WEBVTT
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You going to book me?
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I've got a mug here.
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Is that gorgeous or what, eh?
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And I believe I can run to deep American.
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Download Vele now.
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25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester has become one of the
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most infamous addresses in Britain. For 20 years, Fred and
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Rose West quenched their appetite for sex and murder inside
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this house of unimaginable horror. When police began investigating the
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disappearance of their daughter, it led them right to the
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West front door. Detectives were only just beginning to unearth
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the murderous history of Fred and Rose West.
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It was on a scale that was really unprecedented.
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Children are their things to play with. They are disposable.
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They're things there to be used and abused.
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I've never for one moment doubted that Frederick West was
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a truly evil man. But he found in Rose the
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perfect sorcerer's apprentice.
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This is the story of how Fred and Rose West
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became two of the world's most evil killers. Fred and
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Rose West are one of the most notorious couples in
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British history. For two decades, they sexually abused, tortured and
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murdered nine women, including their own daughter, in their house
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of horrors, and between them were responsible for another three
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victims buried around Gloucestershire. When the news broke in February 1994,
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the media were only scratching the surface of the couple's
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terrifying life behind the closed door of 25 Cromwell Street.
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Five days and nights into their excavation and forensic teams
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have now unearthed three sets of human remains, all buried
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in separate places five feet under the garden patio of
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this Gloucester home.
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It's horrible to think that there are, you know, dead
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bodies in a garden just down the road. It's just
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thoroughly disgusting. I mean, it's horrifying to think. Totally shocking,
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especially around, you know, in Gloucester. I mean, you wouldn't
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expect this to happen.
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But Fred and Rose's horrifying story began many years before.
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In 1969, 28-year-old Fred West was married to his wife, Rena,
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with a young family of his own. But he had
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his eye on a 15-year-old girl named Rosemary Letts. Rose
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and her family had recently moved to the Gloucestershire area,
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whereas Fred was born and raised in the local village
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of Muchmarkle.
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Well, Fred was the eldest boy in the family, and
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he was very much the target for quite a lot
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of abuse at the hands of his mother. So his
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mother sexually abused him, essentially, and he lost his virginity
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to her. And the family was a very self-contained one.
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Rose's childhood was similar to Fred's in many ways, in
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that it was completely dysfunctional and antisocial and abnormal. So
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she was abused by her father. who started raping her
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from a very young age. So what she took to
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be normal, what she took to be acceptable in terms
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of behavior within a family really was anything but.
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Fred pursued Rose. He was used to getting what he wanted.
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When the couple met, there was instant attraction.
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Rose lived in the same village that Fred had a caravan.
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They met at the bus station in Cheltenham. She said
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that he could charm the birds off the trees, even
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though his appearance was shabby. He had not very clean teeth.
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Well, these were two incredibly damaged people. They'd both come
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from abnormal families. And I think when they met, what
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they saw in each other was something familiar. So they
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both would have realized that the childhoods that they had
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were far from normal. But with one another, they felt
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that familiarity.
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Maybe it was something that Rose gave off implicitly. but
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something in Fred connected with what had happened to Rose
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and the way she was and the way she'd been
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treated by her father.
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And it was like a union of two souls.
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I think it was the perfect storm. The chances of
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these two people meeting was, it must have been a
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million to one, but unfortunately they did.
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By 1970, just a year after meeting, they were living
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together in Gloucester with Fred's stepdaughter, Charmaine. His wife, Rena,
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was nowhere to be seen. Rose was pregnant with the
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couple's first daughter, Heather.
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I think in the early days, perhaps the more dominant
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partner was Fred. He was older, he was more experienced,
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he'd seen more than Rose had. You know, she'd come
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from this incredibly contained family. But I think as their
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relationship developed... she started to find her feet and find
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her confidence, and I don't think that Fred ever really
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trusted her.
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For Rose and Fred, it was all about sex from
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the very, very beginning. Fred was the originator, but he
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found the perfect sorcerer's apprentice, the perfect partner, someone who
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shared his lust and someone who understood him and wanted
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to perform for him.
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I think we have a lot of trouble making sense
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of Fred and Rose's relationship and the reason for that
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is because we are people with emotions and normal feelings
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and ideas of what acceptable and unacceptable boundaries are around relationships.
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So I don't think I'd describe their relationship as a
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loving one.
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Fred and Rose's traumatic childhoods had a lasting effect on
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the couple and their twisted approach to family life together.
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It's always a very complicated question to answer how many children.
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Fred and Rose actually had.
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Because if you count Fred's daughter Charmaine, along with Fred
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and Rose's eight, it's nine.
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But then you've got to add Rose's three mixed-race children,
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all of whom were fathered not by Fred.
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All I would say is that all of them were
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deeply hurt, almost ruined by the parents themselves.
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I think Rose's early experiences within the family of being
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abused by her father wrote the script for what would
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later play out. So what she took to be normal,
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what she took as boundaries and rules, really weren't going
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to work in the wider world. So what she was
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learning about in those early years would set her up
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to be somebody who didn't quite fit in.
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And it was, to some extent, what Fred then adopted as.
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a family habit. It was, if you like, a West tradition.
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I don't mean to say that that wasn't disgraceful, but
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it is nevertheless part of the family history and helps,
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helps to explain something of West's behaviour.
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Two decades later, it's 1992 and Gloucestershire police are searching
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for Heather West. In 1987, aged just 16, Fred and
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Rosie's eldest child vanish from the family home. Fred had
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claimed Heather had run away, but she was never reported
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as missing. But after receiving allegations of child abuse at
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25 Cromwell Street, detectives began to look into Heather's whereabouts.
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Chief Constable Tony Butler was in charge of Gloucestershire Police.
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One of the children told a friend at school about
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what was happening to her. That friend talked to a
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patrolling police officer, in fact, about what her friend had
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told her, and it was a result of what the police...
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The police officer then took that back and it initiated
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a child protection process which led to the evidence being gathered.
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Five of the West's children were placed into care and
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the police began their investigations. They were interviewed about the
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darker side of their lives at 25 Cromwell Street.
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What it brought to light was a family joke. And
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the family joke was a simple one. You'd better watch
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out because if you don't shut up and stop causing
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your dad or your mum any trouble, you'll end up
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like Heather, two down and three across in the patio.
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Fred had laid a patio behind Cornwall Street, it was
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in squares, which was rather like a crossword. The family
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joke was that he buried Heather at two down and
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three across.
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This issue, this Heather's under the patio, continued to be raised.
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And so we started to take this point seriously. We
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knew Heather had disappeared, had left the home, So we
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tried to trace her, and despite a massive amount of
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inquiry to try and find out, she just literally disappeared
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off the face of the earth.
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In February 1994, the police decided to find out if
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the family joke was more serious than the children realised.
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Armed with a warrant, they began to dig under the
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patio of 25 Cromwell Street.
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When they arrived with the warrant, Fred and Rose were
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at the house and they went into the back garden
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and the officers started digging the garden.
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Sensing the end was nigh, Fred asked to be interviewed
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by police.
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Fred asked the officer if they could go down to
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the police station and so they left. Fred said that
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he admitted that Heather's remains were in the garden but
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the police were looking in the wrong place. And later
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that day, he returned with the officers and he indicated
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where where he thought Heather was buried. The following day,
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officers digging in that area recovered a femur, and that
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was taken for examination by the forensic pathologist, who confirmed
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it was human remains, and that turned out to be
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one of Heather's remains.
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Rose was being questioned at Cheltenham Police Station when the
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news reached her and her solicitor, Leo Goatley.
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When Rose was told that Heather's remains had been found,
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she gasped loudly and was very distraught. How do you
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interpret that? Was that a mother's shock and distress, Or
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was it a murderer's distress at being found out? At
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that time, I believe that she was shocked and distressed
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and that she didn't know the extent of Fred's activities. And,
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of course, at that stage, it wasn't about serial killing,
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it was about Heather. But, of course, the thing unravelled
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pretty quickly with the excavation.
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The police found more than they'd bargained for under the
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patio at 25 Cromwell Street.
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When they found.
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remains they found not just two legs or two thigh
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bones but three the interrogating detective said to west well
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unless heather had three legs there's another body oh yes
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fred says without drawing breath or hesitating that must be
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the other girl that would be shirley.
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The police were about to unearth all the secrets that
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Fred and Rose West had been hiding at 25 Cromwell
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Street for over two decades. Secrets that would shock the
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entire nation. Fred told the investigating officers the other body
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was of his former lover, Shirley Robinson. Shirley hadn't been
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seen since 1978. When she disappeared, she was heavily pregnant
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with Fred's child. West also admitted that police would find
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a third body in the garden who he claimed was
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a friend of Shirley's. Throughout the questioning, he insisted on
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one thing, that his wife Rose knew nothing about any
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of the bodies.
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I think when Fred was protesting Rose's innocence and taking
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the blame completely upon himself, I think, yes, at that point,
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the power had changed in their relationship from him being
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the dominant one in the early years to her really
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putting the strings in those later years. And I think
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he really didn't trust her at this point in time.
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He was really quite afraid of what she might do.
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So I think that that was definitely something that had
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flipped in this relationship.
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Well, I found him quite a creepy bloke. He would
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always be trying to endear himself to people in a
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rather smarmy way, a little kind of, giggle, making light
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of things but he was very unconvincing doing that and
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he would very quickly realise if you weren't impressed by
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him and then he would withdraw and I would sense
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there was this other side to him that would scowl
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and be probably quite nasty whatever his sort of murky
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machinations within his mind were once he realised he was
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probably better able to actually charm women than blokes It's
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possible that with a little smile and some sort of
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soft talk he was able to persuade some young women
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that he was safe to be around.
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To make things more complicated, Fred's story kept changing. He
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alternated between admitting and denying the killings and told detectives
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that all the deaths were accidental. He wanted to get
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charged with manslaughter and not murder. It would be a
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hard job for pathologists to prove otherwise.
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It's very difficult when somebody's been buried for years... to
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look at them in detail as a pathologist. You haven't
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got the skin, you haven't got the muscles, you haven't
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got the organs, the things that you'd see injury or
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disease in, so you really have to comment on what
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may not be there. It makes a pathologist's job a
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lot harder.
