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In February, 1994. Police officers searching a house in Gloucester, England made a discovery that would lead to one of the most infamous and disturbing cases in British criminal history. From that point onwards, the property at 25 Cromwell Street would become known as the house of horrors.
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The tale we are about to unfold is not our usual fortean fare. There were no one explained happenings or bizarre creatures in this episode, but it is just as horrific as anything we have covered before, if not more so. A tale so extensive, so complex, so disturbing and utterly sickening in its depravity that it is difficult to know where to begin. It covers more than a quarter of a century of atrocities ranging from child abuse, molestation and sexual perversion, to rape, torture, and finally outright murder.
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Nothing quite like it had ever been seen in Britain before and thankfully nothing quite like it has ever been seen since. But before we continue, please be aware that this episode contains themes involving harm to children and young females and viewer discretion is advised.
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On the afternoon of the 1st of January, 1995. Officers working at Winson Green prison in Birmingham, England opened the door to cell C4-01 to find Frederick Walter Stephen West slumped on his knees in the middle of the floor. His lifeless body was suspended in an upright position by a makeshift rope which would had made out of torn up blankets and was tied between the door handle and the catchment of the window opposite. After coiling a loop around his neck, Frederick West had sunk to his knees and simply asphyxiated himself. His bowels and bladder had loosened after he had expired. And as prison officers stood surrounded by the fetid smell of feces, urine and death. Watching as the doctor attempted to resuscitate him, they all must have secretly hoped that he was far beyond help for the world was a better place without him.
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The only real shame was that he had escaped the might of British justice. There would be no trial for him, no being left to rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life, wallowing in self pity and despair. He had robbed those he had hurt of that pleasure and had taken the easy way out. The fact that he had been on strict suicide watch had made not a jot of difference. He was a practical man. His son would later declare and good with knots, good with knots. He would have to have been. Tying knots was just one of this despicable man specialties.
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On the floor, in the corner of the cell lay a suicide note addressed to his wife, Rosemary Pauline west; his soulmate, his eternal love, his partner in crime. She was also in custody awaiting her own trial, but unlike him she would not go on to fulfill the pact they had made between themselves: to end their lives if ever they were caught. Perhaps she blamed him, after all it was his silly, stupid, boastful mistake which had led to their arrest. A mistake which had come far too late, but a mistake we should all be thankful for nonetheless, and it would all play out as follows.
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Fred and Rosemary West lived at number 25 Cromwell street in Gloucester, England. They were mother and father to eight children whom they regularly subjected to violence, sexual abuse, and in some cases even rape. In May of 1992, Fred forced himself upon his 13-year-old daughter, Louise, after asking her to help him move some empty bottles up the first floor of their home. When the ordeal was over, she was found by his siblings sobbing, bleeding and writhing in pain.
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When Louise later confided to her mother what had happened, Rosemary was unsympathetic and simply replied, “Oh, well you are asking for it.” That was the first time Fred had raped her. It would not be the last. She was raped and even sodomized a further three times by her father during that week and on at least one of those occasions her mother was also present and even took part. After every instance, Fred warned his daughter that if she ever told anyone, she would end up buried beneath the patio like her sister Heather.
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Little did Fred know it at the time, but by issuing this threat he had just opened up a crack in the slab that would crumble and deteriorate over the following months and collapse into a vast chasm, which led straight to hell. As physically and emotionally damaged as Louise was by this experience, she did not take his warning seriously. Her father was always making this threat to his children whenever they misbehaved, and he almost always laughed it off as a joke immediately afterwards, and although she and her siblings had not seen or heard from Heather, they’re older sister for several years, Fred and Rose always told them that she had run away to start a new job in Devon.
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Finding no sympathy at home. Louise instead confided in a school friend about the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her parents. Her school friend then told her mother, her school friends mother then reported the incident to authorities and on the 6th of August, 1992, the West’s home was searched by police on the pretext of looking for stolen goods. Although they discovered various items of sexual paraphernalia including as many as 99 pornographic videos, they found nothing that could incriminate Fred in the rape of his daughter. Nevertheless, Louise made a full statement through a specially trained solicitor describing her father’s actions and as a result, all children in the household were immediately placed into foster care.
