foodies, welcome to Recipe for Murder. Hi guys, and welcome back to a brand new episode of Recipe for Murder, where true crime meets the kitchen with me, your host, Lara Michelle. If this is your first time here, welcome and thank you. And if you've been here before, once again, thank you so much for the support. I really, really appreciate it. The case we have tonight takes us back to 2003 in Southampton, England. It is absolutely devastating. But before we get into the heaviness of that case, I do want to share with you my recipe of the week and my killer ingredient. My recipe of the week is a compound butter, oftenly referred to as cowboy butter, which is essentially a flavored, herb-packed, slightly spicy butter that you melt on everything. It is so good on steak, grilled chicken, shrimp, vegetables, crusty bread. Honestly, you could probably put it on a shoe and it would still taste incredible. Here's what goes in it: butter, fresh garlic, parsley and chives, lemon juice, or zest or both. Dijon mustard, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, or chili um flakes for a heat, salt, pepper. There's also another variation called cowgirl butter, which I like a little bit more. And you just add a splash of, I hate this word, I think we all do, Worcestershire sauce to the mix. Anyway, it gives it a little more of a savory flavor. And because it is so, so good, it's not, it's not hard to make. It's very easy, but because it does have a lot of components, I highly recommend making it in a larger batch and then either dividing it out into individual portions or do what I did and create a log, put it in the freezer, and just cut some off every time you need it. My daughter absolutely loves it and she's certainly not a picky eater, but she has really good taste. I feel like it takes not, I mean, not a lot to get a compliment from her, but if she goes out of her way to say how good something is or how much she likes it, I know that I've done really well. And this is a request of hers all the time. We actually had it on our steaks last night, which is why I'm bringing it up now. Okay, so now my foodie news of the week. It's actually one of the components of that cowboy butter, and it's smoked paprika. Here is why I love it. It has the magical ability to make people think that you spent hours working on something when you literally just shook the jar over it. It adds depth, smokiness, and that kind of mysterious like, what is that flavor that makes everyone ask for the recipe? And a little goes a long way. We're talking like half a teaspoon can transform a dish. And once you start using it, you're gonna want to put it on everything: roasted vegetables, deviled eggs, chili, soups, stews, grilled chicken, homemade burgers, ranch dressing, mac and cheese, and even popcorn. And one quick recipe that I want to share with you guys that use this to smoked paprika that is really easy is a recipe using chickpeas. Just drain the can really well, toss them with some olive oil, smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt, and a pinch of cayenne. Roast them at 425 for about 25 to 30 minutes. Um, they are so good. You can eat them crunchy as a snack or throw them on top of a salad or use them as a soup topper. They are addictive. Now that foodie news is out of the way, we're gonna get to the reason why we are all really here. And that is this week's case. Now, buckle up because we're going somewhere very, very different, and this is a very hard case to hear. There are some emergency calls that haunt investigators for years. Calls filled with screaming and panic and desperation, the kind that you never forget. No matter how long you've been doing the job, these calls will stay with you forever. But sometimes the most chilling calls are the ones where nothing is said. On the night of March 14, 2003, a 999 operator in Southampton, England answered what appeared to be a routine emergency call. The operator. Emergency, which service do you require? Silence. The operator asked again. Still, silence. Following procedure, the operator initiated what was known as the silent solution protocol, a system introduced just one year earlier in 2002. It was specifically designed to help people in danger who were unable to speak. It also served a secondary purpose, which was filtering out the rising number of accidental, essentially butt dials from cell phones. And this is 2003, and so cell phones were really just starting to, you know, peak, and the number of people owning cell phones was more and more, and so these accidental calls were happening all the time. The operator listened carefully for any sign of life on the other end, background noise, a cough, a tap against the handset, anything but nothing. So then a recorded message was played, which said, If you can't speak but need help and you're calling from a mobile device, press 5-5 when prompted. She waited, but no buttons were pressed. Six minutes after the call began, at 11.26 p.m., the line was disconnected. At the time, it was logged as another abandoned call or a technical glitch or basically a butt dial. But investigators soon would discover that those six minutes had captured the final moments of a young woman fighting for her life. Her name was Hannah Foster, and she was 17 years old. And that call would become one of the most haunting and pivotal pieces of evidence in a murder investigation that would ultimately stretch across two continents in four years. To understand what was lost the night of March 14, 2003, you need to understand who Hannah Foster was. At just 17, she was by all account exactly the kind of person that this world needed more of. She was an exceptional student, the kind of student that teachers talked about for years after moving on. At the time, she was studying for her A-level exams, those high-stake academic qualifications that British students typically take at the end of their secondary school between the ages of 16 and 18. And most students choose three or