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Finding the cause of death was difficult, and so was
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identifying the third victim buried under the patio. There were
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approximately 10,000 missing women recorded at the time. By using
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dental records, experts identified the third victim as Alison Chambers,
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who was just 16 when she went missing in 1979,
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meaning she cannot have been a friend of Shirley Robinson,
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as Fred suggested. Marks found on her body proved beyond
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doubt she'd been tortured.
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Someone's behavior is more in the realm of psychology than pathology,
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but quite clearly, there's potentially the aspect of torture there
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of sexual violence, and when a pathologist sees findings like that,
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we're looking away from manslaughter and more into some sort
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of act of cruelty.
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This proved that West hadn't accidentally killed these young women.
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He'd tortured, sexually assaulted, and intentionally murdered them. But was
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Fred doing this without Rose knowing? The police weren't convinced.
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00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:05.250
The most important thing, of course, was that these bodies
250
00:15:05.289 --> 00:15:09.169
were recovered in the house that she shared with Fred.
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00:15:09.970 --> 00:15:13.649
And it would appear inconceivable that she wouldn't have had
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00:15:13.710 --> 00:15:14.409
knowledge of this.
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00:15:16.090 --> 00:15:17.990
The house itself was very, very small.
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00:15:18.620 --> 00:15:22.649
It would have been inconceivable that you could have kept
255
00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:27.500
a young woman or women in that house without every
256
00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:30.429
occupant knowing that something was going on. No matter how
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00:15:30.470 --> 00:15:32.950
much tape you would have put over their mouths, no
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00:15:32.970 --> 00:15:36.610
matter how much they'd been concealed in the cellar, you
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00:15:36.649 --> 00:15:37.049
would know.
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It would have been impossible not to know.
261
00:15:40.649 --> 00:15:43.700
The police began to look into missing persons' files to
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00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:47.720
try and find any more potential victims. But with about 10,000
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00:15:47.720 --> 00:15:51.139
missing women in the country, it was a seemingly endless search.
264
00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:55.360
Throughout that time, we were trying to trace people from
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00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:57.870
children's homes to make sure they were safe. We were
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00:15:57.889 --> 00:16:01.870
dealing with forensic materials, I mean, massive amounts of forensic material, searching.
267
00:16:02.330 --> 00:16:04.269
It was on a scale that was really unprecedented.
268
00:16:04.789 --> 00:16:08.990
Two of the missing people stood out. Lucy Partington, a
269
00:16:09.009 --> 00:16:11.990
21-year-old student last seen at a bus stop in Gloucester
270
00:16:12.110 --> 00:16:16.950
in 1973, and Linda Goff, a 19-year-old who went missing
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00:16:16.970 --> 00:16:21.509
in the same year. Her last known address, 25 Cromwell Street.
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00:16:22.129 --> 00:16:25.789
Fred and Rose adopted a sort of modus operandi.
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00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:30.779
They would identify young women on the run if you
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00:16:30.799 --> 00:16:33.139
like run away from home run away from a children's
275
00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:38.220
home run away from their parents they were vulnerable they
276
00:16:38.259 --> 00:16:42.700
would offer them a home and time after time Fred
277
00:16:42.740 --> 00:16:46.470
would pick up with Rose often at bus stops young
278
00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:47.909
women who looked a little lost.
279
00:16:48.590 --> 00:16:51.330
So they would always choose people who would be in
280
00:16:51.370 --> 00:16:54.429
that position of vulnerability And the fact that they were
281
00:16:54.470 --> 00:16:57.149
a couple, I think, was quite helpful to them in
282
00:16:57.230 --> 00:17:00.750
luring victims in because the women that they targeted would
283
00:17:00.769 --> 00:17:04.210
be more likely to trust a couple. So when they
284
00:17:04.230 --> 00:17:07.410
would pick somebody up who was hitchhiking, that played to
285
00:17:07.450 --> 00:17:09.329
that idea of, well, there's a woman there, so I'm
286
00:17:09.349 --> 00:17:10.029
going to be safe.
287
00:17:10.890 --> 00:17:13.089
Rose already knew the language of grooming.
288
00:17:13.210 --> 00:17:14.259
She was quite used to it.
289
00:17:14.269 --> 00:17:16.650
And when you hear the victims talk about how she
290
00:17:16.710 --> 00:17:21.089
spoke to them in this sort of quite soft, pleasing voice,
291
00:17:21.289 --> 00:17:24.849
you knew that, again, that was something she had learned.
292
00:17:27.269 --> 00:17:30.730
Linda Goff was never officially reported as missing, but her
293
00:17:30.789 --> 00:17:33.690
family searched for her at the time of her disappearance.
294
00:17:34.329 --> 00:17:38.950
Linda Goff's mother, she'd been round to the house, knocked
295
00:17:39.019 --> 00:17:41.680
on the door, and had been answered by Rose West.
296
00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:45.259
And she asked where Linda was, and she was told
297
00:17:45.319 --> 00:17:48.609
that she'd gone away, I think, to Western Supermare. She
298
00:17:48.650 --> 00:17:51.109
was struck by the fact that there was Rose standing
299
00:17:51.150 --> 00:17:56.390
there with her Linda slippers, wearing Linda's slippers, and she
300
00:17:56.450 --> 00:18:00.029
also noticed on the clothesline there were articles of Linda's clothing.
301
00:18:02.049 --> 00:18:05.109
Linda's mother believed Rose when she said her daughter had
302
00:18:05.150 --> 00:18:08.349
moved on from Cromwell Street, but as the press coverage
303
00:18:08.390 --> 00:18:12.009
began to reflect the sheer enormity of the unfolding story,
304
00:18:12.490 --> 00:18:16.279
other women who'd encountered the West came forward. the police
305
00:18:16.339 --> 00:18:19.799
got a break when Caroline Roberts contacted them to offer
306
00:18:19.940 --> 00:18:24.259
her help in the investigation. She'd seen the investigation on
307
00:18:24.299 --> 00:18:28.079
the news and revealed to police she'd been sexually assaulted
308
00:18:28.359 --> 00:18:32.859
by both Fred and Rose in 1972. She'd known them
309
00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:35.200
for a while after they picked her up while she
310
00:18:35.220 --> 00:18:38.109
was hitchhiking and even worked for them as a nanny
311
00:18:38.210 --> 00:18:42.190
for a short time. It was one horrifying incident that
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00:18:42.250 --> 00:18:44.710
caused her to lodge a complaint against them.
313
00:18:46.099 --> 00:18:48.759
They invited her back to the house, and when she
314
00:18:48.819 --> 00:18:53.119
got to the house, having been assaulted in the car
315
00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:55.779
by Fred and Rose, she got back to the house,
316
00:18:56.059 --> 00:18:59.400
and she was then bound and subjected to some rather
317
00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:01.589
aggressive sexual activity.
318
00:19:02.190 --> 00:19:03.490
She managed to escape.
319
00:19:03.230 --> 00:19:06.349
Subsequently and reported it to her mom, who then told
320
00:19:06.390 --> 00:19:10.650
the police. Both Fred and Rose were arrested for rape
321
00:19:10.690 --> 00:19:12.549
and other serious sexual offenses.
322
00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:15.720
At the time, she was scared to face them at
323
00:19:15.779 --> 00:19:18.900
a trial and ashamed at what had happened. The West
324
00:19:18.940 --> 00:19:22.319
were charged with indecent exposure instead of rape. They were
325
00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:26.880
fined £ 100. But with the information Caroline gave to the police,
326
00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:29.950
they could link Rose to the crimes and bodies at
327
00:19:30.029 --> 00:19:30.769
Cromwell Street.
328
00:19:32.269 --> 00:19:34.930
So we had that evidence that there was an aggressive
329
00:19:35.250 --> 00:19:39.349
sexual nature to her personality. The details of sexual activity
330
00:19:39.369 --> 00:19:42.990
that had taken place had evidence a number of similarities,
331
00:19:43.069 --> 00:19:46.980
particularly talking about bindings and gags and so on, that
332
00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:51.109
were very similar, if not identical, to the material that
333
00:19:51.130 --> 00:19:55.059
was recovered in association with the victims when they were discovered.
334
00:19:55.779 --> 00:19:59.859
This case was much more about the accounts of people
335
00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:04.079
and what the survivors were saying than what the pathology
336
00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:08.490
can tell you. There are things that They could say
337
00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:10.900
that the bodies were no longer able to speak to
338
00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:15.250
and that was a bigger element of this case than
339
00:20:15.269 --> 00:20:18.420
maybe the physical findings by the pathologist.
340
00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:23.940
On March 4th, 1994, police moved their search inside the house.
341
00:20:24.299 --> 00:20:26.579
They had a feeling that down in the dark cellar,
342
00:20:26.819 --> 00:20:30.170
they may uncover even more bodies. On the same day,
343
00:20:30.250 --> 00:20:33.470
when news reached Fred West at Gloucester Police Station, he
344
00:20:33.529 --> 00:20:37.230
made a stunning admission in a handwritten note given to detectives.
345
00:20:37.619 --> 00:20:42.380
It read... I, Frederick West, authorise my solicitor, Howard Ogden,
346
00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:45.759
to advise Superintendent Bennett that I wish to admit to
347
00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:51.200
a further, a prox, nine killings. Expressly, Charmaine, Rena, Linda
348
00:20:51.220 --> 00:20:54.660
Goff and others to be identified. Signed, F.
349
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:55.019
West.
350
00:20:56.119 --> 00:20:58.789
Can you imagine the scene? It almost defies belief.
351
00:20:59.450 --> 00:21:02.009
They weren't sitting across the table from a monster, a
352
00:21:02.130 --> 00:21:05.589
huge man with bare hands and able to kill a
353
00:21:06.670 --> 00:21:12.420
little insignificant chap. who nevertheless confesses to nine murders. It's
354
00:21:12.460 --> 00:21:16.789
at that point the police realise, I think probably for
355
00:21:16.829 --> 00:21:20.750
the first time, that they are dealing with someone truly evil.
356
00:21:21.730 --> 00:21:23.869
Fred was again taken back to the house and he
357
00:21:23.930 --> 00:21:28.579
indicated where some of the bodies had been buried, particularly
358
00:21:28.619 --> 00:21:31.180
the area of the cellar. And so what happened then
359
00:21:31.259 --> 00:21:34.779
was that we undertook a methodical search of the whole property.