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Medical examinations of each of them indicated that they had endured both physical and sexual abuse. They would each personally relate how they had suffered at the hands of their parents and how they had been threatened with beatings and even death if they ever spoke a word to anyone about what went on in the household.
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Police began a full investigation which would lead to Fred being charged with three counts of rape and one of buggery. Whilst rose was charged with child cruelty and as an accomplice to Fred’s actions. To make matters worse for them, their eldest daughter, Anna Marie, who had long since left home also came forward and gave details of the abuse she had suffered growing up, how Fred and Rose had raped her when she was just eight years old and prostituted her too much older men. She also told police that she had been trying to trace her sister Heather for many years but had been unsuccessful.
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Unfortunately, the entire case against the West’s collapsed in June, 1993, when both Louise and Anna Marie about-faced and refused to testify against their parents. Both Fred and rose were released without charge and returned home, although their children remained in foster care. The authorities were frustrated by Louise and Anna Marie’s decision to remain silent. They had wanted more than anything to bring these two vile human beings to justice, but as we shall see, despite this setback, the story was only just beginning.
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Police instead focused on Anna Marie’s insistence that they track Heather down, suggesting that her sister might be more willing to give evidence against her parents. After all, it was because of the abuse she had suffered, that she had run away from home in the first place. However, police could find no trace of her, no bank account, no credit card activity, no record of employment, nothing. It was as if she had simply dropped off the face of the earth.
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After months of investigation is still no evidence to suggest that Heather was alive. Police began to consider that Fred’s threat to his children, which suggested that she was buried under the patio, may indeed be true. This would be enough to secure a search warrant which would allow them to excavate the back garden of 25 Cromwell Street, and when police officers served this notice to Rosemary West on the 24th of February, 1994, she turned pale and almost collapsed.
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Fred was working away in Stroud at the time, but returned home that afternoon and immediately went to the police station to protest their actions, a futile endeavor to say the least. Officers were stationed at the property around the clock and that evening, Fred and rose were seen looking out over their back garden whispering in hushed tones. On the morning of the 25th, Fred West recognizing the inevitability of his situation, once again visited the police station, this time to formally admit to the murder of his daughter, saying that she was buried under the patio after all, he pleaded that her death had been an accident and that he had killed her in a fit of rage during an argument.
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On the 27th of February, police discovered a human thighbone in a section of his back garden, which somewhat corroborated this confession. However, what at first appeared to be little more than a domestic argument that had gone terribly wrong, soon turned into one of the most sickening cases in British criminal history, which would stun and utterly outrage and entire nation.
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Later that same day, the forensic pathologist attending the scene was called over to an excavation point near the bathroom of the property. He jumped down into a hole to retrieve more remains of a human female, which had been found buried three feet beneath the mud. But when he noticed that these remains included two thigh bones, he looked up at the superintendent and said, “We have already found one thigh bone these to make three altogether. So either Heather had three legs or we’re dealing with more than one set of remains.”
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When police question Fred over this later that afternoon, he casually told them that there were in fact two of the bodies buried in his back garden besides his daughter. Indeed, two more sets of remains were located on the 28th of February and two days later Fred was charged with all three murders. Throughout all of this. Rose West claimed that she had no knowledge of the killings and her husband confirmed during interviews that he had acted alone. In the meantime, she was moved to a safe house whilst authorities made the decision to thoroughly search the entire property.
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Over the next two weeks, police would discover a further six sets of remains buried beneath the house at 25 Cromwell Street. All were young females ranging from the ages of 15 to 21 and all had been dismembered before they were buried, including West’s own daughter. Although all of the bodies were heavily decomposed, they were little more than skeletal remains at this point, authorities were able to ascertain that most of the murders had been committed for sexual gratification. Most of them, again including West’s own daughter had been bound and gagged before death and other signs indicated that they had been sexually abused and even tortured. All of them were missing finger bones and some of them were even buried without their kneecaps. Fred had admitted to all of these killings before the bodies were even located by police. This was due in no small parts to the pressure of facing constant and intense questioning, 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and Fred’s eventual resignation to the fact that the bodies would eventually be discovered anyway, whether he confessed or not.
