Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Killer Couples Documentary - Fred & Rose West： The Couple That Killed 12 Kids

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Killer Couples Documentary - Fred & Rose West： The Couple That Killed 12 Kids · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:00
Speaker 1: You going to book me?
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Speaker 2: I've got a mug here.
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Speaker 1: Is that gorgeous or what, eh?
0:05
Speaker 3: And I believe I can run to deep American.
0:08
Speaker 4: Download Vele now.
0:14
Speaker 2: 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester has become one of the
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Speaker 2: most infamous addresses in Britain. For 20 years, Fred and
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Speaker 2: Rose West quenched their appetite for sex and murder inside
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Speaker 2: this house of unimaginable horror. When police began investigating the
0:28
Speaker 2: disappearance of their daughter, it led them right to the
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Speaker 2: West front door. Detectives were only just beginning to unearth
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Speaker 2: the murderous history of Fred and Rose West.
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Speaker 5: It was on a scale that was really unprecedented.
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Speaker 6: Children are their things to play with. They are disposable.
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Speaker 6: They're things there to be used and abused.
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Speaker 7: I've never for one moment doubted that Frederick West was
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Speaker 7: a truly evil man. But he found in Rose the
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Speaker 7: perfect sorcerer's apprentice.
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Speaker 2: This is the story of how Fred and Rose West
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Speaker 2: became two of the world's most evil killers. Fred and
1:23
Speaker 2: Rose West are one of the most notorious couples in
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Speaker 2: British history. For two decades, they sexually abused, tortured and
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Speaker 2: murdered nine women, including their own daughter, in their house
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Speaker 2: of horrors, and between them were responsible for another three
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Speaker 2: victims buried around Gloucestershire. When the news broke in February 1994,
1:42
Speaker 2: the media were only scratching the surface of the couple's
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Speaker 2: terrifying life behind the closed door of 25 Cromwell Street.
1:50
Speaker 8: Five days and nights into their excavation and forensic teams
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Speaker 8: have now unearthed three sets of human remains, all buried
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Speaker 8: in separate places five feet under the garden patio of
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Speaker 8: this Gloucester home.
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Speaker 1: It's horrible to think that there are, you know, dead
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Speaker 1: bodies in a garden just down the road. It's just
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Speaker 1: thoroughly disgusting. I mean, it's horrifying to think. Totally shocking,
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Speaker 1: especially around, you know, in Gloucester. I mean, you wouldn't
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Speaker 1: expect this to happen.
2:18
Speaker 2: But Fred and Rose's horrifying story began many years before.
2:24
Speaker 2: In 1969, 28-year-old Fred West was married to his wife, Rena,
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Speaker 2: with a young family of his own. But he had
2:30
Speaker 2: his eye on a 15-year-old girl named Rosemary Letts. Rose
2:34
Speaker 2: and her family had recently moved to the Gloucestershire area,
2:37
Speaker 2: whereas Fred was born and raised in the local village
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Speaker 2: of Muchmarkle.
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Speaker 6: Well, Fred was the eldest boy in the family, and
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Speaker 6: he was very much the target for quite a lot
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Speaker 6: of abuse at the hands of his mother. So his
2:51
Speaker 6: mother sexually abused him, essentially, and he lost his virginity
2:54
Speaker 6: to her. And the family was a very self-contained one.
2:57
Speaker 6: Rose's childhood was similar to Fred's in many ways, in
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Speaker 6: that it was completely dysfunctional and antisocial and abnormal. So
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Speaker 6: she was abused by her father. who started raping her
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Speaker 6: from a very young age. So what she took to
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Speaker 6: be normal, what she took to be acceptable in terms
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Speaker 6: of behavior within a family really was anything but.
3:21
Speaker 2: Fred pursued Rose. He was used to getting what he wanted.
3:24
Speaker 2: When the couple met, there was instant attraction.
3:30
Speaker 9: Rose lived in the same village that Fred had a caravan.
3:34
Speaker 9: They met at the bus station in Cheltenham. She said
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Speaker 9: that he could charm the birds off the trees, even
3:40
Speaker 9: though his appearance was shabby. He had not very clean teeth.
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Speaker 6: Well, these were two incredibly damaged people. They'd both come
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Speaker 6: from abnormal families. And I think when they met, what
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Speaker 6: they saw in each other was something familiar. So they
3:56
Speaker 6: both would have realized that the childhoods that they had
3:59
Speaker 6: were far from normal. But with one another, they felt
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Speaker 6: that familiarity.
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Speaker 7: Maybe it was something that Rose gave off implicitly. but
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Speaker 7: something in Fred connected with what had happened to Rose
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Speaker 7: and the way she was and the way she'd been
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Speaker 7: treated by her father.
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Speaker 4: And it was like a union of two souls.
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Speaker 6: I think it was the perfect storm. The chances of
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Speaker 6: these two people meeting was, it must have been a
4:24
Speaker 6: million to one, but unfortunately they did.
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Speaker 2: By 1970, just a year after meeting, they were living
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Speaker 2: together in Gloucester with Fred's stepdaughter, Charmaine. His wife, Rena,
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Speaker 2: was nowhere to be seen. Rose was pregnant with the
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Speaker 2: couple's first daughter, Heather.
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Speaker 6: I think in the early days, perhaps the more dominant
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Speaker 6: partner was Fred. He was older, he was more experienced,
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Speaker 6: he'd seen more than Rose had. You know, she'd come
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Speaker 6: from this incredibly contained family. But I think as their
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Speaker 6: relationship developed... she started to find her feet and find
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Speaker 6: her confidence, and I don't think that Fred ever really
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Speaker 6: trusted her.
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Speaker 7: For Rose and Fred, it was all about sex from
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Speaker 7: the very, very beginning. Fred was the originator, but he
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Speaker 7: found the perfect sorcerer's apprentice, the perfect partner, someone who
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Speaker 7: shared his lust and someone who understood him and wanted
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Speaker 7: to perform for him.
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Speaker 6: I think we have a lot of trouble making sense
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Speaker 6: of Fred and Rose's relationship and the reason for that
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Speaker 6: is because we are people with emotions and normal feelings
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Speaker 6: and ideas of what acceptable and unacceptable boundaries are around relationships.