360
00:21:35.470 --> 00:21:39.220
Fred maintained a position that Rose was not involved in
361
00:21:39.259 --> 00:21:42.019
these cases. You know, that's the inference that he was
362
00:21:42.039 --> 00:21:43.119
trying to keep her out of it.
363
00:21:43.660 --> 00:21:47.400
Fred took the rap for it. They had an agreement
364
00:21:47.460 --> 00:21:50.039
that she would stand by him and visit him and
365
00:21:50.500 --> 00:21:53.539
he'd hoped to be out in so many years. But
366
00:21:53.619 --> 00:21:57.420
the minute Rose heard that he'd actually admitted to the
367
00:21:57.480 --> 00:22:02.220
murders and she dropped him, he was gone. And she
368
00:22:02.259 --> 00:22:05.049
never spoke to him again. She absolutely refused to have
369
00:22:05.670 --> 00:22:06.950
any contact with him.
370
00:22:09.630 --> 00:22:13.440
On March the 5th, 1994, the world's media had descended
371
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:16.099
upon the home of Fred and Rose West in Gloucester.
372
00:22:16.660 --> 00:22:19.900
Police had exhumed three bodies from their back garden, their
373
00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:24.549
daughter Heather, Fred's pregnant lover Shirley Robinson, and missing teenager
374
00:22:24.650 --> 00:22:28.970
Alison Chambers. Now detectives were moving their search inside the
375
00:22:29.009 --> 00:22:33.359
property and began excavating the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.
376
00:22:34.920 --> 00:22:37.940
We started the excavations in the cellar. It was a
377
00:22:38.019 --> 00:22:42.579
difficult place to do excavations, and we had to be
378
00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:46.480
very careful about recovering the bodies. And on the first day,
379
00:22:46.549 --> 00:22:49.710
we did find two sets of human remains. One turned
380
00:22:49.809 --> 00:22:54.390
out to be Theresa Siegenhaler, and the second remains were
381
00:22:54.410 --> 00:22:58.279
Shirley Hubbard. It was clear to pathologists that much had
382
00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:01.180
been done to try and hide the identity of all
383
00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:02.079
the murdered girls.
384
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:07.180
With Fred and Rose's victims, one of their hallmarks, as
385
00:23:07.220 --> 00:23:09.980
it were, was that the fingers and toes were removed.
386
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:13.980
I think we can hypothesise that there may be different
387
00:23:14.039 --> 00:23:18.160
reasons for that simple cruelty would be one, but obviously
388
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:21.230
most people know that fingerprints are a very good way
389
00:23:21.269 --> 00:23:26.720
to identify somebody, so removing them, particularly in the 60s, 70s, 80s,
390
00:23:26.890 --> 00:23:29.130
before DNA technology.
391
00:23:28.589 --> 00:23:30.680
Was really recognised... would.
392
00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:33.380
Be a way to limit the chances of that person
393
00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:34.279
being identified.
394
00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:38.930
And that was one of our difficulties when we were
395
00:23:38.950 --> 00:23:42.390
doing the investigation, trying to identify the human remains, and
396
00:23:42.430 --> 00:23:46.349
in particular Teresa's remains, because there was no evidence she'd
397
00:23:46.369 --> 00:23:49.720
been anywhere near Gloucestershire. But we were able, in liaison
398
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:53.420
with the Metropolitan Police and the missing persons, to come
399
00:23:53.460 --> 00:23:55.799
down to sort of a short list of people that
400
00:23:55.819 --> 00:23:59.589
it could be. and then through using forensic techniques, we
401
00:23:59.609 --> 00:24:02.609
were able to be satisfied that we had identified her remains.
402
00:24:03.430 --> 00:24:07.710
As the cellar excavation continued, officers escorted Fred to a
403
00:24:07.789 --> 00:24:11.029
field near his home at Muchmarkle. He told them if
404
00:24:11.069 --> 00:24:14.349
they dug there, they'd find the body of his first wife, Rena,
405
00:24:14.650 --> 00:24:18.630
not seen since 1971, a year after Fred and Rose
406
00:24:18.690 --> 00:24:21.819
had moved in together. Rena and Fred had been married
407
00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:24.779
for nine years, but she was never reported missing.
408
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:26.099
So he was taken out.
409
00:24:26.430 --> 00:24:30.569
To the fields, and he pointed out, in one field,
410
00:24:31.170 --> 00:24:35.009
fairly close to a hedge line, where he said that
411
00:24:35.049 --> 00:24:37.589
he'd buried Rina Costello.
412
00:24:40.750 --> 00:24:43.250
There were now six victims, and back in the cellar
413
00:24:43.289 --> 00:24:47.730
at Cromwell Street, even more bodies were being exhumed. Juanita Marta,
414
00:24:47.769 --> 00:24:52.609
former lodger at the house, missing since 1975, and Carol Cooper,
415
00:24:52.650 --> 00:24:56.859
last seen walking home from the cinema in 1973. plus
416
00:24:56.900 --> 00:24:59.319
two familiar names the police had been looking out for,
417
00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:03.660
Lucy Partington and buried under the family bathroom, Linda Goff.
418
00:25:04.660 --> 00:25:07.029
This was a tragedy for these young women.
419
00:25:07.420 --> 00:25:08.170
I mean, all.
420
00:25:08.049 --> 00:25:10.869
Murders are tragic for the victims and their families, but
421
00:25:10.930 --> 00:25:12.890
it was the scale of this, I think, that took
422
00:25:12.910 --> 00:25:17.529
the media's attention. I mean, it's almost incomprehensible that two
423
00:25:17.609 --> 00:25:22.559
people could abduct young women or lure them to their
424
00:25:22.599 --> 00:25:27.329
house and subsequently, you know, sexually abuse them and then
425
00:25:27.390 --> 00:25:29.190
kill them. I mean, it is on a scale that's
426
00:25:29.250 --> 00:25:30.450
almost incomprehensible.
427
00:25:33.549 --> 00:25:37.029
By the 8th of March 1994, less than two weeks
428
00:25:37.130 --> 00:25:40.609
after beginning their search at Cromwell Street, police had found
429
00:25:40.710 --> 00:25:44.309
ten victims. Most of them had been buried two decades
430
00:25:44.390 --> 00:25:47.569
ago when Fred and Rose were at their most prolific.
431
00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:53.599
Aside from the sexual element to the murders, they were becoming,
432
00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:57.170
I'd say, maybe closer in a way, but I don't
433
00:25:57.190 --> 00:25:59.369
know whether closer is the best word to use to
434
00:25:59.410 --> 00:26:02.710
describe that. I think they were becoming more cut off
435
00:26:02.970 --> 00:26:04.950
from the rest of the world. This was something that
436
00:26:05.430 --> 00:26:08.029
only the two of them understood. It was something that
437
00:26:08.069 --> 00:26:10.339
we refer to as a folly, a duh, a madness
438
00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:12.359
shared by two. So I think it was kind of
439
00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:14.500
cementing their relationship.
440
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:19.390
They were to him no more than sexual implements. a
441
00:26:19.470 --> 00:26:21.170
kind of doll, if you like.
442
00:26:21.210 --> 00:26:23.819
I know it's a horrifying thought, but they had no
443
00:26:23.859 --> 00:26:26.880
more humanity for him than that. He was a man
444
00:26:26.940 --> 00:26:31.539
capable of absolutely no conscience and absolutely no remorse. And
445
00:26:31.779 --> 00:26:35.319
everything he did was with Rose's help. And the thought
446
00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:38.609
of having some young woman hung up in the cellar, literally,
447
00:26:39.230 --> 00:26:44.509
by her hands, and a hook for Fred and Rose to.
448
00:26:44.430 --> 00:26:47.430
Abuse when they wanted to over a period of days.
449
00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:51.640
Almost devised belief. It is that horrifying.
450
00:26:52.980 --> 00:26:56.700
Nine bodies had been exhumed from Cromwell Street and one more,
451
00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.980
that of Rena West, Fred's first wife, in a field
452
00:27:00.049 --> 00:27:02.829
near Much Markle. But Fred wasn't finished.
453
00:27:03.430 --> 00:27:04.690
Although he didn't admit to.
454
00:27:04.690 --> 00:27:07.410
Killing her, he told police he had a feeling that
455
00:27:07.690 --> 00:27:11.750
Rena's friend, Anne McFall, might be buried in a neighbouring field.
456
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:16.980
She's believed to be Fred's first victim, killed in 1967
457
00:27:16.980 --> 00:27:18.599
when she was six months pregnant.
458
00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:22.420
As he did with all his killings, he dismembered the
459
00:27:22.460 --> 00:27:23.720
bodies before he buried them.
460
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:25.740
So he didn't bury them in a skeleton.
461
00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:29.640
He buried them in a tube, if you like, in
462
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:34.680
which the body was compressed, the torso, head separated, arms
463
00:27:34.740 --> 00:27:38.880
and legs separated and shoved into a smaller hole. It
464
00:27:38.940 --> 00:27:42.180
made the search for those bodies a very complicated affair.
465
00:27:42.509 --> 00:27:46.009
The problem with Anne McFall's body was that the whole
466
00:27:46.029 --> 00:27:48.710
land had been re-landscaped, and so there was this topsoil
467
00:27:48.890 --> 00:27:51.769
that had been put on there. Now, when you're looking
468
00:27:51.849 --> 00:27:55.230
for human remains, you can't just bring a big digger
469
00:27:55.319 --> 00:27:56.079
in and.
470
00:27:56.059 --> 00:27:56.799
Shove it all out.
471
00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:00.339
You are literally doing it by spadefuls and sieving every spadeful.
472
00:28:01.079 --> 00:28:03.799
And we actually excavated.
473
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:06.160
A hole the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. We
474
00:28:06.180 --> 00:28:08.059
were almost giving up hope that we were going to
475
00:28:08.099 --> 00:28:10.160
find the body, and we set a deadline for ourselves
476
00:28:10.180 --> 00:28:12.549
that if we didn't find them by date X... Then
477
00:28:12.589 --> 00:28:15.789
we were stopped, but fortunately, a couple of days before
478
00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:19.039
that deadline came in, we found some bones and then
479
00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:21.079
subsequently recovered the body.
480
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:25.200
During the two months of digging for Ann McFall's remains,
481
00:28:25.259 --> 00:28:28.380
the police had arrested and charged Rose West with murder.
