Fred and Rose West were arrested on suspicion of murder on February 25, 1994 (Picture: Rex/PA)
The arrest of married couple Fred and Rose West on suspicion of murder 30 years ago today marked the beginning of a grisly saga that continues to horrify the nation.
By early 1994, one dogged detective disturbed by a West family joke that their missing 16-year-old daughter Heather was ‘under the patio’ had finally convinced senior officers to search their house at 25 Cromwell Street and dig up the garden.
That work began on February 24 and carried on into the following afternoon, by which time Fred West, watching anxiously from an upstairs window knowing full well they may find the remains of a lot more young women than Heather, approached officers asking: ‘Can we go to the police station?’
At around 5pm on February 25 he confessed to killing his daughter and burying her under the patio by the back door.
He was swiftly arrested on suspicion of her murder, as was his wife Rose around an hour later.
Heather’s remains were unearthed the following day, February 26, along with another bone belonging to someone else.
As the teams of police diggers continued pulling up slabs and dismantling the lower parts of the house they kept finding more and more bodies.
In all, nine would be discovered at 25 Cromwell Street – which became infamous in news reports of as the ‘House of Horrors’.
The couple tortured, raped and murdered an unknown number of women between 1967 and 1987 (Picture: South West News Service/Rex/Shutterstock)
Their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester (Picture: PA)
Police removing evidence from the ‘House of Horrors’ (Picture: South West News Service/Rex/Shutterstock)
Another set of remains was found at West’s old home in Midland Road and two more were discovered in Letterbox and Fingerpost fields at Kempley on the border with Herefordshire.
The grim discoveries destroyed the facade of normality which the Wests had cunningly projected and exposed a decades-long tale of sexual obsession, promiscuity, torture and sadism.
Who was Fred West?
Fred West, a builder, was born in Much Marcle, Herefordshire, into a family of farm workers in 1941.
He moved to Gloucester in 1962 and married Rosemary Letts 10 years later, when she was 18. It was his second marriage, with the pair having had an affair since she was 15.
West claimed his mother introduced him to sex at 12 years old, and he believed in incest because his father had sex with Fred’s sisters.
Fred West, a builder, was born in Much Marcle, Herefordshire, into a family of farm workers in 1941 (Picture: PA)
His first marriage was to Catherine ‘Rena’ Costello, who was pregnant with another man’s child, who would be named Charmaine, at the time.
In May 1967, West’s first known victim, Scots-born Anne McFall, disappeared.
The 18-year-old was nanny to Fred’s children and lived with him in his caravan, becoming his lover during one of the periods when his wife was away. He was the father of her child.
Her skeletal remains, with the remains of her unborn baby, were found in a field at Kempley, near Fred West’s home village of Much Marcle.
Ms Costello left West for the last time in 1969. Her remains were found at a field in Kempley close to where Anne McFall was buried.
Who is Rose West and how did she meet Fred West?
Britain’s most prolific female serial killer has spent nearly 30 years behind bars and will never be released.
She was born in Northam, Devon, to William Andrew ‘Bill’ Letts and Daisy Gwendoline Fuller in 1953, the fifth of seven children.
After her parents separated she initially lived with her mother before moving in with her father in Bishop’s Cleeve, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Her father, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was prone to extreme violence and repeatedly sexually abused her and her sister.
Fred and Rose married when she was just 18 (Picture: Rex/Shutterstock)
Criminologist Dr Jane Carter Woodrow, author of Rose West: The Making of a Monster, told Metro.co.uk traces her depravity back to her upbringing and the sexual abuse she suffered.
‘No one is born evil, but Rose West certainly became that way,’ she said.
‘Fred West had a very similar background to Rosey, but even more extreme.’
Dr Carter described how their chance first encounter at a bus stop ‘was the most dreadful accident waiting to happen’.
In his book chronicling the case, ‘The Full Story of Fred and Rose West and the Gloucester House of Horrors’, author and journalist Howard Sounes writes: ‘When [Rose] met Fred she was an impressionable girl who already put little value on herself or her body, a girl familiar with abuse and cruelty.
‘The peculiarities of Fred and Rose’s characters combined to create something terrifying and unique.’
He quotes their son Steve West, who observes that ‘there was something wrong’ with his mum when she was young, while ‘dad wasn’t quite right either’, resulting in a ‘lethal cocktail’.
‘They encouraged each other in what they did,’ he adds. ‘If they had both married someone else I don’t think it would have happened to the extent it did – two wrong people brought together.’
What happened at 25 Cromwell Street?
The couple tortured, raped and murdered an unknown number of women between 1967 and 1987, most inside the Cromwell Street ‘House of Horrors’.
But while killing many victims, the couple were also indulging in bizarre sexual practices with vulnerable young people they befriended and lured into their home.
Lodgers told how Rose worked as a prostitute.
She entertained men – often more than one at a time – in ‘Rose’s Room’, a ground floor room outside which was a red light to warn the children to keep out when their mother was ‘busy’.
Who were Fred and Rose West’s victims?
Between them, Fred and Rose West tortured, raped and murdered an unknown number of women over a 20-year period.