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Speaker 6: So I don't think I'd describe their relationship as a
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Speaker 6: loving one.
5:43
Speaker 2: Fred and Rose's traumatic childhoods had a lasting effect on
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Speaker 2: the couple and their twisted approach to family life together.
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Speaker 7: It's always a very complicated question to answer how many children.
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Speaker 4: Fred and Rose actually had.
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Speaker 7: Because if you count Fred's daughter Charmaine, along with Fred
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Speaker 7: and Rose's eight, it's nine.
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Speaker 4: But then you've got to add Rose's three mixed-race children,
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Speaker 4: all of whom were fathered not by Fred.
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Speaker 7: All I would say is that all of them were
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Speaker 7: deeply hurt, almost ruined by the parents themselves.
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Speaker 6: I think Rose's early experiences within the family of being
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Speaker 6: abused by her father wrote the script for what would
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Speaker 6: later play out. So what she took to be normal,
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Speaker 6: what she took as boundaries and rules, really weren't going
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Speaker 6: to work in the wider world. So what she was
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Speaker 6: learning about in those early years would set her up
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Speaker 6: to be somebody who didn't quite fit in.
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Speaker 7: And it was, to some extent, what Fred then adopted as.
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Speaker 4: a family habit. It was, if you like, a West tradition.
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Speaker 7: I don't mean to say that that wasn't disgraceful, but
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Speaker 7: it is nevertheless part of the family history and helps,
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Speaker 7: helps to explain something of West's behaviour.
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Speaker 2: Two decades later, it's 1992 and Gloucestershire police are searching
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Speaker 2: for Heather West. In 1987, aged just 16, Fred and
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Speaker 2: Rosie's eldest child vanish from the family home. Fred had
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Speaker 2: claimed Heather had run away, but she was never reported
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Speaker 2: as missing. But after receiving allegations of child abuse at
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Speaker 2: 25 Cromwell Street, detectives began to look into Heather's whereabouts.
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Speaker 2: Chief Constable Tony Butler was in charge of Gloucestershire Police.
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Speaker 5: One of the children told a friend at school about
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Speaker 5: what was happening to her. That friend talked to a
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Speaker 5: patrolling police officer, in fact, about what her friend had
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Speaker 5: told her, and it was a result of what the police...
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Speaker 5: The police officer then took that back and it initiated
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Speaker 5: a child protection process which led to the evidence being gathered.
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Speaker 2: Five of the West's children were placed into care and
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Speaker 2: the police began their investigations. They were interviewed about the
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Speaker 2: darker side of their lives at 25 Cromwell Street.
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Speaker 7: What it brought to light was a family joke. And
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Speaker 7: the family joke was a simple one. You'd better watch
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Speaker 7: out because if you don't shut up and stop causing
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Speaker 7: your dad or your mum any trouble, you'll end up
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Speaker 7: like Heather, two down and three across in the patio.
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Speaker 7: Fred had laid a patio behind Cornwall Street, it was
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Speaker 7: in squares, which was rather like a crossword. The family
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Speaker 7: joke was that he buried Heather at two down and
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Speaker 7: three across.
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Speaker 5: This issue, this Heather's under the patio, continued to be raised.
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Speaker 5: And so we started to take this point seriously. We
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Speaker 5: knew Heather had disappeared, had left the home, So we
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Speaker 5: tried to trace her, and despite a massive amount of
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Speaker 5: inquiry to try and find out, she just literally disappeared
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Speaker 5: off the face of the earth.
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Speaker 2: In February 1994, the police decided to find out if
8:59
Speaker 2: the family joke was more serious than the children realised.
9:03
Speaker 2: Armed with a warrant, they began to dig under the
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Speaker 2: patio of 25 Cromwell Street.
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Speaker 5: When they arrived with the warrant, Fred and Rose were
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Speaker 5: at the house and they went into the back garden
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Speaker 5: and the officers started digging the garden.
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Speaker 2: Sensing the end was nigh, Fred asked to be interviewed
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Speaker 2: by police.
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Speaker 5: Fred asked the officer if they could go down to
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Speaker 5: the police station and so they left. Fred said that
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Speaker 5: he admitted that Heather's remains were in the garden but
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Speaker 5: the police were looking in the wrong place. And later
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Speaker 5: that day, he returned with the officers and he indicated
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Speaker 5: where where he thought Heather was buried. The following day,
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Speaker 5: officers digging in that area recovered a femur, and that
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Speaker 5: was taken for examination by the forensic pathologist, who confirmed
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Speaker 5: it was human remains, and that turned out to be
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Speaker 5: one of Heather's remains.
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Speaker 2: Rose was being questioned at Cheltenham Police Station when the
10:00
Speaker 2: news reached her and her solicitor, Leo Goatley.
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Speaker 10: When Rose was told that Heather's remains had been found,
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Speaker 10: she gasped loudly and was very distraught. How do you
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Speaker 10: interpret that? Was that a mother's shock and distress, Or
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Speaker 10: was it a murderer's distress at being found out? At
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Speaker 10: that time, I believe that she was shocked and distressed
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Speaker 10: and that she didn't know the extent of Fred's activities. And,
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Speaker 10: of course, at that stage, it wasn't about serial killing,
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Speaker 10: it was about Heather. But, of course, the thing unravelled
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Speaker 10: pretty quickly with the excavation.
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Speaker 2: The police found more than they'd bargained for under the
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Speaker 2: patio at 25 Cromwell Street.
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Speaker 4: When they found.
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Speaker 7: remains they found not just two legs or two thigh
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Speaker 7: bones but three the interrogating detective said to west well
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Speaker 7: unless heather had three legs there's another body oh yes
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Speaker 7: fred says without drawing breath or hesitating that must be
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Speaker 7: the other girl that would be shirley.