482
00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:32.900
For each victim, she claimed, I'm innocent. The police's evidence
483
00:28:32.940 --> 00:28:36.220
was circumstantial, and defense lawyers felt there wasn't enough to
484
00:28:36.259 --> 00:28:37.619
connect her to the murders.
485
00:28:39.789 --> 00:28:42.089
Rose West said, I had nothing to do with this.
486
00:28:42.650 --> 00:28:45.329
And the Crown are saying, well, we've got a statement
487
00:28:45.369 --> 00:28:48.690
from so-and-so who says that you were involved in an
488
00:28:48.789 --> 00:28:52.670
abduction and sexual abuse. Well, to a point you say, well,
489
00:28:53.049 --> 00:28:56.750
so what? What's that got to do with murder? Fred
490
00:28:56.809 --> 00:28:59.750
had said in his interviews, he fully admitted them and
491
00:28:59.789 --> 00:29:03.299
said Rose had nothing to do with them. So the
492
00:29:03.670 --> 00:29:08.099
first point is to say, well, what is the strength
493
00:29:08.140 --> 00:29:11.970
of the case against Rose? She's denying it. Where's the
494
00:29:12.029 --> 00:29:13.369
proof that she was involved?
495
00:29:17.529 --> 00:29:21.400
While police continued their search at Cromwell Street, they also
496
00:29:21.500 --> 00:29:25.660
turned their attention to a second address, 25 Midland Road,
497
00:29:26.019 --> 00:29:30.980
Fred and Rose's first home together in Gloucester. Investigators believe
498
00:29:31.019 --> 00:29:34.230
that somewhere in the house or garden, they might find
499
00:29:34.269 --> 00:29:38.009
the body of Charmaine West, Fred's stepdaughter from his marriage
500
00:29:38.049 --> 00:29:40.920
to Rena. An extensive investigation search began.
501
00:29:40.940 --> 00:29:46.700
At the time of Charmaine's death, she was living at
502
00:29:46.700 --> 00:29:50.599
25 Midland Road, a house that subsequently Fred and Rose
503
00:29:51.059 --> 00:29:55.059
had left. But we went to the house and, again,
504
00:29:55.180 --> 00:30:00.200
excavating under the floor of the kitchen, we found Charmaine's body.
505
00:30:01.019 --> 00:30:03.799
Charmaine hadn't been seen since she was 8 years old
506
00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:07.519
in 1971 and hadn't been reported as missing. In the
507
00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:10.039
same year, Fred was in jail for 9 months for
508
00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:14.289
motoring offences and stealing fence panels from his then-employer. The
509
00:30:14.329 --> 00:30:17.849
police were convinced they'd finally got a breakthrough. They were
510
00:30:17.910 --> 00:30:21.490
confident Charmaine must have been murdered by Rose while Fred
511
00:30:21.549 --> 00:30:22.410
was serving time.
512
00:30:23.529 --> 00:30:27.079
Rose was jealous of Charmaine. Charmaine was a very bright
513
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:30.339
little girl and I think Rose could see that she
514
00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:32.460
was getting the upper hand of her and she didn't
515
00:30:32.500 --> 00:30:36.279
like it. The younger sister knew to keep quiet was
516
00:30:36.339 --> 00:30:39.619
best not to antagonize Rose. And Charmaine was quite a
517
00:30:39.680 --> 00:30:40.660
feisty little girl.
518
00:30:42.900 --> 00:30:48.549
So there were slight differences in the modus operandi, you know,
519
00:30:49.970 --> 00:30:53.519
certainly with the others, You can imagine Fred going about
520
00:30:53.779 --> 00:31:00.660
his work with a sort of builder's precision and routine,
521
00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:04.900
you know, severing the limbs and the head, digging a
522
00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:08.849
hole in the ground and placing them in it. Charmaine
523
00:31:08.869 --> 00:31:12.329
was different. Nevertheless, Fred was charged with Charmaine, even though
524
00:31:12.369 --> 00:31:16.269
there were, from the outset, issues about whether Fred was
525
00:31:16.369 --> 00:31:19.430
present or whether he was in prison. So there was
526
00:31:19.470 --> 00:31:24.130
always that slightly nebulous issue about how old Saiti Charmaine
527
00:31:24.170 --> 00:31:26.690
was and the dates when she died.
528
00:31:27.589 --> 00:31:31.069
With the high-profile trials imminent, the police had to somehow
529
00:31:31.170 --> 00:31:34.319
prove that Rose West was just as guilty as her
530
00:31:34.359 --> 00:31:37.759
husband Fred. But before they got a chance, there was
531
00:31:37.819 --> 00:31:43.220
a major setback in their case. In December 1994, ten
532
00:31:43.319 --> 00:31:47.119
months after police had begun to search 25 Cromwell Street
533
00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:50.069
for Heather West, the bodies of 12 young women had
534
00:31:50.089 --> 00:31:53.309
been unearthed across Gloucester. Fred West was thought to be
535
00:31:53.369 --> 00:31:56.650
responsible for all of the deaths and police were desperately
536
00:31:56.690 --> 00:31:59.549
trying to find some evidence to prove that his wife
537
00:31:59.630 --> 00:32:03.130
Rose was implicit in ten of the murders. Both had
538
00:32:03.170 --> 00:32:06.819
been arrested, charged and were awaiting trial, but on January
539
00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:10.920
1st 1995, Fred West took his secrets to the grave.
540
00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:16.299
Fred was in custody at Winston Green Prison in Birmingham
541
00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:20.359
and on the 1st of January 1995 he was found
542
00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:22.980
dead in his cell. He died from hanging and it
543
00:32:23.029 --> 00:32:25.950
was subsequently determined that he committed suicide.
544
00:32:27.049 --> 00:32:31.930
Fred West was always a cunning man. He planned his
545
00:32:32.029 --> 00:32:36.930
suicide as carefully as he concealed his bodies. He groomed
546
00:32:37.500 --> 00:32:41.000
the prison officers, into thinking that he was an absolutely safe,
547
00:32:41.299 --> 00:32:44.599
harmless little man who could do no wrong and was
548
00:32:44.700 --> 00:32:49.730
very happy to collaborate with anything they wanted. Indeed, he volunteered.
549
00:32:50.069 --> 00:32:53.470
He said, I'll mend shirts. Don't worry, give me something
550
00:32:53.509 --> 00:32:56.450
to do. Be a pastime for me while I'm waiting
551
00:32:56.490 --> 00:33:01.890
for my trial. Painstakingly, over a period of weeks, he
552
00:33:02.009 --> 00:33:06.009
stitched together a rope, partly from bits of the blanket
553
00:33:06.049 --> 00:33:10.940
on his bed, partly from pieces of shirt, very carefully,
554
00:33:11.799 --> 00:33:15.599
because he had decided that he was not going to
555
00:33:16.359 --> 00:33:20.279
trial and that he was not ever going to confess
556
00:33:21.369 --> 00:33:24.970
the true extent of what his crimes amounted to.
557
00:33:25.730 --> 00:33:30.369
There was a total loss of control by Fred over Rose,
558
00:33:30.730 --> 00:33:34.069
I've no doubt about that. She made it abundantly clear
559
00:33:34.089 --> 00:33:36.430
she wanted absolutely nothing else to do with him and
560
00:33:36.509 --> 00:33:42.220
she blanked him in the dock. Independent of his relationship
561
00:33:42.339 --> 00:33:46.700
with Rose, he lacked empathy with people. People were objects
562
00:33:46.779 --> 00:33:49.200
to be used and abused. The fact of the matter
563
00:33:49.259 --> 00:33:51.759
was he knew the game was up. He'd made the admissions,
564
00:33:51.940 --> 00:33:54.640
the remains had been found, the terrible story of those
565
00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:55.819
victims unfolded.
566
00:33:57.440 --> 00:33:59.680
For those who knew the West family, this is just
567
00:33:59.740 --> 00:34:02.799
another macabre twist in a story that first came to
568
00:34:02.859 --> 00:34:05.480
light 10 months ago. In the words of one neighbor,
569
00:34:05.880 --> 00:34:09.099
if Frederick West really did kill himself, then it seems
570
00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:12.320
almost appropriate that a man accused of taking so many
571
00:34:12.360 --> 00:34:14.840
people's lives should end up taking his own.
572
00:34:15.880 --> 00:34:19.239
Fred's suicide was a huge problem for the police. It
573
00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:21.530
put the entire case in jeopardy.
574
00:34:22.170 --> 00:34:24.929
With the death of Fred, we were concerned that the
575
00:34:24.969 --> 00:34:27.809
press might feel, well, the case against Fred is now finished,
576
00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:32.559
and therefore we can disclose information because the case is closed.
577
00:34:33.360 --> 00:34:36.219
That would have been a disaster for us because it
578
00:34:36.260 --> 00:34:39.780
would have then compromised the trial of Rose West.
579
00:34:40.420 --> 00:34:43.780
The police were desperate. While Fred had confessed to 11
580
00:34:43.780 --> 00:34:47.440
of the killings, Rose had always claimed her innocence. Without
581
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:50.599
any solid evidence, there was a real chance that Rose
582
00:34:50.679 --> 00:34:53.239
West was going to get away with murder.
583
00:34:54.280 --> 00:34:56.969
I think it's the Crown that need to... review their
584
00:34:57.030 --> 00:35:00.880
case and decide where they want to take it from here.
585
00:35:00.900 --> 00:35:02.179
I would hope.
586
00:35:02.860 --> 00:35:06.400
That they will drop the case. I thought it was
587
00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:09.699
possible the case might have been dropped. There were a
588
00:35:09.739 --> 00:35:13.139
lot of eminent observers suggesting that would be the case.
589
00:35:14.369 --> 00:35:17.369
The DPP had a different view, though. In fact, the
590
00:35:17.389 --> 00:35:22.949
case got worse against Rose. They added on the murder
591
00:35:23.070 --> 00:35:27.650
of Charmaine, which prior had been a sole charge in
592
00:35:27.670 --> 00:35:32.309
relation to Fred. I thought that was very curious. Rose
593
00:35:32.349 --> 00:35:34.190
thought the case was going to go away as well,
594
00:35:35.130 --> 00:35:35.750
but it didn't.
595
00:35:36.789 --> 00:35:40.489
Prosecutors needed proof that Rose alone was responsible for the
596
00:35:40.530 --> 00:35:44.829
death of her stepdaughter, Charmaine. They turned to forensic odontologist
597
00:35:45.050 --> 00:35:46.329
Professor David Whittaker.
