Kidnapper leaves bloody trail in Oregon, hides under house

Police converged in force on the tiny, unincorporated community of Wolf Creek in southwest Oregon the night of Jan. 26 as they hunted for a suspect who was wanted for kidnapping and torturing a woman nearly to death.

Oregon: Police converged in force on the tiny, unincorporated community of Wolf Creek in southwest Oregon the night of Jan. 26 as they hunted for a suspect who was wanted for kidnapping and torturing a woman nearly to death — and who had previously been convicted of a similar crime in Nevada.

Five days later, Benjamin Obadiah Foster was dead, finally located by police hiding in the crawlspace under a house in nearby Grants Pass, the same home where his victim had been found unconscious and bound a week earlier.

In the interim, Foster entered another home and killed two strangers, leaving a gruesome scene as he evaded one of the biggest manhunts in the state in recent memory, police said Wednesday.

In 2019, Foster held his then-girlfriend captive for two weeks in her Las Vegas apartment while torturing her. Police said he broke seven of her ribs, blackened both her eyes, choked her to the point of unconsciousness and forced her to eat lye before she managed to escape.

Foster already had a suspended jail sentence on a concealed weapons charge and was awaiting trial in another domestic violence case. Two months after he cut a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to one to 2 1/2 years, he was set free on Oct. 21, 2021, the same day he was transferred to a Nevada state prison. A Nevada corrections official said Foster was released because the judge credited him with 729 days of pre-sentencing jail time.

Fifteen months later Foster, a 36-year-old bartender, was in a relationship with a woman in Grants Pass. On Jan. 24 her friend grew concerned because she hadn’t been seen for several days. The friend went to the woman’s house, where she was found beaten to unconsciousness, bound and near death. The victim remained hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday.

The case rattled Grants Pass, a town of 40,000 that has seen high unemployment and poverty rates and public safety layoffs with the decline of the timber industry. Police said they were bringing all their resources to bear to find Foster.

“We are laser-focused on capturing this man and bringing him to justice,” Police Chief Warren Hensman told a news conference Jan. 26.

Officers searched the house and didn’t initially find anyone, but then they sent a sheriff’s department robot to the crawlspace and found signs Foster was burrowed deep underneath the home. His presence was confirmed by a camera. The fugitive had water and other supplies stashed there, apparently in hopes he could wait out the police presence undetected.

The officers expected a gunfight, but instead Foster shot himself in the head, according to Hensman. Police moved in and found Foster unconscious, wedged under the house and holding a .45-caliber pistol. Officers had to cut into the floorboards to extract him.

Foster was taken to a hospital, where he died Tuesday night.“This was a long and arduous task,” Hensman said. “It ended with Benjamin Foster taking his own life.”