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Speaker 2: The police were about to unearth all the secrets that
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Speaker 2: Fred and Rose West had been hiding at 25 Cromwell
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Speaker 2: Street for over two decades. Secrets that would shock the
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Speaker 2: entire nation. Fred told the investigating officers the other body
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Speaker 2: was of his former lover, Shirley Robinson. Shirley hadn't been
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Speaker 2: seen since 1978. When she disappeared, she was heavily pregnant
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Speaker 2: with Fred's child. West also admitted that police would find
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Speaker 2: a third body in the garden who he claimed was
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Speaker 2: a friend of Shirley's. Throughout the questioning, he insisted on
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Speaker 2: one thing, that his wife Rose knew nothing about any
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Speaker 2: of the bodies.
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Speaker 6: I think when Fred was protesting Rose's innocence and taking
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Speaker 6: the blame completely upon himself, I think, yes, at that point,
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Speaker 6: the power had changed in their relationship from him being
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Speaker 6: the dominant one in the early years to her really
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Speaker 6: putting the strings in those later years. And I think
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Speaker 6: he really didn't trust her at this point in time.
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Speaker 6: He was really quite afraid of what she might do.
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Speaker 6: So I think that that was definitely something that had
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Speaker 6: flipped in this relationship.
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Speaker 10: Well, I found him quite a creepy bloke. He would
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Speaker 10: always be trying to endear himself to people in a
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Speaker 10: rather smarmy way, a little kind of, giggle, making light
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Speaker 10: of things but he was very unconvincing doing that and
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Speaker 10: he would very quickly realise if you weren't impressed by
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Speaker 10: him and then he would withdraw and I would sense
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Speaker 10: there was this other side to him that would scowl
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Speaker 10: and be probably quite nasty whatever his sort of murky
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Speaker 10: machinations within his mind were once he realised he was
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Speaker 10: probably better able to actually charm women than blokes It's
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Speaker 10: possible that with a little smile and some sort of
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Speaker 10: soft talk he was able to persuade some young women
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Speaker 10: that he was safe to be around.
13:15
Speaker 2: To make things more complicated, Fred's story kept changing. He
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Speaker 2: alternated between admitting and denying the killings and told detectives
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Speaker 2: that all the deaths were accidental. He wanted to get
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Speaker 2: charged with manslaughter and not murder. It would be a
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Speaker 2: hard job for pathologists to prove otherwise.
13:34
Speaker 3: It's very difficult when somebody's been buried for years... to
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Speaker 3: look at them in detail as a pathologist. You haven't
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Speaker 3: got the skin, you haven't got the muscles, you haven't
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Speaker 3: got the organs, the things that you'd see injury or
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Speaker 3: disease in, so you really have to comment on what
13:50
Speaker 3: may not be there. It makes a pathologist's job a
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Speaker 3: lot harder.
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Speaker 2: Finding the cause of death was difficult, and so was
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Speaker 2: identifying the third victim buried under the patio. There were
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Speaker 2: approximately 10,000 missing women recorded at the time. By using
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Speaker 2: dental records, experts identified the third victim as Alison Chambers,
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Speaker 2: who was just 16 when she went missing in 1979,
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Speaker 2: meaning she cannot have been a friend of Shirley Robinson,
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Speaker 2: as Fred suggested. Marks found on her body proved beyond
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Speaker 2: doubt she'd been tortured.
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Speaker 3: Someone's behavior is more in the realm of psychology than pathology,
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Speaker 3: but quite clearly, there's potentially the aspect of torture there
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Speaker 3: of sexual violence, and when a pathologist sees findings like that,
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Speaker 3: we're looking away from manslaughter and more into some sort
14:46
Speaker 3: of act of cruelty.
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Speaker 2: This proved that West hadn't accidentally killed these young women.
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Speaker 2: He'd tortured, sexually assaulted, and intentionally murdered them. But was
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Speaker 2: Fred doing this without Rose knowing? The police weren't convinced.
15:02
Speaker 5: The most important thing, of course, was that these bodies
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Speaker 5: were recovered in the house that she shared with Fred.
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Speaker 5: And it would appear inconceivable that she wouldn't have had
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Speaker 5: knowledge of this.
15:16
Speaker 4: The house itself was very, very small.
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Speaker 7: It would have been inconceivable that you could have kept
15:22
Speaker 7: a young woman or women in that house without every
15:27
Speaker 7: occupant knowing that something was going on. No matter how
15:30
Speaker 7: much tape you would have put over their mouths, no
15:32
Speaker 7: matter how much they'd been concealed in the cellar, you
15:36
Speaker 7: would know.
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Speaker 4: It would have been impossible not to know.
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Speaker 2: The police began to look into missing persons' files to
15:43
Speaker 2: try and find any more potential victims. But with about 10,000
15:47
Speaker 2: missing women in the country, it was a seemingly endless search.
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Speaker 5: Throughout that time, we were trying to trace people from
15:55
Speaker 5: children's homes to make sure they were safe. We were
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Speaker 5: dealing with forensic materials, I mean, massive amounts of forensic material, searching.
16:02
Speaker 5: It was on a scale that was really unprecedented.
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Speaker 2: Two of the missing people stood out. Lucy Partington, a
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Speaker 2: 21-year-old student last seen at a bus stop in Gloucester
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Speaker 2: in 1973, and Linda Goff, a 19-year-old who went missing
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Speaker 2: in the same year. Her last known address, 25 Cromwell Street.
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Speaker 4: Fred and Rose adopted a sort of modus operandi.
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Speaker 7: They would identify young women on the run if you
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Speaker 7: like run away from home run away from a children's
16:33
Speaker 7: home run away from their parents they were vulnerable they
16:38
Speaker 7: would offer them a home and time after time Fred
16:42
Speaker 7: would pick up with Rose often at bus stops young
16:46
Speaker 7: women who looked a little lost.
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Speaker 6: So they would always choose people who would be in
16:51
Speaker 6: that position of vulnerability And the fact that they were
16:54
Speaker 6: a couple, I think, was quite helpful to them in
16:57
Speaker 6: luring victims in because the women that they targeted would
17:00
Speaker 6: be more likely to trust a couple. So when they
17:04
Speaker 6: would pick somebody up who was hitchhiking, that played to
17:07
Speaker 6: that idea of, well, there's a woman there, so I'm
17:09
Speaker 6: going to be safe.