598
00:35:47.530 --> 00:35:51.989
The police brilliantly discovered, I don't know how, that a
599
00:35:52.230 --> 00:35:57.929
certain newspaper, national newspaper, had acquired a set of negatives,
600
00:35:58.610 --> 00:36:04.480
and they were large professional negatives, and they showed incredible
601
00:36:04.539 --> 00:36:09.059
detail in some of the baby teeth, the deciduous teeth
602
00:36:09.119 --> 00:36:13.360
of Charmaine, which I was then able to match exactly
603
00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:20.050
using our facial superimposition technology and showed, A, that they
604
00:36:20.130 --> 00:36:26.510
matched exactly in terms of tilt and position and grooving,
605
00:36:26.969 --> 00:36:32.230
and little rough edges were a perfect match. But the
606
00:36:32.289 --> 00:36:37.190
position of the teeth had moved, so if we could
607
00:36:37.409 --> 00:36:41.880
calculate that movement and assess it, of being able to determine,
608
00:36:42.179 --> 00:36:48.460
within reasonable accuracy, the time elapsed between the photograph being taken,
609
00:36:48.980 --> 00:36:51.409
which the police had a date for, was written on
610
00:36:51.449 --> 00:36:56.289
the negatives and the time of death. And if that
611
00:36:56.369 --> 00:37:00.780
fitted into the slot where Fred West was in jail,
612
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:06.559
then clearly Mrs West had a lot of questions to answer.
613
00:37:06.599 --> 00:37:10.280
On 3rd October 1995, the world's press flocked to Winchester
614
00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:13.389
Crown Court to report on one of the most sensational
615
00:37:13.449 --> 00:37:15.090
trials of modern times.
616
00:37:15.730 --> 00:37:20.079
Rose's trial attracted Worldwide attention, as you would expect. It's
617
00:37:20.159 --> 00:37:23.320
very rare for a woman to go on trial, let
618
00:37:23.340 --> 00:37:26.460
alone for ten murders. I attended it from the first
619
00:37:26.500 --> 00:37:29.489
day to the last. It was an extraordinary event.
620
00:37:30.610 --> 00:37:33.510
As the trial began, Rose West pleaded not guilty to
621
00:37:33.590 --> 00:37:36.690
all ten counts of murder, the nine girls found buried
622
00:37:36.769 --> 00:37:40.090
at Cromwell Street and Charmaine. But the evidence against her
623
00:37:40.130 --> 00:37:41.239
was irrefutable.
624
00:37:41.940 --> 00:37:46.119
So in court, in front of Rosemary West... I had
625
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:52.780
all the technology available to reproduce the imaging of Charmaine.
626
00:37:53.699 --> 00:37:57.079
Dreadful thing to have to do in court, but the
627
00:37:57.119 --> 00:38:02.150
judge and the prosecution insisted. So Mrs West actually saw
628
00:38:02.590 --> 00:38:07.289
this imaging developing in front of her. And I think
629
00:38:07.349 --> 00:38:09.730
it was about the only time she looked a little
630
00:38:09.769 --> 00:38:11.250
bit upset.
631
00:38:12.309 --> 00:38:13.030
She marched.
632
00:38:14.230 --> 00:38:18.269
Into the witness box like a very angry traffic warden.
633
00:38:19.570 --> 00:38:24.530
Plain shoes, weighty woman, angry demeanour. This is all an outrage.
634
00:38:24.550 --> 00:38:26.269
It was all Fred. I had nothing to do with it.
635
00:38:26.360 --> 00:38:26.969
I knew nothing.
636
00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:29.320
It was completely inconceivable I could have done this. I
637
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:30.619
couldn't have killed my own daughter.
638
00:38:31.340 --> 00:38:32.659
A tissue of lies.
639
00:38:33.860 --> 00:38:36.340
We think of Rose West as this woman in the
640
00:38:36.400 --> 00:38:41.260
courtroom in her 40s, great big glasses that she wore,
641
00:38:41.699 --> 00:38:46.469
quite a frumpy housewife, looking. Those murders had happened a.
642
00:38:46.449 --> 00:38:47.409
Long time before then.
643
00:38:47.469 --> 00:38:49.730
She was actually very young when she committed the murder.
644
00:38:49.750 --> 00:38:52.780
She was in fact a teenage serial killer because she'd
645
00:38:52.860 --> 00:38:56.860
committed three murders before she was 20 and most of
646
00:38:56.900 --> 00:38:59.820
the murders were over by the time she was 26.
647
00:38:59.820 --> 00:39:03.480
The evidence provided by Professor Whittaker convinced the jury that
648
00:39:03.539 --> 00:39:06.500
Rosemary West was guilty of all ten murders.
649
00:39:07.219 --> 00:39:09.889
He was able to say, and the jury accepted this,
650
00:39:10.280 --> 00:39:13.489
that it that he could pinpoint within a few days
651
00:39:13.510 --> 00:39:16.760
of when the child had been killed. And we had
652
00:39:16.820 --> 00:39:20.599
evidence that Fred was in jail during that time. So
653
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:23.820
Fred could not have killed Charmaine at that time because
654
00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:25.989
he physically wasn't around, he was in jail.
655
00:39:26.809 --> 00:39:28.690
I didn't think the trial had gone well for Rose
656
00:39:29.510 --> 00:39:32.050
and the jury took quite a long time. It wasn't
657
00:39:32.130 --> 00:39:35.690
a five-minute decision. It was many hours. They thought about
658
00:39:35.730 --> 00:39:39.530
everything very carefully. They came back and it was pretty
659
00:39:39.570 --> 00:39:43.570
well unanimous on everything. I mean, she was totally defeated.
660
00:39:44.309 --> 00:39:48.769
When the first guilty verdicts came back, Rose did not flicker.
661
00:39:49.869 --> 00:39:53.250
Not a sign of emotion. She just simply stood there.
662
00:39:55.070 --> 00:39:59.090
There was no histrionics, no shouting, no screaming. There was
663
00:39:59.130 --> 00:40:03.750
no sign of any emotion at all, really. And I
664
00:40:03.789 --> 00:40:05.909
was left with the overwhelming feeling that one had been
665
00:40:05.929 --> 00:40:10.730
in the presence of someone who had lost contact with humanity.
666
00:40:11.710 --> 00:40:16.239
Sentencing her, the judge, Mr Justice Mantell, recommended that Rose
667
00:40:16.320 --> 00:40:20.309
West should never be released. she was immediately returned to
668
00:40:20.349 --> 00:40:21.150
Holloway Prison.
669
00:40:21.630 --> 00:40:24.550
Rose has never confessed to me. Whether she's made any
670
00:40:24.630 --> 00:40:27.309
kind of confession to anybody else, I don't know, but.
671
00:40:27.230 --> 00:40:28.179
She certainly hasn't to me.
672
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:33.980
I would say that tacitly, she, at various stages, gave
673
00:40:34.019 --> 00:40:38.800
the impression to me, with hindsight, that she knew that,
674
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:41.719
you know, under the floor in Cromwell Street, there were
675
00:40:41.739 --> 00:40:47.010
a lot of secrets. That's slightly different to saying... that
676
00:40:47.159 --> 00:40:51.230
she murdered people. But then the nature of the case,
677
00:40:52.090 --> 00:40:53.170
it was circumstantial.
678
00:40:53.170 --> 00:40:57.289
300 miles from Gloucester, Rosemary West en route to the
679
00:40:57.329 --> 00:40:59.250
prison that will be home for a lifetime.
680
00:41:00.650 --> 00:41:04.789
Today, Rose West is serving life imprisonment at Lone Newton
681
00:41:04.869 --> 00:41:12.530
Prison in Durham. In 1996, a year after 25 Cromwell
682
00:41:12.570 --> 00:41:15.719
Street had given up its grisly secrets, it was demolished.
683
00:41:16.380 --> 00:41:19.480
In its place is now a public walkway, but nothing
684
00:41:19.519 --> 00:41:22.599
can erase the painful memories of Fred and Rose West
685
00:41:23.070 --> 00:41:24.369
and their house of horrors.
686
00:41:28.170 --> 00:41:30.449
This certainly was a unique case in my experience, and
687
00:41:30.530 --> 00:41:33.769
I was involved as a detective investigating murders right back
688
00:41:33.789 --> 00:41:36.349
in the 1960s, and this is on a scale that's
689
00:41:36.449 --> 00:41:39.619
completely different. And I think in terms of its complexity,
690
00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:43.480
I think, again, it probably stands out as unique in
691
00:41:43.780 --> 00:41:46.630
criminal history. They were all young women who had their
692
00:41:46.670 --> 00:41:49.250
lives in front of them and it was cut short
693
00:41:49.809 --> 00:41:53.989
for just brutal and selfish self-gratification of Fred and Rose.
694
00:41:54.929 --> 00:41:57.090
I've never for one moment doubted that Frederick West was
695
00:41:57.130 --> 00:42:00.820
a truly evil man. I think he was born and bred.
696
00:42:01.639 --> 00:42:04.340
I think he only ever thought of himself. He was
697
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:08.000
a psychopath and a sociopath. No concern for society, no
698
00:42:08.039 --> 00:42:11.380
concern for anybody but himself. But he found in Rose
699
00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:13.219
the perfect sorcerer's apprentice.
700
00:42:14.429 --> 00:42:17.880
Many of us reflect on serial killer couples and say, well,
701
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:20.139
if they had never met one another, would they have
702
00:42:20.199 --> 00:42:22.920
gone on to kill? We know that Fred had already
703
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:25.780
committed one murder before he met Rose. So I think
704
00:42:25.820 --> 00:42:28.400
he would have killed again. When we look at Rose,
705
00:42:28.659 --> 00:42:31.170
I think she would have certainly gone on to harm
706
00:42:31.210 --> 00:42:36.190
other people, whether that was emotionally, financially, a non-physical kind
707
00:42:36.230 --> 00:42:39.750
of harm. But I think having Fred in her life
708
00:42:39.969 --> 00:42:42.800
opened up the door to a different kind of harm,
709
00:42:42.820 --> 00:42:43.940
a different kind of abuse.