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He told police that most of his victims were hitchhikers and local girls he had picked up at bus stops. He also indicated that there were a further three bodies buried at other locations in and around Gloucester, two of which were his first wife, Catherine Rena Costello, and his stepdaughter, Charmaine West. This made a total of 12 murders altogether and authorities began to wonder how Rose could possibly have been oblivious to so many killings whilst married to Fred.
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She was arrested on the 20th of April, 1994, initially on charges of sexual abuse, but was later charged with participation in at least 10 of the murders. Fred West would ultimately retract his statement that he had acted alone and would in fact go on to say that Rose had been far more culpable for the killings. So just who were Fred and Rosemarie West? And what situations had arisen during the course of their lives that had steered them down such a dark, deprived, and deadly path?
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As the story goes, Fred was born in Much Marcle, Gloucester in September of 1941, the eldest of six children. He was raised on a farm in the post-war years at a time when the country was struggling economically and as a result, his family toiled well below the poverty line. His parents were strict disciplinarians and each of their children was assigned chores to help with the farm’s upkeep. Fred would state in police interviews that at the age of 12 he began an incestuous relationship with his mother and that his father would regularly rape his younger sisters, but his siblings would emphatically deny this in later years.
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Classmates described him as a scruffy kid, dim-witted and always in trouble, but that he had an aptitude for woodwork and construction. At the age of 17 he purchased a motorcycle which he crashed less than two months later, fracturing his skull in the process. He lay unconscious for seven days, but otherwise made a full physical recovery. However, something in Fred’s personality changed. He developed an ingrained fear of hospitals and became prone to flying into fits of absolute rage.
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He suffered yet another head injury two years later when a girl he had groped punched him in the face, resulting in him falling two stories from the ladder he was stood on. Later that same year, at the age of 19 Fred was arrested following an accusation by his 13 year old sister, that he had raped her multiple times. When questioned by police, he freely admitted this saying that he had been molesting young girls since his early teens. Appearing nonplussed by his arrest, he casually responded to the charges by asking, “Doesn’t everybody do it?”
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Unfortunately, the case against him was dropped when his sister refused to testify, but from that point onwards, his immediate family had nothing more to do with him. A year later, Fred would marry his first wife, Rena Costello, who was heavily pregnant with another man’s child. The couple were married in November, 1962, and relocated to Rena’s native Scotland. His step-daughter, Charmaine West was born the following March and another child, Anna Marie would follow shortly afterwards in July, 1964.
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By all accounts, Fred was an abusive husband and father, regularly beating Rena and locking his two young children away in a cage during the evenings. During this time he worked as an ice cream man and in this way, whilst on one of his rounds he met a 16 year old runaway by the name of Ann McFall, whom he invited to come and live with him and his wife and work as a nanny to their children. Having nowhere else to go she accepted his offer on the spot.
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In November, 1965, Fred ran over and killed a four year old boy whilst on one of his rounds. And although cleared of any blame, he feared reprisals from the local community and so relocated the family, including Ann to Gloucester. Unable to cope with the constant abuse from her husband, Rena returned to Scotland in mid 1966 as she was unemployed, she had no choice but to leave her children in Fred’s care. Something that deeply unsettled her for obvious reasons.
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In the meantime, Ann McFall fell increasingly under Fred’s spell and the two of them began an affair resulting in her falling pregnant with his child. However, in the summer of 1967, Ann suddenly vanished, and as she had only maintained sporadic contact with her family. She was never reported missing by Fred or anyone else. When asked by Friends of her whereabouts, Fred simply replied that she had returned to Scotland.