four subjects that align with their intended university degree. Hannah had chosen biology, chemistry, and math, which are obviously not easy subjects for a lot of people. She ranked among the top students in her class. And by all accounts, I mean, she had a very, very bright future. She was a straight A student. Her ultimate goal was to become a doctor, and specifically a doctor that helped in developing countries. Friends and family recalled her passion for humanitarian causes, her awareness of global inequity, and her genuine desire to just use whatever privilege and skills she had to give something back to the world. She really wanted a career that mattered. She lived in Southampton with her parents, Hillary and Malcolm, and her younger sister Sarah, and they were a very close family. Hannah was the kind of daughter and sister that made people around her feel valued and safe. On Friday, March 14th, Hannah had every reason to feel good about her life. The week was over, the weekend was there, and she was spending the evening with her best friend Helen Wilkinson. The two friends started the night at The Hobbit, a cozy Lord of the Rings thing pub. Oh my gosh, I wish we had those here, that was popular with the student crowd in that area. Later, they moved to Sobar, which was a cocktail bar nearby, and they spent the evening doing what teenagers do, laughing, chatting, talking about university plans and holidays, and just all those things you talk about when you're 17 years old, likely making plans for the next time you're going to hang out. Now, it is noted that the girls did have a drink that night, but each one of them only had one, I believe it was like a some kind of a vodka soda drink, but they were by no accounts inebriated or drunk in any manner. These were very, very responsible girls. So this was just an ordinary night out. They were carefree and just everything was going fine until it wasn't. Around 10:30 p.m., the friends decided to call it a night, and they made their way towards a bus stop in the Portswood area of Southampton. At approximately 10:50 p.m., Helen boarded her bus. Hannah waved goodbye and then she began her familiar walk home. Now, the route that Hannah took home was only about a 20-minute walk, and there's generally a lot of people in the area, so it was safe. She'd made this walk several times, had no reason to think that this night would be different than any other night. But sadly, Hannah never made it home. The following morning, Hannah's mother Hillary, woke up around 5 30 a.m. And at first nothing seemed wrong. It was early morning and the house was still quiet. But then she noticed the hallway light. It was still on. And I know that sounds small, but the hallway light was something that Hillary left on every single night. So Hannah would not walk into a dark house, and then Hannah would flip off the light and go to bed. So it was kind of their routine. And then when Hillary wake up in the morning, she would see the light was off, and that was her indication that Hannah had made it home safely. But that morning the light was still on. So Hillary walked towards Hannah's bedroom, but the door was open. Another indicator that something was wrong. Then came a devastating realization, Hannah wasn't there and her bed had not been slept in. Trying to stay calm, Hillary sent text messages, left voicemails, and told herself there were explanations. Hannah is a smart girl, so maybe she had stayed over with Helen without saying anything, or maybe her phone battery had died. Maybe she met new friends and lost track of time. But as that morning went on with no response from Hannah, these explanations started to feel a little less convincing. So around 10 35 a.m., they decided to call the police. To their credit, Hampshire police did not waste any time and they immediately contacted hospitals. They interviewed friends, including Helen, who did confirm that her and Hannah were together and that Hannah had left around 10:58 p.m. after Helen got on the bus. So officers began retracing Hannah's likely route home, which was on Portswood Road. Shortly after starting their investigation, they found something that would change everything. That previous night, a 999 emergency call had been made from Hannah's phone. It was six minutes long, no words spoken, a call that in the busy chaos of a control room had just been logged as an accidental dial. But the investigators were no longer sure that's what it was. As detectives continued to search for Hannah and canvas the area, they kept coming back to that 999 call. Their gut kept telling them that there was something more to that. So on the surface, it offered nothing. No words, no name, no address, no description, nothing. But every emergency call is recorded. And in 2003, forensic audio analysis had already proven its worth in criminal investigations. Detectives made the decision to send the recording to those forensic audio specialists with one instruction: find out if there is anything there. The work of forensic audio is painstaking. Every second of audio had to be isolated, cleaned, filtered, and examined multiple times under different levels of sensitivity. They had to remove background noises, change frequencies. So you get the idea, this is not an easy task. And because this is such a difficult task, this is not something that they're going to immediately get. So they have to wait for those files to come back to them. Meanwhile, the search for Hannah continued. They did pull CC TV from the bus station that Helen claimed that she wrote, and they were able to see both girls walk into the bus station. Helen gets on the bus, Hannah waves goodbye, and then she walks out of the frame. They also put flyers with her picture on it all across Southampton, and the police were making public appeals asking anyone who had seen Hannah to please come forward. They were desperate for any information. They were also reviewing CCTV footage from other businesses just to see if they