(somber music)
- [Narrator] Much Marcle
is a picturesque village,
in Herefordshire England,
and home to a traditional
close-knit farming community
dating back many generations.
It is also the birthplace of one
of the most notorious
modern-day serial killers
the UK has ever seen.
At 8:30 a.m. on 29th September 1941,
in a dingy upstairs room,
of a cottage in the village,
a baby boy was born,
his proud parents Daisy
and Walter named him,
Frederick Walter Stephen West.
He was their first surviving child,
and with his blond curls
and stunning blue eyes he
left the locals astonished
at what a beautiful baby he was.
Over the course of the next 10 years,
Daisy gave birth to six more children,
although sadly her third son David died
within a month of his birth.
As the family grew the Wests moved twice,
eventually settling at Moorcourt Cottage,
the house where Fred
West would spend the rest
of his childhood.
The family lived in considerable poverty,
living off the land,
with eight of them living
in a three bedroom cottage
that had no running water or electricity.
Toilet facilities consisted of a bucket
that had to be emptied every day
into a rat-infested sewage pit.
But the house, although isolated,
had stunning panoramic
views of the countryside.
Of Daisy's six surviving children,
Fred was by far her
favorite and was described
by his siblings as, Mammy's blue-eyed boy.
Fred in return adored his mother
and the pair shared a special bond,
bordering on unhealthy.
Fred never got on with his father,
who was much closer to his other sons.
Fred was the first to
attend the local school,
but he was educationally challenged
and was often in trouble
for being scruffy.
He was also mercilessly taunted
by his fellow classmates.
Fred had very few friends
and relied on his siblings
for companionship and
was particularly close
to his younger brother John,
although even he bullied Fred at times.
The West children spent their summers
and spare time helping with chores,
and it was rumored that the bonds
within the family became
closer than was natural,
and in particular, the relationship
between Fred and his mother
may have been incestual.
In later life, Fred also spoke
of his father's pedophile
tendencies with young girls
and claimed it was a normal part
of his childhood growing
up in Much Marcle,
an attitude that Fred
carried into his adult life.
When Fred left school at the age of 15,
he could hardly read or write
but he immediately found a
job working with his father
as a farm hand and was later
joined by his brother, John.
By now Fred's once
blond curls had darkened
into a mop of thick
curly almost black hair.
And at the weekends the
West boys frequented
the nearby town of Ledbury,
where they met up with other locals boys,
smoked, drank and ate chips
and Fred was taking more of
an interest in his appearance.
With his piercing blue
eyes and dark curly hair
he was considered by the
young girls in the area
the best looking lad in town.
However, his crude and
ill-mannered behavior
around young women soon
altered their opinions of him.
If Fred saw a girl he fancied
he simply grabbed her,
whether they reciprocated or not.
He also took pleasure in stealing
girls away from his mates.
By the age of 17, Fred
bought himself a motorbike
that became his pride and joy,
it was a mauve colored 125cc James.
But on the evening of 28th November 1958,
Fred was involved in an accident
when he crashed his bike
into a local girl named Pat
Manns, who was on her push bike.
Both Fred and Pat were
injured although Pat escaped
with minor scratches and bruises,
whereas Fred sustained
a serious head injury
and several broken bones.
Fred lay unconscious in Hereford
Hospital for seven days.
He also had a steel plate fitted
to repair his smashed skull.
It's thought the accident
had a profound effect
on his life and mental capabilities
and he was left with lifelong
problems as a result of it.
It also changed his previous good looks,
he now had crooked features and a limp.
After his recovery he tried to return
to his old social life in Ledbury,
but he soon became a laughing stock
when his injuries
prevented him from dancing
as he previously could.
And for the first time Fred started
to show signs of aggression.
He was also struggling to live at home
and tensions with his
father were unbearable.
It was around this time
he met 16-year-old Catherine
Bernadette Costello,
known as Rena or Rene.
They met at a dance held in
Much Marcle Memorial Hall.
Rena had recently moved down
from her native Scotland
to stay with relatives in the Village.
She came from a poor
industrial town near Glasgow
and was brought up by her father
after her mother walked out.
And from an early age
she had been in trouble
with the police and was
considered a delinquent.
Possibly because of her
troubled background,
she was one of the few girls Fred had met
that overlooked his vulgar
disrespect for women
and relentless demands for sex.
On the contrary, she was grateful
for the perverted affection he showed her.
However their intense relationship
and Fred's jealousy led
to fierce arguments,
and eventually, she returned to Scotland.
Fred then turned his
attention to a local girl
who was only 13 years old,
and he secretly met her for
sex for the next six months.
He was also still spending
weekends in Ledbury
and on one occasion he grabbed a girl,
and when she spurned his
advances and hit him,
he lost his balance and fell
down a flight of stairs,
hitting his head on the
concrete floor below.
Again he fell unconscious
and when he came round 24 hours later,
his demeanor had changed again.
He was even more
short-tempered and irritable,
leading his family and those that knew him
to believe he had suffered brain damage.
After this latest incident,
Fred turned to petty crime
and he and his mate Brian Hill were caught
after stealing jewelry from a local shop
and were fined four
pounds each by the courts.
This was the first of
many brushes with the law
and the next was when it was
discovered the 13-year-old girl
he had been sleeping with
was pregnant with his child
and he was charged
with having unlawful carnal
knowledge of a child.
The scandal was the final
straw for his mother Daisy,
and she threw him out.
Fred went to live with his
mother's sister, his Aunt Violet.
During this period the West
family refused to speak to him,
and he quit his job at the farm.
Ultimately the trial collapsed
when the 13-year-old girl
refused to give evidence,
leaving Fred a free man
and less than a year
later his mother asked him
to return home.
Rene had also returned from Scotland
and the pair were reunited.
However, in the two years
since they separated,
she'd been working as a
prostitute in Glasgow.
She had also spent time in borstal
after being caught stealing.
Rene was also pregnant after
she had a brief relationship
with an Asian bus driver.
Fred decided the best solution
would be for him to try
and abort the child himself,
but during the crude operation
the pair were caught,
and the attempt was abandoned.
Instead, they decided to get married,
and Fred agreed to bring
the child up as his own.
Fred knew his mother would
not approve of the union,
so he waited until after his 21st birthday
when he could marry Rene
without his parent's permission
and the two were married
at Ledbury Registry office
on 17th November 1962.
Fred's brother John was the only guest,
and he took the one
and only wedding photo.
Chillingly this same photo was used
on posters labeled missing
when 32 years later
it was realized no one had
heard from Rene for many years.
Fred and Rene spend their wedding night
on the sofa in Fred's parent's front room.
Daisy was none too pleased
about the secret marriage,
and with nowhere else to go,
the newly married couple decided
to start their married life in Scotland
near to where Rene had grown up.
Compared to the beautiful
countryside of Much Marcle
it was a bleak existence
in an equally bleak place.
The marriage was doomed from the start.
Fred's insatiable and
brutal demands for sex
often left Rene in tears
and in reality amounted to rape.
Rene also resumed her life as a prostitute
something Fred encouraged
and her life was reduced
to constant demands for
violent sex from Fred
as well a regular beating from him,
even though she was heavily pregnant.
On the 22nd of March 1963,
Rene gave birth to a baby girl
they called Charmaine Carol Mary.
The child's mixed race was very apparent
and shocked Rene's side of the family.
And so as not to shock the West family,
the pair concocted a story
saying Rene had lost the child
she was carrying and they had
adopted an Asian baby instead.
Fred took an instant dislike to the child
that was obviously not his
and Charmaine's birth
caused a rift with Rene
and the pair briefly separated
and Rene lived alone with Charmaine
in a Glasgow tenement block.