710
00:42:45.559 --> 00:42:48.059
I've never been in any doubt that Fred and Rose
711
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:51.980
committed far more than 12 murders. I've always believed there
712
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:54.659
are other victims and they were buried in other places
713
00:42:54.760 --> 00:42:57.320
or concealed in other places. But to be fair to
714
00:42:57.340 --> 00:43:00.739
Gloucester Police, they can't dig up Gloucestershire in the effort
715
00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:01.800
to find more victims.
716
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.800
Speculation about other possible victims of Fred and Rose West
717
00:43:05.820 --> 00:43:09.469
will always remain. Theirs is a case whose shockwaves continue
718
00:43:09.510 --> 00:43:13.619
to reverberate around the world even today. The sheer depravity
719
00:43:13.719 --> 00:43:17.019
and the unimaginable terror of their victims is why we
720
00:43:17.059 --> 00:43:20.530
should remember them, not Fred and Rose and their house
721
00:43:20.769 --> 00:43:21.289
of horror.
1
00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:00.790
You going to book me?
2
00:00:01.070 --> 00:00:01.909
I've got a mug here.
3
00:00:01.929 --> 00:00:04.009
Is that gorgeous or what, eh?
4
00:00:05.209 --> 00:00:07.169
And I believe I can run to deep American.
5
00:00:08.470 --> 00:00:14.570
Download Vele now.
6
00:00:14.570 --> 00:00:16.989
25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester has become one of the
7
00:00:17.030 --> 00:00:20.750
most infamous addresses in Britain. For 20 years, Fred and
8
00:00:20.789 --> 00:00:24.550
Rose West quenched their appetite for sex and murder inside
9
00:00:24.589 --> 00:00:28.929
this house of unimaginable horror. When police began investigating the
10
00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:31.780
disappearance of their daughter, it led them right to the
11
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West front door. Detectives were only just beginning to unearth
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the murderous history of Fred and Rose West.
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It was on a scale that was really unprecedented.
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Children are their things to play with. They are disposable.
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They're things there to be used and abused.
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I've never for one moment doubted that Frederick West was
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a truly evil man. But he found in Rose the
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perfect sorcerer's apprentice.
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This is the story of how Fred and Rose West
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became two of the world's most evil killers. Fred and
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Rose West are one of the most notorious couples in
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British history. For two decades, they sexually abused, tortured and
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murdered nine women, including their own daughter, in their house
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of horrors, and between them were responsible for another three
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victims buried around Gloucestershire. When the news broke in February 1994,
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the media were only scratching the surface of the couple's
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terrifying life behind the closed door of 25 Cromwell Street.
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Five days and nights into their excavation and forensic teams
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have now unearthed three sets of human remains, all buried
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in separate places five feet under the garden patio of
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this Gloucester home.
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It's horrible to think that there are, you know, dead
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bodies in a garden just down the road. It's just
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thoroughly disgusting. I mean, it's horrifying to think. Totally shocking,
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especially around, you know, in Gloucester. I mean, you wouldn't
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expect this to happen.
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But Fred and Rose's horrifying story began many years before.
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In 1969, 28-year-old Fred West was married to his wife, Rena,
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with a young family of his own. But he had
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his eye on a 15-year-old girl named Rosemary Letts. Rose
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and her family had recently moved to the Gloucestershire area,
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whereas Fred was born and raised in the local village
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of Muchmarkle.
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Well, Fred was the eldest boy in the family, and
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he was very much the target for quite a lot
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of abuse at the hands of his mother. So his
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mother sexually abused him, essentially, and he lost his virginity
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to her. And the family was a very self-contained one.
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Rose's childhood was similar to Fred's in many ways, in
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that it was completely dysfunctional and antisocial and abnormal. So
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she was abused by her father. who started raping her
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from a very young age. So what she took to
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be normal, what she took to be acceptable in terms
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of behavior within a family really was anything but.
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Fred pursued Rose. He was used to getting what he wanted.
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When the couple met, there was instant attraction.
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Rose lived in the same village that Fred had a caravan.
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They met at the bus station in Cheltenham. She said
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that he could charm the birds off the trees, even
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though his appearance was shabby. He had not very clean teeth.
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Well, these were two incredibly damaged people. They'd both come
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from abnormal families. And I think when they met, what
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they saw in each other was something familiar. So they
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both would have realized that the childhoods that they had
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were far from normal. But with one another, they felt
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that familiarity.
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Maybe it was something that Rose gave off implicitly. but
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something in Fred connected with what had happened to Rose
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and the way she was and the way she'd been
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treated by her father.
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And it was like a union of two souls.
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I think it was the perfect storm. The chances of
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these two people meeting was, it must have been a
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million to one, but unfortunately they did.
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By 1970, just a year after meeting, they were living
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together in Gloucester with Fred's stepdaughter, Charmaine. His wife, Rena,
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was nowhere to be seen. Rose was pregnant with the
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couple's first daughter, Heather.
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I think in the early days, perhaps the more dominant
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partner was Fred. He was older, he was more experienced,
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he'd seen more than Rose had. You know, she'd come
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from this incredibly contained family. But I think as their
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relationship developed... she started to find her feet and find
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her confidence, and I don't think that Fred ever really
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trusted her.
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For Rose and Fred, it was all about sex from
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the very, very beginning. Fred was the originator, but he
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found the perfect sorcerer's apprentice, the perfect partner, someone who
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shared his lust and someone who understood him and wanted
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to perform for him.
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I think we have a lot of trouble making sense
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of Fred and Rose's relationship and the reason for that
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is because we are people with emotions and normal feelings
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and ideas of what acceptable and unacceptable boundaries are around relationships.
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So I don't think I'd describe their relationship as a
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loving one.
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Fred and Rose's traumatic childhoods had a lasting effect on
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the couple and their twisted approach to family life together.
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It's always a very complicated question to answer how many children.
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Fred and Rose actually had.
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Because if you count Fred's daughter Charmaine, along with Fred
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and Rose's eight, it's nine.
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But then you've got to add Rose's three mixed-race children,
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all of whom were fathered not by Fred.
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All I would say is that all of them were
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deeply hurt, almost ruined by the parents themselves.
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I think Rose's early experiences within the family of being
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abused by her father wrote the script for what would
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later play out. So what she took to be normal,
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what she took as boundaries and rules, really weren't going
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to work in the wider world. So what she was
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learning about in those early years would set her up
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to be somebody who didn't quite fit in.
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And it was, to some extent, what Fred then adopted as.
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a family habit. It was, if you like, a West tradition.
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I don't mean to say that that wasn't disgraceful, but
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it is nevertheless part of the family history and helps,
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helps to explain something of West's behaviour.
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Two decades later, it's 1992 and Gloucestershire police are searching
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for Heather West. In 1987, aged just 16, Fred and
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Rosie's eldest child vanish from the family home. Fred had
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claimed Heather had run away, but she was never reported
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as missing. But after receiving allegations of child abuse at
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25 Cromwell Street, detectives began to look into Heather's whereabouts.
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Chief Constable Tony Butler was in charge of Gloucestershire Police.
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One of the children told a friend at school about
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what was happening to her. That friend talked to a
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patrolling police officer, in fact, about what her friend had
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told her, and it was a result of what the police...
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The police officer then took that back and it initiated
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a child protection process which led to the evidence being gathered.
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Five of the West's children were placed into care and
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the police began their investigations. They were interviewed about the
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darker side of their lives at 25 Cromwell Street.
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What it brought to light was a family joke. And
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the family joke was a simple one. You'd better watch
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out because if you don't shut up and stop causing
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your dad or your mum any trouble, you'll end up
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like Heather, two down and three across in the patio.
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Fred had laid a patio behind Cornwall Street, it was
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in squares, which was rather like a crossword. The family
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joke was that he buried Heather at two down and
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three across.
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This issue, this Heather's under the patio, continued to be raised.
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And so we started to take this point seriously. We
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knew Heather had disappeared, had left the home, So we
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tried to trace her, and despite a massive amount of
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inquiry to try and find out, she just literally disappeared
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off the face of the earth.
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In February 1994, the police decided to find out if
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the family joke was more serious than the children realised.
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Armed with a warrant, they began to dig under the
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patio of 25 Cromwell Street.
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When they arrived with the warrant, Fred and Rose were
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at the house and they went into the back garden
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and the officers started digging the garden.
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Sensing the end was nigh, Fred asked to be interviewed
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by police.
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Fred asked the officer if they could go down to
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the police station and so they left. Fred said that
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he admitted that Heather's remains were in the garden but
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the police were looking in the wrong place. And later
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that day, he returned with the officers and he indicated
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where where he thought Heather was buried. The following day,
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officers digging in that area recovered a femur, and that
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was taken for examination by the forensic pathologist, who confirmed
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it was human remains, and that turned out to be
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one of Heather's remains.
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Rose was being questioned at Cheltenham Police Station when the
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news reached her and her solicitor, Leo Goatley.
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When Rose was told that Heather's remains had been found,
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she gasped loudly and was very distraught. How do you
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interpret that? Was that a mother's shock and distress, Or
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was it a murderer's distress at being found out? At
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that time, I believe that she was shocked and distressed
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and that she didn't know the extent of Fred's activities. And,
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of course, at that stage, it wasn't about serial killing,
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it was about Heather. But, of course, the thing unravelled
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pretty quickly with the excavation.
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The police found more than they'd bargained for under the
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patio at 25 Cromwell Street.
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When they found.
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remains they found not just two legs or two thigh
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bones but three the interrogating detective said to west well
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unless heather had three legs there's another body oh yes
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fred says without drawing breath or hesitating that must be
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the other girl that would be shirley.
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The police were about to unearth all the secrets that
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Fred and Rose West had been hiding at 25 Cromwell
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Street for over two decades. Secrets that would shock the
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entire nation. Fred told the investigating officers the other body
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was of his former lover, Shirley Robinson. Shirley hadn't been
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seen since 1978. When she disappeared, she was heavily pregnant
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with Fred's child. West also admitted that police would find
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a third body in the garden who he claimed was
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a friend of Shirley's. Throughout the questioning, he insisted on
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one thing, that his wife Rose knew nothing about any
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of the bodies.
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I think when Fred was protesting Rose's innocence and taking
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the blame completely upon himself, I think, yes, at that point,
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the power had changed in their relationship from him being
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the dominant one in the early years to her really
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putting the strings in those later years. And I think
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he really didn't trust her at this point in time.
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He was really quite afraid of what she might do.
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So I think that that was definitely something that had
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flipped in this relationship.