could spot anything out of the ordinary. And at the time, they couldn't. Everything just looked like a normal Friday night. Now, the community responded and tips did come in and they followed every single lead. But with every passing hour, hope became harder to hold on to. And then on March 16th, just 48 hours after Hannah disappeared, the investigation took a devastating turn. It was approximately four o'clock in the afternoon when a man walking his dog in a secluded area on the outskirts of Southampton noticed something in the undergrowth. At first, he thought it was just discarded clothing, but he moved closer and realized that is not what it was. He found a body. Police were immediately called and within minutes the area was sealed off and officers were treating as a major crime scene. Sadly, Hannah Foster was dead. The scene told investigators several important things. One, Hannah's body had only been partially concealed and not buried, suggesting that whoever put her there tried to quickly hide her body but was maybe disrupted. She had been left in a natural hollow in the landscape, and evidence indicated that she had likely been transported to a location and carried or dragged from a nearby vehicle, which meant the crime scene and the location of the attack were almost certainly different places. The autopsy revealed that Hannah had been sexually assaulted and manually strangled. Bruising and defensive wounds on her body showed that she put up a fight. She did not give in, she did not submit, she fought hard to survive. The forensic team spent hours working the area. They collected DNA samples, hair and fiber, soil samples, any kind of trace material from her clothing and body. Everything was carefully cataloged and preserved. Now, they did find blood on Hannah's jacket, but they didn't know if that was Hannah's blood or the person who attacked her. The forensic evidence suggested that Hannah had been killed shortly after her abduction and then she was transported to that isolated area to dispose of her body. The detail gave investigators something crucial to work with. If she had been transported to the area, then a vehicle was most certainly involved. And somewhere in Southampton was the driver of that vehicle. The day after Hannah's body was discovered, detectives received the enhanced audio from the 999 call, and nothing could have prepared them for what they heard. What had previously sounded like silence, six minutes of dead air, suddenly became a window into Hannah's final moments. Forensic audio specialists had managed to isolate and enhance the sounds buried beneath the static, muffled voices, distant but audible, a young woman in obvious distress. They did confirm that it was Hanna. She appeared to be pleading, resisting, trying to manage the situation that was already terrifying and out of her control. And then there was a second voice, a man. Language experts noted that he appeared to have an Indian accent and did not seem to be a native English speaker. The phrasing of his sentences suggested that he had not grown up in the UK. Now, fragments of the conversation could be heard, but they couldn't hear it all. But this this is what they were able to gather. A male voice, do you belong this country? Hannah, yes. Male voice, England. Hannah. Yeah, I'm English. My name is Sarah, which is the name of her um little sister. Hannah. That's my road. That's where I live. Male voice. Keep your head down. Where you live, which number you live. Toward the end of the six-minute call, as the automated message warned that the line was about to be disconnected. Hannah's voice could be faintly heard saying, Huh? Listen, anything. And then the line cut. The audio also captured something else that was very, very valuable to finding who did this. Behind those voices, they could hear a diesel engine, gear changing, road noise, and it was the unmistakable sound of a vehicle traveling through an urban area. And forensic analysis concluded that the call had been made inside of a van. So now we've got the subtle sounds with and so now the picture was becoming devastatingly clear. In the darkness, in the back of that moving vehicle, Hannah had managed to silently call 999 without her attacker realizing it. And she had tried to give investigators every piece of information that she possibly could, her location, her name, which was her sister's name, but she uh they think she did that to link the two and the details of where she lived. But sadly, that call did not save her life. But eventually it would help bring her killer to justice. So now investigators had to go find that van. Going back to the interviews and CCTV footage, several witnesses confirmed that they did see a white van in the area. They said that it was a transit-style van, white, kind of used for commercial deliveries. And some of the witnesses did have an interaction with the driver of the van, and they said it was a man with an Indian accent. So now, as they have this information and they're reviewing that CCTV footage, they did see a van in the area. It had like a refrigerator thing on the top. Detectives were able to get information off that van, which led them to Southampton Sandwich Company. And that night it was assigned to one of their drivers. His name was Mendeer Pal Singh Coley. From this point forward, we're calling him Coley. He was 35 years old, married with two children, and a man by outward appearances had built an ordinary life in Southampton. The more police learned about Coley, the more concerned they had become. He lived locally, he knew the streets, he knew the route along Port Twitter Road, and the evidence was beginning to point directly at him, and detectives moved quickly to bring him in for questioning. On the morning of March 18th, just four days after Hannah's disappearance, officers arrived at Coley's home, but they were met by his wife. When they asked to speak to her husband, she appeared genuinely confused. When they asked to speak to her