Latest / 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories / The Horrors of Cromwell Street: Fred and Rose West

Transcript

The Horrors of Cromwell Street: Fred and Rose West · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: What happens when love turns into something far more sinister.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Today we're diving into the disturbing world of Fred and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Rose West, a couple whose horrific crimes shocked Britain. Fred's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: violent upbringing and dark secrets set the stage for a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: life of unimaginable cruelty, and when Rose entered the picture,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: things only got worse. Together they unleashed horrors behind closed
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: doors that would span decades, leaving a trail of victims
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and a legacy of fear. But in the end, it
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't just their crimes that shocked the world. It was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: their betrayal of each other. Let's unravel the terrifying story
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of Fred and Rose West. Welcome to ten minute Murder.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: If looks can kill, then what can a call and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: very public dismissal do. That was the question a husband
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: facing his wife in the British courts would find out
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen nineties. The man himself was Frederick
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Walter Stephen West, otherwise known as Fred West. He was
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: born on the twenty ninth of September nineteen forty one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: on a farm in Herefordshire. With a name like that,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I don't have to tell you, it's England. His parents
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: were Walter Stephen West and Daisy Hannah Hill, and he
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: was born into a world of extremes. On one side
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: was his father, a cold and strict disciplinarian, and on
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the other side was his mother, a woman forever changed
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: by the grief of losing other children before she would
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: have Fred. This made her an overly cautious and protective woman,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: and one who would spoil her surviving children. But Fred
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: had a very special place in her heart. He was
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: her favorite child, the apple of her eye. Fred found
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: did easier and more fulfilling to stay at home with
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: her than he did going to school, where he achieved
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: poor grades and had no friends. He actually left school
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: at the age of fifteen, and by then he was
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: barely literate and his only future job prospects were working
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: on the family farm. He was a socially awkward and
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: stifled young man, but when he began going out to
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: clubs with his younger brother John, his true nature would
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: begin to emerge. Fred would often walk up to women
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: and begin groping them, usually before knowing or talking to
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: them beforehand. He later explained his actions by saying, I'm
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: automatically attracted to beautiful and just start kissing them. It's
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: like a magnet. Just kiss I don't even wait. When
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: you're a star, they let you do it. You can
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: do anything. Okay, he didn't really say that. Someone else
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: said that, but he later explained his actions. Fred West did,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in a claim that was denied by another of his brothers,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that his view toward women and what was appropriate behavior
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: towardwards them had already been shaped and warped by this
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: stage of his life, and the culprit he blamed was
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: none other than his overprotective mother herself. Fred claimed that
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: his mother had introduced him to sex when he was
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: only twelve years old. He also claimed that watching his
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: very own father rape and molest his daughters led him
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to believe that this behavior was perfectly normal. However, we
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: have to take these accounts with the grain of salt.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Fred was also known to be a pathological liar, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it's possible that he created these events in his childhood
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to justify the unbelievably cruel deeds that were to come
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: further down the line. We do, however, have the hospital
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: records that can substantiate two major events in Fred's life.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: The first happened when he was seventeen years old, he
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: was involved in a motorcycle accident. Fred was left with
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a fractured skull and was unconscious for an entire week.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: The second came only two years long later, when Fred
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: would face the consequences of his actions. While out at
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: a club with his brother John, Fred approached a young
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: woman and grabbed her breast. Appalled, the woman turned around
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and punched Fred, sending him down two flights of stairs
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: in the process. Fred ended up with another head injury,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: and his behavior went from bad to worse. In a
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: later interview with the police, Fred admitted that since the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: age of twelve, he'd been regularly engaging in bestiality with
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: the animals on the family farm, but that, unfortunately was
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: not all that Fred was doing. It was in nineteen
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: sixty one that Fred's thirteen year old sister, Kitty, approached
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: their mother with a chilling and startling confession. It turned
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: out that Fred had also been abusing his sister, and
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: she was now pregnant. Fred was then arrested and openly
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: admitted not only to abusing Kitty, but to many other
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: young girls in the neighborhood as well. Kitty did dropped
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the charges against her brother, but he was kicked out
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: of the family house all the same. Then, about a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: year later, Fred would rekindle an old flame. Her name
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: was Catherine Costello, and she'd been one of the few
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: women who'd actually appreciated Fred's advances at the clubs. They'd
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: been in a relationship for a few months before Catherine,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: whose nickname was Rena, moved back to Scotland. When Rena
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: returned to Fred, she was heavily pregnant with another man's child,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: but Fred agreed to take her in and raise the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: child as his own. They were quickly married, with Fred's
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: younger brother John, his club buddy, being the only guest
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: at the wedding. They then moved to Glasgow, where Fred
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and Rena would tell everyone that she had suffered a miscarriage.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: They then claimed to have adopted young baby Charmain, who