17:10
Speaker 9: Rose already knew the language of grooming.
17:13
Speaker 4: She was quite used to it.
17:14
Speaker 9: And when you hear the victims talk about how she
17:16
Speaker 9: spoke to them in this sort of quite soft, pleasing voice,
17:21
Speaker 9: you knew that, again, that was something she had learned.
17:27
Speaker 2: Linda Goff was never officially reported as missing, but her
17:30
Speaker 2: family searched for her at the time of her disappearance.
17:34
Speaker 5: Linda Goff's mother, she'd been round to the house, knocked
17:39
Speaker 5: on the door, and had been answered by Rose West.
17:42
Speaker 5: And she asked where Linda was, and she was told
17:45
Speaker 5: that she'd gone away, I think, to Western Supermare. She
17:48
Speaker 5: was struck by the fact that there was Rose standing
17:51
Speaker 5: there with her Linda slippers, wearing Linda's slippers, and she
17:56
Speaker 5: also noticed on the clothesline there were articles of Linda's clothing.
18:02
Speaker 2: Linda's mother believed Rose when she said her daughter had
18:05
Speaker 2: moved on from Cromwell Street, but as the press coverage
18:08
Speaker 2: began to reflect the sheer enormity of the unfolding story,
18:12
Speaker 2: other women who'd encountered the West came forward. the police
18:16
Speaker 2: got a break when Caroline Roberts contacted them to offer
18:19
Speaker 2: her help in the investigation. She'd seen the investigation on
18:24
Speaker 2: the news and revealed to police she'd been sexually assaulted
18:28
Speaker 2: by both Fred and Rose in 1972. She'd known them
18:32
Speaker 2: for a while after they picked her up while she
18:35
Speaker 2: was hitchhiking and even worked for them as a nanny
18:38
Speaker 2: for a short time. It was one horrifying incident that
18:42
Speaker 2: caused her to lodge a complaint against them.
18:46
Speaker 5: They invited her back to the house, and when she
18:48
Speaker 5: got to the house, having been assaulted in the car
18:53
Speaker 5: by Fred and Rose, she got back to the house,
18:56
Speaker 5: and she was then bound and subjected to some rather
18:59
Speaker 5: aggressive sexual activity.
19:02
Speaker 4: She managed to escape.
19:03
Speaker 5: Subsequently and reported it to her mom, who then told
19:06
Speaker 5: the police. Both Fred and Rose were arrested for rape
19:10
Speaker 5: and other serious sexual offenses.
19:13
Speaker 2: At the time, she was scared to face them at
19:15
Speaker 2: a trial and ashamed at what had happened. The West
19:18
Speaker 2: were charged with indecent exposure instead of rape. They were
19:22
Speaker 2: fined £ 100. But with the information Caroline gave to the police,
19:27
Speaker 2: they could link Rose to the crimes and bodies at
19:30
Speaker 2: Cromwell Street.
19:32
Speaker 5: So we had that evidence that there was an aggressive
19:35
Speaker 5: sexual nature to her personality. The details of sexual activity
19:39
Speaker 5: that had taken place had evidence a number of similarities,
19:43
Speaker 5: particularly talking about bindings and gags and so on, that
19:47
Speaker 5: were very similar, if not identical, to the material that
19:51
Speaker 5: was recovered in association with the victims when they were discovered.
19:55
Speaker 3: This case was much more about the accounts of people
20:00
Speaker 3: and what the survivors were saying than what the pathology
20:04
Speaker 3: can tell you. There are things that They could say
20:08
Speaker 3: that the bodies were no longer able to speak to
20:11
Speaker 3: and that was a bigger element of this case than
20:15
Speaker 3: maybe the physical findings by the pathologist.
20:19
Speaker 2: On March 4th, 1994, police moved their search inside the house.
20:24
Speaker 2: They had a feeling that down in the dark cellar,
20:26
Speaker 2: they may uncover even more bodies. On the same day,
20:30
Speaker 2: when news reached Fred West at Gloucester Police Station, he
20:33
Speaker 2: made a stunning admission in a handwritten note given to detectives.
20:37
Speaker 2: It read... I, Frederick West, authorise my solicitor, Howard Ogden,
20:42
Speaker 2: to advise Superintendent Bennett that I wish to admit to
20:45
Speaker 2: a further, a prox, nine killings. Expressly, Charmaine, Rena, Linda
20:51
Speaker 2: Goff and others to be identified. Signed, F.
20:54
Speaker 11: West.
20:56
Speaker 4: Can you imagine the scene? It almost defies belief.
20:59
Speaker 7: They weren't sitting across the table from a monster, a
21:02
Speaker 7: huge man with bare hands and able to kill a
21:06
Speaker 7: little insignificant chap. who nevertheless confesses to nine murders. It's
21:12
Speaker 7: at that point the police realise, I think probably for
21:16
Speaker 7: the first time, that they are dealing with someone truly evil.
21:21
Speaker 5: Fred was again taken back to the house and he
21:23
Speaker 5: indicated where some of the bodies had been buried, particularly
21:28
Speaker 5: the area of the cellar. And so what happened then
21:31
Speaker 5: was that we undertook a methodical search of the whole property.
21:35
Speaker 5: Fred maintained a position that Rose was not involved in
21:39
Speaker 5: these cases. You know, that's the inference that he was
21:42
Speaker 5: trying to keep her out of it.
21:43
Speaker 9: Fred took the rap for it. They had an agreement
21:47
Speaker 9: that she would stand by him and visit him and
21:50
Speaker 9: he'd hoped to be out in so many years. But
21:53
Speaker 9: the minute Rose heard that he'd actually admitted to the
21:57
Speaker 9: murders and she dropped him, he was gone. And she
22:02
Speaker 9: never spoke to him again. She absolutely refused to have
22:05
Speaker 9: any contact with him.
22:09
Speaker 2: On March the 5th, 1994, the world's media had descended
22:13
Speaker 2: upon the home of Fred and Rose West in Gloucester.
22:16
Speaker 2: Police had exhumed three bodies from their back garden, their
22:19
Speaker 2: daughter Heather, Fred's pregnant lover Shirley Robinson, and missing teenager
22:24
Speaker 2: Alison Chambers. Now detectives were moving their search inside the
22:29
Speaker 2: property and began excavating the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.