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Well, I found him quite a creepy bloke. He would
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always be trying to endear himself to people in a
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rather smarmy way, a little kind of, giggle, making light
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of things but he was very unconvincing doing that and
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he would very quickly realise if you weren't impressed by
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him and then he would withdraw and I would sense
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there was this other side to him that would scowl
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00:12:49.620 --> 00:12:53.250
and be probably quite nasty whatever his sort of murky
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machinations within his mind were once he realised he was
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00:12:57.070 --> 00:13:03.169
probably better able to actually charm women than blokes It's
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00:13:03.669 --> 00:13:08.299
possible that with a little smile and some sort of
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00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:12.620
soft talk he was able to persuade some young women
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00:13:12.659 --> 00:13:14.639
that he was safe to be around.
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To make things more complicated, Fred's story kept changing. He
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00:13:19.590 --> 00:13:23.710
alternated between admitting and denying the killings and told detectives
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00:13:23.750 --> 00:13:26.950
that all the deaths were accidental. He wanted to get
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00:13:27.029 --> 00:13:30.169
charged with manslaughter and not murder. It would be a
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00:13:30.269 --> 00:13:33.049
hard job for pathologists to prove otherwise.
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It's very difficult when somebody's been buried for years... to
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00:13:38.879 --> 00:13:41.120
look at them in detail as a pathologist. You haven't
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00:13:41.159 --> 00:13:43.210
got the skin, you haven't got the muscles, you haven't
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00:13:43.230 --> 00:13:46.210
got the organs, the things that you'd see injury or
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00:13:46.250 --> 00:13:50.789
disease in, so you really have to comment on what
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00:13:50.830 --> 00:13:54.340
may not be there. It makes a pathologist's job a
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00:13:54.360 --> 00:13:54.840
lot harder.
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Finding the cause of death was difficult, and so was
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identifying the third victim buried under the patio. There were
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00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:07.659
approximately 10,000 missing women recorded at the time. By using
236
00:14:07.740 --> 00:14:12.799
dental records, experts identified the third victim as Alison Chambers,
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00:14:13.019 --> 00:14:17.409
who was just 16 when she went missing in 1979,
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meaning she cannot have been a friend of Shirley Robinson,
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00:14:20.870 --> 00:14:25.129
as Fred suggested. Marks found on her body proved beyond
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doubt she'd been tortured.
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Someone's behavior is more in the realm of psychology than pathology,
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00:14:32.809 --> 00:14:36.409
but quite clearly, there's potentially the aspect of torture there
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00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:42.490
of sexual violence, and when a pathologist sees findings like that,
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00:14:43.570 --> 00:14:46.610
we're looking away from manslaughter and more into some sort
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00:14:46.649 --> 00:14:48.110
of act of cruelty.
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This proved that West hadn't accidentally killed these young women.
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He'd tortured, sexually assaulted, and intentionally murdered them. But was
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00:14:58.399 --> 00:15:02.240
Fred doing this without Rose knowing? The police weren't convinced.
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The most important thing, of course, was that these bodies
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00:15:05.289 --> 00:15:09.169
were recovered in the house that she shared with Fred.
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And it would appear inconceivable that she wouldn't have had
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knowledge of this.
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The house itself was very, very small.
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It would have been inconceivable that you could have kept
255
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a young woman or women in that house without every
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00:15:27.580 --> 00:15:30.429
occupant knowing that something was going on. No matter how
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00:15:30.470 --> 00:15:32.950
much tape you would have put over their mouths, no
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matter how much they'd been concealed in the cellar, you
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00:15:36.649 --> 00:15:37.049
would know.
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It would have been impossible not to know.
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The police began to look into missing persons' files to
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try and find any more potential victims. But with about 10,000
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00:15:47.720 --> 00:15:51.139
missing women in the country, it was a seemingly endless search.
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Throughout that time, we were trying to trace people from
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children's homes to make sure they were safe. We were
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dealing with forensic materials, I mean, massive amounts of forensic material, searching.
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It was on a scale that was really unprecedented.
268
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Two of the missing people stood out. Lucy Partington, a
269
00:16:09.009 --> 00:16:11.990
21-year-old student last seen at a bus stop in Gloucester
270
00:16:12.110 --> 00:16:16.950
in 1973, and Linda Goff, a 19-year-old who went missing
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00:16:16.970 --> 00:16:21.509
in the same year. Her last known address, 25 Cromwell Street.
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Fred and Rose adopted a sort of modus operandi.
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They would identify young women on the run if you
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like run away from home run away from a children's
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00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:38.220
home run away from their parents they were vulnerable they
276
00:16:38.259 --> 00:16:42.700
would offer them a home and time after time Fred
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00:16:42.740 --> 00:16:46.470
would pick up with Rose often at bus stops young
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00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:47.909
women who looked a little lost.
279
00:16:48.590 --> 00:16:51.330
So they would always choose people who would be in
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00:16:51.370 --> 00:16:54.429
that position of vulnerability And the fact that they were
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00:16:54.470 --> 00:16:57.149
a couple, I think, was quite helpful to them in
282
00:16:57.230 --> 00:17:00.750
luring victims in because the women that they targeted would
283
00:17:00.769 --> 00:17:04.210
be more likely to trust a couple. So when they
284
00:17:04.230 --> 00:17:07.410
would pick somebody up who was hitchhiking, that played to
285
00:17:07.450 --> 00:17:09.329
that idea of, well, there's a woman there, so I'm
286
00:17:09.349 --> 00:17:10.029
going to be safe.
287
00:17:10.890 --> 00:17:13.089
Rose already knew the language of grooming.
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She was quite used to it.
289
00:17:14.269 --> 00:17:16.650
And when you hear the victims talk about how she
290
00:17:16.710 --> 00:17:21.089
spoke to them in this sort of quite soft, pleasing voice,
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00:17:21.289 --> 00:17:24.849
you knew that, again, that was something she had learned.
292
00:17:27.269 --> 00:17:30.730
Linda Goff was never officially reported as missing, but her
293
00:17:30.789 --> 00:17:33.690
family searched for her at the time of her disappearance.
294
00:17:34.329 --> 00:17:38.950
Linda Goff's mother, she'd been round to the house, knocked
295
00:17:39.019 --> 00:17:41.680
on the door, and had been answered by Rose West.
296
00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:45.259
And she asked where Linda was, and she was told
297
00:17:45.319 --> 00:17:48.609
that she'd gone away, I think, to Western Supermare. She
298
00:17:48.650 --> 00:17:51.109
was struck by the fact that there was Rose standing
299
00:17:51.150 --> 00:17:56.390
there with her Linda slippers, wearing Linda's slippers, and she
300
00:17:56.450 --> 00:18:00.029
also noticed on the clothesline there were articles of Linda's clothing.
301
00:18:02.049 --> 00:18:05.109
Linda's mother believed Rose when she said her daughter had
302
00:18:05.150 --> 00:18:08.349
moved on from Cromwell Street, but as the press coverage
303
00:18:08.390 --> 00:18:12.009
began to reflect the sheer enormity of the unfolding story,
304
00:18:12.490 --> 00:18:16.279
other women who'd encountered the West came forward. the police
305
00:18:16.339 --> 00:18:19.799
got a break when Caroline Roberts contacted them to offer
306
00:18:19.940 --> 00:18:24.259
her help in the investigation. She'd seen the investigation on
307
00:18:24.299 --> 00:18:28.079
the news and revealed to police she'd been sexually assaulted
308
00:18:28.359 --> 00:18:32.859
by both Fred and Rose in 1972. She'd known them
309
00:18:32.920 --> 00:18:35.200
for a while after they picked her up while she
310
00:18:35.220 --> 00:18:38.109
was hitchhiking and even worked for them as a nanny
311
00:18:38.210 --> 00:18:42.190
for a short time. It was one horrifying incident that
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00:18:42.250 --> 00:18:44.710
caused her to lodge a complaint against them.
313
00:18:46.099 --> 00:18:48.759
They invited her back to the house, and when she
314
00:18:48.819 --> 00:18:53.119
got to the house, having been assaulted in the car
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00:18:53.200 --> 00:18:55.779
by Fred and Rose, she got back to the house,
316
00:18:56.059 --> 00:18:59.400
and she was then bound and subjected to some rather
317
00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:01.589
aggressive sexual activity.
318
00:19:02.190 --> 00:19:03.490
She managed to escape.
319
00:19:03.230 --> 00:19:06.349
Subsequently and reported it to her mom, who then told
320
00:19:06.390 --> 00:19:10.650
the police. Both Fred and Rose were arrested for rape
321
00:19:10.690 --> 00:19:12.549
and other serious sexual offenses.
322
00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:15.720
At the time, she was scared to face them at
323
00:19:15.779 --> 00:19:18.900
a trial and ashamed at what had happened. The West
324
00:19:18.940 --> 00:19:22.319
were charged with indecent exposure instead of rape. They were
325
00:19:22.359 --> 00:19:26.880
fined £ 100. But with the information Caroline gave to the police,
326
00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:29.950
they could link Rose to the crimes and bodies at
327
00:19:30.029 --> 00:19:30.769
Cromwell Street.
328
00:19:32.269 --> 00:19:34.930
So we had that evidence that there was an aggressive
329
00:19:35.250 --> 00:19:39.349
sexual nature to her personality. The details of sexual activity
330
00:19:39.369 --> 00:19:42.990
that had taken place had evidence a number of similarities,
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00:19:43.069 --> 00:19:46.980
particularly talking about bindings and gags and so on, that
332
00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:51.109
were very similar, if not identical, to the material that
333
00:19:51.130 --> 00:19:55.059
was recovered in association with the victims when they were discovered.
334
00:19:55.779 --> 00:19:59.859
This case was much more about the accounts of people
335
00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:04.079
and what the survivors were saying than what the pathology
336
00:20:04.119 --> 00:20:08.490
can tell you. There are things that They could say
337
00:20:08.559 --> 00:20:10.900
that the bodies were no longer able to speak to
338
00:20:11.880 --> 00:20:15.250
and that was a bigger element of this case than
339
00:20:15.269 --> 00:20:18.420
maybe the physical findings by the pathologist.
340
00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:23.940
On March 4th, 1994, police moved their search inside the house.
