Fred and Rosemary West were a notorious couple of serial killers who operated in Gloucester, England, during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. They are believed to have killed at least 12 young women, including their own daughter, as well as committing other acts of sexual violence and abuse.
Fred West was born in 1941 and had a troubled childhood marked by poverty and abuse. He met Rosemary Letts (later Rosemary West) in the 1960s, and the couple married in 1972. They had several children together, and also took in lodgers and abused and killed some of them.
Rosemary West was born in 1953 and had a difficult upbringing marked by neglect and abuse. She met Fred West when she was a teenager, and the couple embarked on a long and violent relationship.
The couple's crimes were discovered in 1994, when police investigating the disappearance of their daughter Heather found evidence of multiple murders at their home on Cromwell Street in Gloucester. Fred West committed suicide in prison while awaiting trial, while Rosemary West was found guilty of 10 murders and is serving a life sentence in prison.
All of this has been said many times before. How, then, to bring a fresh take on the case? I decided to focus on the victims, shining a light on their stories and the lives these terrible crimes stole from them.
Killers: Fred and Rosemary West
Victims: Anne McFall, 18, and her unborn child; Mary Bastholm, 15; Charmaine West, 8; Catherine ‘Rena’ Costello, 27; Lynda Gough, 19; Carol Ann Cooper, 15; Lucy Partington, 21; Therese Siegenthaler, 21; Shirley Hubbard, 15; Juanita Mott, 18; Shirley Robinson, 18, and her unborn child; Alison Chambers, 16; Heather West, 16.
Dates: July 1967 or 19th June 1987
Location: Much Marcle, Herefordshire; Gloucester, Gloucestershire
Method of Murder: Strangulation, suffocation, stabbing
Timeline 17.11.1963 | Fred West marries Rena Costello July 1967 | Murder of Anne McFall 06.01.1968 | Murder of Mary Bastholm 17.10.1970 | Rose West has her first child June 1971 | Murder of Charmaine West August 1971 | Murder of Rena Costello 29.01.1972 | Fred West marries Rosemary Letts Sept. 1972 | Sexual abuse of Anna Marie West begins 06.12.1972 | Abduction and assault of Caroline Owens 20.04.1973 | Murder of Lunda Gough 10.11.1973 | Murder of Carol Ann Cooper 27.12.1973 | Murder of Lucy Partington 16.04.1974 | Murder of Therese Siegenthaler 15.11.1974 | Murder of Shirley Hubbard 12.04.1975 | Murder of Juanita Mott 10.05.1978 | Murder of Shirley Robinson 05.08.1979 | Murder of Alison Chambers 19.06.1987 | Murder of Heather West August 1992 | Arrest of Fred West 01.01.1995 | Suicide of Fred West 22.11.1995 | Rosemary West convicted of murder
Anne McFall was eighteen years old, and 8 months pregnant with Fred West’s baby, when she disappeared. He was estranged from his wife Rena at the time. McFall had known the couple since she was 16 and grieving the death of her then-boyfriend in an accident; she started to spend a lot of time in the Wests’ flat1, where their two children were kept caged in their beds unless Fred was at work2.
When the Wests left Glasgow - Fred had struck and killed a small boy with his van, and though not charged with wrongdoing3, decided to leave that community - to live in Gloucester, McFall came with them. She was from an impoverished background and hoped to find work in England.
She supported Fred and was apparently infatuated with him when his wife left, leaving the children with him (McFall had warned Fred that Rena was going, giving him the opportunity to keep them back4). Around this time, McFall wrote letters to her family expressing that she believed she would have a better life with Fred.
She was never reported missing.
In 1994, her body was found near Much Marcle, dismembered and disarticulated. Some of her phalanges had been stolen as keepsakes and it was likely the unborn child was cut from her womb. Fred later admitted to a visitor in prison that he had stabbed her to death during an argument, but she had a dressing gown cord wrapped around her wrists to restrain her when she was found5, making this explanation doubtful at best.
Mary Bastholm was just 15 when she was abducted from a bus stop. Fred had spotted her working as a waitress in a cafe he visited.
He confessed to killing her after raping her in his car, but her body has never been found6. She was supposed to meet her boyfriend but when the bus arrived, she wasn't on it7.
