In May nineteen ninety two, Gloucester Police in England received a tip that a young teenage girl had opened up about having been sexually abused by her father.
Oh god.
The girl had nine siblings, only seven of whom still lived at home at twenty five Cromwell Street. The two no longer lived there, had left of their own accord, or had they. Police had no idea that this one tip would end up uncovering one of the most horrific stories they would ever hear, and we will ever hear, I hope, of the most heinous crimes, including multiple murders over twenty years. Twenty years committed by a husband and wife.
Oh my god, this is the story of the House of Horrors and Fred and Rosemary West.
Oh my god, I know this story, and I don't know this story, so I'm very excited to hear you tell this story.
Unfortunately, after researching this one deeply, I know it very well.
My god.
This episode. All of our episodes that deal with crime obviously come with trigger warnings. I want to give some really strong trigger warnings up the top of this one. In particular, it deals with the deaths of children and physical and sexual abuse of adults and children. Now I won't go I don't go into detail about the sexual abuse, but it does come up unfortunately, so lots of trigger warnings. All right, are you ready? No? Fred West was born in nineteen forty one in rural Herod for shit.
And now Herod for shit.
Yes, I think it's that, Like Leicester is Leicester not life. I think it's Herod for shit, for ship, Herod for shit, and I apologize if it's not. In England into a large and economically struggling family. His parents were named Walter and Daisy, which sounds like a Disney couple.
It does, and also like very British as well, Walter, they.
Were not a Disney couple, that's right. Oh yeah, maybe that's my brain, is not that? Like, it's pretty easy to read. Fred was the second of eight children, but two of his siblings died during all shortly after childbirth.
Okay.
Fred was born a year after Daisy's first daughter, Violet, had died. By all accounts, Fred was very much Daisy's favorite, even above her husband. Because of this, he did not have a good relationship with his father, Walter, because you know, being jealous of a baby is totally.
Normal and fine, normal and fine and cool and actually pretty cool.
The living space where they lived on a farm was very cramped. The bathrooms were simply buckets, and and they ate a lot of time. All the children ate in a day was the unpasteurized milk his dad would bring home.
Oh wow, okay.
Despite being very much loved by his mother at home, it was not a good upbringing and he did not have good relationships otherwise. Fred was bullied for being a mummies boy and was described as dim, which it's not a nice way to describe someone, but I enjoy that work.
Dim is dim is a fun way to describe, so.
You can see it's like a light note.
Yeah, yeah, it makes total sense when you say it, but everyone knows exactly what you mean, even I've never heard the word.
You also are allowed to call for a dim because he's much worse than that. His brothers, Doug and John in particular, really hated him, and they all the siblings would be physically punished by their father. Fred dropped out of school early. He was academically stunted, but he was dim exactly. But also there were questions raised about whether he was also stunted in other areas, particularly socially, emotionally,
and even sexually. He would later say he was sexually abused by his mother, but I'm very much noting that he was the only one that ever said this. His brothers have come out and said that they don't believe it to be true at.
All of Fred's accusations. I don't believe.
Yeah, sure, and they may be, but Fred is not reliable perhaps a reliable source. And that his dad taught him about sex by showing him how to do it, not on him, but I don't need to go now, but his dad taught him about sex, which is not very nice. By his mid teens, Fred had developed a very strong interest in the female sex and in the idea of sex. If he saw a girl he wanted, he would go for it whether he wanted it or not. And I don't mean in sexual I'm not insinuating rape.
But he would just you know, like physically grab it girl and try to get them to come with him, and like a dances and on the streets he was grabby and touching and yuck. He had a bad motorbike accident in nineteen fifty eight and he was in a coma hanging sorry, what does that make him? About sixteen seven, and he was in a coma for a week. They didn't know if he would.
Sam for a week. Yeah, oh wow, it must have been a really bad.
One, very bad. He slowly regained the ability to speak, but he had a significant head injury, and it's not known if this caused lasting brain damage, plus a severe fear and hatred of hospitals full shadowing. During his recovery, he would still go out and try to live a normal life. But after the accident, everyone in his life noted a big change in his attitude, particularly when it came to anger. He became much more aggressive and angered very quickly.
He didn't seem great before, still exactly he.
Told people he was deeply unhappy living at the farm and living under his parents' rule. In the early sixties, he started to get in regular trouble with the law, mostly shoplifting, petty thefts, and fights. The worst of his crimes at this time was that he had sexually assaulted his young teenage sister. He didn't understand why his parents
and the police were so angry. He admitted while being questioned to assaulting multiple young women and girls and didn't realize why everyone had a problem with this.
Oh my god. I guess if like, you know, not excuse him this at all. But I think like if his dad has shown him certain things, he's obviously got a very warped sense of what's right and what's wrong with.
Yeah, that's kind of for this background, I suppose from all the research suggests in absolutely no way, shape or form excusing or explaining anything, but it does. There is a lot about the multiple head injuries. I haven't gone into the others, but there were other things like fights where he had bad knocks to the head.
When you hear him talk as well, he does like his voice is kind of it's a strange voice as well.
He's been a very very low IQ And so yeah, I mean the way I've put it is stunted in kind of all aspects of you know, emotion, social interactions, everything.
Sure.
In nineteen sixty two, he met eighteen year old Rena, who was also described as a difficult child. Again, was in trouble for petty theft fighting. She'd been moved around to different family members to try to bring her back on track. She was actually from Glasgow but was living in England, where and when she met Fred.
Just a side note, that's my favorite accent in the Glaswegian accent, Glasgow exactly, that's exactly right on. My favorite accent.
The way I can think of a Scottish accent is this one a little bit, this one sentence that's from like a little nursery rhyme type thing that my friend Shanaid, who is Scottish, taught me. I don't know the rest of the rhyme, but one because Danni where thruz. Oh great, that's what Marina sounds. And Shrek, come on, do Shrek? I know you want to come on.
I don't know what the regular phrase I used to say as Shrek was, but it was like Gama swamp, don't care?
Was that.
Said?
Exactly that? So, yes, Rena was Glaswegian but living in England when she met Fred. She was working as a sex worker. And when she met Fred, she was pregnant to a Pakistani man. It is speculated that she may have moved to England because her family didn't agree with the pregnancy, particularly given it was going to be a mixed race child.
And this was the sixties. Was sixties and you were imagine, oh my god, and you're mad and sex work. At that time, they didn't call it that, but sex work. You imagine just how horrible that would have been for her.
Yeah, and the racism as well. But when she met Fred, they quickly got into a relationship, and when her baby daughter arrived, the couple told people that she had actually lost her baby during childbirth and they had adopted this baby to explain why the baby girl had darker skin than both of her parents. The baby's name was Charmaine.
Have you seen the film The Jerk with Steve Martin and his and he's grown up and finds out he's adopted, and he's with a clearly African American, beautiful family, and he finds out he's adopted that like when he was like Elf. Yeah, it's exactly like Elf as well.
If he doesn't know he's a human by now, he's.
Beautiful because my brother was adopted. And I think it and be hard sometimes realizing that you feel different or you look different or anything. And you know, obviously back then that would have been harder. You know, my parents found it hard to explain to people, you know, you just so I imagine at this time it would have been even harder to explain.
Yeah, and isn't that awful as well? But you know, people just go, well, why exactly. A friend of mine is adopted. She was born in Korea and was adopted to an Australian fam, a white Australian family, And she said she didn't have any concept that she didn't look the same until she started school and people asked her why she looked different to people.
Oh wow, isn't that fast? Yeah? Quickly. I found a book when I was really young, and the book was called why Am I Adopted? And I thought it for me.
Oh my god, Sammy, oh stop, I'm just picturing kittling face kid photos I've seen.
Just ask him the question. Oh.
My sister always tried to tell me I was adopted because she didn't like me and my mom. I like the spitting image of.
It, exactly.
Yeah, all right. So baby Charmain arrived in nineteen sixty two. Fred became very obsessed with Rena, very quickly, thinking she was quite worldly and wild. You know, she'd come from a different country, she you know, had a baby, she'd been working in the sex industry. He would demand sex from her whenever he wanted it, and yeah, yeah, right, and Rena essentially felt she had no choice. She also became obsessed with him in what I am describing as
a very toxic way. She tattooed his name onto her with a backyard tattoo pin.
Oh wow, that would be so painful and not Higland as well.
Yeah also that also that, Yeah, don't do that at home. It's been suggested that Rena was likely seeking stability and the love she felt she didn't otherwise have in her life. They married in nineteen sixty two, the year they met, Fred aged twenty one and Rena eighteen.
Wow.
They moved out together back to Scotland, where Rena was from, with Baby Charmain. Fred kept his worrying sexual behaviors up and encouraged Rena to go back to sex work to help them make money, but he would berate and punish her for sleeping with other people.
Wow.