But Fred soon joined
her, and the couple lived
in the dingy neighborhood
at 25 Savoy Street,
the first of three homes numbered 25.
On the few occasions Fred
went back to Much Marcle
he would brag to whoever would listen
that he was a Mr. Big in Glasgow,
involved in drug dealing
and the underworld.
in reality, he was an ice cream man
who drove a bright yellow Mr. Whippy van
and spent his days looking for customers
on the sprawling estates of Glasgow.
The work also allowed him
to chat up teenage girls,
enticing them into his
van at every opportunity.
On July 1964, just over a
year after Charmaine was born,
Rene gave birth again
this time to Fred's child,
a little girl they named Anne Marie.
Fred doted on his first born daughter,
while Charmaine was treated appallingly
and received the full wrath
of Fred's temper on a daily basis.
With their growing family,
Fred and Rene moved to a bigger flat
in nearby Maclellan Street
and whilst living here Fred
rented a small allotment
and grew potatoes and cabbages.
However, ominously, he kept
a section of the plot clear
and raked ready for planting
but never put anything in it.
When asked by fellow allotment
holders what the plot was for
he said it was being kept
for something special.
Fred also became a
frequent late night visitor
to his allotment and often
took young girls there for sex.
Suspiciously around the
time Fred lived in the area
at least four young girls went
missing and were never traced
and many believe Fred's murderous
ways started in Scotland,
and the allotment would have been
a perfect burial ground.
Sadly we may never know for certain as
in the interim years the area
was bulldozed and redeveloped
and is now a 13 lane
junction of the M8 motorway.
During his time in Scotland,
Fred had many affairs and fathered
at least one illegitimate
child named Stephen.
A boy named Gareth was
also reputed to be Fred's.
He was also responsible
for a terrible tragedy
when he knocked down
and killed a young boy
with his ice cream van.
After the boy's death, Fred
was vilified by the locals
and he decided to leave Glasgow
and return with Charmaine
and Anne Marie to Much Marcle.
By now his marriage was unstable,
and Rene refused to go with him,
preferring to stay in
Glasgow with her new lover.
Eventually, Rene did join him,
and the pair went to live
at the Willows caravan site in Gloucester.
However, Rene frequently
returned to Scotland,
and after one of these visits,
she returned to Gloucester
with two friends,
Isa McNeil and Anna McFall.
Both girls were unhappy at home
and wanted to try and find
work and a new life in England.
The three women and
Rene's children were met
at Gloucester bus station by Fred,
who at the time was
working for an abattoir.
He picked them up in his stinking lorry
that was still loaded with animal remains.
All four adults and two children lived
in their tiny caravan,
but after a few weeks
cooped up in the caravan
and unable to find work,
the woman soon wished they
were back in Scotland.
They also had to live with the
crude and unpredictable Fred
whose volatile relationship with Rene
often ended in violence.
Isa and Rene secretly plotted to leave
and contacted Rene's ex-lover in Scotland,
and arranged for him to drive down
from Scotland and pick them up.
But Anna, who had become
very friendly with Fred,
told him of their plan to escape
and he came home from work unexpectedly
and caught the women packing.
A violent confrontation ensued
between the man, Rene and Fred,
and Fred grabbed the children
and refused to let Rene take them.
In the end, a distraught
Rene along with Isa,
left without her children.
Anna declared that she would stay
to look after the children.
She had become completely
infatuated with Fred,
and in letters to her mother
she wrote of her new life
with Fred and how they had moved
into a beautiful house
and planned to marry.
This was, of course, a lie.
They still lived in the caravan
and 16-year-old Anna was struggling
to look after Charmaine and Anne Marie,
and eventually, Fred placed them in care.
The girls were then
either returned to Fred
for short periods or were fostered out
when he didn't want them around.
Back in Glasgow, Rene
desperately missed her children
and in the summer of 1966 returned
to England to reclaim them.
But when she discovered the full extent
of her friend Anna's
relationship with her husband,
Rene was consumed with jealousy
and instead of returning to
Scotland with her children
she took them to a nearby caravan park.
In a rage at her former friend's betrayal,
she stole all her belongings
and went on a thieving spree.
Soon the police became involved,
and Rene tried to evade them
by returning to Scotland.
Ironically, she was followed
and arrested in Scotland
by a young WPC from
Gloucester named Hazel Savage,
an officer that 28 years
later became central
to the Fred West investigation.
Rene was brought back to Gloucester
where she was convicted of
housebreaking and stealing
and was given three years probation.
Fred, who gave evidence in court,
admitted he was living with Anna McFall,
but intended to send her back to Scotland
and support his wife.
After the trial, Fred continued
to juggle relationships
between Anna and Rene but the strain
of this complicated arrangement
was getting too much
for Fred and although it was never proved,
it's thought he starting
taking out his frustrations
on unsuspecting women in the area.
Between December 1965 and January 1967,
eight violent sex assaults
were committed on women
in the Gloucester area, by a
man fitting Fred's description.
Although the resemblance was not realized
until many years later
when Fred West's murderous
life was finally exposed.
There was also the bizarre
death of 15-year-old Robin Holt,
a young boy who was known
to both Fred and Anna.
Fred worked with Robin
at a farm machinery factory in Gloucester.
But on the 20th of February 1967,
Robin failed to return home from work,
and the next day he was spotted
in Fred's home village of Much Marcle.
Nine days later he was
found half-naked and hanged
in a disused cowshed near his home.
Strewn around the area were
pornographic magazines,
and nooses that had been drawn
on the necks of the models.
At the time the death
was recorded as suicide,
but years later the
death was linked to Fred,
although nothing could be proved.
Around the same time as Robin's death,
Anna McFall fell pregnant
with Fred's child.
She wrote to her mother
saying how wonderful Fred was
and how excited she was about the baby.
But in reality, she was now
living alone in a caravan
and caring for Anne Marie and Charmaine
when Rene was away in Scotland.
Fred was desperate that his
wife Rene did not find out
about Anna's pregnancy,
and to ensure she didn't
he had to eliminate her.
Anna was last seen in July 1967,
around the caravan site where
she lived in Gloucester.
She was heavily pregnant at the time.
When Anna's letters to
her mother and friends
in Glasgow stopped, they
assumed she had made a new life
in England and chose to
leave her old life behind.
And although they thought it was strange
that she did not attend
the funeral of her mother,
who died of starvation,
not a single person looked for
her or reported her missing,
not even social services
who had become concerned
about her living arrangements
and care of Fred and Rena's children
after she herself became pregnant.
Not long after Anna's disappearance,
Fred moved to the Lake House caravan park
in the village of Bishops Cleeve,
in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.
Living less than a mile away
in Tobyfield Road was
13-year-old Rose Letts.
Rose was born on the
29th of November 1953,
in Northam, Devon.
Her father William, known
as Bill, was a war veteran
who was in the Navy and her
mother Daisy was a petite woman.
To the outside world,
the couple were happy
with an immaculately turned
out family and spotless home.
But appearances can be deceptive,
and the reality was very different.
Rose was Daisy's fourth child
and at the time of her birth,
she was already experiencing
bouts of deep depression
and an obsession with
hygiene and house cleaning.
What is significant is that
when Daisy fell pregnant
with Rose she was receiving
electroconvulsive treatment
after she suffered a
complete mental breakdown.
And despite her pregnancy,
the psychiatrist continued her treatment,
which causes electrically
induced seizures in patients,
said to provide relief
from mental disorders.
The last of these
treatments was administered
just days before Rose was born.
When Rose was born, similar to Fred,
everyone remarked on what
a beautiful baby she was.
