Fred West

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Fred West
Fred and Rosemary in the mid 1980s
Born	September 29, 1941(1941-09-29) Much Marcle, Herefordshire, England, UK
Died	January 1, 1995 (aged 53) Winson Green Prison, Birmingham, England, UK
Charge(s)	murder
Penalty	committed suicide before trial
Status	deceased
Occupation	Labourer, abattoir worker
Spouse	Rosemary West

Frederick Walter Stephen West (September 29, 1941 – January 1, 1995), best known as Fred West, was an English serial killer. Between 1967 and 1987, he and his wife Rosemary are believed to have tortured, raped and murdered at least 12 young women, many at the couple's home in Gloucester. Typically these women were lodgers and nannies who lived relatively transient lives and whose disappearance would not attract great police attention; however their daughter Heather was among those murdered, although the police did not investigate her disappearance for seven years.

West committed suicide in his cell at Winson Green Prison while awaiting trial for murder.^[1]

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Marriage to Rosemary Letts 1.3 Investigation, arrest, and conviction 2 In popular culture 3 Further reading 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

West was born in Much Marcle, Herefordshire, to Walter West and Daisy Hannah Hill, a poor family of farm workers.^[2] Fred had an unusual upbringing as incest was an accepted part of the West household. His father taught him bestiality from an early age and told him repeatedly "Do what you want, just don’t get caught doing it".^[3] He left school at the age of 15 and began work as a casual labourer. As a teenager he injured his head seriously in a motorcycle accident and also in a fall from a building's fire escape.^[4]

West was a prolific petty criminal as a teenager and even made his younger sister pregnant. He moved from the family home to live with an aunt a hundred yards away until he moved to Gloucester, where he took a job in a slaughterhouse. He was fined for theft in Hereford in April 1961, and again in Newent in October that year.

During this period West worked as an ice cream van driver. On November 4, 1965, he accidentally ran over and killed a four-year-old boy with his ice-cream van.^[5]

[edit] Marriage to Rosemary Letts

At age 20, Fred West was a convicted child molester and petty thief. In November 1962, West married his former girlfriend, Rena Costello, who was pregnant by an Asian bus driver. Her daughter Charmaine was born in 1963, and a year later Rena bore Fred a daughter called Anne-Marie. While still married to Rena Costello, West met his next wife Rosemary "Rose" Letts on November 29, 1968; Rose's 15th birthday. In 1970, 17-year-old Rose gave birth to their daughter Heather. Fred West was imprisoned for theft around this time and spent Christmas 1970 behind bars.

After Heather’s birth, it appears that Rose killed Fred and Rena Costello’s daughter Charmaine, and Rena Costello was later killed by West. In January 1972, the couple married and in June that year, Rose gave birth to their daughter Mae. Like Fred, Rose came from a family where incest was considered normal and even after the birth of her fourth child Rose's father, with Fred's approval, would often visit the Wests' for sex with his daughter.^[6]

During Rose and Fred's time together, a number of young women were killed, dismembered, and buried on their property. Their only known victim after 1979 was their daughter Heather, who was killed in June 1987 at the age of 16.

[edit] Investigation, arrest, and conviction

In May 1992, 50-year-old West raped his 13-year-old daughter at Cromwell Street and filmed it, and then raped her twice afterwards. She discussed the incident with her brothers and sisters, who told friends at school. On 6 August 1992, the police decided to investigate, eventually leading to Fred West being charged with 12 counts of murder, with Rose as an accomplice. She was also charged with child cruelty, and the remaining children were placed in foster care.

The rape case against the Wests collapsed when the two main witnesses declined to testify at the court case on June 7, 1993. The police obtained a further search warrant in February 1994, allowing them to excavate the garden in search of Heather. They started searching the house and excavating the garden on February 24, 1994. After Fred's arrest, the police uncovered human bones.^[7] West confessed, retracted and then re-confessed to the murder of his daughter, denying that Rose was involved. Rose was not arrested until April 1994, initially on sex offences but later charged with murder. Further bodies were found and, on March 4, 1994, West admitted nine more murders, including his first wife and Ann McFall.

Fred and Rose West were brought before a magistrates court in Gloucester on June 30, 1994; Fred was charged with 11 murders and Rosemary with 10. Immediately afterwards Fred West was re-arrested on suspicion of murdering Ann McFall, whose body was found on June 7, 1994. On the evening of July 3, 1994, he was charged with her murder. The following morning he was returned to Winson Green Prison, Birmingham, where he had been held for several weeks before the hearing.

On January 1, 1995, Fred West committed suicide whilst on remand in his cell at Winson Green by hanging himself. His brief funeral was held in Coventry on March 29, 1995. West was cremated with only three of his children present.

The evidence against Rose was circumstantial; unlike her husband, she did not confess. She was tried in October 1995 at Winchester Crown Court, found guilty of all 10 murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.^[8] The trial judge recommended that she should never be released, and 18 months later Home Secretary Jack Straw agreed with this recommendation.

In October 1996 the Wests' house at 25 Cromwell Street, along with adjoining 23 Cromwell Street, was demolished and the site made into a pathway. Every brick was crushed and every timber was burnt to discourage souvenir hunters.

During questioning, Fred West had confessed to murdering up to 30 people, but the police have yet to name any more suspected victims, even though the police and several crime experts have spoken of their doubt that the 12 known victims were the only ones killed by the pair. This is mainly due to the fact that they were known to have killed 11 people between them in the first 12 years of their spree, but only one in the 14 years preceding their arrest.

[edit] In popular culture

• Harold and Fred (They Make Ladies Dead) was a 2001 comic strip in Viz, also featuring serial killer Harold Shipman. Extracts from the strip were subsequently merchandised as a coffee mug. Viz also featured a spoof advertisement for 'Little Ted West,' a "collectors' item" teddy bear with the hair and clothes of Fred West, which came complete with a teddy-scale shovel.
• Fred West is briefly mentioned in the Deathgrind band Gorerotted song "To Catch A Killer" on their album Only Tools and Corpses.
• The Apoptygma Berzerk album 7 contains a song called "25 Cromwell St."
• The crime served as a loose basis for the ninth episode of the fourth season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, titled "Resilience."
• He was mentioned as a joke in an episode of Have I Got News for You where Paul Merton said "oh, have you met Fred West, oh, he does a beautiful Patio": a reference to where the bodies were hidden.
• In a 1998 interview with Charlie Rose, English novelist Martin Amis revealed that his cousin Lucy Partington, who disappeared in 1973, was a victim of Fred West and his wife.
• In the Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps episode "Croppity Crops", Johnny is planning on self-sufficiency and compares himself to "that guy off the telly, from the '70s -- always in the garden, curly hair" (meaning Tom from "The Good Life".) "Fred West?' says Kelly. "That's the one", replies Jonny.^[9]
• In a 2003 Halloween edition of The Now Show on Radio 4, when the cast were suggesting up-to-date costumes for trick-or-treating, Fred and Rose West were among the names mentioned. Others included Osama bin Laden and Michael Howard.

[edit] Further reading

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• THE WEST MURDERS: DMP (Transcripts of interviews of Fred West & other related people)
• MEDIA INFORMATION PACK (detailed report by police)
• CourtTV Crime Library- Fred and Rosemary West
• A Horror Story by Theodore Dalrymple