It seemed he really used this as a form of serious control and manipulation. He essentially brought up baby Charmain as his own, but he didn't ever really bond with her. Fred and Rena together biologically this time, had a second baby, Anna Marie, in nineteen sixty four. Only a little over a year older than Charmaine. As soon as she arrived,
Fred neglected Charmain even more. In nineteen sixty five, Fred was working as an ice cream van driver, which like, so yeah, when you know it's not gross to be ice cream, he's one of the most heinous men in history. And like, by then the marriage was really faltering. He was cheating on Rena a lot, and over time he didn't even try to hide it. Rena hide a nanny to help look after the girls. Her name was Isa McNeil. She moved in with them and was helping them. She
was a teenage girl herself. She Issa described Rena and Fred's marriage as very tumultuous and very violent. He said the sorry, she said. The little girl slept in a bottom bunk with bars fitted to essentially cage them in, and they were only allowed out while Fred was at work.
Oh my god. A friend of issues so he wouldn't guess.
He was so violent and young. But also he just didn't He didn't want them around. He wanted his time and his peace at home. A friend of Isa's so is the only A friend of hers named Anne mcfull who was also from Scotland, came over to England and spent a lot of time at the home as well. She was sixteen. Her boyfriend had been killed in a workplace accident and she really leant on her friend Issa for support and essentially ended up boarding with Fred and
Rena as well. In November of the same year, baby Anna Marie was born. Fred accidentally hit and killed a child with the ice cream van.
Oh how horrific.
And it was ruled that this was in an accident. How horrific for everyone involved with that, but the town very much turned against him. It would be very hard to see the person that that had been behind the wheel when that happened, whether they were deemed responsible or not. So Fred made the decision to move back to England. He didn't want to live in this town anymore. He took the two baby girls and moved, while Rena set
herself up to move as well. I don't really I couldn't really find out why she didn't move away as well. I don't know if it was a bit of a He just went I'm getting rid of your bye, and then she was like, okay, hang on, let me come. But three months later she moved over and joined them as well, and she also.
Brought I thought that might have been a split. I thought that might have been a way to get out.
She brought Isa McNeil and Anne McFall, the two kind of pseudo well you know, nanny and kind of border slash nanny with her back to England as well. Both these girls came from very poor backgrounds and hoped England would be a better place for them to find jobs and make a start on new lives. They all so, Fred, Rena, Issa, and the two baby girls all moved into a caravan together.
Oh wow, clammed.
And Fred found work as a lorry driver for a local abattoir, which I just feel like the only time I hear about people obvious people who aren't. Yeah, and
Rena got a job at a local fame. Fred did not stop his violent outbursts, and he also started turning on Isa in particular as well as Rena, And so he kind of any female who was kind of living with him, and he saw us under his reign, and he could be violent and angry towards and he would blow up really quickly and really easily and be very violent. The three women together hatched a plan to escape Fred. They had had enough and they didn't want to be
part of this anymore. They Rena actually called in an old boyfriend of hers to help get the mount while Fred was at work one day. I think it was Feathers mcral exactly.
I'm not going to explain anything together.
If you guys haven't listened to all the other episodes, one.
Of the greatest criminals all times, you never.
Really had much context to bring him up.
I never come up in a natural way.
So they made a pre arranged time to have him come in. Not Feathers, this man come in and help them kind of pack up and leave. While Fred was at work.
Do you look like a penguin?
I'm not sure. I didn't look up photos, but if you want to afterwards, we can. It was a chicken he was meant to look No, he was a penguin. He's meant to look like a He got me he can. At the pre arranged time, Fred unexpectedly came home and found them leaving. Wow never home at this time, and both Rena and Issa noted that Anne didn't seem that surprised, and she was very calm at Fred's arrival. She stayed calm while Fred was obviously blowing up and tried to
placate him. She said she would stay with him and the children if Fred was saying you're not taking my children anywhere, and was kind of saying it's okay, like I'll keep him calm you guys go, we'll work this out later, and Issa left. They went back to Glasgow and left the two little girls with their violent and abusive father and this young border slash nanny and McFall.
It wasn't until the women were back in Scotland it was revealed what had gone on and Fred had been having an affair and told her that's why she wasn't surprised when he him home. She had actually tipped him off, wanting them to go so they couldn't take the children and she could stay with him.
Oh my god.
And told her friends and family violetters that she'd become infatuated with Fred and believed that living in England with him would set her up for a good life and she was trying to encourage him to divorce Rena and marry her.
Wow.
Over the coming couple of years, Rena was coming back and forth to see her children and try to take them back into her care. While also trying to remain kind of safe from Fred as well.
Sure she was terrified of him.
Fred was placing them in the care of social services on and off, so that's when she would come back. I'm gonna say that if they're in social services care on their mother or take them back. But they continued. I haven't gone into this here, but Riena and Fred continued on and off very toxic, very tumultuous relationship over this time as well. Whether it was you know, manipulation about being with the children, whether it was you know, parts of jealousy of not wanting and to be with him,
or just wanting to keep the family together. But they were, they were and stayed and stayed.
Andrina came back and yeah.
Wow yeah in nineteen sixty seven and fell pregnant with Fred's baby, but it seemed he was none too pleased about this by the time she was almost full term. When she was eight months pregnant, and left the home one day and Fred never saw her again.
Wow.
Over the next eighteen months, Fred spiraled downwards, which is pretty low from where he do it. He was arrested multiple times for thefts, He lost his job as a driver, He put his kids back in the care of social services. But Fred's luck was about to change. After being a single dad kind of in and out of social service care for about eighteen months, he set his sights on a woman named Rosemary Letts or a girl I should say. She was fifteen Fred fifteen Fred at this time was twenty seven.
Oh my god.
They met waiting for a bus. Rose initially said she was repulsed by Fred. He was dirty, unkempt, and creepy. But Fred didn't let up. He showered her with attention and adoration, and this soon became quite flattering to the young Rosemary.
Lets stayed in touch after meeting at a bus stop.
Somehow the same bus every day.
And long, ah okay, I met her at the bust.
To this first day, became infatuated with her, kept going back to the same bus stop and they were getting the same bus. Called a meat fowl, a meat fowl exact, that's good fowl like chicken like if you w l like.
Got me again, feathers.
He would like go to. He found out where she worked and would go to the cafe and bring her gifts and fowls, and was really trying to woo her, and it worked. The two standed a relationship within weeks.
After being repulsed by someone that he's such a wild turn around.
Oh sorry, I've missed a little paragraph here. Fred founder out that Rose hadn't ever had a boyfriend, but was quite promiscuous, and he really liked this.
He liked that Rose was promiscuous. Yeah, okay.
He also very much played up the sob story about being the single father to two little girls having been abandoned by their mother.
Also like, you might not know this information.
But I know everything. I mean, you know that.
If Rena has left of our own volition and everything. There was no obviously because she was scared of him. There was no like court thing where it was like you have custody blah blah blah, because that the guy usually have the kids.
Is that the I mean, I know that to be a generalization, but typically true these days. However, it wasn't so much so then. But that aside, that wasn't the case here, because I remember I said they were like in kind of an on again, off again relationship, Like it wasn't. She wasn't saying I'm terrified you and I'm
out for good I want the kids back. There was I don't know the details about if she ever tried to fight for custody or anything like that in these early days, or if she was trying to get them at together, or she was just trying to argue with him for custody. Sure, okay, but no, it wasn't that they were you know, there was, and there were any court orders. They weren't legally separated or anything. This sob
story and the adoration and wooing and pursuing work. The two started a relationship, and within weeks, Rose quit her job at the bakery to become a full time career for Fred's daughters. She noted they seemed neglected and she wanted to care for them. Fred would provide her with sufficient money to send to her family every Friday, so they didn't know she'd quit her job.
Oh okay, and she was already doing that. She was already sending money to her family.
And yeah, bringing money home.
Bringing money home.
Yeah, so you know, she'd get her paycheck every Friday. It was Fred giving her. So she'd go to work in inverted commas.
And yeah, and look after and bakers famously aren't very good accounting because of the baker's doesn't.
Because baker's doesn't not a.
Dozen thirteen is it? Yeah? Why? Because I think the baker always wanted to have one for themselves.
The older twelve for you, one for me.
Literally, let me let me actually check that, because I have that. I made made that up.
My very first job was at Baker's Delight, and I really maybe the delight is that thirteenth role.
Yeah, a baker's doesn't. And I just looked up images lovely bread I'm seeing right now. A baker's dozen't is thirteen items one more than a standard dozen twelve. The term originated from medieval English law that penalized bakers for selling underweight loads of bread. To avoid penalties, bakers would add an extra loaf to every dozen to ensure they met the legal weight requirement.
I'm going to just make the rolls bigger.
Yeah, I'm not sure about that. But yeah, but so they're not very good. That was my joke. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. It was good, Thank you.
It was a good joke. I'm edited here and I'll go like this, of course, because of thirteen thirteen very good, you're very good, all right? A bit of background on Rosemary Pauline West. She was born in rural England in nineteen fifty three to parents Bill and Daisy.
Let's Daisy again, Daisy again as well?
Isn't that funny?