However, they couldn't help
notice her strange behavior.
She would rock her head for hours on end,
and the older children complained
as she regularly bashed her
head against her cot at night.
As Rose got older she continued
to swing her head in front of
her for long periods of time,
inducing a trance-like state.
She was considered by her
siblings as unintelligent
and as thick as two short planks,
earning her the nickname Dozy Rosie.
Whether the ECT her mother received
while carrying Rose was
responsible for this,
no one can know for sure,
but it could have had a bearing
on her behavior later in life.
Despite it being Daisy who
was doing most of the cleaning
it was, in fact, her husband Bill
who was the one fixated by cleanliness.
He insisted the children's hands
and hair were inspected regularly
and he soaked the carpets
in bleach to kill germs.
He had developed
obsessive-compulsive disorder,
so just a speck of dust anywhere
could prompt a terrifying rage.
Bill also forbade his wife from speaking
to anyone outside the house
as he feared she might have an affair.
And if he found out she had
ever spoken to a neighbor
he would mercilessly beat her.
He was equally brutal towards
his children, as was Daisy.
In fact, both of Rose's
parents were mentally ill,
and their behavior towards the children
had a profound effect on their
childhood and development.
Bill also had an unhealthy interest
in his eldest daughter Patsy.
And when she could take no more
and left home to join the Wrens,
he turned his attention to Rose
who in her formative years growing up
believed her father's behavior was normal.
Rose also began indulging
in sexual activity
with both her brothers as
well as boys from the village
from an early age.
After rumors of Bill's unhealthy interest
in young girls circulated
around the village,
the Letts family moved from Devon
and eventually ended up in
Bishops Cleeve, Gloucestershire
where Bill had secured a job
and a house with an electronics company.
The family now had more money and security
but that didn't stop Bill
terrorizing his family.
Rose attended Cleeve school,
this was an unhappy time for her
and she had few friends and didn't fit in.
By now she was overweight
and was mercilessly teased.
Rose reacted to this with violent
and regularly lashed out at her tormentors
both girls and boys and became feared
among the other children
in Bishops Cleeve.
When Rose was 15 years old
her mother could take no more
and she left Bill taking Rose
and her younger children with her
and went to live with
her daughter, Glenys.
Rose was given a job
at Glenys and her
husband's mobile snack bar.
This gave her the perfect opportunity
to entice lorry drivers and
passing motorists for sex.
She even tried to seduce her
brother-in-law on one occasion
and was still regularly
sexually abusing her younger brothers.
However, it wasn't long
before Rose declared
that she was moving
back in with her father,
where it's believed their
sexual relationship resumed.
But Daisy was finding it impossible
to support her other children
and she also had no choice
but to move back in with her husband.
By now Rose had found
herself a full-time job
as a waitress in a cafe
in Cheltenham High Street,
a five-mile bus ride away.
Fred was now back living
with his wife Rene
in the caravan park not far
from the Letts' family home.
Fred and Rene had taken
their children out of care
and with Anna out of the picture
their relationship had
significantly improved.
However that didn't stop
Fred chasing young girls,
and one of these was
15-year-old Mary Bastholm,
a waitress at a cafe
Fred sometimes visited.
Mary went missing on January 6th, 1968.
She was last seen waiting
at a bus stop in Bristol Road Gloucester.
After her disappearance,
a major hunt was launched,
but Mary was never seen again
and the case was never solved.
After Fred's arrest in 1994,
he was questioned about her disappearance
but denied any involvement.
Although it's claimed, in private,
he did admit to killing Mary
but never revealed where he buried her,
there is a very strong possibility
that Mary was another
of Fred West' victims.
Not long after Mary's disappearance,
Fred's mother died,
and shortly after her funeral
Fred was charged with theft.
As a result, he lost his
job, and after a brief stint
as a septic tank emptier
he later secured a delivery
driver job for a local bakery
and whilst delivering to a small cafe
in Cheltenham High Street,
15-year-old Rose Letts caught his eye.
One night as Rose waited
for a bus after work,
Fred came up to her and started chatting.
At first Rose thought the
scruffy older man was a tramp,
but as they got chatting
she became flattered
by the attention and they discovered
they lived within a mile of each other.
Soon after he asked her out
and they met in the Swallow's
pub in Bishops Cleeve.
Initially, Fred told Rose
he was a single parent
whose wife had left him
and gone back to Scotland,
leaving him with two
young girls to care for.
In reality, Rene was
stilling living nearby
after they had split up again
after one of their rows.
Rose was soon infatuated with Fred
and rather than go to work,
she spent her days in
a dingy dirty caravan
looking after Charmaine and Anne Marie
and prostituting herself
to men Fred brought to her.
Fred was keen to meet Rose's parents
but after being introduced to them,
they took an instant dislike to him,
seeing through his ridiculous
lies about owning property
and having a fleet of ice cream vans.
And they soon sent him packing
and ordered Rose to break off
the relationship with him.
But despite her parent's disapproval,
Rose carried on seeing Fred in secret
and when her father found
out he reported his daughter
to social services
citing her wild behavior
and Rose was placed in
care until she was 16.
As soon as Rose turned 16,
she left care and reunited with Fred
and quickly fell pregnant.
Her parents were furious and
demanded she have an abortion
and give up Fred or they would disown her.
She refused and eventually
went to live with Fred
in a rented flat on Midland
Road Gloucestershire.
At first, Rose was keen
to play happy families
and look after Charmaine and Anne Marie.
But this soon wore thin and
with her progressing pregnancy
and the demands of two small children,
barely younger than herself,
the cracks began to appear,
and Charmaine, in particular,
was becoming a willful child
who had little respect for Rose.
To add to the strain on
the 17th of October 1970,
Rose gave birth to her first child,
a girl they named Heather Rose.
Remarkably despite her young age,
Rose seemed to slip through
the net of social services
who should have monitored her ability
to care for a newborn baby as
well as two older children.
If the checkups had been made,
then history may have been very different
as they would have realized
the dire domestic situation
those three children
now found themselves in.
This wasn't helped when Fred was arrested
and charged with theft
and motoring offenses
and was jailed for 6 1/2 months.
17-year-old Rose was now completely alone,
with little money and no support,
trying to care for three young children.
During this period she
tried to keep control
by dishing out sadistic
punishments to the children,
in particular, Charmaine.
And Rose made no secret of the fact
she couldn't wait for their mother, Rene,
to return so she could
be rid of the two girls.
During this period Charmaine
was taken to hospital
with a nasty puncture wound on her leg,
likely the result of
Rose's violent outburst.
But again no alarm bells rang,
and social services were not informed.
However despite her struggles,
Rose found plenty of time
to write passionate letters
to Fred in prison and, interestingly,
Rose signed her letters, from
your ever worshiping wife,
even though Fred was still married
to Rene at the time.
Rose also made frequent
visits to Fred in prison
and often took the children,
and it was shortly after
one of these visits
around the 15th June 1971
that Charmaine went missing.
Rose told family and neighbors
that Charmaine's mother
Rene had come to collect her
and take her back to
Scotland, but in reality,
it's likely Rose lost her
temper and killed the girl.
Alarmingly, the explanation
for Charmaine's disappearance
was accepted by her school
who never questioned why
her file was never requested
from her new school
and simply destroyed it after three years.
It's believed that when Fred
was released from prison
on the 24th of June 1971,
one of the first things Rose told him was
that she had murdered Charmaine
and he needed to dispose of the body.
This would have been a turning point
in the couple's relationship,
and it's likely that Fred confessed
to the murder of Anna McFall
and possibly Mary Batholm,
and these terrible shared secrets
brought them closer
together as a killer couple,
both with an understanding
of taking another life.
