How many people did Fred and Rose West actually kill? Police visited 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, England, in 1994 after receiving a report from social services about a terrifying legend passed down to them by the children of Fred and Rose West, the couple who resided there.
The kids said that if they misbehaved, they would wind up like their sister Heather, who had been out of sight since 1986, under the patio. In addition to Heather’s killed and mutilated remains, police would later find eight more bodies interred in the cellar and garden.
The inquiry starts, revealing one of the most vicious and callous killing sprees in contemporary history.
How a couple who appeared to be in a committed, loving relationship night be capable of such horrific acts is explained in Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story.
This three-part documentary series provides fresh insight into the infamous killings of at least 12 women by examining 107 police interview tapes that document more than 50 hours of interrogations, much of which had never been seen or heard before.
The Wests were a married British couple with 10 children who shared a spare room with renters at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, England.
Rose was 15 years old and working in a cake store in the nearby town of Cheltenham when Fred first met her. Free was 27 years old at the time. One month following her sixteenth birthday, she became pregnant.
The couple’s seemingly affectionate existence concealed a shared sexual sadomasochism that started when Fred asked Rose to have sex with other men while he watched from a separate room and ultimately resulted in the abduction, torture, rape, murder, and disfigurement of twelve individuals.
Two daughters accused Free of sexual assault, and their children characterised Rose as physically abusing them behind closed doors and punishing them in heinous, brutal ways.
Caroline Owens, a former nanny who may have been among Fred and Rose’s initial victims, later verified this. She described how she was abducted, sexually raped, and detained against her will by both Rose and Fred, who threatened to kill her, during the trial.
Owens lived after making his getaway. Rose started to publicly distance herself from Freda a few months prior to the trial, but Fred insisted that she was innocent.
One month before pretrial proceedings, he committed suicide while incarcerated. Rose West received a life sentence after being found guilty of ten murders.
Heather West, Shirley Robinson, Alison Chambers, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Lucy Partington, Juanita Mott, Lynda Gough, Parole Ann Cooper, Catherine “Rena” Costello, Anm McFall, and Charmaine West are the known victims, listed from top-left to bottom-right.