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: was actually Rena's daughter, but felt the need to explain
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: why Charmain was half Asian in a way that they
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: believed didn't reflect poorly on them. This would only be
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the racial abuse Charmain would experience from
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the pair of them for the rest of her life.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Charmain was followed by another sister a year later. This time,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Anna Marie was in fact Fred's biological child, but he
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: treated her exactly the same way he treated poor Charmain.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Using iron bars and a bed bunk, Fred constructed a
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: cage in the girl's bedroom. They would be forced to
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: stay in there whenever he was home to keep them
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: out of Fred's way. He also continued to have long
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: in numerous affairs with multiple women during the course of
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: his marriage with Rena, but when Rena found out, instead
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: of divorcing him, Rena began having an affair of her
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: own with a man named John McLaughlin. When Fred found
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: out about Rena's affair, things turned violent. Whenever Fred caught
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Rena with John, or even just suspected that she'd been
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: seeing him, he would beat her. John would often show
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: up at the home to then confront Fred, and an
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: uneasy truce settled between them all. Fred moved the fanily
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to Gloucester, although it would take Rena a few months
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to follow him down there. When she did, though, she
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: brought with her two teenage girls named Isha McNeil and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Anne McFall. All three women, Fred and the girls lived
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: together in a small trailer, and Fred quickly began viewing
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: all of the women as his property. Anne was spared
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: for the moment, but Fred would beat Rena and Aisha.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: He also pressured Rena into becoming a prostitute to keep
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the family afloat. It's believed that during this period of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: time he also began sexually abusing young charmain. Desperate, Rena
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: then called John McLachlin and begged for help. He immediately
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: agreed to come and get Rena and the girls, but
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: their plans were foiled by Anne McFall. Upon finding out
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: that Rena and Aish were running away, Anne reported them
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: to Fred. He then raced to the meeting spot and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: told Rena that they were free to go, but the
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: girls were staying with him. Reluctantly, Rena agreed, and she
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: left with the warning that if she were to ever return,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Fred would kill her. In July nineteen sixty seven, the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: then eighteen year old Anne was eight months pregnant with
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Fred's child when she suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Only a
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: month later, Rena was officially back in Fred's life and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: living in the family trailer again. This new attempt at
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: rekindling Their relationship would only last for a year, and
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: then Rena left for Glasgow again. Two years later, Fred
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: approached a young woman sitting alone at a bus stop.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Her name was Rosemary Lett's and she had only just
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: turned fifteen years old when Fred began making advances. She
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: dismissed him at first. She even at one point believed
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: he was just a homeless man, but she softened when
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Fred weaved a story about being a poor widower. Rose
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: then began spending more time at the West family trailer,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and by the time she was sixteen years old, she
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: was pregnant with Fred's child. There were, however, rumors that
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the father of the child was in fact her very
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: own father, who had been diagnosed to schizophrenic. Rose ran
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: away to live with Red permanently, and shortly after her daughter,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Heather Anne West, was born. Unlike with his previous relationships,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Fred had met his match. Instead of finding herself the
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: victim of physical abuse, Rose became his partner. Together, they
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: would dole out punishments on the girls, with Rose's punishments
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: being the most severe. She was even known to turn
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: on Fred and at least on one occasion came after
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: him with a knife. But in the summer of nineteen
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: seventy one, Fred was actually behind bars, and during that
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: time firstborn daughter, Charmain, disappeared. Rose proclaimed that she'd gone
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to live with Rena in Scotland, and when Fred was
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: released from prison, he corroborated Rose's story. He even told
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Anna Marie that Rena had intentionally taken Charmain and left
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Anna Marie quote she wouldn't want you love You're the
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: wrong color. But Rena quickly realized that her daughter was
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: missing and continued to visit Fred and Rose in the
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: hopes of tracking her down. It was during one of
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: these trips that Rena also disappeared. Fred and Rose were
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: married only six months after Rena vanished, even though Fred
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: was still technically and legally married to Rena. Months later,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and Rose was pregnant again. While the family moved into
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a house on Cromwell Street. Upstairs, Rose would have her
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: very own room, outside of which was a red light.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: If the light was on, she was not to be
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: disturbed and was more than likely busy selling her services
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: to both men and women. When Rose's father found out
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that his daughter was prostituting herself, he began visiting her too,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Unlike with Rena, Fred wasn't pressuring Rose and to selling herself.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Rose was doing so because she wanted to and had
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: come to an agreement with Fred. They would even sometimes
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: work together, or Fred would also watch through peep holes
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: he drilled into the walls. By nineteen eighty three, Rose
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: had eight children, and at least three of which had
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: been fathered by her clients. Fred raised them all as
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: his own, but all of the children in the household
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: were subjected to the same treatment. When they reached the
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: age of seven, each child was presented with a list