Rose had callously dumped
the little girl's body
in the coal cellar beneath their home
and Fred retrieved the remains
and buried them in a hole
he dug outside of the
back door of their flat.
However, in the months that followed,
the strain of the couples shared secrets
must have become too much
for the teenager Rose
and she decided to leave
Fred and left with Heather
to return to her parent's
house in Bishops Cleeve.
But when she arrived her father
turned her away telling her
that she had made her bed
and now she must lie it in.
Later that day Fred turned
up and lured Rose back,
threatening that if she didn't come back,
her place in his bed
would soon be occupied
by some other woman.
Fred had another problem on his hands.
His wife Rene, she had
always kept in touch
to check on the well
being of her daughters,
and during a visit must have realized
her eldest daughter was missing,
and even visited Fred's
relatives in Much Marcle
to inquire about her whereabouts.
Around the same time as the visit
it's believed Fred offered to
take Rene to see Charmaine,
but first, he took her to the
pub and got her blind drunk.
He then strangled her in his car
and took her corpse
back to 25 Midland Road,
where he cut her up and
bagged up the pieces.
He then drove his car
back to a field in Kempley
near Much Marcle where
he buried the remains
in the same field as Anna McFall.
And similar to her, no one missed Rene,
and she was never reported missing.
Her disappearance was not investigated
until many years later.
After Rene's murder,
the Wests resumed their
sordid life at the flat.
Rose was working as a
prostitute in their home,
something Fred encouraged and
frequently watched his wife
with her clients through a
spyhole in the bedroom wall.
Their children often
witnessed sexual activity,
but Fred and Rose seemed
unconcerned about such exposure,
and it became a way of life
for the two young girls.
With Rene and Charmaine out of the way,
Fred and Rose married on
the 29th of January 1972.
At the ceremony, Fred failed
to mention his first marriage,
describing himself as a bachelor,
even though he had married Rene
in the same Registry Office.
The Wests went on a honeymoon to Devon
near the place where Rose had been born
and witnesses who knew Rose
later claimed the couple
had a blond bisexual girl
with them, her whereabouts
and identity to this day is unknown.
When they returned to Gloucester
they decided to move house.
Midland Road was too
small for a growing family
and Rose's work as a prostitute.
So their landlord Frank
Zygmunt offered them
a large semi-detached
house in Cromwell Street,
located just a few 100 yards away.
The once desirable address
had fallen into disrepair
and most of the large
houses had been converted
into bedsits and flats often
frequented by students.
But number 25 had not been converted
and was spacious with
a garage and a cellar.
It was the perfect place for Fred and Rose
to continue their sordid life
and build on Rose's work as a prostitute.
In particular, Fred
planned to turn the cellar
into a torture chamber for her clients.
After the Wests settled in they started
to take in lodgers to help pay the bills
and Rose routinely had
sex with most of them.
One of these lodgers started
bringing his girlfriend around,
her name was Lynda Gough.
The West's soon befriended her
and offered her a casual job
as a nanny as Rose was pregnant again
and needed help around the house
and with the children.
Shortly after, in June
1972, Rose gave birth
to another daughter they named Mae.
It was also around this time
that Fred and Rose began
to sexually abuse
eight-year-old Anne Marie.
They would both take her
down into the dingy cellar
of 25 Cromwell Street
telling her she was lucky
to have such caring parents
and she was led to believe
that what they were doing to her was
what all loving parents
did to their daughters.
Anne Marie suffered
years of appalling sexual
and physical abuse from
both Fred and Rose.
In November of the same year,
Fred and Rose were
driving in the countryside
on the outskirts of Gloucester
when they picked up a hitchhiker.
17-year-old Caroline Owens,
who lived with her mother and stepfather
in the village of Cinderford.
After getting into a conversation with her
they offered her a job as a nanny
and Caroline moved into Cromwell Street.
Rose, in particular, found the
young girl very attractive,
but Caroline grew tired of her advances
and the sexual free for all in the house
and announced that she was
leaving after just a month.
However, Rose was determined
to have her at all costs,
and the couple devised
a plan to kidnap her.
One evening, after Caroline
had visited her boyfriend,
she accepted a lift from the Wests,
but instead of taking her home,
Fred stopped in a gate and
knocked Caroline unconscious.
When she awoke she had
been bound and gagged.
They drove her back to Cromwell Street
where both Fred and Rose
sexually assaulted her.
Eventually, Caroline managed to escape,
and after telling her
mother about her ordeal,
they reported the incident to the police.
But when the case went to court,
Caroline could not face the trauma
of testifying against them
and Fred and Rose only received
a menial 25 pound fine each
and were allowed to walk free.
They realized they might
not be so lucky next time
and vowed their next victim
would have to be killed.
Their attention then turned
to their occasional nanny, Lynda Gough.
Rose was pregnant again
and they offered Lynda a more
permanent live-in position,
and on April the 19th, 1973,
Lynda left her parents a
note saying not to worry
she had got herself a flat
and a job and would see them sometime.
They never saw her again.
Lynda endured the most
horrendous sexual torture
from both Fred and Rose.
It's unclear whether she died as a result
of the violent abuse or
whether Fred murdered her
to stop her talking, but
they killed her either way.
Fred then buried her body
in the inspection pit in his garage,
first dismembering her
corpse for his own pleasure.
He even kept some parts
as macabre mementos
before dumping the rest of her remains
including her still bound and
decapitated head in the pit
before covering it with soil and debris.
When Lynda's mother came looking for her
and called at Cromwell Street she noticed
that Rose was wearing Lynda's slippers.
She also noticed on the washing line
some of her daughter's clothes.
Fred and Rose came up with some story
about asking her to leave
as she had hit their
young daughter Anne Marie.
Despite never giving up
looking, it was 20 years
before Linda Gough's
parents discovered the truth
about what happened to their daughter.
Their next victim was
15-year-old Carol Anne Cooper,
a troubled teenager, whose mother had died
and whose father had been unable to cope
with her so placed her in care.
Carol was living at the Pines
Children's Home in Worcester
and on the evening of Saturday,
the 10th of November 1973,
she was stood at a bus stop
after an evening with her boyfriend.
Carol intended to spend the next few days
with her Grandmother
but she never made it.
After boarding the bus,
her whereabouts was unknown
for the next 20 years, until
her dismembered remains,
still with the gag around her skull,
were recovered beneath the
cellar of 25 Cromwell Street.
It's unclear how she met her fate,
but it's likely that Fred and Rose
on one of their car cruising
trips offered her a lift
and she was taken back to Cromwell Street
In contrast to Carol's life,
Fred and Rose's next victim,
21-year-old Exeter University
student Lucy Partington
was completely different.
She was from an upper-middle-class family
and her parents were highly educated,
and although they were separated,
Lucy enjoyed a good
relationship with both of them
and was devoted to her
Roman Catholic faith.
In December 1973, Lucy had
returned home from university
to spend Christmas at her mother's house
in the picturesque village
of Gretton near Cheltenham
On the evening of December 27th,
Lucy visited her friend
Helen, who lived nearby
and at around 10:15 p.m.,
Lucy left to catch the
bus back to her mother's,
the stop was less than three minutes away
from Helen's house.
It's thought Lucy missed the
bus and was offered a lift
by Fred and Rose, who may have
had their children with them,
giving Lucy a false sense of security.
Similar to Carol, it's unknown exactly
how she met her death, but it's thought,
prior to being murdered she
was tied up in the cellar
at Cromwell Street and sexually abused.