Funny anyway?
She was described as quote remarkably unintelligent, dim Her brother said she was quote thick as two planks.
You don't want to hear that from your brother.
I kind of love these like.
Brutal.
She was also described as very lazy and belligerent. She too, like Fred, had a very stunted upbringing. Both academically socially, I've written both, and then I've listed three things. Academically, socially and intellectually.
You're bloody good as a counter as bloody Baker.
Cameras real real good at real well English, and.
I struggled to actually that was.
Poor in hindsight. When people found that out she was with Fred, people said that they weren't surprised that she ended up with an older man. She always wanted to feel grown up and like she could make it in the world without her parents in the who were calling her laziness, thick as two blanks.
Yeah yeah, and not a loving family. They're calling her that, but also like the wildness of her only being fifteen years old. I didn't know.
That fifteen and he was twenty six. And the thing like age differences feel different at different states of life year seven and fifteen.
Yeah.
After they had dated for a few months, Rose introduced Fred to her family and they were and I want you to guess the next word I've used, disgusted.
Yes, yeah, it's actually.
They forbade her from dating Fred and said they would report him to social services if they ever saw him again. But she defied her parents' wishes. Well, like, what do you not say to a teenage girl? Don't do that. They're going to do it even harder.
Yeap, do it? We love him? She said that reverse psychology exactly.
I thought you were saying that to me. I was like, no, don't do it. Yeah, I was, yeah, reverse psychollege genie or something. Yes. So she divided their wishes and her parents did report him. They reported, you report him to
social services, and she was fifteen. She was ah, okay engage under its relationship, and they also reported rumors, rumors they'd heard, all fears they had that she was engaging in sex work, given she was a minor, She was taken into a home for troubled teenagers, only allowed home to her parents on weekends, and when she was home
she almost always went out and visited Fred. As soon as she turned sixteen, she left the state run home because she was now allowed to do stuff, so sixteen sixteen and straight into Fred's flat, in another sign that this guy was an absolute catch. Fred was actually in prison at the time of her sixteenth birthday and her
release from the girl's home. He was serving thirty days for theft, so when he got out, he went and picked up Charmaine and Anne Marie, who had been placed in social services while he was in prison, and took the baby girls home to his new girlfriend, Rose Wow. In one last ditch attempt to get his daughter away from Fred, bill Lett's had her examined by a police
surgeon and it was discovered she was pregnant. No she was again placed into care, but after a month it was agreed that she could leave under the strict understanding she would terminate the pregnancy and return to her family.
Who made that decision.
I don't really understand how you can get somebody not examined without there Maybe it was something to do with like between sixteen and eighteen. Maybe at sixteen you were legally allowed to kind of welsewhere, but until eighteen, you're still under the legal guardage your parents, perhaps.
Different autonomy for that sort of Yeah, that's interesting, Yeah, yeah.
Okay, yeah, So she agreed to that she would termin out the pregnancy and return her to her family. She did neither. Her defiance this time resulted in her father forbidding her from ever stepping foot back into the family home.
Wow.
He had tried really hard to protect her, to help her. She had defied him so severely he said, in this case, we never want to see you again.
You've made that's enormous. Did you know what their family was like in terms of, like, you know, even even socio economic Like were they similar to Fred?
Yes?
They were? Yeah, right.
I believe I didn't go heaps into into either of their upbringings because there's so freaking much to go massive, but they both were low kind of intellectual, like low IQ, low socioeconomic. I think that Fred was kind of lower socioecono his.
Family was lower. But it's hard because it's just like, you know, if they were this poor family that were like struggling as it was, and then they're trying to get their daughter away and they're trying to do all this to make that decision would be would be enormous.
It seems they were a lot kind of closer and more a more family than friends.
It was.
If I'm wrong, and then I do apologize. They didn't go deep into her background.
Up brings a documentary on this on Netflix, isn't there Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there is, just watch that but don't know, but also like there are very descriptive details in that that.
That's why I've put that at the end.
Okay, well I didn't even know.
So they listened this whole thing and they love it and they've really connected and then asked and they tell all their friends and family members who listen to this podcast. And at the end, I'm like, if you want to know more, guess what.
Yeah, go listen to this thing. Also if you want to know more, it is such you.
Don't want to know more. But again, that's why she listened to this, as they are if they're hearing this, love you guys. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So here we have a twenty eight year old Fred sixteen year old Rose, six year old Charmaine and five year old and Marie and another baby on the way.
Lipping slipping, slipping where.
Living happily ever after?
And that's not true, Nat.
I'm going to bring back not yet. This is happy story Nat. In October nineteen seventy, Rose gave birth to another baby, girl named Heather. Another is in her first, but they've got charmis well named.
Heather for Baker's three.
Yeah, two months later, so two months after maybe head, No, it doesn't. I think a Baker's too, if we're going on. I liked it though. Two months after Heather was born, Fred was imprisoned for six and a half months four theft.
So he was known. Oh yes, yeh.
And there were many incidences of a lot of petty theft. It's kind of his go to violence, fights and things.
That's the thing you don't always like. I mean to to uncover this later. You don't link those.
Oh there was a lot that was not yea. So Rose was left looking after all three girls on her own as a teenager. Charmaine and Anna Marie were told to refer to Rose as their mother. Rose didn't like being in charge of these three baby girl or two little girls and one baby on her on. The older girls were frequently subjected to criticism, beatings, and other forms
of punishment under Rose's care. Wow as soon as she had her own biological baby, Heather, she just had an absolute disdain for these two other girls.
So loved Heather. But yes, yep, okay.
Anna Marie was generally submissive and prone to display more emotion, so she was the one that was younger. She would get upset and kind of you know, say sorry, what do you want me to do? While Charmaine, the eldest, was very stoic. She rarely cried and she yelled back, which infuriated Rose more. She would talk to Anna Marie of her belief that her mummy will come and save me,
and often antagonize Rose. When Rose was yelling at her and berating her, she would say things like my real mummy wouldn't swear or shot us when Rose was doing just that. A friend of Charmaine's recalled going to the house one day unannounced, walking in to find Charmaine naked, standing on a chair with a gag in her mouth and her hands bound with a leather strap. As Rose stood next to her with a wooden spoon. Charmaine stood
silent and uncrying. That's just one example of In June nineteen seventy one, just weeks before Fred's release from prison, Rose took the girls to go and visit him, and this was the last time Fred would see his firstborn daughter, Charmain, not his biological daughter, but his first daughter before his release on June twenty four. Charmaine did, in fact finally get taken back by her mother, Rena.
Let's just about to ask if Reena kept coming back and Sena kept coming back.
And while Fred was in prison, Rose said she's gone with Rena. Rose, Fred, nor her school friends or any neighbors ever saw Charmaine again.
Wow.
The same friend who saw her on the chair that day went around, sorry, went around to see your friend Charmaine and was told by Rose quote, she's gone to live with her mother, and bloody good riddance. This is an eight year old girl. She's talking about.
Awful.
When her little sister Anna Marie asked why Rena hadn't taken her as well, she was told by Rose, she wouldn't want you. You're the wrong color. Now. Charmaine was the one who was actually half Pakistani, but she was insinuating you're a different color to your sister, so she's chosen your sister, right, Okay, So life went on now as a family of four upon Fred. Upon Fred's release from prison in January nineteen seventy two, Fred and Rose married.
He was actually still legally married to Rena, but he just lied on the marriage certificate, which you know something I guess you can do. It's not a few months later, Rose felt pregnant again. The family moved to what would become their more permanent, bigger home at twenty five Cromwell Street, Gloucester, might be, unfortunately an address that is etched in infamy. They initially rented this house before going on to buy it from the council for seven thousand pounds.
Oh wow, it.
Was I mean, I suppose what we would call here, or would call now Commission housing, And it was an agreement so to facilitate the sale of the house, they bought it from council, but they agreed to turn the upper two It was a three story home, like a very tall skinny you know those ones you see, Yeah, tall skinny home. The top two stories were turned into bedsits so they could house lodgers and borders and that would supplement the household.
Income that money would go. I don't really understand how it was.
They Fred bought the home, but to facilitate the sale agreed to.
Some sort of payment.
Yeah, so they would have borders and lodgers living upstairs while the family lived downstairs with access through that garden. In June nineteen seventy two, Rose gave birth to another baby, girl named May June. It's spelled m a E, but yes, her name is May June.
June July. Yep, the sister.
It's just a good name. It's just a good just a good name. It's giving Northwest, it is.
Yeah.
Almost immediately after giving birth, Rose returned to sex work to make money on Fred's insistence, or not so much insistence but encouragement, and she regularly engaged in casual sex with male and female lodgers they had living at twenty five Cromwell Street, not always for money, but just for her benefit.
Right.
She was a very sexual person. Fred would also bring home people he encountered at work, either to pay Rose for sex or just to engage in sex. Fred often bragged that it didn't matter how many people Rose slept with. He was the only one that could truly satisfy her lovely Sure, but that's what they all say. Rose would beat and suffocate her sexual partners. She was very injured.