husband, they asked to speak to her husband, but then she told them something that stopped investigators in their tracks. He wasn't there. He left the country. According to his wife, he went back to India a couple days earlier, claiming that his mother was ill. It was a family emergency, but nothing to worry about. However, for detectives, the timing was impossible to ignore. Two days after Hannah's body was found, four days after her murder, their prime suspect had boarded a plane and fled. Officer said that his wife acted like she had no knowledge of what her husband did. Officers asked if they could collect DNA for one of their sons, and she agreed. Now his wife appeared to have no idea what her husband had done. I genuinely believe that she did not think that her husband was a murderer, but she did know something happened that night. I'm going to play you a clip of one of her friends recalling what she told her about the night that he came home from the night Hannah died.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

When he went to the pub, he went in his van, his wife's van. That's the only vehicle they had. Um after a couple of hours of sleep, people up went.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

If that was hard to hear, she was saying that Coley got home from the pub that night. He was very upset and said that while he was out, somebody had put a dead body in his van. He didn't know what to do, basically, and drove the van home. So we at least know that she knew that he had a dead body in his van. But I still genuinely believe that she did not think that he was responsible for that body. I think that she was probably, you know, just kind of covering for him, not letting the police know what, you know, she knew, but I don't think she knew that that he was responsible. So now they have the DNA, which they did send off, but they would have to wait for the results. But now an international manhunt was about to begin. The DNA results did come back, and samples collected from the crime scene were compared against the samples from Coley's son, and it was a match. Also, side note that blood on Hannah's jacket was actually Coley's as well. So now Coley was no longer just a person of interest, he was now confirmed through forensic evidence that he was Hannah's killer. And he had vanished into a country of over a billion people. So what should have been a straightforward arrest had just become an international crisis. Hampshire police reached out to India, Interpol was brought in, and Kohley's photograph was distributed basically everywhere. They were circulated through um Punjab, Delhi, and West Bengal. But he was on the move. According to investigators, he was traveling frequently, sheltering with extended family, and reportedly using false names. To avoid detection, and months would pass without confirmed sightings. And for Hannah's family, every passing day was its own kind of torment. Not only had they lost their daughter, they were watching the man responsible for her death remain free, untouched, and living out his days while Hannah was in the ground. Then Hannah's parents, they did something extraordinary. In February of 2004, nearly half a year after Hannah's murder, they boarded a plane to India themselves. Those grieving parents traveled thousands of miles from home standing in front of cameras on foreign soil, pleading directly with the Indian public to help them find justice for their daughter. They held up photographs of Hannah. They spoke about who she was. They asked people to share Coley's image. They refused to let the world forget about their daughter. And their courage just it gives me chill bumps even talking about it. It captured international attention and the pressure was mounting and eventually it worked. After fleeing to India, Coley quickly rebuilt a life for himself. One, he was hiding with different family members, he changed his name, he um shaved his hair, he cut up his beard, he got a job working with a company that was affiliated with the Red Cross, and he actually got married again. Yes, so not only was he on the run, he had built a whole life. He was married, and this poor wife of his, she had no idea that she was married to a murderer and a fugitive. And in many ways, Coley wasn't living like a fugitive in the dramatic sense. He wasn't hiding in remote wilderness or living off the land. He was working, he was actually building friendships also. He had integrated himself into communities. It's just it baffles me that somebody is capable of doing that. And once again, he was moving frequently, thinking that it would keep him safe from being caught, but he was wrong. Public pressure, the coverage generated by Hannah's parents, and a growing network of tips eventually gave investigators what they needed to find this man. A local taxi driver named Jason Lepsha, who had worked with Kohley, had come to know him under his assumed identity, provided crucial information that helped investigators zero in on his location. Now it is worth noting that there was a substantial amount of reward money going to anybody that led to the arrest. And Jason, he did receive that money and he later donated it to establish the Hannah Foster Memorial Foundation, which was a school named obviously in Hannah's memory. And I just think that is so sweet. Everybody, well, most everybody could use extra money. And in this case, he didn't want it. He wanted to put it to something to honor this murdered 17-year-old. I just I wish there were more people out there like that. In July of 2004, 16 months after Hannah's murder, the police finally were able to move in. Coley was arrested in the Darling District while reportedly attempting to travel to Nepal with his new wife. He was now in custody. For Hannah's family, it was the first real victory since they had lost her, but they knew the fight was not over. Bringing him back to Britain was a battle on its own. Following the arrest, Coley immediately began fighting