After the pair had murdered her,
Fred crudely but
effectively cut up her body
with a small cheap kitchen knife.
It's thought he cut
himself during the period
as records show he visited A
and E at around the same time
with a deep cut to his hand.
Unlike the West's previous victims,
Lucy's family quickly reported her missing
and an extensive police
investigation ensued.
Teams of police dogs and
divers searched extensively
for the missing girl,
and the case received a lot of publicity
on TV and in newspapers.
There is no doubt, Fred and
Rose would have been aware
of the reports at the time.
Shortly before Lucy's disappearance,
Rose had given birth to Stephen,
the third genetic child of Fred and Rose.
Fred was also making arrangements
to buy 25 Cromwell
Street from his landlord.
In April 1974, 21-year-old
Swiss-born Therese Siegenthaler
attended a party in Deptford South London.
At the time she was a student
at the Woolwich College
of Further Education.
The day after the party she set
out to hitchhike to Holyhead
where she intended on
catching a ferry to Ireland.
However, somewhere along her journey
she encountered Fred and Rose
and ended up miles off her proposed route
in the back streets of Gloucester.
Sadly she met the same fate
as the West's other victims,
and after killing her and
dismembering her body,
she was buried under the cellar,
and later Fred built
a false chimney breast
over the site of her grave.
Her family in Switzerland
reported her missing
after they hadn't heard from her
and frantic efforts were made to find her,
but not in their wildest dreams
could they have linked her
to 25 Cromwell Street.
Just over six months later,
on the 14th of November 1974,
15-year-old Shirley Hubbard
disappeared without trace.
Shirley had been adopted
by the Hubbard family at the age of six
and had lived with them in
Droitwich, Worcestershire.
She was a rebellious child
and had previously run away from home,
however at the time of
her latest disappearance
she was much more settled
and happy with her new boyfriend.
But after he saw her
onto the Droitwich bus
at around 9:30 p.m. that evening,
she was never seen again.
It's unknown how she ended up
in the cellar at Cromwell street,
but it's likely that she was picked up
either at a bus stop or
as she got off the bus.
When her remains were eventually found,
her dismembered skull was
wrapped tightly with brown tape,
and a translucent tube was still dangling
from her nostril area,
the device was commonly used
in extreme forms of bondage.
For poor Shirley, her death
would have been torturous,
at the hands of these
two hideous sex monsters.
Shirley was reported missing,
although it was assumed
that she had run away again.
This was reinforced by numerous
so-called sightings of her
over the years until her true
grisly fate was discovered.
What is unbelievable is
during this period the Wests
were still taking in lodgers
to help pay the bills.
Yet they all seemed oblivious
to what was going on.
Although in retrospect,
many of them remembered unpleasant smells,
and lots of banging and clattering coming
from the cellar area, although
at the time they just assumed
it was Fred carrying out some
of the many so-called
improvements he made to the house.
One such lodger was not so lucky though,
her name was Juanita Mott,
another troubled 15-year-old
who had found her way to Cromwell Street
after she was offered cheap lodgings.
Juanita had lived there on
and off for a couple of years,
however, by April 1975
she was not at the house
and was staying with her
friend, Jennifer Baldwin,
in the town of Newent.
Jennifer was due to get
married and Juanita had offered
to look after her children
during the ceremony
due to be held on the 12th of April 1975.
The night before the wedding,
Juanita decided to spend
the evening in Gloucester
as she often did, and stood on the side
of the road to hitch a lift.
Fred and Rose who had known
her a few years by now,
would have been familiar with her habits
and probably offered her a lift.
And as she knew them she
likely willingly accepted.
Juanita never made it
to Jennifer's wedding,
she became another of the West's victims.
Once back at Cromwell
Street she was gagged
and trussed up like an animal,
and suspended from a beam in
the West's cellar and abused.
She likely died from asphyxia,
during the attack or
possibly a blow to the head.
She was then dismembered
and buried four feet
beneath the cellar floor.
Incredibly and despite
no previous indication
she would run away,
her family never reported
her missing, if they had,
her links to Cromwell Street
would have been surfaced,
and many lives could have been saved.
It's worth pointing out
that throughout the time the
Wests were killing these women,
25 Cromwell Street was known to the police
and they did on occasion
visit the property
over petty thefts and cannabis use.
But during these visits,
the demeanor of both
Fred and Rose gave little
to indicate what was really
going on in the house,
and no one suspected Fred's
constant building of extensions
and such like at the property,
was to hide it's terrible secrets.
As well as all the
girls the West's killed,
there were also several
other victims of their abuse,
who did survive but were reluctant
to tell anyone out of shame and fear.
And probably the person
who suffered the most abuse
was Fred's daughter Anne Marie,
who for most of her
childhood, was raped, tortured
and physically and sexually abused
by both Fred and Rose.
Rose was particularly cruel to
the child as she was jealous
that she was Fred's
daughter by another woman.
But despite this, Anne
Marie idolized her father
and later admitted she
would have done anything
for both her father and Rose
and it seems they exploited
this devotion in the vilest way.
Fred started raping Anne
Marie at the age of eight
and forced her into
prostitution at the age of 12.
By 15 she was pregnant with Fred's child,
a child that was later
discovered ectopic and aborted.
The unbearable suffering endured
by Anne Marie at the hands
of her father and step-mother
is hard to stomach,
which is why we will not go
into details of her abuse.
It's also worth remembering,
that Fred and Rose murdered
Anne Marie's mother
and two half-sisters, and the consequences
of their actions have
had a catastrophic effect
on her life and mental well being.
It's hard to imagine how from day to day
she copes with what happened to her.
By 1977, 25 Cromwell Street
was now owned by Fred
and had been fully
converted into two sections.
The downstairs where the family lived
and the upstairs where the lodgers lived
in fully equipped bedsits
that could accommodate
up to seven tenants at a
time, almost always women.
Fred had also converted the cellar
into bedrooms for the children.
This gave him the perfect guise
to properly entomb the five
bodies that were beneath there.
It also meant the children's bedrooms were
completely separated from the adults,
leaving Fred and Rose to indulge
in their sexual torture
without disturbance.
Rose could entertain her clients
in a specially adapted
area, complete with a bar,
TV and spyhole for Fred to observe.
They also had an extensive collection
of homemade pornography videos
featuring Fred, Rose and her clients
and possibly some of their victims.
In addition to these,
they had illegal videos
of extreme pornography
featuring children and animals.
Rose also advertised her services
in contact sex magazines,
and both Fred and Rose were in contact
with couples with like
minded sexual interests.
One of these lodgers was
a bisexual woman named Shirley Robinson,
who had been working as a
prostitute in Gloucester
when she became friendly with Rose
and came to live in one of the bedsits.
Shirley was just 18 at the time,
and she was soon involved
in a sexual relationship
with both Fred and Rose.
Rose was pregnant again
not with Fred's child
but one of her West Indian clients,
and not long after Rose's announcement,
Shirley discovered she was also
pregnant with Fred's child.
At first, Rose was fine with the news
but after her baby was born
on the 9th of December 1977;
a mixed-race girl they named Tara,
Rose became more and
more jealous of Shirley
and it started affecting
her relationship with Fred,
who was beginning to regret getting
so involved with Shirley.
Her baby was due on June the 11th 1978,
a day neither mother or
baby would live to see.
Shirley was strangled at Cromwell street,
shortly before her due date.
It's not known whether Fred
or Rose carried out the murder
and unlike most of their other victims,
there was no sexual torture involved.
The Wests simply wanted to be
rid of Shirley and her baby
as they posed a threat
to their relationship.
By now the cellar was full,
so Fred dug a hole in the back garden
and buried her remains there.