Dominate trex yeah, bdsm Yeah.
The brutality and violence in her sexual encounters became worse and more violent over time. Fred would often join in, and many of the people they slept with would describe the encounters as violent, with both Fred and Rose enjoying severe dominance. Right, They massed a huge amount of bondage equipment. I've written the equipment because I didn't know.
Yeah, Like, I almost laughed at myself.
How dorky that is writing equipment.
Equipment, serial bondage.
Toys, restraining devices, and explicit magazines and photographs that they would actually plaster around the house.
All right, Okay, I mean they had.
Little girls as well. The room Rose would conduct her sex work out of contained peepoles for Fred to watch even when he wasn't involved, and they had a baby monitor in the room for him to listen from other parts of the house. Rose had the only key to this room and kept it on an She wore at all times. Rose also controlled the family's finances. Fred would give her his pay packet and she would decide where the money was spent, and it was often on home improvements.
There was one incident in nineteen seventy three that almost or certainly could have landed Fred and Rose West in prison, probably for a very long time. Hindsight sliding doors, we can look at that. However, this is what happened a seventeen year old Caroline Owens, who was working for them
again as a nanny, casually on and off. They had met her while she was hitch hiking, and while she was in the house nannying, Fred made constant sexual advances to her, and after a few months of working with them, she decided she no longer enjoyed being there and decided to leave. She did so, and under the guise of apologizing to her, they lured her to meet with them. They said, let us just catch up and apologize for making you feel uncomfortable. They lured her into their car,
took her home. They abducted, assaulted, and raped her repeatedly. She was able to escape the following day after pretending to agree to return to work as their nanny, so they tortured her all night and said we'd come back and work with us. She said yes, to get away, to get away, oh god. She escaped the house. When
they left her alone to do the vacuuming. She reported the horrific abuse, and Fred and Rose were charged, but when it came to trial, a seventeen year old Caroline was too traumatized to relive the events exactly and face them in court. The couple was fined fifty pounds each and allowed to walk.
Free fifty pounds each. Oh, that's terrified. All the.
Sexual charges were dropped because they were witness testimony only. I think that she had physical bruises, so that they were kind of charged with low level physicality and find and so life went on in the West household. So that was nineteen seventy three. By nineteen eighty three, Rose had given birth to eight children.
Sorry, so what what years?
This? Nineteen eighty three? So in ten years?
Ten years? Okay? Rre right? Okay, yep? The one year old like.
No, your mouth is yeah, okay, octopus, that's eight legs, not eight babies.
Some sort of reference. I wanted to bring up doctor Pus in this episode.
You've bit there with a look on your face. You've been trying to bring up at octopus, bring up push the word eight?
Of course? Is it got a buzzer? Of course?
If I really liked the idea that maybe OCTOPI have eight babies in a year, and you've unwittingly please call in right now, will wait and tell us where a baker's does and octopus babies? Oh Jesus, all right. So by nineteen eighty three, Rose West had given birth to eight children, at least three of whom were conceived by her clients. Ohow, Fred willingly accepted all of the children as his own, telling those with different skin tones that
his great grandmother had been black. When each of the West children reached the age of seven, they were assigned numerous daily chores to perform in the house. They were very really allowed to socialize with anyone outside the home or even socialize outside unless either of their parents were present.
They had to follow strict guidelines imposed by their parents, with severe punishment, which was almost always physical being the penalty for not conforming, not following the household rules we're talking about. From seven years old, the children really feared this, not just not these threats of violence, but the acts of violence that would happen as well from their parents, and the vast majority of the violence was inflicted by Rose,
occasionally by Fred. The violence was sometimes completely irrational, it was sometimes indiscreet, and it was often reported it was just inflicted for Rose's gratification wasn't so much punishment as her wanting to do it.
Wow.
However, she always took great care to not mark the children's faces or hands, which could of course be seen no matter what they were wearing.
That's so crazy.
Isn't it disgusting? It's so I'm just proved.
I don't know. I was fine. Can you cut that? Oh? It's fun fun.
I did that, but with my mouth closed it would be quiet. But then I decided to speak.
I'm so sorry that I spoke.
I even interrupt myself if that makes you, I interrupt. Oh my god, that's so horrible. I'm so sorry.
Okay.
Two of the West children, Heather so that Heather was the eldest to Fred and Rose biologically and the eldest boy, Steven, both ran away from home at one point, but each returned after sleeping rough for several weeks. They were both badly beaten upon their return between nineteen seventy two and nineteen.
Ninety two, nineteen ninety two, yep.
So over over the twenty years, over twenty years, essentially from when Rose was involved in Fred's life, the West children were admitted to emergency thirty one times. Oh my god, how many of these thirty one would you think were reported to social services?
I would say all of them should be? Yes, again, thirty thirty of them were none.
Not a single incident that's child from this household presenting to accident an emergency was ever reported to social services. They were all described by the parents as accidents. You know, they'd fallen off the monkey bars, they'd tripped over their sister's foot, whatever it may be. Not one was ever reported to social.
The monkey bars A thing that's is that everywhere monkey.
Bars our monkey bars everywhere? Yeah, can you see any monkey bars in the room right now?
No monkey bars? Monkey bars Australian or Australian or is it everywhere because everywhere bars?
But do you mean this is the term Australian?
Yeah, I don't know monkey bars. Let me have a look up this right now, just monkey bars.
I don't think so. I think that's just what they're called.
Yeah, I'd be interested to know if that's if monkey bars are everywhere or if they're just kind of Australia.
Would be called like a horizontal ladder.
It's a horizontal ladder. That's exactly what it is. So it's horizontal horizontal ladder.
So if you don't know what we're talking about, the bars are I think they called monkey bars?
Okay, great, please right in. I'd love to know.
It's kind of it is funny if they're not monkey bars, and people like what even Fred occasionally became the recipient of his wife's violence. On one occasion in nineteen seventy four, Rose chased after Fred with a carving knife in her hand. Fred was unable to slam shut the door of the room. Oh sorry, he was a to slamsh out the door of the room in which he'd run, and Rose lunged at him with the knife, but he closed the door just in time, and the knife embedded itself in the door.
Oh my god.
Three of Rosa's fingers slid down the blade, almost severing them from her hand. She calmly wrapped her hand in a tea towel and said, look what you've done, Feller. You've got to take me to the hospital now, Oh my god. Like if he had not some of the door, she would have plunged the knife into him. That's just one example of it. There was also a lot of sexual abuse at twenty five Cromwell Street involving the West children.
I've decided not to say any more than them. This story is horrific enough, and I don't feel there's anything to be gained by talking in detail about any of these horrific crimes. In nineteen eighty seven, Heather, who was just months shy of her seventeenth birthday, so again the first biological daughter to friend Rose together Yep left the
hume as stated she'd run away before. She was known by her classmates and teachers as a serious, polite, quiet and responsible student, and she did a lot of the caring for her younger siblings at home. She spoke a little bit to school staff about her difficulties at all, sorry about having difficulties at home, but she never went
into any detail. When she just stopped turning up to school just before her seventeenth birthday, friends and school staff were concerned, but calls to the home uncovered that she had run away after a big fight with her parents, and at age seventeen, sorry sixteen, she could do so. She had run away before and this time she just didn't come home.
I think in a lot of cases as well. I don't know if this is a common thing, but you know, kids who are abused, kids who face a lot of violence in the home often wouldn't talk about that sort of stuff.
Well, that is permeates this entire yeah story.
They kind of feeld a shame as well. I'm sure.
Her parents did not file a missing person's report. Over the coming years, when the kids played up, the family would joke, if you don't behave, you're going to end up under the patio like your sister. Five years after Heather ran away, in nineteen ninety two, one of the younger West children who was named whose name, who is aged thirteen. She was named by media as Louise, but because she was underage, this was a pseudonym, so we don't actually know what her name was, but we'll call
her Louise. She was thirteen and she told a friend one day she was being sexually abused at home. This friend told her that she should tell some teachers.
Wow, she did.
And the school notified social services and police, who interviewed Louise without her parents' knowledge, and she confirmed and reiterated the allegations. Police opened a formal investigation. Police searched the West household on the pretext of searching for stolen property. So they said, that's smart.
Yeah, yeah, especially when he was so known for of course. Yeah.
In the house they found numerous objects of sexual paraphernalia, including ninety nine pornographic videos of both homemade and commercial nature.
Oh my god.
The children were removed from the home and both parents were arrested on child cruelty charges. The children gave statements of years of physical and sexual abuse and all in each of their stories were consistent.
Yeah.
While these crimes were being uninvestigated, something else came up. One of the children was unaccounted for. Police discovered that Heather running away in nineteen eighty seven was never reported to them. Police found this odds, to say the least. The children all told police that Heather had gone away to work at a camp, not that she'd run away, as the school and other adults around the neighborhood who had acquired had been told. When Fred and Rose were
asked about Heather's departure from the home. Their stories were inconsistent, vague, and sometimes contradictory. Police checked employment records, benefit records, passport activities, school and medical records and found no trace of Heather at all after nineteen eighty seven. There was not a single sign she was alive. While they were looking into this, the cases against both parents on the cruelty charges fell apart because the kids did not want to testify in court.