22:34
Speaker 5: We started the excavations in the cellar. It was a
22:38
Speaker 5: difficult place to do excavations, and we had to be
22:42
Speaker 5: very careful about recovering the bodies. And on the first day,
22:46
Speaker 5: we did find two sets of human remains. One turned
22:49
Speaker 5: out to be Theresa Siegenhaler, and the second remains were
22:54
Speaker 5: Shirley Hubbard. It was clear to pathologists that much had
22:58
Speaker 5: been done to try and hide the identity of all
23:01
Speaker 5: the murdered girls.
23:03
Speaker 3: With Fred and Rose's victims, one of their hallmarks, as
23:07
Speaker 3: it were, was that the fingers and toes were removed.
23:10
Speaker 3: I think we can hypothesise that there may be different
23:14
Speaker 3: reasons for that simple cruelty would be one, but obviously
23:18
Speaker 3: most people know that fingerprints are a very good way
23:21
Speaker 3: to identify somebody, so removing them, particularly in the 60s, 70s, 80s,
23:26
Speaker 3: before DNA technology.
23:28
Speaker 4: Was really recognised... would.
23:30
Speaker 3: Be a way to limit the chances of that person
23:33
Speaker 3: being identified.
23:35
Speaker 5: And that was one of our difficulties when we were
23:38
Speaker 5: doing the investigation, trying to identify the human remains, and
23:42
Speaker 5: in particular Teresa's remains, because there was no evidence she'd
23:46
Speaker 5: been anywhere near Gloucestershire. But we were able, in liaison
23:49
Speaker 5: with the Metropolitan Police and the missing persons, to come
23:53
Speaker 5: down to sort of a short list of people that
23:55
Speaker 5: it could be. and then through using forensic techniques, we
23:59
Speaker 5: were able to be satisfied that we had identified her remains.
24:03
Speaker 2: As the cellar excavation continued, officers escorted Fred to a
24:07
Speaker 2: field near his home at Muchmarkle. He told them if
24:11
Speaker 2: they dug there, they'd find the body of his first wife, Rena,
24:14
Speaker 2: not seen since 1971, a year after Fred and Rose
24:18
Speaker 2: had moved in together. Rena and Fred had been married
24:21
Speaker 2: for nine years, but she was never reported missing.
24:25
Speaker 4: So he was taken out.
24:26
Speaker 5: To the fields, and he pointed out, in one field,
24:31
Speaker 5: fairly close to a hedge line, where he said that
24:35
Speaker 5: he'd buried Rina Costello.
24:40
Speaker 2: There were now six victims, and back in the cellar
24:43
Speaker 2: at Cromwell Street, even more bodies were being exhumed. Juanita Marta,
24:47
Speaker 2: former lodger at the house, missing since 1975, and Carol Cooper,
24:52
Speaker 2: last seen walking home from the cinema in 1973. plus
24:56
Speaker 2: two familiar names the police had been looking out for,
24:59
Speaker 2: Lucy Partington and buried under the family bathroom, Linda Goff.
25:04
Speaker 5: This was a tragedy for these young women.
25:07
Speaker 4: I mean, all.
25:08
Speaker 5: Murders are tragic for the victims and their families, but
25:10
Speaker 5: it was the scale of this, I think, that took
25:12
Speaker 5: the media's attention. I mean, it's almost incomprehensible that two
25:17
Speaker 5: people could abduct young women or lure them to their
25:22
Speaker 5: house and subsequently, you know, sexually abuse them and then
25:27
Speaker 5: kill them. I mean, it is on a scale that's
25:29
Speaker 5: almost incomprehensible.
25:33
Speaker 2: By the 8th of March 1994, less than two weeks
25:37
Speaker 2: after beginning their search at Cromwell Street, police had found
25:40
Speaker 2: ten victims. Most of them had been buried two decades
25:44
Speaker 2: ago when Fred and Rose were at their most prolific.
25:48
Speaker 6: Aside from the sexual element to the murders, they were becoming,
25:54
Speaker 6: I'd say, maybe closer in a way, but I don't
25:57
Speaker 6: know whether closer is the best word to use to
25:59
Speaker 6: describe that. I think they were becoming more cut off
26:02
Speaker 6: from the rest of the world. This was something that
26:05
Speaker 6: only the two of them understood. It was something that
26:08
Speaker 6: we refer to as a folly, a duh, a madness
26:10
Speaker 6: shared by two. So I think it was kind of
26:12
Speaker 6: cementing their relationship.
26:15
Speaker 4: They were to him no more than sexual implements. a
26:19
Speaker 4: kind of doll, if you like.
26:21
Speaker 7: I know it's a horrifying thought, but they had no
26:23
Speaker 7: more humanity for him than that. He was a man
26:26
Speaker 7: capable of absolutely no conscience and absolutely no remorse. And
26:31
Speaker 7: everything he did was with Rose's help. And the thought
26:35
Speaker 7: of having some young woman hung up in the cellar, literally,
26:39
Speaker 7: by her hands, and a hook for Fred and Rose to.
26:44
Speaker 4: Abuse when they wanted to over a period of days.
26:48
Speaker 4: Almost devised belief. It is that horrifying.
26:52
Speaker 2: Nine bodies had been exhumed from Cromwell Street and one more,
26:56
Speaker 2: that of Rena West, Fred's first wife, in a field
27:00
Speaker 2: near Much Markle. But Fred wasn't finished.
27:03
Speaker 4: Although he didn't admit to.
27:04
Speaker 2: Killing her, he told police he had a feeling that
27:07
Speaker 2: Rena's friend, Anne McFall, might be buried in a neighbouring field.
27:12
Speaker 2: She's believed to be Fred's first victim, killed in 1967
27:16
Speaker 2: when she was six months pregnant.
27:19
Speaker 7: As he did with all his killings, he dismembered the
27:22
Speaker 7: bodies before he buried them.
27:24
Speaker 4: So he didn't bury them in a skeleton.