Shirley had been dismembered
in a particularly brutal and frenzied way.
She had been scalped
and it's thought her unborn
baby was cut from her,
perhaps in a vain
attempt to keep it alive.
Years later it's tiny skeleton was found
nestled beside the dismantled
bones of its mother.
In a callous twist, the Wests tried
to claim maternity
benefits in Shirley's name,
however, the claim was rejected
after investigations revealed Shirley
no longer lived at Cromwell Street.
No further questions were asked
and the West's told anyone
who inquired about Shirley's whereabouts
that she had done a bunk to Germany.
Nobody reported Shirley missing
or queried about her welfare.
After Shirley was murdered,
Fred and Rose's relationship resumed,
and they decided to have another child.
On November the 17th 1978, Rose gave birth
to another daughter they named Louise
and although Fred's name was
on the birth certificate,
it's likely one of Rose's
clients was the father.
The following May 1978, Roses
father Bill, died aged 60.
There has always been a rumor
that Bill became one of Rose's clients
as he made frequent
visits to Cromwell Street,
although this has never
been fully established.
One thing is for sure,
few people mourned the passing of Bill
and he is buried in an
unmarked grave in Cheltenham.
Shortly after Bill's death in August 1979,
the West's claimed another victim,
her name was Allison Chambers.
Allison was a resident
at Jordan's Brook House,
an approved school for
girls in Gloucester,
that housed troubled young
girls who had been expelled
from other places of care.
The girls that lived there
were around the age of 15,
and for Fred and Rose, it
provided the perfect environment
for them to lure young girls
back to Cromwell Street.
15-year-old Allison was
a deeply unhappy girl
who lived in a fantasy world
where everything was perfect.
Rose befriended her and
listened to her troubles,
and both her and Fred cruelly played
on the naive young girl's vulnerability,
promising her a life in
the country on their farm.
Of course, it was all lies but
poor Allison believed them,
and as soon as she was
17 she left Jordan Brook
and wrote to her mother
saying she was living
with a homely family, looking
after their five children.
It's likely she was already
having a sexual relationship
with both Fred and Rose.
But shortly after moving
to Cromwell Street,
Allison was brutally murdered,
and dismembered before
being buried in the garden.
When friends asked the
Wests of her whereabouts,
Rose initially said that she was living
on their non-existent farm.
She later changed this when a friend asked
to visit her there, telling
her Allison had left
to live with relatives.
As with many of their other victims,
the police never followed up
on a report she was missing
as she had officially been discharged
from care and was no longer
considered vulnerable.
In 1980, Anne Marie would be 16 years old.
For practically all her life
she had been physically,
mentally and sexually
abused by her parents,
and used as a child prostitute.
Her miserable existence
had become unbearable,
and just before her 16th
birthday she finally managed
to escape the dire life and
went to live with friends.
Rose had given birth to
another son they named Barry,
meaning after Anne Marie left,
there were still five of
the West's children living
at Cromwell Street.
The eldest of these was
10-year-old Heather,
and now her eldest sister had left,
Fred turned his attention to her.
Just as he had said to Anne Marie,
he told Heather it was her father's right
to have sex with her.
She was also being regularly
beaten by both Fred and Rose.
Over the next two years Rose gave birth
to a further two children,
Rosemary junior in 1982
and Lucyanna in 1983.
Neither of these children
were fathered by Fred
and are believed
to have the same West
Indian father as Tara.
With the family growing,
more and more of the
workload was being heaped
on their older children.
And Heather, Mae and Tara would
regularly cook, clean and sew.
Heather in particular
was feeling the pressure
of the chores she was given,
as well as the abuse she was suffering
and she became increasingly withdrawn.
The once studious pupil was now getting
in trouble at school.
She also started drinking and smoking
and by the age of 12
was caught shoplifting,
and she was also very wary
of males, or male attention.
In a typical cruel way,
Fred and Rose taunted
their daughter saying
she must be lesbian and
Heather was the first
of the older West children to run away,
but she quickly returned to a beating.
Stephen was the next to run
away, but unlike normal parents,
the Wests didn't even try to look for him
let alone report him missing,
they just left him to
sleep rough for three weeks
until he returned like
Heather to a beating.
However despite the
appalling abuse at home,
Heather was intelligent,
and in the summer of 1986 was due
to sit her eight CSE exams.
Heather was determined to pass these exams
so she could get a job
at 16 and leave home.
But by now her parents were
the talk of the school,
and Rose, in particular,
was the subject of gossip due to some
of her children very
obviously not being Fred's.
However the West children
had been brainwashed
not to say a word about
their sadistic home life.
But sadly Heather let a few things slip,
and her parents were fuming.
It's possible this
indiscretion sealed her fate.
Heather was becoming increasingly
desperate to get away,
and asked her sister Anne
Marie, who was now married
if she could come and live with her.
She also told a friend
what was happening at home,
who told her parents, who
were friends of Fred's
and dismissed the claims.
Heather left school after
completing her exams
and was desperate to
get a job and get away.
It's likely if she could have found one,
she may still be alive today.
But it was in the late
1980s and jobs were scarce.
And while Heather moped around the house,
it's likely it grated
on Fred and Rose so much
that one day an argument broke out,
and Heather became another
victim of the evil pair.
It's known that Heather was strangled.
She was also naked and tied up
when her remains were found,
although no gag was found.
Who killed her is unknown and
although Fred confessed to it,
it's widely believed it was Rose
that murdered her firstborn child.
After her death, Fred
manically chopped up the body
of his daughter, removing
her head and limbs,
and ripping out her fingernails.
He then put the remains in a black bag.
When the rest of the children
came home from school
and asked where their sister was,
Fred and Rose told them
that Heather had got a job
in a holiday camp in Devon
and had left that day.
Fred then asked his son Stephen
to help him dig a hole in the garden,
as he was thinking of
installing a fish pond.
Little did Stephen know
he was digging a hole
to bury his sister.
After Stephen noticed the hole
he had dug had been filled in,
Fred calmly told him
that he had changed
his mind about the pond
and later laid a patio
over the area instead.
With Heather gone Fred
turned his attention to Mae,
but she furiously rejected
his sexual advances
and his constant groping in full view
of Rose became a joke to them.
Just as he had with Heather,
Fred accused Mae of being a lesbian,
and tensions between
the pair were strained.
But Mae had found herself a boyfriend,
and within four months of their meeting
he had moved into Cromwell Street.
Mae later revealed that this protected her
from being raped by her father,
although eventually Fred and
Rose asked the pair to leave,
and they managed to buy
themselves a new house
away from Cromwell Street.
Although Mae was never
sexually abused by Fred
it later transpired that at the age five
she was raped by Fred's brother John.
Mae recently wrote a book
about surviving her
childhood with Fred and Rose.
In the years that
followed Heather's murder,
it seemed Fred and Rose
had mellowed slightly.
Rose was no longer working as a prostitute
and no longer took in lodgers.
And the pair, who had a couple of visits
from social services, were keen to present
to the outside world the
facade of a respectable life.
However there were tensions
in the West's marriage,
and at one point Rose moved out briefly,
and rented a bedsit near her
younger children's school.
She had grown tired of Fred's
constant demands for sex
and unbeknown to Fred, Rose
also started dating another man.
But all this became insignificant
when in August 1992 the police
raided 25 Cromwell Street
and arrested Fred on suspicion of raping
and sexually abusing his
13-year-old daughter, Louise.
The arrest also meant the West's
other children were taken into care.
Rose was also arrested,
but later released,
although both were charged.
Fred with rape and buggery
and Rose with encouraging
unlawful sexual intercourse
and cruelty to a child.