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of chores to do to keep both Fred and Rose happy,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and it was usually around then that the sexual abuse
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: would begin. When Anna Maria was eight years old, she
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: was ordered down to the basement and told to strip.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Rose herself then tied the girl to a mattress and
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: gagged her. Fred then raped her, and when he was done,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Rose followed Anna Maria to the bathroom. She then laughed
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and told her, I'm sorry. Everybody does it to every girl.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: It's a father's job. Anna Maria was also only thirteen
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: years old when Fred and Rose forced her into prostitution.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, nineteen year old Linda Gough moved
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: into the family home, believing that she was to be
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a live in nanny for the Wests. The very next day,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: both Fred and Rose began telling neighbors that they'd fired
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Linda for hitting one of the children. In nineteen seventy three,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: a fifteen year old girl named carol Ane Cooper went
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: missing after a trip to the cinema with her boyfriend,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and over the next year and a half, four more
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: girls would go missing. In nineteen seventy eight, eighteen year
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: old Shirley Robinson, who'd been living with the Wests, suddenly
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: vanished as well. According to Rose, Shirley had been eight
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: months pregnant with Fred's child and had moved back to
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: live with her father in West Germany. In nineteen seventy nine,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: sixteen year old Allison Chambers also went missing from the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: West household, and then Anna Marie ran away. With Anna
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Marie gone, Fred turned to his other daughters and said,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I've made you, I can do what I like with you.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: While Fred continued to sexually abuse his own daughters, he
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: spared his sons. The same, However, could not be said
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: for Rose. Eldest Stephen, was informed in no uncertain terms
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: that he was expected to have slept with his own
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: mother by the time he turned seventeen. The children did
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: what they could to protect each other from the abuse,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: but in so many ways there was very little that
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: they could actually do. Heather began showing visible signs of
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: physical and sexual abuse, and teachers at her school noticed.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: When they asked Heather if she was all right, she
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: told them everything. When the other children came home from
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: school one day, Fred and Rose told them that Heather
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: had gotten a job in another country and that she
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: had already left. They told her that they didn't expect
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: to be hearing from her anytime. Soon days turned into weeks,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: weeks into months and years, and Fred and Rose began quipping,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you'll end up under the patio like Heather. Years went
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: by and the other children in the house believed that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the line was just a joke, but that all changed
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two. By then, rumors about a tape
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: involving Fred and his third thirteen year old daughter, Louise
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: led to a visit from the police. Louise corroborated the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: rumors about the abuse, which then led the police to
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: interviews with both Fred and Rose. They managed to keep
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: things together for the most part, but neither of them
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: could keep their story straight about what happened to Heather.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: In early nineteen ninety four, the police showed up at
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the family home with a search warrant. As the police
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: searched the property, Fred approached Stephen and said, look, son,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: look after mom and sell the house. I've done something
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: really bad. I want you to go to the papers
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: and make as much money as you can. He then
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: told the police that he had killed Heather and she
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: was in fact buried under the patio. According to Fred,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: he'd actually killed not just his daughter Heather, but Rena
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and Charmaine as well. Before he knew it, Fred had
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: admitting to killing ten women, but he claimed that Rose
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: had no involvement in the murders. Rose was arrested anyway,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: and in a flash, she turned on her husband. Probably
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: as part of her own defense, Rose gave Fred the
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: cold shoulder whenever they saw each other in court. She
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: even visibly pulled away from him and winced when Fred
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: attempted to touch her. Fred was heartbroken. He then completely
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: changed his story and told the investigators that Rose had
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: been an active part of the killings. He then wrote
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Rose a letter and hanged himself in his own prison.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Cell Rose then had to face the courts on her own.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: She was found guilty and sentenced to ten life sentences
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: without the possibility of parole. That is ten Minute Murder
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: for Today, Grief and Bingeable True Crime. I'm Joe, I'm
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the host, and thank you for taking the time to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: listen to the podcast. If you are a new listener,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: subscribe make sure you're also connected to ten Minute Murder
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: on all the social media platforms. And yes, I did
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: it again. I did that thing where I'm starting out
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: trying to make this episode ten minutes and then before
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: you know it, it's like fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes have
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: gone by sixteen minut I don't know what it is
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: at this point. At some point I just checked out
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and went, you know what it's gonna be. What it's
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: going to be. This rarely happens, but it's happened a
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: couple of times within the last month, and that's my bad.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: But I didn't feel like I could leave anything out, Like,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: you tell me what I could have left out of
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: this story. There's a whole bunch that I didn't talk
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: about because there is so much to talk about in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: this story. But I did the best I could, and
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen minutes was about it. All right, My apologies,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: thank you for listening to ten minute Murder