Fred West
Frederick Walter Stephen West (
September 29,
1941 â€"
January 1,
1995) was an English
construction worker and
serial killer who, together with his wife
Rosemary West, is believed to have murdered at least twelve young women, many at the couple's home in
Gloucester,
England. He committed
suicide by hanging in his cell at
Winson Green Prison while being held on suspicion of murder.
West was born in
Much Marcle, Herefordshire, into a poor family of farm workers. He left school aged fifteen and began work as a casual labourer. After a spate of petty crime and a near-conviction for
child molestation in November
1961, resulting in the
pregnancy of his thirteen-year-old sister, he moved away from his parents' rural home in disgrace to live with an aunt until the
Spring of
1962. His sister had an
abortion and the pregnancy was terminated.
He married Catherine (Rena) Costello, a
prostitute, in November
1962 and they moved to
Glasgow. She gave birth to a girl, Charmaine, in March
1963, although the girl's father was a Pakistani bus driver. A second child, Anna Marie, was born to the couple in July
1964. She was West's child.
During this period, West was working as an ice cream man but on
4 November 1965 he accidentally ran over a four-year-old boy with his ice-cream van. Six weeks later due to bad feeling against him - and feeling that it was unsafe for him to carry on living in Glasgow - West, Anna McFall and Rena West moved to Gloucester and West took a job in an
abattoir. Their marriage under strain, the Wests separated, and when she returned in
1966 he was living with Anna McFall. West killed the heavily pregnant McFall around August
1967 and buried her in a field near Much Marcle. Rena returned to live with him and their children for a short time before leaving again.
In late
1968 West met Rosemary Letts (b.
1953). She became pregnant by him, something she concealed from her parents until West was serving a short prison sentence for unpaid fines. She left her family home and moved in with West in Midland Road in
Gloucester. She gave birth to a girl, Heather, on
17 October1970, and often neglected the older children. Charmaine died in mid-
1971 while West was still in prison, probably at Letts' hands. West
dismembered the body upon returning from prison, and hid it under the floor. Rena returned to Gloucester in late August 1971 looking for her children. West murdered her late one night after she was drunk and disposed of the body by cutting it up and burying it in a field near his childhood home.
He committed
bigamy by marrying Rosemary Letts on
29 January 1972, as he never had divorced. West regularly encouraged Rose to prostitute herself. Rose gave birth to a girl, Mae, in June 1972, and the family moved to a new home at 25 Cromwell Street, an unprepossessing three-storey house.
West adapted the cellar as a place for his children (Mae and Steven) to sleep in, extending and soundproofing it. In the upstairs front room, the Wests attacked and raped 17-year-old Caroline Owens, whom they had taken in as a
nanny, in December 1972. She was violently assaulted by both of the Wests. They were arrested and went to trial in January
1973, but were only fined.
A pattern then began: young females would come to their home as lodgers or to care for the children and would be abused and then murdered. The first victim was Lynda Gough, murdered in April 1973. The second was 15-year old Carol Ann Cooper, abducted and murdered in November 1973, and the third was Lucy Partington (a relative of
Martin Amis) who was almost certainly kept alive for nearly a week and murdered in the first days of
1974. This is borne out by West, who had a fear of hospitals since his motorbike accident over fifteen years earlier, presenting himself at 12.25am on 3rd January 1974 at the
Gloucester Royal Hospital casualty department with a deep wound to his hand, probably sustained whilst cutting up Lucy Partington's body.
The bodies were dismembered and disposed of under the cellar floor as West extended and renovated the building. Therese Siegenthaler was murdered around
Easter 1974. Following on from this, Shirley Hubbard was murdered in November 1974, just after the first anniversary of Carol Ann Cooper's murder.
No-one can be sure whether the Wests marked the first anniversary of Lucy Partington's abduction and murder just after Christmas 1974, for if they did the victim wasn't buried under the cellar. However, just before the first anniversary of their abduction and murder of Therese Siegenthaler, they did the same to Juanita Mott in April
1975.
There was then a three-year hiatus (unless further unfortunate victims were killed and buried elsewhere) before Shirley Robinson, an eight-and-half months pregnant woman, was murdered in May
1978 and buried in the garden. In September
1979 the Wests abducted, abused, tortured and killed Alison Chambers.
Rose was often pregnant, and gave birth to Tara (December 1977), Louise (November
1978), Barry (June
1980), Rosemary Junior (April
1982) and Lucyanna (July
1983), of which only Barry was biologically Fred's. Rosemary Jnr. and Lucyanna were mixed-race.
The next and, as far as is known, last victim to be buried at Cromwell Street was West's daughter Heather, who was murdered and buried in the garden in June
1987.
Following the report of the rape of Louise in May and June 1992 by Fred West, police obtained a
search warrant. After examining the house, they arrested Fred West for rape and
sodomy of a minor and Rose as an
accomplice on
6 August 1992. She was also charged with child cruelty. The six surviving children were taken into care, never to be looked after by the Wests again.
The rape case against the Wests collapsed when the two main witnesses declined to testify on
7th June 1993. However, the police obtained a further search warrant in February
1994, allowing them to excavate the garden in search of Heather. The police began searching the house and excavating the garden on
February 24 1994. On the 25th, after the police had uncovered human bones, Fred West confessed, retracted and then re-confessed to the murder of his daughter, denying that Rose was involved. Rose was not arrested until April 1994, initially only on
sex offences but later she was charged with murder.
On
30 June 1994, they appeared in the dock in Gloucester, the first time they had seen each other since 25 February, when Fred was arrested for the murder of Heather. He attempted to touch Rose in the dock to console her but she totally ignored him. Outside the court, just after being charged with 11 murders and just after she had been charged with ten murders, Fred was arrested on suspicion on murdering Anna McFall, whose body was found on 7th June 1994. On the evening of
3 July 1994 he was charged with her murder. He made another court appearance the following morning, after which he was returned to Winson Green Prison, where he had been since the middle of May 1994. He would spend the rest of 1994 there.
On
December 13 1994, Fred West was charged with twelve murders, and his wife with ten. She ignored him a second time, and on
January 1,
1995, he committed
suicide in his cell at
Birmingham's Winson Green Prison. The evidence against Rose was largely circumstantial, and she did not confess. She was tried from October 1995, found guilty of all ten murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. A
whole life tariff was imposed on her, and she is extremely unlikely to be released.
In October
1996, the Wests' home was demolished, and the site became a simple pathway.
It was suggested by Gordon Burn in his
1998 book on the Wests that Fred West's
sociopathy might have been caused by a head injury. He had a motorcycle accident in November
1958 which briefly left him in a
coma, with a broken leg, broken arm and skull damage which required a fixative metal plate. According to his brother John West, this accident caused quite a change in personality.
Happy Like Murderers by Gordon Burn. A non-sensationalist account of Fred and Rosemary West, written by a former
Sunday Times journalist.
She Must Have Known: Trial of Rosemary West by Brian Masters.
*
Rosemary West