The known victims, in order of their disappearance, were:
– Anne McFall: Scots-born Anne, believed to be Fred West’s first victim, was just 18 and pregnant when she disappeared in May 1967.
Anne was nanny to Fred’s children and lived with him in his caravan, becoming his lover during one of the periods when his wife was away. He was the father of her child.
Her skeletal remains, with the remains of her unborn baby, were found in a field at Kempley, near Fred West’s home village of Much Marcle.
– Catherine ‘Rena’ Costello: Fred West’s first wife – and his second victim – left him for the last time in 1969. Fred was by now having an affair with 15-year-old Rosemary Letts, who subsequently became his wife.
They had married at Ledbury in 1962, when Catherine was pregnant with Charmaine, who was fathered by another man. Her remains were found at a field in Kempley close to where Anne McFall was buried.
Fred and Rosemary West were involved together in the murders of the following 10 victims:
– Charmaine West: Charmaine was just eight years old when she disappeared in 1971. Her skeletal remains were found buried under the kitchen window at 25 Midland Road, Gloucester.
– Lynda Gough: She was friendly with lodgers at 25 Cromwell Street and was known to have sex with them.
She vanished in April 1973 and her parents reported her missing. Lynda’s remains were found in a former car inspection pit in a garage which had been converted to a bathroom at 25 Cromwell Street.
– Carole Ann Cooper: She disappeared after getting on a bus to return to the home after a night out on November 10, 1973.
Detectives concluded the Wests picked her up while she was hitch-hiking. Her body was found buried in the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.
– Lucy Partington: The 21-year-old university student disappeared two days after Christmas 1973. It is thought that the Wests picked her up as she waited for a bus to her home at Gretton, near Winchcombe.
Her mother reported her missing to police, sparking a massive search. Lucy’s remains were found under the floor of the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.
– Therese Siegenthaler: Swiss-born Therese, 21, a student at a London college, disappeared at Easter 1974 after setting out to hitch-hike to Ireland to visit a friend who was a priest.
She had no known connection with Fred and Rosemary West. Her remains were found under the floor of the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.
Rose West was convicted of 10 counts of murder (Picture: Rex/Shutterstock)
– Shirley Hubbard: Shirley, 15, was the youngest of the victims to be found at Cromwell Street.
She was reported missing to police, but no trace of her was found. Her remains were found under the floor of the cellar at Cromwell Street.
– Juanita Mott: Junita was just 18 when she vanished, a day before a friend’s wedding in April 1975. Her remains were found in the cellar of 25 Cromwell Street.
Soon after Juanita’s death the floor of the cellar – the bodies beneath arranged neatly in a clockwise fashion – was concreted over, and the room was turned into a bedroom for the Wests’ children.
– Shirley Anne Robinson: Shirley Anne lodged with Fred and Rosemary West and became Fred’s lover.
She also became pregnant by Fred. Shirley Anne was last seen in May 1978 when she was about eight months pregnant.
Her body, with the foetus of her unborn child, was found buried in the garden at the Wests’ home.
– Alison Chambers: Alison, who lived in a children’s home, was a frequent visitor to 25 Cromwell Street. She disappeared in August 1979 shortly before her 17th birthday.
Alison’s remains were found in the garden at 25 Cromwell Street.
– Heather West: Heather, who was 16 when she was murdered in 1987, was the first victim whose body was found at 25 Cromwell Street but the last victim of the Wests’ killing spree.
She was the first child of Fred and Rosemary West.
Her parents never reported her missing, although they told various people that they had. In reality, Heather had been murdered and buried under the garden patio.
What happened to Fred and Rose West?
Fred West was charged with 12 murders, but hanged himself in his remand cell at Winston Green jail, Birmingham, on New Year’s Day 1995 before facing trial.
It has long been expected there are many more murders linked to him.
In one of the major trials of the 20th century, Rose West was convicted of 10 murders in November 1995 and is serving a whole life sentence.
Rose West stood trial alone after her husband hanged himself while on remand (Picture: PA)
After her conviction, she lodged an appeal claiming her husband committed the crimes alone, and that she had also been abused by him.
Last year, the solicitor who represented Rose after she and her husband were first arrested told a national newspaper he is ‘absolutely certain she knows a lot more than she has ever told us’.
Rose West ‘will take her secrets to the grave’
Dr Woodrow believes she will remain ‘silent’ and never end the ‘torture’ suffered by her and her husband’s victims.
She previously told Metro Rose is ‘in denial’ but is also exercising ‘control’ as the person most likely to know the truth about the extent of their crimes.
Dr Woodrow believes the remains of the Wests’ victims are still undiscovered at other sites which have not been excavated.
‘Rose has an element of control and she may well have that final information about bodies in other sites,’ Dr Woodrow said.
‘We know Fred had an allotment shed where he would go quite regularly, even though he didn’t care for gardening, and there were also old farm buildings he would disappear to.
‘Rose almost certainly knows a lot more and she could give the families some closure and end their many years of torture, but I think she’ll stay silent.
‘This dreadful legacy will go on and on and it’s imperative the police search other sites. As far as I’m aware she’s never admitted to anything and she’ll take the secrets of potentially many murders to her grave.’
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