It later transpired
that Fred and Rose had taken
Louise out of education,
and the school believed Rose
when she told them she had
gone to live with a relative.
In reality, Louise was
being abused by her parents
and they were scared she
might reveal the truth
to her school mates.
Although Fred and Rose had
threatened their daughter
that the family would be
broken up if she told anyone,
eventually Louise did confide in a friend,
who told her mother, who
then alerted the police.
During the time that Fred was on remand,
Rose made an unsuccessful
attempt to kill herself.
However strangely, Rose had also changed
her attitude towards Fred.
She visited him regularly at
his Bail Hostel in Birmingham,
and those who witnessed them together said
they were like a couple
of love dove teenagers.
It was as if the charges,
rather than killing the West's marriage,
had brought it back to life.
Many saw this as a
manipulative attempt by Rose
to keep Fred quiet about her involvement
in their daughter's abuse.
In court, the pair denied
the charges against them,
and as they stood in the dock together,
the judge declared that all three
of the West's younger children
including Louise had refused
to testify against their parents,
meaning the case collapsed
and not guilty verdicts were recorded.
Although crucially,
social services refused
to allow their young children
back to live with them.
Instead of fighting
for their four youngest children's return,
they gave up on them
and cleared their rooms
of clothes and toys and threw them away.
They even talked about
having more children,
but as Rose had been sterilized
after her last child,
this had to be reversed first.
Rose went through the operation
but thankfully did not
fall pregnant again.
However despite Fred and Rose believing
that they had gotten away
with their latest brush with the law,
they were unaware that the
police were investigating
where their firstborn
daughter Heather was.
They'd asked about her whereabouts
during the investigation
for the abuse of Louise
and had been concerned
about how vague and unconcerned they were
about where their daughter was.
In fact, one detective,
Constable Hazel Savage,
who was working on the case,
remembered Fred West from
when she was young PC
and had been assigned to
pick up Fred's first wife
from Scotland after she was due
to stand trial for burglary.
During the journey back to Gloucester,
Rene had confided in PC Savage
telling her several details
about her complicated and degrading life
with her husband, Fred.
Savage later met Fred at Rene's trial.
Remembering what Rene had told
her all of those years ago,
Detective Savage was not
going to let this one drop.
There were far too many
discrepancies in the West's story,
and she became determined
to find out what happened to Heather.
Little did she know the horrors
she would later uncover.
But one thing is for sure
if it was not for her
determination to get to the truth,
it's likely the Wests would
have got away with their crimes.
And it seems during the six-year period
after Heather to their arrest in 1992
they didn't kill anyone else
and were completely off
of the police's radar.
To add to the concern for Heather,
one of the West children was overheard
by a care worker at the
home that she was in
that Heather was buried under the patio
and the comment was
reported to the police.
On the 24th of February 1994,
police rang the doorbell
at 25 Cromwell street,
armed with a search warrant
giving them permission
to search the garden as
part of their investigation
into the disappearance of Heather West.
Both Fred and Rose were
taken away for questioning.
Not long after Fred admitted
to killing his daughter, Heather,
and burying her in the back
garden of Cromwell Street,
he even accompanied them back to the house
to direct them where to dig.
After his confession Rose
was allowed back home.
As police continued to dig in the garden,
Rose and two of her older
children stayed at the house.
They had already dug up a human leg bone,
this was followed by a
further two leg bones,
and the enormity of what had happened
at Cromwell Street was
beginning to unfold.
Meanwhile, Fred confessed
to a further two murders,
while Rose continued to deny
that she had anything to do with them.
Rose and the elder children
were questioned again,
but again allowed home.
It was now apparent they could
not stay at Cromwell Street,
and were all moved to a safe house.
Rose continually blamed Fred,
and even her children believed her.
By now the story had hit the newspapers,
and journalists and TV cameras
flocked to Cromwell Street.
The entire garden and cellar were
now being excavated by police,
and it was revealed that they were looking
for at least nine more victims.
Fred continued to admit sole
responsibility for the crimes,
but unbeknown to Rose
and her eldest children
in the safe house the
place had been bugged.
The newspapers were now
displaying headlines
like, House of Horrors.
Two months after Fred's
arrest, Rose was also arrested
and charged with the
murder of Lynda Gough.
Rose answered every question
she was asked with, "No Comment".
Meanwhile, Fred was
answering every question,
giving ever more details
of his grisly crimes,
while still refusing to implicate Rose,
insisting he acted alone.
He had also shown them the field
in Much Marcle where he had buried Rene,
and later they found the
remains of Anna McFall
in an adjacent field.
The remains of Charmaine
had also been found
beneath the kitchen floor
of their former home in Midland Road.
Rose was facing nine murder charges
and Fred an additional two,
that of Rene and Charmaine.
However it was Charmaine's
death that puzzled the police.
Fred was very clear on how he
had killed the other women,
but he kept changing his story
about how Charmaine met her death.
In late July 1994, Fred and
Rose were to come together again
for the first time since Fred's arrest.
They both stood side by side
at a remand hearing in Gloucester.
Fred desperately tried
to interact with Rose,
trying to place a hand on her
shoulder and make eye contact,
but Rose coldly dismissed
him staring straight ahead
barely acknowledging he was there.
Fred was devastated by
this snub from the woman
that he was trying to protect
and who he still desperately loved.
Fred and Rose would meet
again for the last time
at another remand hearing in Gloucester,
by now all the bodies had been recovered
and Fred and Rose were jointly
charged with nine murders.
Fred an additional three
that included Anna McFall,
Rene and Charmaine.
Fred had already been warned
that Rose did not want to speak to him,
and when the pair met, Rose
callously rejected him again,
barely offering him a second glance.
Fred, by now was a broken man,
not because he had been
charged with serial murder
but because of Rose's rejection of him.
He had not heard one
encouraging word from her
since the day he was arrested.
He had sent constant messages
through Steven and Anne Marie
to tell Rose he loved her,
but he got nothing back
and he had spiraled into deep depression
and was often heard weeping in his cell.
He was being held on remand
in Winson Green prison,
and as a remand prisoner he
was allowed some comforts
and had a single bed with
the luxury of a music system,
his own bed quilt, and pillowcases.
Despite this, it was
still a grim existence,
but Fred had made the most of it
and had even put up curtains
on his barred windows.
On New Years day 1995,
Fred ate his breakfast
and went to the exercise yard,
where he chose what he
was having for lunch.
He then went back to his cell
and wrote Rose a note that said,
to Rose, happy New Year darling,
all my love for ever and ever.
At 11:30 a.m. he collected his meal
and took it back to his cell to eat it,
where he would be left alone for an hour.
But instead of eating his food,
Fred pulled the sheets from his bed
and ripped them into strips
which he plaited together
to form a strong ligature.
He then stood on a chair
and threaded the ligature
through a ventilation shaft in his cell,
and while standing on the
chair, he them formed a noose
and put it over his head, he
then kicked the chair away.
Fred's neck did not immediately break,
meaning he slowly strangled
and would have suffered considerable pain.
Fred hung there for 55 minutes
until guards checked in on him.
And when they discovered what he had done,
they desperately tried to
save him, but it was too late.
On the wall of his cell Fred
had scratched the words,
Freddy the mass murderer from Gloucester
as if it was something he was proud of.
He also left a number of
letters that he had never sent,
expressing how much he loved Rose.
In the aftermath of Fred's death,
there was criticism from
the families of the victims
about how Fred could have
been allowed to kill himself
and deprive them of a trial
into the deaths of their loved ones.