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She was in fact buried at the edge of a cornfield between Much Marcle and Kempley after Fred had bound, tortured, raped and then killed her. Extracting her unborn fetus in the process and there, her dismembered body would remain undisturbed for 27 years. In February, 1969, whilst at Cheltenham bus station, Fred met Rosemary Letts for the first time. She had recently turned 15 meaning that Fred was more than 12 years her senior. She was initially repulsed by his advances but eventually agreed to go on a date with him a few weeks later. Although intelligent, rosemary had performed poorly at school, she was a moody child who was prone to daydreaming. Her mother had suffered severe bouts of depression whilst carrying her, and as a result she had been subjected to electroconvulsive therapy, which some believe may have inflicted prenatal damage on Rose.
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Growing up, she was constantly abused and raped by her schizophrenic father. Eventually she became so desensitized towards his attacks that she became a willing participant in these interactions. Rose began dating Fred shortly after meeting him, something her parents vehemently disapproved of as she was still a minor. Her father threatened to report their relationship to social services, but this did not deter them. As soon as rose reached the legal age of consent, 16 in the UK, she moved in with her much older lover. In doing so, she became step-mother to Charmaine and Anna Marie West and at first seeing that they were in a state of neglect, showed them compassion.
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She soon fell pregnant with Fred’s child and the family moved into a ground floor flat in Midland road, Gloucester. Her relationship with her step-daughters deteriorated rapidly during this time and she became just as eager to beat and punish them as Fred was. On the 17th of October, 1970, she gave birth to her first child, Heather West. Rose would commit her first murder just eight months later, whilst Fred was serving a six month prison sentence for theft. She apparently killed eight year old Charmaine west in a fit of rage after she had misbehaved, an incident many have put down to the pressures of raising three children alone at the immature age of just 17.
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Charmaine’s body was stored in the coal cellar until Fred’s release, after which he buried her in the backyard at the Midland road address. The couple would go on to tell family, friends and neighbors as well as Anna Marie that Charmaine’s mother Rena had taken her back to Scotland to live with her. When Rena did come knocking two months later on one of her frequent visits to see her children. She demanded to know where Charmaine was, a course of action which would ultimately cost her life. Fred and Rose would subsequently beat her to death with a metal bar and bury her body in a nearby field.
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Although it is speculated that Fred had already developed an appetite for killing by this time, there is no doubt that this was the point where Rose developed a pleasure for it herself. As almost all the subsequent murders had a sexual motivation behind them. The couple eventually married in January of 1972, and moved into the house at 25 Cromwell Street shortly afterwards, Rose turned to prostitution in order to supplement her husband’s meager income and it was rumored that one of her most regular clients was her own father.
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Over the next 10 years, she would give birth to a further seven children. The last being born in 1983 with at least three of them being fathered by her regular clients. Nevertheless, Fred accepted them as his own. Over time, he extended the family home and turned rooms on the top two floors of the property into bedsits in order to bring in extra income. Between 1973 and 1987 Fred and Rose West would rape, beat, torture and kill nine young girls and leave their bodies to rot beneath the house where their family lived.
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The victims names were as follows, Linda Gough, aged 19. Linda was fine buried beneath the ground floor bathroom. She was a lodger at the West’s home. It is believed the West’s murdered her in April of 1973.
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Caroline Cooper, aged 15. Carol was found buried beneath the cellar. Her skull had been bound with surgical tape and her limbs had been tied together with cord and braiding cloth. She was last seen alive boarding a bus in the suburb of Warndon in November, 1973.
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Lucy Partington aged 21. Lucy was a cousin of the famous novelist Martin Amis and was abducted from a bus stop on the A435 in December of 1973. Her body was buried beneath the cellar.
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Theresa Siegenthaler aged 21. Teresa was a Swiss national who had traveled to the UK to study sociology. She was abducted whilst hitchhiking from south London to Holyhead on the 16th of April, 1974. Her body was found buried underneath the chimney breast in the cellar.