God Anna Marie, who was the eldest of the children, because Charmaine was no longer living with them, she formally withdrew her complaints and expressed a desire to return home, noting the misery of her younger siblings and the fear of Rose's retaliation.
Oh my god.
The younger children who were under sixteen remained in foster care, but Fred and Rose were allowed to return to twenty five Cromwell Street, as were their children who were over sixteen. The younger children were also allowed supervise visits at the house, but police were not going to let the mystery of Heather's whereabouts go unsolved. In February nineteen ninety four, two years after authorities first became aware of Fred and Rose
abusing their children. Thanks to Louise's report, police got a warrant to search twenty five Cromwell Street under the suspicion of the death of Heather West.
When you think about it as well, like so much time has passed since he was committing thefts, and you know, like there was so much that had happened in that time, it's a lot of this.
Story is a lot argued about them very much falling through the crack. This was a worrying couple for many, many, many reasons. And yeah, they really didn't fall through the cracks. Due to the children's reports of the family Invertedcomma's joke that Heather was under the patio. This is where police first brought in like ground ground I know, I know all about forklifts and stuff kind of ground trading. Well not even quite some kind of machinery that like, because
the patio is concrete something. And they found that there was disturbed soil under the concrete patio. The patio had been laid by Fred in nineteen eighty seven. Do you remember what you Heather ran away nineteen eighty seven.
Oh, okay, same.
When asked what they might find under the patio if they were to excavate. Fred confessed to killing Heather in an act of manslaughter. He said, during a fight they'd had, he had gone into a fit of rage and strangled and accidentally killed his daughter.
How's that means? Because accidental? Yes, right.
He had cut up her body with a large knife and staughter remains in a dust bin as he waited for an opportunity to dig her grave. This is what he told play. He was insistent Rose had no idea that it had happened at all. When it happened, he said, she was preoccupied with a client upstairs. He told Rose
she had run away, which she had always believed. Rose backed up this story with police, saying she had given Heather money and actually would receive phone calls from Heather over the years, only now discovering that these had been faked by Fred to keep up the line. On February twenty six, nineteen ninety four, police excavated and ripped up the patio and excavated the garden and found the dismembered remains of sixteen year old Heather West. Fred had told
them exactly where to look. He actually accompanied them to the house and pointed out the exact location of his daughter's body.
Wow. Was he in custody at this point?
Yes, so it was February twenty five that they had gone to the house with the warrant and said, what might we you know, where's Heather? What might be fine if we looked.
Under the patio and phrase that they used, might we we fine?
Exactly? So, then yes, he was brought into custody. He said, yeah, look this happened. I strangled her. I buried her in the back guarden. No one else in the family knew about it. He said, I'll take you to the house and I'll show exactly where her body will be found. There were signs that she had been tortured prior to her death, and multiple finger bones were missing, which were
never recovered. I will say now, because I won't bring it up again later, that all of the bodies, unless I think there is one that I'll bring up later one that wasn't. But otherwise all of the bodies sorry spoiler alert, had been There were science that they had been badly tortured and abused before death. Fred was formally charged with his daughter's murder that evening, but this was
just the beginning. Police had no idea what they were about to uncover beyond that, while exuming Heather's body, they realized they had found three thigh bones. Now I'm not sure if you studied science at all, but humans have two.
Thigh bones, yes, or bakers? Three are bakers? Two beggers? Two?
Fuck?
I haven't got it yet, I'll get it.
One, We'll get it. They asked Fred why they may have found three thigh bones, to which he immediately said there were two further sets of human remains in his garden. He agreed to return to twenty five Cromwell Street to reveal the locations of both of those graves. He said one was a girl named Shirley Robertson, a former tenant who had been heavily pregnant with his child at the time of her murder in nineteen seventy eight.
Oh my god.
The other victim he described as being quote Shirley's mate, which name, but he either would not or could not elaborate as to her identity beyond that, both sets of remains were discovered on the twenty eighth of February, and Fred was charged with both of those murders as well. Two days later, having discovered three sets of human remains in the garden, a decision was made to thoroughly search the entire property. Rose was placed in a safe house
in a nearby town. Police continued to question Fred for up to sixteen hours a day, with questioning turning to the truth about the first of his daughters to have gone missing from the home. Remember his stepdaughter Charmain, who was eventually taken by her mother Rena and never seen again. Yeah, police went seeing. You said one daughter went missing, and actually you killed her. Anything you want to tell us
about Charmaine. After days of intense questioning, on March four, Fred authorized his solicitor to pass Belie a note he had written. It read in his handwriting, I Frederick West authorized my solicitor, Howard Ogden to advise Superintendent Bennett that I wish to admit to a further bracket, A prox closed bracket nine killings, nine expressly Charmain, Rena, Rena, Linda Goff, who we have not heard of yet, and this is all quote and others to be identified if dot West.
Fred calmly explained there were a further five bodies buried in his cellar, and a six body beneath the ground floor bathroom WOW. Most of these victims, Fred claimed, had been hitchhikers or girls who had been lodging with them, who he had murdered in the nineteen seventies after picking
them up a bus stops right. Initially, Fred claimed these victims had been killed when they had threatened to inform Rows of his infidelity, and that he had transported their bodies to Cromwell Street to abuse, dismember, and then bury in shallow graves. So he said he abducted them, killed them elsewhere and then brought them to twenty five Street,
known forever as the House of Horrors. Now. The dismemberment, Fred claimed was only to make it easier to bury the remains in shallow graves, and he again agreed to return with police to Cromwell Street to indicate precisely where he'd buried each victim. Right between March five and March eight, police found six further bodies of young females at twenty
five Cromwell Street Wow. Each victim had been extensively mutilated, and each body bore evidence of having been subjected to extreme abuse prior to their deaths.
My god.
Each set of remains was missing numerous bones, particularly finger bones. When questioned, Fred refused to divulge the whereabouts of the bones missing from each of the set of remains, all the reason for their absence. It's been speculated he kept them somewhere as trophies, but it's not known where they went.
So it's kind of just kind of he's kind of bragging about it in a way and going, this is what I did. This is what I did. But he's not giving away everything.
In the documentary, which I refuse to tell you about until the end of this episode, there is actually vision of him with police walking through the backyard. It doesn't feel like bragging. I'm not a psychologist. I'm certainly not a criminal psychologist. It doesn't feel to me like bragging. It is. He's kind of stone cold, No, not even stone cold, he's emotionless. It feels a bit like, well, I'm found out now, I've got nothing left. I've got nothing to lose in telling them it's just ye there,
that's where your phone partisan. Yep, that's where you find that.
But I mean, there is something to lose if he's not giving away everything. Like he's not. He's not talking about everything. He's not like, oh the fingers are they're like it feels like it is holding something back.
Yes, I think more when I'm probably arguing. Is that is the term bragging? You know, Oh my god, you think I only killed Heather. Yeah, I actually killed heaps more than that. It's not that, it's more. And he doesn't give it up really willingly. It reminds me a little bit of.
Dennis nils Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, where they police questioned him and he was like, yeah, yeah, there was another one.
Actually yeah, yeah, yeah, actually no, I do remember there's another one.
It felt a bit more like that, yes, okay, because he was like, you know, Dennis Nilsen just went, you know, look at the look in the in my in my living room, in the tea cups and look in the you know, and I was like, oh my god, in tea pot or whatever.
It was where Fred West remembered where all the bodies were, but didn't either didn't remember, did give up a lot of information about why or how he was holding back details, but just said, Yep, there's a body here. Yep, there's a body there that's packed up at this bus stop, not giving a lot of detail, but taking Fred continued to cease throughout all of the discoveries that his wife Rose had no knowledge of any of it, and perhaps this is why he was kind of just saying, yes,
don't look into anymore. I'll tell you they're here. Police, however, suspected otherwise.
Yeah, because if you're living in the house with someone that's dismembering bodies, that would take time.
Also, remember Heather ran away and she just kind of didn't seem to care, and then it turns out that actually Fred had killed her, like really would a mother just never Yeah, there's also all those reports. Even though the charges never went to court, all of the children had reported serious abuse by Fred and Rose.
And the threat against Rena from yep, yep from her as well, just saying, you know, like she did not want her there.
Yep. Rose West was arrested on the twentieth of April, so still nineteen ninety four, so it was the twenty fifth of February that Fred was first arrested. On the twentieth of April, Rose was arrested initially on offenses relating to physical and sexual assault of two children in the mid nineteen seventies, so that's what they had enough evidence.
To arrested her in anything. Yeah.
The following day, she was refused bail and she was transferred to a prison in the maximum security wing. Here she was questioned more closely about all of the murders that Fred had confessed to. On April twenty five, she was formally charged with one murder and I will go into each of the victim later. Bear with me, trust.