27:26
Speaker 7: He buried them in a tube, if you like, in
27:29
Speaker 7: which the body was compressed, the torso, head separated, arms
27:34
Speaker 7: and legs separated and shoved into a smaller hole. It
27:38
Speaker 7: made the search for those bodies a very complicated affair.
27:42
Speaker 5: The problem with Anne McFall's body was that the whole
27:46
Speaker 5: land had been re-landscaped, and so there was this topsoil
27:48
Speaker 5: that had been put on there. Now, when you're looking
27:51
Speaker 5: for human remains, you can't just bring a big digger
27:55
Speaker 5: in and.
27:56
Speaker 4: Shove it all out.
27:56
Speaker 5: You are literally doing it by spadefuls and sieving every spadeful.
28:01
Speaker 4: And we actually excavated.
28:03
Speaker 5: A hole the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. We
28:06
Speaker 5: were almost giving up hope that we were going to
28:08
Speaker 5: find the body, and we set a deadline for ourselves
28:10
Speaker 5: that if we didn't find them by date X... Then
28:12
Speaker 5: we were stopped, but fortunately, a couple of days before
28:15
Speaker 5: that deadline came in, we found some bones and then
28:19
Speaker 5: subsequently recovered the body.
28:22
Speaker 2: During the two months of digging for Ann McFall's remains,
28:25
Speaker 2: the police had arrested and charged Rose West with murder.
28:28
Speaker 2: For each victim, she claimed, I'm innocent. The police's evidence
28:32
Speaker 2: was circumstantial, and defense lawyers felt there wasn't enough to
28:36
Speaker 2: connect her to the murders.
28:39
Speaker 10: Rose West said, I had nothing to do with this.
28:42
Speaker 10: And the Crown are saying, well, we've got a statement
28:45
Speaker 10: from so-and-so who says that you were involved in an
28:48
Speaker 10: abduction and sexual abuse. Well, to a point you say, well,
28:53
Speaker 10: so what? What's that got to do with murder? Fred
28:56
Speaker 10: had said in his interviews, he fully admitted them and
28:59
Speaker 10: said Rose had nothing to do with them. So the
29:03
Speaker 10: first point is to say, well, what is the strength
29:08
Speaker 10: of the case against Rose? She's denying it. Where's the
29:12
Speaker 10: proof that she was involved?
29:17
Speaker 2: While police continued their search at Cromwell Street, they also
29:21
Speaker 2: turned their attention to a second address, 25 Midland Road,
29:26
Speaker 2: Fred and Rose's first home together in Gloucester. Investigators believe
29:31
Speaker 2: that somewhere in the house or garden, they might find
29:34
Speaker 2: the body of Charmaine West, Fred's stepdaughter from his marriage
29:38
Speaker 2: to Rena. An extensive investigation search began.
29:40
Speaker 5: At the time of Charmaine's death, she was living at
29:46
Speaker 5: 25 Midland Road, a house that subsequently Fred and Rose
29:51
Speaker 5: had left. But we went to the house and, again,
29:55
Speaker 5: excavating under the floor of the kitchen, we found Charmaine's body.
30:01
Speaker 2: Charmaine hadn't been seen since she was 8 years old
30:04
Speaker 2: in 1971 and hadn't been reported as missing. In the
30:07
Speaker 2: same year, Fred was in jail for 9 months for
30:10
Speaker 2: motoring offences and stealing fence panels from his then-employer. The
30:14
Speaker 2: police were convinced they'd finally got a breakthrough. They were
30:17
Speaker 2: confident Charmaine must have been murdered by Rose while Fred
30:21
Speaker 2: was serving time.
30:23
Speaker 9: Rose was jealous of Charmaine. Charmaine was a very bright
30:27
Speaker 9: little girl and I think Rose could see that she
30:30
Speaker 9: was getting the upper hand of her and she didn't
30:32
Speaker 9: like it. The younger sister knew to keep quiet was
30:36
Speaker 9: best not to antagonize Rose. And Charmaine was quite a
30:39
Speaker 9: feisty little girl.
30:42
Speaker 10: So there were slight differences in the modus operandi, you know,
30:49
Speaker 10: certainly with the others, You can imagine Fred going about
30:53
Speaker 10: his work with a sort of builder's precision and routine,
31:00
Speaker 10: you know, severing the limbs and the head, digging a
31:05
Speaker 10: hole in the ground and placing them in it. Charmaine
31:08
Speaker 10: was different. Nevertheless, Fred was charged with Charmaine, even though
31:12
Speaker 10: there were, from the outset, issues about whether Fred was
31:16
Speaker 10: present or whether he was in prison. So there was
31:19
Speaker 10: always that slightly nebulous issue about how old Saiti Charmaine
31:24
Speaker 10: was and the dates when she died.
31:27
Speaker 2: With the high-profile trials imminent, the police had to somehow
31:31
Speaker 2: prove that Rose West was just as guilty as her
31:34
Speaker 2: husband Fred. But before they got a chance, there was
31:37
Speaker 2: a major setback in their case. In December 1994, ten
31:43
Speaker 2: months after police had begun to search 25 Cromwell Street
31:47
Speaker 2: for Heather West, the bodies of 12 young women had
31:50
Speaker 2: been unearthed across Gloucester. Fred West was thought to be
31:53
Speaker 2: responsible for all of the deaths and police were desperately
31:56
Speaker 2: trying to find some evidence to prove that his wife
31:59
Speaker 2: Rose was implicit in ten of the murders. Both had
32:03
Speaker 2: been arrested, charged and were awaiting trial, but on January
32:06
Speaker 2: 1st 1995, Fred West took his secrets to the grave.
32:13
Speaker 5: Fred was in custody at Winston Green Prison in Birmingham
32:16
Speaker 5: and on the 1st of January 1995 he was found
32:20
Speaker 5: dead in his cell. He died from hanging and it
32:23
Speaker 5: was subsequently determined that he committed suicide.
32:27
Speaker 7: Fred West was always a cunning man. He planned his
32:32
Speaker 7: suicide as carefully as he concealed his bodies. He groomed
32:37
Speaker 7: the prison officers, into thinking that he was an absolutely safe,
32:41
Speaker 7: harmless little man who could do no wrong and was
32:44
Speaker 7: very happy to collaborate with anything they wanted. Indeed, he volunteered.