Also in an extraordinary
move, the heroine of the case,
Hazel Savage had been talking to an agent
about writing her memoirs about the case
for a one million pound figure,
and after an inquiry into her conduct,
she was moved off the case.
Astonishingly, Fred's older children,
Anne Marie, Mae and Stephen
deeply mourned their father,
despite the years of abuse
he had put them through.
However, Rose showed no outward emotion
when told of her husband's death.
It must have dawned on her
that now she was the one
who had to take the brunt
for her and Fred's crimes
and this may have been what
prompted her legal team
to make a determined effort
to get the charges dropped.
After all, Rose had not
admitted to anything,
and Fred had initially
insisted she wasn't involved.
But now he was gone.
The judges decided there
was enough evidence
to proceed with a trial
and rather than drop the
charges against Rose,
another one was added,
the murder of eight-year-old Charmaine,
bringing the total of murder
charges against her to 10.
After Fred's death, there
was little sympathy for him
even though the full details
of the crimes had not been made public.
He was hated by the public
and there were even conspiracy theories
that prison officers had colluded
or even assisted the suicide.
Although it later transpired
that there was no evidence of this
and they had acted as they should have
after finding Fred hanged.
Fred had requested that he be buried
in Much Marcle in the family plot,
he even left a drawing of what
he wanted on his headstone.
In perfect peace, he
waits for Rose his wife.
Of course, this was out of the question,
and after his death, Fred's body was kept
in a deep freeze for three months.
No funeral director or church
would agree to bury him.
Eventually in return for a
story from Fred's son Stephen,
The News Of The World newspaper
agreed to find a crematorium
that was prepared to hold the funeral
and Fred was finally cremated
at Canley Crematorium,
in Coventry on the 29th of March 1995.
The press had got wind of it,
and the place was crawling with
TV cameras and journalists.
Fred's children, Stephen, Mae and Tara,
attended the brief service,
followed by Fred eldest
daughter Anne Marie
who was particularly upset
as she hadn't been invited.
It's hard to imagine
after what Fred and
Rose had put her through
she still adored her father
and wanted to pay her respects.
Steven took Fred's ashes to Much Marcle,
intending to scatter them near
the graves of his parents,
but Anne Marie turned
up and grabbed the urn.
A scuffle broke out and
Anne Marie took the ashes
to Fred's brother Doug's house.
It's unknown what actually
happened to them after that.
Rose showed no interest in
the fate of her husband,
and continued to protest her innocence,
supported by her oldest
children Stephen, Mae and Tara,
who vehemently believed
she had done nothing wrong,
and their father was to
blame for all the murders.
At this point they had no idea
of the true involvement of their mother.
Rose's trial was set for
the 3rd of October 1995
and was to be held at
Winchester Crown Court.
During this period her
psychological state was unstable,
and she was placed on suicide watch.
Before the start of the trial,
Rose was moved from
Pucklechurch Remand Centre
to Winchester jail.
When the trial began,
Rose was still confident
she would be found not guilty
and was even making
plans to move to Ireland
when it was over.
Her eldest children also
believed in her innocence
and felt sorry for her
and the mess their father had
left behind for her deal with.
Although they did not attend the trial
they did attend the summing up,
but crucially Anne Marie decided
to give evidence against Rose.
Her account was harrowing
and she was so distraught
after her appearance in the dock
that she made an unsuccessful attempt
at committing suicide.
During the investigation
into Fred and Rose's crimes
it had also come to light
that Fred's brother John
had also been involved
in raping and torturing Anne Marie
and was due to stand trial.
The same as Fred, he hung
himself before the trial started.
It's widely believed he was aware of
and probably involved in
Fred and Rose's crimes.
In summing up Brian Leveson,
for the prosecution,
described Rose as a
tough resourceful woman,
who was obsessed with sex
and was the perfect partner for Fred West.
But like the three brass monkeys
she claimed to have seen no evil,
heard no evil and spoken no evil,
despite living in a house
where women were raped,
mutilated and buried.
He said Fred's death was the greatest gift
he could have given Rose because it meant
he could not be cross examined
and in all likelihood proven
to the court to be both a
liar and her accomplice.
He concluded that Fred and Rosemary West
were perfect companions and
they were in it together.
Of course, the defense disagreed,
but by this time some of the
evidence and witness statements
in particular from Caroline Owens
and Anne Marie were overwhelming.
On Wednesday the 21st of November 1995,
the jury found Rose guilty of the murder
of Charmaine and her own daughter Heather,
as well as Shirley Robinson.
They then retired to consider the verdict
on the seven other victims.
When they returned Rose was
found guilty on all accounts.
At the sentencing, Justice
Mantell ordered Rose to stand,
he then said Rosemary Pauline West,
on each of the 10 counts of murder
of which you have been
unanimously convicted by the jury,
the sentence is one of life imprisonment.
If attention is paid to what I think,
you will never be released.
Rose showed no emotion
as she was led away,
never to be seen by the
outside world again.
The crimes of Fred and
Rose read like fiction,
it's impossible to comprehend
how two human beings can
be so cruel and sadistic.
Their case is also very rare,
they were an apparently
happily married couple,
with a mortgage and a family
living in the middle of a city,
in a street where they cheerily
greeted their neighbors
on a daily basis, living
in a house located
near to a shopping center
and a police station,
that hundreds of people passed every day,
completely oblivious to the horrors
that were unfolding there.
They were also rare in the fact
that neither of them were ever
under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The crimes they committed were solely
to satisfy their depraved sexual desires.
And although both of them were
below average intelligence,
they were not mentally impaired.
One thing that they had in common was
their abusive childhoods and
the pedophilic tendencies
of their fathers and in Fred's case,
possibly his mother as well.
Neither of them had any moral boundaries
especially when it came to their children.
Many have suggested Fred's accident
as a teenager may have
changed his personality,
but Rose had no such excuse.
It is almost certain
that Fred and Rose killed
many more young girls, but
sadly for their families,
Fred is no longer here to tell his tales,
and Rose still claims her innocence,
and is currently trying
but failing to appeal.
A female serial killer is rare,
but one who takes her own daughter
as a victim is almost unheard of.
From the moment Rose killed Charmaine
when she was aged just 17,
keeping her body for Fred to dispose of
when he came out of
prison they became a team,
a lethal murderous cocktail,
of secrets and lies
that created a bond between them stronger
than any marriage vows.
Of course, there were
failing along the way
that meant their crimes went undetected
for over 20 years.
Between 1972 and 1992 the West
children had visited A and E
an astonishing 31 times
with various injuries,
yet no one thought to
investigate the family.
Some of the children had
sexually transmitted diseases,
speech impediments and squints,
all classic symptoms of abuse.
Social services had been informed
that the West children
were often left alone
at Cromwell Street, and
although the family were visited
no action was taken.
Another astonishing flaw was
that six of the 12 known
victims of Fred and Rose were
never reported as missing
by their family and friends.
In the case of Heather,
why did none of the extended family
of both Fred and Rose ever
question where she was?
One thing is almost certain,
across the sprawling countryside
surrounding Gloucestershire,
and Herefordshire
there are many more hidden horrors,
that one day someone will stumble upon.
If Fred had lived, it's
likely he would have given up
some of those secrets, but with Rose West,
the chances of relieving the suffering
of many families whose loved
ones have disappeared is
about as likely as her
ever admitting her guilt
or showing any remorse for her victims.
As for the house at Cromwell
Street, it's long gone.
A few years after the
discovery of the bodies,
the council demolished it,
and it is now a concrete walkway.
Rose's family no longer
visit her in prison
and over the years a
few of them have talked
about their life as the children
of Britain's most evil serial killers,
Fred and Rosemary West.