Me, okay, I'll trust you.
It was up until eleven thirty.
Yeah, you messaged me when you're.
Going started work at four thirty.
You don't always say good night to me, but this last night you did message me. Not imagine every night. I ignore it in silence. I muted you fished this story.
Are you working in five hours?
That was the thing though, when you message me because I don't get up as early as you, and when you message me to say because I'm a nightl you know that, and.
Who is it night ol?
Who? That's something like that working on? But yeah, you you messaged me very late last night because I was like.
We can record these episode tomorrow I've finished.
Because you've been sick, And I was like, oh my God, why are you still up because you have to be at work at four.
Thirty, start work at five thirty, and I said no, this week, I started four thirty.
And so, yeah, so you finished this very late last night because you've been sick for the last couple of weeks. And I recorded an episode with your crasy last week as a feelings you're Christie, and so you're coming back to record this episode. So you stayed up so late last night to do this. So you just got hooked and really fell into this last.
Night, Yes, Slash, I needed to finish it. Yeah, I'd been working on it in little dribs and drabs, so like it's such a big story and it's so intense, and then I was like, right, I'm recording this. I need to get this in finished because I need to get this out of my life. I need to fit. I need to not be thinking about this heinous couple every day.
I need to get this out drips and drabs, f y. I what bakers call dough that they throw aways? Is that? Hom Simpson?
How bad bakes? Does it?
Sim sim say that?
I never knew that you're learning a lot today. It's your favorite treat from bakers.
To night, Paul God, I would love a living the Hawaiian pizza kind of scroll thing is a scroll like the role the yeah yeah cheese making roll. What's your favorite veggie?
Might scroll? Obviously cheesy mite, Sorry cheesy mike scroll. Oh my god, by's so uzzie. Right now, for overseas listeners, there is a white bread roll that has cheese and veggimite. It's so good aaked into it, and it is Did.
You get lots of staff discounts or are you.
Like no, no, no, no, no baby do traps that's what they call them. Oh my god, someone never worked. Oh my god, now's no staff discounts, so me Peterson at the end of each day for health and safety reasons.
Trips and traps. I can tell you you.
Could no longer sell the leftovers the next day. So guess what the stuff good to take home? Yes, exactly as you said while ago, Yes, yeah, exactly. I was very popular in my neighborhood working there. Niche all right. By May sixth, nineteen ninety four, Fred and Rose West were jointly charged with five counts of murder. Rose simply replied I'm innocent upon hearing each charge, a response that proved to be a theme throughout each of the forty
six interviews investigators would hold with Rose prior to her trial. Wow, prior to the trial forty six police interviews, she just said I'm innocent the whole time. Now we all know I'm no good at maths, But how is yours? You know that police had exhumed five bodies, and both Fred and Rose were charged with five counts of murder. But remember Fred's through this solicitor that said he had killed a prox.
Nine people, So that's not as many as nine, five.
Less five fewer than nine.
Okay, well, baby, don't tell me what happened.
After the first five charges were laid, Fred ended up openly confessing to killing his first wife, Rena and his stepdaughter Charmaine. He also confessed to knowing the location of Anne mcfall's remains. Do you remember that name? It feels like eighteen years ago. First started this. The friend who stayed with Fred when Rena left back to Scotland and stayed wanted to marry him and was pregnant with his
child when she went missing. At eight months pregnant. Fred ended up con fessing to knowing the location of Anne's remains, although he always denied killing her and said he thought that Rina had. Fred agreed to identify each burial location, and the remains of these other females, women and girls were unearthed between April tenth and June seven.
This kind of reminds me a lot of the Green River Killer that just went back to these locations and just went, oh, there's another one there, there's another one there, there's another one there.
Well, there were their bodies that they exhumed from twenty five Cromwell Street, and then there were bodies that were before they before he lived at twenty five Cromwell Street. Eventually, Fred West was formerly charged with twelve murders wow, and Rose with ten.
Oh my god, So.
Who were these women and girls? This sounds like it, but he is a horrendous sentence to say, I'm going to gondous, I'm going to go through the victims in chronological order, which is never something that she should be said no, and McFall is believed to have been Fred's first victim before he ever met Rose. As we've discussed, she was a teenager in a relationship with Fred and pregnant when she apparently decided to leave him one day
in May nineteen sixty seven. She was the friend. So nine sixty seven.
He's quite young then, isn't he.
He was in his twenties.
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah yeah.
Also remember this when this is happening, So all the changes.
Were laid in nineteen ninety yeah yeah wow.
So yeah. She was a friend of and Rina's first nanny Issa. Fred never admitted to An's murder, however, didn't know where her remains were, which seems fishy to meet. Her remains and those of her of their unborn baby were found in a field at Kempley, which is near Fred West's home village where he grew up in the place name I famously can pronounce very easily, Heredfordshire.
I'm just covering all basically, really good.
No, but how you said it sounded like you were just making a noise both. Charmain West was Fred's stepdaughter, the first of his children. Rose hated Charmain the whole time she was in the Little Girl's life. Charmaine was last seen on that final visit to Fred in prison on June fifteenth, nineteen seventy one. She was killed sometime between that date and Fred's release on June twenty four, she was killed by Rose alone, who stowed her body in the cellar of their home until Fred was released
from prison. When he got home, he buried her body in the yard close to the back door of the flat they lived in.
So we know this because of the timings that Fred could not have done it, but she had done it and had stowed her until Fred was released and then cons.
Yeah, so when Fred confessed to remember, he ended up confessing to Charmainstead. He said that he had killed her, and we will go into this. So he killed her and where he had buried her, which was in the back close to the back door of the flat before twenty five Cromwell Street.
Right, okay, sure, it's in a different house. So did he go to this place where to another house where people were now living and pointing out that there were bodies there? Oh my god.
And I haven't written this in here because I thought it was too awful, but I'm going to say it just because he brought that up. He was insistent that he had not dismembered Charmaine. Her body, though, was found in parts. But this is believed to be from when New owners of the house had done developments to the house and a new wall that like and kind of stumpings that have been put in had actually severed her body.
Oh wow.
Charmaine was eight years old.
Oh my god.
Rena, whose name was actually Catherine Costello but went by Rena, was Fred's first wife and Charmaine and Anne Marie's mother. She was last reported seen alive in August nineteen seventy one. Remember it was June nineteen seventy one that Charmaine was killed. Rena had been growing extremely anxious about her children's welfare.
She'd been provided with Fred's address at Midlands Road, which is where they were living at the time, and Rena sought to confront him, likely to discuss or demand custody of her girls. This was the final time Rena was seen alive. She's believed to have been murdered by strangulation. Her dismembered body was found in a field near Fred's first home. She was twenty six years old.
Oh my god.
Linda Goloff was the couple's first known murder together. That's Fred and Rose West. She lived in Gloucester and was friendly with a number of lodgers at twenty five Cromwell Street. She ended up moving in there herself, leaving a note for her parents saying not to worry about her. She'd found a new flat and she would come home to visit, but when she didn't, her parents tracked down the address and went to see her, to be told at the door by Rose West that Linda had actually moved elsewhere.
Linda's mother said Rose was wearing Linda's slippers and cardigan when chancelled the door. It's understood Linda's death was the first sexually motivated killing by Fred and Rose West together. Sometime in January nineteen seventy two, her dismembered body was found under the ground floor bathroom of twenty five Cromwell Street. She was nineteen. Caroline Cooper had been staying at a children's home in Gloucester, which she disappeared in nineteen seventy three.
She had been given permission by the home to spend the weekend with her grandmother on November ten, but after boarding a bus, she was never seen again. It's understood she was picked up by Fred and Rosemary West, assaulted, tortured and killed. Her remains were found in the cellar of twenty five Cromwell Street. She was fifteen years old. Good Lucy Park Uttington was also killed in nineteen seventy three.
She was reported missing by her parents after failing to return home after visiting a friend on December twenty seven. Believed it was that day she was abducted by Fred and Rose, tortured and murdered. Her remains were also found in the cellar. She was twenty one. Terreise Sia Agenthala was a student hitchhiking from South London to Ireland when she was abducted in April nineteen seventy four. Fred only knew her as the Dutch girl, she was in fact Swiss.