32:50
Speaker 7: He said, I'll mend shirts. Don't worry, give me something
32:53
Speaker 7: to do. Be a pastime for me while I'm waiting
32:56
Speaker 7: for my trial. Painstakingly, over a period of weeks, he
33:02
Speaker 7: stitched together a rope, partly from bits of the blanket
33:06
Speaker 7: on his bed, partly from pieces of shirt, very carefully,
33:11
Speaker 7: because he had decided that he was not going to
33:16
Speaker 7: trial and that he was not ever going to confess
33:21
Speaker 7: the true extent of what his crimes amounted to.
33:25
Speaker 10: There was a total loss of control by Fred over Rose,
33:30
Speaker 10: I've no doubt about that. She made it abundantly clear
33:34
Speaker 10: she wanted absolutely nothing else to do with him and
33:36
Speaker 10: she blanked him in the dock. Independent of his relationship
33:42
Speaker 10: with Rose, he lacked empathy with people. People were objects
33:46
Speaker 10: to be used and abused. The fact of the matter
33:49
Speaker 10: was he knew the game was up. He'd made the admissions,
33:51
Speaker 10: the remains had been found, the terrible story of those
33:54
Speaker 10: victims unfolded.
33:57
Speaker 12: For those who knew the West family, this is just
33:59
Speaker 12: another macabre twist in a story that first came to
34:02
Speaker 12: light 10 months ago. In the words of one neighbor,
34:05
Speaker 12: if Frederick West really did kill himself, then it seems
34:09
Speaker 12: almost appropriate that a man accused of taking so many
34:12
Speaker 12: people's lives should end up taking his own.
34:15
Speaker 2: Fred's suicide was a huge problem for the police. It
34:19
Speaker 2: put the entire case in jeopardy.
34:22
Speaker 5: With the death of Fred, we were concerned that the
34:24
Speaker 5: press might feel, well, the case against Fred is now finished,
34:28
Speaker 5: and therefore we can disclose information because the case is closed.
34:33
Speaker 5: That would have been a disaster for us because it
34:36
Speaker 5: would have then compromised the trial of Rose West.
34:40
Speaker 2: The police were desperate. While Fred had confessed to 11
34:43
Speaker 2: of the killings, Rose had always claimed her innocence. Without
34:47
Speaker 2: any solid evidence, there was a real chance that Rose
34:50
Speaker 2: West was going to get away with murder.
34:54
Speaker 10: I think it's the Crown that need to... review their
34:57
Speaker 10: case and decide where they want to take it from here.
35:00
Speaker 4: I would hope.
35:02
Speaker 10: That they will drop the case. I thought it was
35:06
Speaker 10: possible the case might have been dropped. There were a
35:09
Speaker 10: lot of eminent observers suggesting that would be the case.
35:14
Speaker 10: The DPP had a different view, though. In fact, the
35:17
Speaker 10: case got worse against Rose. They added on the murder
35:23
Speaker 10: of Charmaine, which prior had been a sole charge in
35:27
Speaker 10: relation to Fred. I thought that was very curious. Rose
35:32
Speaker 10: thought the case was going to go away as well,
35:35
Speaker 10: but it didn't.
35:36
Speaker 2: Prosecutors needed proof that Rose alone was responsible for the
35:40
Speaker 2: death of her stepdaughter, Charmaine. They turned to forensic odontologist
35:45
Speaker 2: Professor David Whittaker.
35:47
Speaker 11: The police brilliantly discovered, I don't know how, that a
35:52
Speaker 11: certain newspaper, national newspaper, had acquired a set of negatives,
35:58
Speaker 11: and they were large professional negatives, and they showed incredible
36:04
Speaker 11: detail in some of the baby teeth, the deciduous teeth
36:09
Speaker 11: of Charmaine, which I was then able to match exactly
36:13
Speaker 11: using our facial superimposition technology and showed, A, that they
36:20
Speaker 11: matched exactly in terms of tilt and position and grooving,
36:26
Speaker 11: and little rough edges were a perfect match. But the
36:32
Speaker 11: position of the teeth had moved, so if we could
36:37
Speaker 11: calculate that movement and assess it, of being able to determine,
36:42
Speaker 11: within reasonable accuracy, the time elapsed between the photograph being taken,
36:48
Speaker 11: which the police had a date for, was written on
36:51
Speaker 11: the negatives and the time of death. And if that
36:56
Speaker 11: fitted into the slot where Fred West was in jail,
37:01
Speaker 11: then clearly Mrs West had a lot of questions to answer.
37:06
Speaker 2: On 3rd October 1995, the world's press flocked to Winchester
37:10
Speaker 2: Crown Court to report on one of the most sensational
37:13
Speaker 2: trials of modern times.
37:15
Speaker 7: Rose's trial attracted Worldwide attention, as you would expect. It's
37:20
Speaker 7: very rare for a woman to go on trial, let
37:23
Speaker 7: alone for ten murders. I attended it from the first
37:26
Speaker 7: day to the last. It was an extraordinary event.
37:30
Speaker 2: As the trial began, Rose West pleaded not guilty to
37:33
Speaker 2: all ten counts of murder, the nine girls found buried
37:36
Speaker 2: at Cromwell Street and Charmaine. But the evidence against her
37:40
Speaker 2: was irrefutable.
37:41
Speaker 11: So in court, in front of Rosemary West... I had
37:46
Speaker 11: all the technology available to reproduce the imaging of Charmaine.
37:53
Speaker 11: Dreadful thing to have to do in court, but the
37:57
Speaker 11: judge and the prosecution insisted. So Mrs West actually saw
38:02
Speaker 11: this imaging developing in front of her. And I think
38:07
Speaker 11: it was about the only time she looked a little
38:09
Speaker 11: bit upset.
38:12
Speaker 4: She marched.
38:14
Speaker 7: Into the witness box like a very angry traffic warden.
38:19
Speaker 7: Plain shoes, weighty woman, angry demeanour. This is all an outrage.