"[Mary] was very happy, her boyfriend had come in the daytime and she'd arranged to go to his house and she was perfectly happy,” said one of her coworkers. "I can't imagine that she would have run away."8
Her family continued to search for her, with the most recent police activity being conducted in 2021.
Charmaine West was the daughter of Rena and an Asian bus driver, though the couple told people she was adopted to explain her colouring. By the time she was eight, Rose West was her full-time mother, with Fred in prison and Rena estranged from her family yet again.
It is last known for sure that Charmaine was alive on 15th June 1971, when Rose took her to visit her father in prison. Before his release on the 24th June, she was dead9. The couple told everyone that Rena had taken her to go live in Bristol or London; Anna Marie, Fred and Rena’s child, asked why she had not been taken, and Fred told her: "She wouldn't want you, love. You're the wrong colour."10
Charmaine was buried in the yard of the flat and was not dismembered. Some patella bones were taken as trophies.
Charmaine’s short life was not a happy one. When Rose and Fred first met, the teen was happy to take over looking after the children, who she thought were neglected. Quickly, though, she grew bored of being nice. She would criticise, beat, and punish the children; Rose was apparently more and more frustrated by the fact that Charmaine refused to cry or become submissive. A family friend once saw Charmaine bound naked on a chair, gagged, with Rose standing nearby holding a wooden spoon; the children were apparently eerily calm.
Lynda Gough was the first victim of the couple working in partnership, after they first abducted and sexually assaulted Caroline Owens (they received a £50 fine for this offense)11. Lynda was 19 and had met the Wests through a friend of hers who lodged with them. She ended up moving in, too.
It took just one day for her to disappear, with the Wests telling people she had hit their child and been asked to leave12. She had worked as a seamstress13 and her parents reported her missing, never knowing what had happened to her until the whole case unravelled. When Rose West lied and said she didn't know where her daughter was, Mrs Gough saw she was wearing Lynda's clothes and slippers14.
Her jaw was wrapped in adhesive and surgical tape to silence her, with two small breathing tubes inserted into her nose. She was suspended from the ceiling of the cellar via ropes and likely suffocated or was strangled. Her body was dismembered, some small bones removed as keepsakes, and she was buried beneath the garage15.
Carol Ann Cooper lived in the Pines Children’s Home in Worcester when she was abducted after leaving a cinema date. She had been placed there following the death of her mother. She was 15 years old at the time that Fred West dragged her into his car, bound her arms and face with braiding cloth and surgical tape, and took her to the house on Cornwall Street.
She had been given permission to spend the weekend with her grandmother and was on her way back to the home when she disappeared. No one knew what had happened to her until her body was found. Her friends called her Caz16. She was hung from the cellar beams, abused, and murdered. Her dismembered body was buried in the same cellar.
They didn’t know her name. She’d been burned by a firework shortly before her death and Fred called her ‘scar hand’ as a result.
Lucy Partington was a 21-year-old Exeter University student who was abducted from a bus stop on the A435. She was the cousin of Martin Amis17, the novelist. She was described as a "clever and much-liked woman"18 who disappeared while home for Christmas.
She had recently converted to Catholicism. She was leaving a friend’s house when the Wests found her. A massive search found nothing. A week after she disappeared, Fred West went to hospital with a severe laceration on his right hand, thought to have been sustained as he dismembered her body. It’s not clear whether she remained alive for that week19.
Thérèse Siegenthaler was a sociology student attending Greenwich Community College. The Wests abducted her as she attempted to hitchhike from South London to Holyhead to visit a priest friend. She had left school at 16 but continued to study for a diploma in secretarial studies, then came to England in the early 1970s for college20.
West did not even get her nationality right: he thought she was Dutch, but she was, in fact, Swiss. When she failed to get in touch with her parents, they reported her missing to Scotland Yard.
She worked in a ballet shoe shop in Leicester Square on the weekends. She was petite with mousey blonde hair and used to hitchhike often. The investigation into her disappearance remained open for several years but never found a trace of her.
15-year-old foster child Shirley Hubbard was doing work experience at the Debenhams in Worcester when she disappeared. Her boyfriend was the last to see her before she was taken from a bus stop in Droitwich, on her way home. She was pretty, spirited, and, ultimately, vulnerable.
Her parents separated when she was two and she was taken into care. She was known variously as Shirley Lloyd or Shirley Owen. Her name was never officially changed to Hubbard, but it was how she wished to be known. She attended Droitwich High School.
