EL MIRAGE, Ariz. — Neighbors and family are grieving the loss of two daughters and their father who were found dead inside their El Mirage home last week.
Police are still investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths, but the victim’s family said in a GoFundMe account the father, Steven Foster, 41, shot his daughters before turning the gun on himself.
In the post, the family said the father had mental illness and identified the children as 9-year-old Charlotte and 16-year-old Charisse.
El Mirage police officers found the three bodies of the family members during a welfare check at the family’s home near Dysart and Cactus Roads.
“It doesn’t make sense,” said Miguel Muñoz, the victim’s neighbor. “In talking with him a lot of times, there never seemed to be anything [wrong], or him interacting with his children.”
Muñoz has known Foster and his two daughters for about five years, meeting them after they moved into the community.
He said Foster always helped neighbors and was attentive to his girls.
“You just wouldn’t have thought that he would have done that, he loved his kids,” said Muñoz. “He was working on my car like three weeks ago, and he told Charlotte to go inside and do her homework, she would go inside but them come out and say, ‘dad I need a hug’ and he would very calmly put down his tools and he would reach over and give her a hug.”
The post said Charlotte was fearless and had a talent for drawing and painting. Charisse shared her mother’s latent for hair and makeup, and loved riding horses, the family said in the account.
On Saturday, Muñoz and other neighbors held a vigil outside the victim’s home. A growing memorial of flowers, teddy bears, and candles remains outside.
Muñoz said he spoke to the victim’s mother who said he suffered from a mental illness.
“She goes ‘I want people to know what Steve did was not himself’,” Muñoz said. “She said Steve was a very loving father to his kids. That’s not the Steve that would have done that to his kids, at the time he committed that, to him, it made sense in his own mind to do that- that’s what she said.”
Some of the girl’s classmates dropped off flowers outside the victim’s home where Muñoz walks over every night and turns on the candles.
The family is asking for donations for funeral expenses. If you would like to help, please visit their GoFundMe page.
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