Her remains were also found under the cellar. She was twenty one. Shirley Hubbard was also killed in nineteen seventy four. She was a foster child and was abducted from a bus stop on November fifteenth, as she was returning home from work experience. She was reported missing when she didn't meet her boyfriend the following day as had been planned. Her dismembered body was found under the cellar. She was
fifteen years old. Juanita Mott had been another lodger at twenty five Cromwell Street, but at the time of her murder in nineteen seventy five was living with a family friend in nearby Newitt. It's belief she was abducted as she hitch hiked along a highway. Fred only remembered her as the girl from Newitt. She was eighteen years old. Shirley Robinson was the one Fred had first confessed to
after his daughter Heather. She had been a lodger with the Wests and was known to have casual sex with them. At the time of her murder in May nineteen seventy eight, she was between six and eight months pregnant with Fred's child. It's not believe there was any sexual motivation in Shirley's murder, but that her pregnancy had threatened the stability of Fred and Rose's relationship. Now By saying there was no sexual motivation in this murder, insinuates there was in the previous
and the others to come. Shirley and her unburned baby were found in the garden of twenty five Cromwell Street. Shirley was eighteen years old. Allison Chambers had been placed in Foster Kate care at the age of fourteen she'd had a troubled life. She repeatedly absconded from the home and was known to be a frequent visitor to twenty five Cromwell Street. She was killed in nineteen seventy nine
at the house. Fred would later claim that Allison died as a result of Rose's quote becoming too bloody vicious with her during a sexual encounter. Her body was found in the garden she was sixteen. Heather West was the last of Fred and Rose's affirmed murder victims. Their daughter killed in nineteen eighty seven, dismembered and buried in a hole in their backyard that was dug by one of her brothers under the pretense they would be installing a
fish pond. They never got a fishpond, and the area the hole had been dug was soon covered by a concrete patio by Fred. Heather was sixteen years old. The first time Fred and Rose West saw each other since Fred's arrest in February was when they were both jointly brought to court to be formally charged over these twelve
murders in June, so four months later. Despite Rose having been now charged, Fred maintained and insisted he had acted alone, going against any and all testimonies and as from witnesses and their children, He fiercely defended and protected his wife. When they sat down in court, seeing each other for the first time in four months, Fred leaned towards his wife and gently placed her hand upon his hand upon her shoulder. Smiling, Rose, having ignored her husband's presence, visibly
winced in discomfort. As police attempted to lead Fred from the hearing, He resisted their efforts and again attempted to move towards Rose, who again winced and writhed away from his grasp, not looking at him. After this public rejection from his wife, Fred became increasingly and noticeably depressed. In prison. He would write Rose letters daily, to which he never
got a reply. He asked his adult children, and by adult they were still teenage, to pass on his messages of love and devotion to their mother, to which she never responded. News got back to Fred that Rose had assumed the role of a grieving mother who had lost a daughter and stepdaughter to her husband's hand, and in which she declared both her innocence and her hatred of her husband. This caused Fred to drop the act he had been betrayed by his wife, his love and so
his protection of her also fell away. Fred withdrew his early confessions to having acted alone in the murders and instead said his wife had had almost total culpability in all of the murders to which he had been charged, excluding that of Anne mcfull, which he still stated he didn't commit. This was also before he knew, wrote he confirmed what police knew from forensic evidence that Rose had killed little Charmaine on her own while Fred was in prison.
Well.
He also confirmed this had not been a planned, discussed, nor premeditated act. Fred never heard from Rose again. On the first of January nineteen ninety five, ten months after he had first been arrested for his daughter Heather's murder, Fred hanged himself in his prison cell. He left a suicide note which read to Rose, West, Steve and May. It's two of his children and Rose obviously Well, Rose,
it's your birthday on November twenty nine. You will be forty one and still beautiful and still lovely, and I love you. We will always be in love. The most wonderful thing in my life was when I met you. Our love is special to us, so love, keep your promises to me. You know what they are. Where we are put together forever and ever is up to you. We loved Heather, both of us. I would love Charmaine to be with Heather and Rena. You will always be missus West all over the world. That is important to
me and to you. I haven't got you a present, but all I have is my life. I will give it to you, my darling. When you are ready come to me. I will be waiting for you, my god. Fred West was fifty three years old and died alone, heart broken in a small, dirty prison cell, with his name to be forever tainted and abhorred. This was far better than he deserved.
Yeah. Yeah, and he was for some reason trying to protect Rose out of everything as well.
He protected her right up until the end.
Well yeah, when he learned that.
That she was betrayed. I don't know why he decided to implicate her then. Maybe it was for some religious reason of his own. I don't know what that could have been, because it kind of felt like he's gone more fuck you then in this suicide note. He loved her. Yeah, his suicide note was a letter to her. So after his death, Rose West therefore faced trial on her own.
The prosecution portrayed the Wests as sex obsessed, sadistic murderers, terming the bodies discovered at Cromwell Street and Midland Road as secrets more terrible than words can express. The last moments on earth. For these victims were as objects of the deprived of this woman and her husband. The defense argued it was all motivated by Fred, and that Rose was unaware of her husband's sadism all his crimes. They pointed to the fact that he had committed murders before
he knew Rose. Against the advice of her lawyers, Rose took the stand herself. At times she was teary and incredibly remorseful. She testified to being herself a victim of child abuse and rape who was groomed and coerced by an older man into marrying him. However, at other times through her testimony, Rose was upbeat, cracking jokes and laughing.
She gave repeated contrary evidence to multiple other witnesses and victims whose accounts were all consistent with each other's, and Roses were the only ones of a contradictory The defense also tried to discredit witnesses as being motivated by per
personal grudges towards towards Rose. And this always feels like a really last ditch attempt by defense to okay, welling else, well, hang on, you can't actually believe the witnesses because yeah, so they said that there were personal grudges towards Rose, that Fred was responsible and the world knew this, but he had killed himself, so they wanted to take someone down for this, and or that they were exploiting, that witnesses were exploiting them for financial gain, given the high
profile of the case.
So it's just it was this huge news everywhere at the time was huge.
Can you imagine one day a man is arrested, he takes police to his backyard of his home he lived with his I think it's ten children, and they dig up five bodies in that backyard, and then more and more and more appear over time.
Yeah, just keeps omitting to more over time.
And this was nineteen ninety four, right, So the first murder that we know was in nineteen sixty seven, but it was only nineteen ninety four that came out like that's in our.
Yeah, yeah, time, absolutely, Yeah, it.
Was huge news. So the defense tried to argue that witnesses that came forward and people were selling their stories just to kind of be part of this big salacious tabloid.
Here.
Yeah, and here as well, where I will bring back up the seventeen year old girl called Caroline Owens. Remember she was abducted and raped and tortured, and that was the case I said could have in a sliding doors moment, landed them in prison. Yeah, yeah, I bring her back up now because she was one of the witnesses in the case, and she did admit to receiving a twenty thousand pound payment to tell her story in the media. This was used very much against her and other witnesses.
By Rose's defense, she had every entitlement and it was her prerogative to tell her own story, and she had extreme survivor's guilt, saying in this story when she spoke to the media, I only want to get justice for the girls who didn't make it. I feel like it was all my fault.
Is poor, how horrible to live with that girl.
So I've included that in there to say we've called it a sliding doors moment. She has lived with that thinking what if I had testified like it is just the most awful, awful thought. And this poor girl, who's a woman at this point, testified on the stand she went through all of that to make sure Rose West was put away, and she accepted payment to tell her story and her story only, and that was used against her. I swear to God. Defense lawyers for people as guilty
as this have a lot to answerform. Multiple witnesses and victims of the couple's assaults testified to Rose being the more aggressive perpetrator of the couple. Neighbors described Rose's glee at Charmaine's disappearance when she said, like good riddance, yeah, yeah,
and her completely casual indifference to Heather's disappearance. The final witness to testify was a woman named Janet Leech, and you, Sammy will remember she features heavily in the Netflix stockut I think it's Netflix the documentary, which I will not bring up to Janet Leech was Fred's appointed appropriate adult. He given his low IQ. He was given essentially like a guardian, someone to kind of talk to him and act as his representative, but not in a legal sense.
She was not working for the prosecution all the defense. She was a completely separate entity who was tasked with talking to him and helping him, kind of.
Like a social worker. Yeah, yeah, yep.
Through this role, Fred and Janet Glue grew quite a close bond, and Fred really grew to trust her and treat her as a confidant. She testified to the court that prior to his arrest, he and Rose had formed a pact whereby if they were ever caught, Fred would take full responsibility for all of the murders, many of which he had privately described to Janet as being quote some of Rose's miss Wow. After a seven week trial,
a jury unanimously found Rosemary West guilty of all charges unanimouslyanimously. Wow, of all of them.
There are ten charges for her, Yes, ten murder charges.
There were also charges of sexual abuses.
Yes, of course. Yeah.
Just as Charles Mantel described Ros's crimes as appalling and depraved and noted strongly that it didn't matter whose hand had struck the fatal blow, that the involvement in any murders of this magnitude made a person guilty of those murders in the strongest degree. So essentially, when you know they couldn't appeal by saying well, Fred was the one who strangled this person, or if she was there, she was implicit, which the jury had found she was completely
culpable and guilty of murder. He noted that few juries in the world would ever face such vital and important a task as this one had been owing to the sheer horror and complexity of this case.
Now imagine the evidence they saw, and that.
I cannot understate how much I have kept out of this report.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, how much control available if there were.
I actually don't think the documentary even went into the true horrors, the true horrors, the sexual abuse, the way in which the women were killed, the things found with their bodies that suggested that the abuse that had gone on. And I mean, I've read and listened to things about this that have been put out there in the media, and I'm just horrified and disturbed. These jury went through seven weeks of all of the evidence could be given.