38:24
Speaker 4: It was all Fred. I had nothing to do with it.
38:26
Speaker 4: I knew nothing.
38:27
Speaker 7: It was completely inconceivable I could have done this. I
38:29
Speaker 7: couldn't have killed my own daughter.
38:31
Speaker 4: A tissue of lies.
38:33
Speaker 9: We think of Rose West as this woman in the
38:36
Speaker 9: courtroom in her 40s, great big glasses that she wore,
38:41
Speaker 9: quite a frumpy housewife, looking. Those murders had happened a.
38:46
Speaker 4: Long time before then.
38:47
Speaker 9: She was actually very young when she committed the murder.
38:49
Speaker 9: She was in fact a teenage serial killer because she'd
38:52
Speaker 9: committed three murders before she was 20 and most of
38:56
Speaker 9: the murders were over by the time she was 26.
38:59
Speaker 2: The evidence provided by Professor Whittaker convinced the jury that
39:03
Speaker 2: Rosemary West was guilty of all ten murders.
39:07
Speaker 5: He was able to say, and the jury accepted this,
39:10
Speaker 5: that it that he could pinpoint within a few days
39:13
Speaker 5: of when the child had been killed. And we had
39:16
Speaker 5: evidence that Fred was in jail during that time. So
39:21
Speaker 5: Fred could not have killed Charmaine at that time because
39:23
Speaker 5: he physically wasn't around, he was in jail.
39:26
Speaker 10: I didn't think the trial had gone well for Rose
39:29
Speaker 10: and the jury took quite a long time. It wasn't
39:32
Speaker 10: a five-minute decision. It was many hours. They thought about
39:35
Speaker 10: everything very carefully. They came back and it was pretty
39:39
Speaker 10: well unanimous on everything. I mean, she was totally defeated.
39:44
Speaker 7: When the first guilty verdicts came back, Rose did not flicker.
39:49
Speaker 7: Not a sign of emotion. She just simply stood there.
39:55
Speaker 7: There was no histrionics, no shouting, no screaming. There was
39:59
Speaker 7: no sign of any emotion at all, really. And I
40:03
Speaker 7: was left with the overwhelming feeling that one had been
40:05
Speaker 7: in the presence of someone who had lost contact with humanity.
40:11
Speaker 2: Sentencing her, the judge, Mr Justice Mantell, recommended that Rose
40:16
Speaker 2: West should never be released. she was immediately returned to
40:20
Speaker 2: Holloway Prison.
40:21
Speaker 10: Rose has never confessed to me. Whether she's made any
40:24
Speaker 10: kind of confession to anybody else, I don't know, but.
40:27
Speaker 4: She certainly hasn't to me.
40:29
Speaker 10: I would say that tacitly, she, at various stages, gave
40:34
Speaker 10: the impression to me, with hindsight, that she knew that,
40:39
Speaker 10: you know, under the floor in Cromwell Street, there were
40:41
Speaker 10: a lot of secrets. That's slightly different to saying... that
40:47
Speaker 10: she murdered people. But then the nature of the case,
40:52
Speaker 10: it was circumstantial.
40:53
Speaker 8: 300 miles from Gloucester, Rosemary West en route to the
40:57
Speaker 8: prison that will be home for a lifetime.
41:00
Speaker 2: Today, Rose West is serving life imprisonment at Lone Newton
41:04
Speaker 2: Prison in Durham. In 1996, a year after 25 Cromwell
41:12
Speaker 2: Street had given up its grisly secrets, it was demolished.
41:16
Speaker 2: In its place is now a public walkway, but nothing
41:19
Speaker 2: can erase the painful memories of Fred and Rose West
41:23
Speaker 2: and their house of horrors.
41:28
Speaker 5: This certainly was a unique case in my experience, and
41:30
Speaker 5: I was involved as a detective investigating murders right back
41:33
Speaker 5: in the 1960s, and this is on a scale that's
41:36
Speaker 5: completely different. And I think in terms of its complexity,
41:40
Speaker 5: I think, again, it probably stands out as unique in
41:43
Speaker 5: criminal history. They were all young women who had their
41:46
Speaker 5: lives in front of them and it was cut short
41:49
Speaker 5: for just brutal and selfish self-gratification of Fred and Rose.
41:54
Speaker 7: I've never for one moment doubted that Frederick West was
41:57
Speaker 7: a truly evil man. I think he was born and bred.
42:01
Speaker 7: I think he only ever thought of himself. He was
42:04
Speaker 7: a psychopath and a sociopath. No concern for society, no
42:08
Speaker 7: concern for anybody but himself. But he found in Rose
42:11
Speaker 7: the perfect sorcerer's apprentice.
42:14
Speaker 6: Many of us reflect on serial killer couples and say, well,
42:17
Speaker 6: if they had never met one another, would they have
42:20
Speaker 6: gone on to kill? We know that Fred had already
42:22
Speaker 6: committed one murder before he met Rose. So I think
42:25
Speaker 6: he would have killed again. When we look at Rose,
42:28
Speaker 6: I think she would have certainly gone on to harm
42:31
Speaker 6: other people, whether that was emotionally, financially, a non-physical kind
42:36
Speaker 6: of harm. But I think having Fred in her life
42:39
Speaker 6: opened up the door to a different kind of harm,
42:42
Speaker 6: a different kind of abuse.
42:45
Speaker 7: I've never been in any doubt that Fred and Rose
42:48
Speaker 7: committed far more than 12 murders. I've always believed there
42:52
Speaker 7: are other victims and they were buried in other places
42:54
Speaker 7: or concealed in other places. But to be fair to
42:57
Speaker 7: Gloucester Police, they can't dig up Gloucestershire in the effort
43:00
Speaker 7: to find more victims.
43:02
Speaker 2: Speculation about other possible victims of Fred and Rose West
43:05
Speaker 2: will always remain. Theirs is a case whose shockwaves continue
43:09
Speaker 2: to reverberate around the world even today. The sheer depravity
43:13
Speaker 2: and the unimaginable terror of their victims is why we
43:17
Speaker 2: should remember them, not Fred and Rose and their house
43:20
Speaker 2: of horror.