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Shirley Hubbard aged 15. Shirley was last seen on the 15th of November, 1974. She was abducted from a bus stop in Droitwich as she was traveling home from a date. When Shirley’s body was exhumed from the cellar, her skull was found completely wrapped in gaffer tape with a three-inch tube inserted into her nasal cavity, which would have allowed her to breathe.
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Juanita Matt aged 18. Juanita had briefly lodged at the West’s household, but had subsequently moved in with a friend. She was abducted in April, 1975, whilst hitch-hiking along the B4215. She was the last victim to be buried in the cellar.
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Shirley Robinson aged 21. Shirley had lodged with the Wests and had began an affair with Fred. She was eight months pregnant with his child when she lost her life. Her murder was not sexually motivated and police believe she was killed by Rose as she threatened the stability of the family. Fred would later state that his wife had cut the unborn fetus from her womb after death. Her body was then dismembered and buried in the back garden. She was last seen alive in May of 1978.
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Alison Chambers aged 16. Allison’s was the last known sexually motivated murder. She was a child living in foster care and had become acquainted with the West in the summer of 1979. She went missing in August of that year when her remains were exhumed from the garden 15 years later, a leather belt was found looped around her neck.
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And finally Heather west aged 16. Heather had began to tell his school friends about the abuse she was suffering at home and had applied for a job at a holiday park in Devon as a way of escaping her parents, Fred and Rose had seen this as a threat and had murdered her in order to keep her silence. Although Fred would claim her death was an accident, her remains were found buried with a length of rope suggesting she had been bound before death. In 2004 one of the West’s youngest children, Barry, would claim that he had witnessed Heather’s murder saying that she had been tied up, physically and sexually abused and that rose had finally stamped on his sister’s head until she ceased to move.
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With Fred having taken his own life in January of 1995, Rosemary was left to face the prosecution alone. She maintained her innocence during the trial and does so even to this day, but the evidence ranged against her was overwhelming. The jury heard recorded confessions from Fred describing how he and Rose had tortured their victims, tying them up and suspending them from ropes in the cellar. A room where no one could hear them scream as they had had their fingernails extracted. The ends of their fingers cut off with pruners, their genitals beaten with blunt objects amongst other unspeakable acts. They heard testimonies from other women who had survived their ordeals with Fred and Rose and most heartbreaking of all from own children.
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Anna Marie finally came forward to testify against her own mother and as she sat there looking across at Rose with a yearning, apologetic expression full of love and pain, it capsized the whole courtroom. Tears streamed down her face as she reluctantly told of the abuses she had suffered, saying whilst Fred was the most sexually perverse of the two, her mother was easily the most violent and calculating and was likely responsible for the majority of the killings. Rosemary West was found guilty on 10 counts of murder and subjected to a whole life tariff, meaning that she will never be released.
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Anna Marie would later try to take her own life out of the guilt of still loving her parents despite everything they had done to her and to others because she explained between sobs, they were all she had.
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There is no telling how many more people the West’s killed, but please estimate there could be as many as 30 plus, that the address of 25 Cromwell street was just the tip of the iceberg. When Fred was living in Scotland during the 60s he had rented an allotment, one quarter of which he never cultivated. When his neighbor asked why he never grew any vegetables there, he simply replied with a slight smile, “That it was reserved for something special.”
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Police were never able to search this location as a section of the M8 motorway was built over the top of it during the 1970s. The building which had served as the West’s home for more than 20 years, their ‘House of horrors’ as it was dubbed by the British press was demolished in 1996 and every single brick was destroyed. A public foot path now rests over the site today.
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One of the most prominent questions we try to answer in making these episodes is whether or not monsters exist. We believe this case decisively proves that they do and that we can never truly know what goes on in some people’s minds. Even those closest to us, it is not difficult to ponder as you drive through the rows of streets and houses of any town. What awful secrets might lie beneath the surface of those otherwise idyllic scenes.
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We must spare a final thought for the victims of Fred and Rosemary West, both known and unknown. It is difficult to imagine the pain and suffering they must have endured. May We take solace in the fact that they’re killers were eventually brought to justice and hope that their souls can now rest in peace.