Aged forty one, Rosemary West was sentenced to life in prison, never to be released. She has never taken responsibility nor shown remorse for any of her crimes. Today she is still in prison, aged seventy one. She reportedly suffers health and mobility issues. She can barely walk and is housed in a unit in maximum security prison for disabled and vulnerable prisoners. That is where she will one day die. This,
like Fred, is far better than she deserves. Absolutely, it has long been speculated that Fred, either alone or with Rose, committed many more murders. Fred even telling his appropriate adult Janet that he had planned to reveal the location of one more body per year for the rest of his life,
but he inevitably took his own life before he revealed anymore. Well, we will never know the entire truth, but what we do know is that the absolute monsters who are or were Fred and Rosemary West will never be able to hurt another person again, And that, somehow unbelievably is a brief overview of the heinous crimes of I'm going to call them because I hope they are and will be history's worst married couple.
Yeah, yeah, thank you for that story. I mean, like you know it is. It is such an awful, awful case. And I remember seeing that documentary on Netflix and going this is awful. And I hadn't heard of these two before, and I.
Was just brought them up in numerous episodes where we've said kind of in passing we've been talking about like Folly Adure, and we've kind of said in passing it, oh, like Fred and Rosemary West, right, and like the House of Horrors and twenty five Cromwell Streets kind of known.
And I think a lot of people, especially a lot of you know, true crime listeners, people who are you know, I was going to say, involved in, hopefully not involved in interested in yep, have heard of Fred and Rosemary West. I think everyone has heard it. To the West you're not.
Everyone knows they killed lots of people, maybe children involved, Maybe they're children involved, not quite sure, but I know there was something about they dug up lots of bodies in their backyard, right, the details and the depravity and the years and years and decades of abuse and not being found, a horror that went on in that house and outside of it and before. It's just as I said, I've known this story for ever, but researching it, I don't know. Maybe that's what made me sick. Maybe that's
why toy is how long to write. It is just I am very happy to leave that story behind. But before we do, what I will say is there is discourse around whether Rose was in some ways a victim herself.
Right.
She was fifteen when she met the twenty seven year old Fred, and I think, very much my opinion, I would say undoubtedly she was groomed into being with him. However, for two decades there are multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple reports, witness testimonies that all corroborate that she was very much an aggressor. She definitely killed Charmaine on her own. That's improving.
Yeah, yeah, well he was in jail at the time exactly.
That. You know, whether he's groomed her into being an aggressor, she was one and continued that way for twenty years. She never turned around and said, you know, Fred talked me into this. Fred groom me. Now I'm out of his I'm not under his spell anymore. I can say this. She just denied ever having any involvement, which she clearly did. I find it very difficult to side, I suppose, I don't know what they want to hear. Side with the discourse or the argument that she may have been a
victim herself. Maybe that's something you say. I think she was a victim of being groomed. She was a victim of maybe society and the circumstance in her life in ending up with him. However, I think when it comes to the murders and the abuse, sexual and physical of dozens of people over decades, I don't think there is any There is no sympathy from me.
Does that? Does it remind you a little bit of the David and Katherine Bernie?
No? I mean no, yes, sorry, yes, obviously that they're a married couple, David and Catherine Bernie, I felt more leniencied.
Or really yeah, okay, right, okay.
That to me felt a bit more like a grooming situation. I think the fact that Fred and Rose West's crimes went on for decades, and that there are multiple reports that Rose was the more, yeah, makes it really hard for me to see any or find any easy.
Yeah. Sure, yeah, that's.
Coming from a place of extreme and great grateful privilege that I've obviously not been in a situation anywhere near that, you know, being groomed and being in in an upbringing where you may find yourself in that position. So I very much, you know, caveat that with coming from a place of privilege, but I find it very very difficult to find to find myself leaning it all towards a place of feeling like she wasn't extremely and guilty in.
I would love to see some sort of like you know, psycho psychiatrist or someone going this is the mental state of someone during that time, because those two like just monsters, yes, like you know, and would be you know, you know in terms of the TV show Monsters with Ira Murphy, they would be I would think up there in terms of the next oh yeah, that they could do, like you know that Ry Murphy could do about them, because
they are such monsters. But I do wonder how you do tell that because it is such a fascinating thing where even watching the documentary, I was like, what is going on? It's so hard to know the dynamic of that relationship.
I think one thing for me is that Rose killing Charmaine on her own was really early in the past. That was nineteen seventy one, so I've closed the document I think nineteen seventy one or maybe thirty seventies that was like when they just kind of got together. Yeah, I mean I don't Again, I don't know the psychology about grooming and everything, but it's not to suggest that that, you know, there'd been years of where he'd been slowly ingratiating her into his you know, sick fantasies and sadism
and masochism. She killed Charmaine on her own when he was in prison, Yeah, when Jamaine was only eight, Like they'dn't have been together two years. And all of the sexually motivated murders came after that, All these sexually motivated murders were in the seventies. Like it just yeah, I don't know, I don't feel sorry for that bitch.
No, no, no, not at all, not saying that, but yeah, it is interesting.
That the conversations with people who go, but she was groomed, you know, yeah, she did this, but she was groomed. She was a victim herself. And I just find it really difficult personally.
To yeah, feel that, Yeah, for sure, what do you think? No, I I you know, I think being fifteen years old, being like, you know, she's at a bus stop, she's had like, I don't know, there's something about her. It seems so you know, I don't even know what the word is, but not not right, like you know, like and then meeting him.
And saying like calling him revolting in.
Discussion, met him and then also hating and having a hatred for his ex and his life before her, and having that violence and that anger, like you just wonder what this life was and what the where that stemmed from, because there has to be something other than I think.
Plays into it a lot for the concept that you know, that kind of crazy multiplied two people with the same wrong thoughts bring them together, multiplies those thoughts because they're kind of feeding off each other. This is a big case of that big.
Huge story. Thank you, g and thank you for doing while you're sick as well.
No no, no, no, no, thank you again, And thank you beautiful Joe Chrissy. I just kind of met between your Christian and your crazy Christie for filling in for me when I was away. It's been it's been a goddamn yet. I really hope twenty twenty six. No, I hope and believe, and I'm putting out into the universe twenty twenty six. I'm going to be just so much more well and come and prepared and calm. That's the word I'm looking.
You know what it's going to be about. Yeah, And we are going to be doing this podcast over the Christmas break, so we're going to keep you company all over the Christmas holidays. We're going to have some Christmas themed shows. Boy dolease have a really nice time.
We're going to keeping because what I have been a big podcast fan for many, many years, and I work in an industry that does not have Christmas off, and I still drive to work every day, not Christmas Day. Don't you know I'm not not playing my little bit not by mini violin here, but over when a lot of other people have. That's funny, Yeah, Christmas break on, I'm still driving to work. I need to put on my favorite podcast in the morning. It really annoys me
when they all take breaks. So you know we've gone well. It annoys us as listeners when our favorite shows aren't releasing episodes. So we're going to do it.
Fault you the first year doing the podcast. We want to keep going and to keep bringing you the stories.
We just like really want you to be obsessed with us if you're still here. This is such a long episode, but hey, maybe this is the new rule. If we have to take a week off, whether it be for sickness or a cruise in the Caribbean, we have to come back with like a double length that's to make up for it.
And Joel Christy I will say. So Joel came into the episode. Joel as he messaged me on his way here, said Gaze always run late. So then I was like half an hour late, had to be at work, which is a national radio, live radio, live radio. So Joel's having a having a lovely time. And after we finished, so during the recording, I said to Joel, hey, this is my place. I was like, Joel, do you need to go? And Joel said, splash more shard. Now I've got ten more minutes, right, So we did. We did
the rest of the podcast. Then I was like, we haven't got a lot of facts here, so I'll come back and do that after I did my own recording after that. But I said to Joel, after it goes, he was just and then told me amazing stories after that, and I said you have to go, and he goes ten more minutes, ten more minutes, and it was.
Just how many minutes after he initially said ten minutes, it was.
About forty minutes. And so then Joel goes a splash more shardnay love him and so then was running and then looked at the time and went, oh, I'm gonna be in so much trouble for like running late to work and everything. I was like, it's fine, it's funny and anyway, and then after it was on the way out, so I had to come back. I had to come out. That's so many more stories to tell. So Joel's one of those people that has to come back sometime soon.
We've had amazing responses from Scott Williams aka will Patterson and Mith Warhurst as well, so those wonderful I guess the best, the goddamn the best.
Oh, you know, the only people in the whole world who are better than our guests listeners.
That's right, Oh, we love you, we love you. And we'll be back with the male bag section in just air more.
Yeah, we're going to make it a short one because you guys are like you feel like we've all aged in this episode.
Absolutely apart from Diggs, who is sitting with me right now looking so gorgeous.
It's just a little baby, a little bit boy.
We're back after this