extradition to the United Kingdom. Over the following years, yes, I said years, the process became a lengthy legal battle that tested the patience of everyone involved. Coley claimed that he had been mistreated while in custody and he claimed that he was tortured. His legal team challenged everything to delay the extradition. At one point, he claims that he attempted suicide. For Hannah's family, each new delay was another devastating blow. It was more waiting and just more years without that accountability, without their daughter's killer facing justice. But they kept campaigning. They kept speaking publicly about Hannah. They refused to let her case fade from the headlines or from the minds of the decision makers who had the power to act. And eventually, once again, their persistence won. In 2007, four years after Hannah's murder, the Indian authorities approved the extradition and Coley was placed on a flight back to Britain. So now at least he's going to face trial. And by the time the trial began, the prosecution had assembled an overwhelming case. The DNA evidence connecting Coley directly to Hannah was unambiguous. Witness testimony had placed the white commercial van in the area where she disappeared. The enhanced 999 recording had captured audio consistent with her abduction, including what forensic experts determined to be the voice of a man with an Indian accent who had not grown up in the area. And Coley's abrupt flight to India in the immediate aftermath of Hannah's murder spoke loudly to the questions of guilt. Piece by piece, prosecutors laid out what they believe happened the night that Hannah was murdered. Here she was, a young woman hanging out with her friend. They end the night and she begins walking home on a very familiar route. But then Coley spotted her. So we don't know if he was out, for lack of a better term, hunting that night, or if this was a crime of opportunity. But no matter what it was, she desperately tried to save her life by making that 999 call. In 2008, Coley was found guilty of the murder of Hannah Foster and he was sentenced to life in prison. I have a recording of Coley giving details of the abduction of Hannah. I'm obviously assuming that this came after he was convicted. And throughout the trial, Coley showed little remorse. For Hannah's family, the verdict was exactly what they could have hoped for. Justice was served, but there was no closure. There is no closure on losing a child like that. There's no closure on losing a child, but a child to be taken from this world in such a violent manner, it just breaks my heart. But they had been fighting to bring her killer to justice for years and they finally had it. Hannah is remembered for more than the tragedy that ended her life. She is remembered as a daughter, a sister, a loyal, caring friend, a brilliant student with dreams of becoming a doctor, and she just wanted to do good for this world. In the years following her death, Hannah's parents worked to ensure that her name and values lived on. They established the Hannah Foster Justice Trust, which raises awareness about violence against women and supports families navigating the aftermath of serious crimes. And their courage from their trip to India to the years of public advocacy has helped other family and has helped other families find strength in their darkest moments. Hannah's case also contributed to the important conversations about emergency response systems. The silent solution protocol that was in place the night that she called, the same protocol that governed how six minutes of silence was handled, has since been reviewed and refined. Her case became a reference point for training and policy. The idea that the silent call might be a lifeline, not just an accident, gained new weight because of what happened to her. And in India, thousands of miles away from Southampton, the Hannah Foster Memorial Academy stands. Remember, it was a school built with reward money from the man who helped locate her killer. Children are educated there today. Final thoughts on this one. On the night Hannah disappeared, she did everything she could to survive. In the midst of unimaginable fear, alone in the dark of a stranger's van, she found a way to dial 999. She couldn't speak. She knew she was being watched, but she still tried. And more than 20 years later, Hannah's story continues to resonate, not because of the man that took her, but because of who she was. I hope that everyone that heard this story today can take a moment to honor her and her being known as somebody who just wanted to give back, someone who genuinely cared, somebody who wanted to make a difference with her life. Once again, she was deemed a person that this world needs more of. And that is the case. Wow. Okay, we made it through it, but it was rough. And I'm gonna try and lighten the mood a little bit. What you guys know, I always end episodes with a palette cleanser that is related to food. And the one I have for you today is a question: Is there a food product out there that you absolutely refuse to buy the generic version of? Like you will pay the full price, whether it's on sale or not, there are no compromises. And for me, I have only one, and that is ketchup. I'm a Heinz girl, full stop. And I know at the end of the day, ketchup is ketchup. And if somebody hands me hunts at a barbecue, I'm gonna say thank you and I'm gonna eat it and not make a big deal about it at all. But if I'm standing at the grocery store and I need to buy ketchup, I don't care how cheap the others are. I'm getting Heinz every time. And I'm pretty sure that's the only condiment that I'm really like that about. And speaking of condiments, I have a really funny story about a one steak sauce that I need to tell you. But that's gonna have to wait for next time because we are out of time for today. Thank you very much for being here. Just take care of yourselves, take care of each other. And until next time, I hope you guys stay safe and hungry for justice.