Her head was covered in tape with a tube put into her nose to help her breathe. She was buried in the cellar with all the others. She was the youngest of them found there.
Juanita Mott was a previous lodger of the Wests, but had been living in Newent with a friend when she disappeared; she was abducted as she hitchhiked along the B4215.
She had been born in 1957 and went to school in Gloucester; she was rebellious and outgoing, taking a number of short-term jobs in the city to support herself. She was travelling in Gloucester and planned to attend a friend’s wedding the day after she disappeared. She was not reported as missing to the police, though her parents had contacted the Missing Persons Bureau and put out a call to the media.
After this murder, Fred concreted over the cellar and turned it into a bedroom for his children. Three years passed without any further murders.
Shirley Anne Robinson lived an adventurous life - she was born in Leicestershire but later lived in Germany and the West Midlands. She was first a lodger of the Wests after meeting Fred at the Green Lantern Cafe, and later Fred’s lover. She was bisexual and reportedly also engaged in sex with Rose.
She fell pregnant with Fred’s child. When she was around eight months gone, Rose apparently decided she would not be having anyone replace her. She and her unborn child were killed and buried in the garden of the Wests’ home. The baby was removed from her body and several of its bones were also taken to add to the trophy collection. There were no restraining devices in the grave, implying there was not a sexual angle to her murder.
The original plan was to sell the baby to a childless couple. Fred and Shirley had taken pictures together to help with the sale; however, with the stability of their relationship at risk, it seemed Rose would not allow Shirley to stay21.
Alison Chambers had been in foster care at Jordan’s Brook House since she was 14. By the age of 16, she had already absconded several times. She was known as Al or Ali and had been born in West Germany to an RAF father, later moving to Swansea.
She was a regular visitor to the house at Cromwell Street and had joined a Youth Training Scheme at a firm of solicitors. She disappeared shortly before her 17th birthday after becoming a live-in nanny for the Wests in 1979. Rose told her she would be able to go at a “peaceful farm” she and Fred owned.
According to Fred, Rose was “too bloody vicious” with Alison, leading to her death. Her body was dismembered, found lying with a leather belt looped beneath her jaw and tied at the top of her head, with several small bones missing.
The final victim of Fred and Rose, and the case that prompted the investigation that uncovered all the others, was their own daughter - Heather West.
Heather was 16 when her parents killed her. Apparently, she was rebellious; she and her sister would act to protect one another from their father’s sexual advances. She had told classmates about the abuse, both physical and sexual, that she received from her parents. This increased when her older half-sister Anna Marie ran away from home in 1979, and again when she reached puberty.
Fred told her: “I made you; I can do what I like with you.”
He threatened to impregnate both of his daughters, told his son that he would need to have sex with his mother before he was 17, and forced his children to watch pornographic videos with him22.
Despite the childrens’ efforts to protect one another, Heather was showing symptoms of child abuse by 1985 or 1986. She would bite her nails until they bled, liked to drink alcohol, always watched her father warily through the corner of her eye, was nervous near men, had nightmares, and would bounce repeatedly if she sat on a chair.
She was seen with welts and bruises on her body at school, which she explained as being from fights with her siblings. She tried to get a job as a cleaner in Torquay to escape but was rejected; she spent the whole of the next night crying.
The next day, Fred and Rose told her siblings she had gone to Torquay after all. They never saw her again.
When she threatened to go to the police about what he had done to her, she disappeared. She had just finished her GCSE exams. The Wests never reported her as missing, though they told others they had; the fact of the matter was that she was buried under their patio. Evidence suggests it is likely she was abused in the same manner as the others before her death. Her body was dismembered with a serrated knife and Fred made his son dig a hole, telling him it was for a fish pond, so he could bury her.
The lies the Wests told about their daughter included that she had run away with a lesbian lover, that she had run away from home after a row, and that she was involved in credit card fraud and couldn’t come home.
After Fred strangled and raped his 13-year-old daughter Louise, she confided in a classmate. That classmate told their mother; that mother told the police.
And so, the story began to unravel - culminating in the tale as we know it today.
Thirteen women and girls and two unborn children are only the tip of the iceberg of the evil that Fred and Rose West conducted from their Gloucester House of Horrors.
(This feels like a horrible way to ruin the end of the post, but a mini announcement: I just switched my settings going forward so everyone can comment on free posts. Do leave me your thoughts below!)
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