341
00:20:24.299 --> 00:20:26.579
They had a feeling that down in the dark cellar,
342
00:20:26.819 --> 00:20:30.170
they may uncover even more bodies. On the same day,
343
00:20:30.250 --> 00:20:33.470
when news reached Fred West at Gloucester Police Station, he
344
00:20:33.529 --> 00:20:37.230
made a stunning admission in a handwritten note given to detectives.
345
00:20:37.619 --> 00:20:42.380
It read... I, Frederick West, authorise my solicitor, Howard Ogden,
346
00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:45.759
to advise Superintendent Bennett that I wish to admit to
347
00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:51.200
a further, a prox, nine killings. Expressly, Charmaine, Rena, Linda
348
00:20:51.220 --> 00:20:54.660
Goff and others to be identified. Signed, F.
349
00:20:54.720 --> 00:20:55.019
West.
350
00:20:56.119 --> 00:20:58.789
Can you imagine the scene? It almost defies belief.
351
00:20:59.450 --> 00:21:02.009
They weren't sitting across the table from a monster, a
352
00:21:02.130 --> 00:21:05.589
huge man with bare hands and able to kill a
353
00:21:06.670 --> 00:21:12.420
little insignificant chap. who nevertheless confesses to nine murders. It's
354
00:21:12.460 --> 00:21:16.789
at that point the police realise, I think probably for
355
00:21:16.829 --> 00:21:20.750
the first time, that they are dealing with someone truly evil.
356
00:21:21.730 --> 00:21:23.869
Fred was again taken back to the house and he
357
00:21:23.930 --> 00:21:28.579
indicated where some of the bodies had been buried, particularly
358
00:21:28.619 --> 00:21:31.180
the area of the cellar. And so what happened then
359
00:21:31.259 --> 00:21:34.779
was that we undertook a methodical search of the whole property.
360
00:21:35.470 --> 00:21:39.220
Fred maintained a position that Rose was not involved in
361
00:21:39.259 --> 00:21:42.019
these cases. You know, that's the inference that he was
362
00:21:42.039 --> 00:21:43.119
trying to keep her out of it.
363
00:21:43.660 --> 00:21:47.400
Fred took the rap for it. They had an agreement
364
00:21:47.460 --> 00:21:50.039
that she would stand by him and visit him and
365
00:21:50.500 --> 00:21:53.539
he'd hoped to be out in so many years. But
366
00:21:53.619 --> 00:21:57.420
the minute Rose heard that he'd actually admitted to the
367
00:21:57.480 --> 00:22:02.220
murders and she dropped him, he was gone. And she
368
00:22:02.259 --> 00:22:05.049
never spoke to him again. She absolutely refused to have
369
00:22:05.670 --> 00:22:06.950
any contact with him.
370
00:22:09.630 --> 00:22:13.440
On March the 5th, 1994, the world's media had descended
371
00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:16.099
upon the home of Fred and Rose West in Gloucester.
372
00:22:16.660 --> 00:22:19.900
Police had exhumed three bodies from their back garden, their
373
00:22:19.920 --> 00:22:24.549
daughter Heather, Fred's pregnant lover Shirley Robinson, and missing teenager
374
00:22:24.650 --> 00:22:28.970
Alison Chambers. Now detectives were moving their search inside the
375
00:22:29.009 --> 00:22:33.359
property and began excavating the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.
376
00:22:34.920 --> 00:22:37.940
We started the excavations in the cellar. It was a
377
00:22:38.019 --> 00:22:42.579
difficult place to do excavations, and we had to be
378
00:22:42.599 --> 00:22:46.480
very careful about recovering the bodies. And on the first day,
379
00:22:46.549 --> 00:22:49.710
we did find two sets of human remains. One turned
380
00:22:49.809 --> 00:22:54.390
out to be Theresa Siegenhaler, and the second remains were
381
00:22:54.410 --> 00:22:58.279
Shirley Hubbard. It was clear to pathologists that much had
382
00:22:58.319 --> 00:23:01.180
been done to try and hide the identity of all
383
00:23:01.240 --> 00:23:02.079
the murdered girls.
384
00:23:03.400 --> 00:23:07.180
With Fred and Rose's victims, one of their hallmarks, as
385
00:23:07.220 --> 00:23:09.980
it were, was that the fingers and toes were removed.
386
00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:13.980
I think we can hypothesise that there may be different
387
00:23:14.039 --> 00:23:18.160
reasons for that simple cruelty would be one, but obviously
388
00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:21.230
most people know that fingerprints are a very good way
389
00:23:21.269 --> 00:23:26.720
to identify somebody, so removing them, particularly in the 60s, 70s, 80s,
390
00:23:26.890 --> 00:23:29.130
before DNA technology.
391
00:23:28.589 --> 00:23:30.680
Was really recognised... would.
392
00:23:30.519 --> 00:23:33.380
Be a way to limit the chances of that person
393
00:23:33.400 --> 00:23:34.279
being identified.
394
00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:38.930
And that was one of our difficulties when we were
395
00:23:38.950 --> 00:23:42.390
doing the investigation, trying to identify the human remains, and
396
00:23:42.430 --> 00:23:46.349
in particular Teresa's remains, because there was no evidence she'd
397
00:23:46.369 --> 00:23:49.720
been anywhere near Gloucestershire. But we were able, in liaison
398
00:23:49.759 --> 00:23:53.420
with the Metropolitan Police and the missing persons, to come
399
00:23:53.460 --> 00:23:55.799
down to sort of a short list of people that
400
00:23:55.819 --> 00:23:59.589
it could be. and then through using forensic techniques, we
401
00:23:59.609 --> 00:24:02.609
were able to be satisfied that we had identified her remains.
402
00:24:03.430 --> 00:24:07.710
As the cellar excavation continued, officers escorted Fred to a
403
00:24:07.789 --> 00:24:11.029
field near his home at Muchmarkle. He told them if
404
00:24:11.069 --> 00:24:14.349
they dug there, they'd find the body of his first wife, Rena,
405
00:24:14.650 --> 00:24:18.630
not seen since 1971, a year after Fred and Rose
406
00:24:18.690 --> 00:24:21.819
had moved in together. Rena and Fred had been married
407
00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:24.779
for nine years, but she was never reported missing.
408
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:26.099
So he was taken out.
409
00:24:26.430 --> 00:24:30.569
To the fields, and he pointed out, in one field,
410
00:24:31.170 --> 00:24:35.009
fairly close to a hedge line, where he said that
411
00:24:35.049 --> 00:24:37.589
he'd buried Rina Costello.
412
00:24:40.750 --> 00:24:43.250
There were now six victims, and back in the cellar
413
00:24:43.289 --> 00:24:47.730
at Cromwell Street, even more bodies were being exhumed. Juanita Marta,
414
00:24:47.769 --> 00:24:52.609
former lodger at the house, missing since 1975, and Carol Cooper,
415
00:24:52.650 --> 00:24:56.859
last seen walking home from the cinema in 1973. plus
416
00:24:56.900 --> 00:24:59.319
two familiar names the police had been looking out for,
417
00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:03.660
Lucy Partington and buried under the family bathroom, Linda Goff.
418
00:25:04.660 --> 00:25:07.029
This was a tragedy for these young women.
419
00:25:07.420 --> 00:25:08.170
I mean, all.
420
00:25:08.049 --> 00:25:10.869
Murders are tragic for the victims and their families, but
421
00:25:10.930 --> 00:25:12.890
it was the scale of this, I think, that took
422
00:25:12.910 --> 00:25:17.529
the media's attention. I mean, it's almost incomprehensible that two
423
00:25:17.609 --> 00:25:22.559
people could abduct young women or lure them to their
424
00:25:22.599 --> 00:25:27.329
house and subsequently, you know, sexually abuse them and then
425
00:25:27.390 --> 00:25:29.190
kill them. I mean, it is on a scale that's
426
00:25:29.250 --> 00:25:30.450
almost incomprehensible.
427
00:25:33.549 --> 00:25:37.029
By the 8th of March 1994, less than two weeks
428
00:25:37.130 --> 00:25:40.609
after beginning their search at Cromwell Street, police had found
429
00:25:40.710 --> 00:25:44.309
ten victims. Most of them had been buried two decades
430
00:25:44.390 --> 00:25:47.569
ago when Fred and Rose were at their most prolific.
431
00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:53.599
Aside from the sexual element to the murders, they were becoming,
432
00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:57.170
I'd say, maybe closer in a way, but I don't
433
00:25:57.190 --> 00:25:59.369
know whether closer is the best word to use to
434
00:25:59.410 --> 00:26:02.710
describe that. I think they were becoming more cut off
435
00:26:02.970 --> 00:26:04.950
from the rest of the world. This was something that
436
00:26:05.430 --> 00:26:08.029
only the two of them understood. It was something that
437
00:26:08.069 --> 00:26:10.339
we refer to as a folly, a duh, a madness
438
00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:12.359
shared by two. So I think it was kind of
439
00:26:12.440 --> 00:26:14.500
cementing their relationship.
440
00:26:15.119 --> 00:26:19.390
They were to him no more than sexual implements. a
441
00:26:19.470 --> 00:26:21.170
kind of doll, if you like.
442
00:26:21.210 --> 00:26:23.819
I know it's a horrifying thought, but they had no
443
00:26:23.859 --> 00:26:26.880
more humanity for him than that. He was a man
444
00:26:26.940 --> 00:26:31.539
capable of absolutely no conscience and absolutely no remorse. And
445
00:26:31.779 --> 00:26:35.319
everything he did was with Rose's help. And the thought
446
00:26:35.359 --> 00:26:38.609
of having some young woman hung up in the cellar, literally,
447
00:26:39.230 --> 00:26:44.509
by her hands, and a hook for Fred and Rose to.
448
00:26:44.430 --> 00:26:47.430
Abuse when they wanted to over a period of days.
449
00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:51.640
Almost devised belief. It is that horrifying.
450
00:26:52.980 --> 00:26:56.700
Nine bodies had been exhumed from Cromwell Street and one more,
451
00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.980
that of Rena West, Fred's first wife, in a field
452
00:27:00.049 --> 00:27:02.829
near Much Markle. But Fred wasn't finished.
453
00:27:03.430 --> 00:27:04.690
Although he didn't admit to.
454
00:27:04.690 --> 00:27:07.410
Killing her, he told police he had a feeling that
455
00:27:07.690 --> 00:27:11.750
Rena's friend, Anne McFall, might be buried in a neighbouring field.
456
00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:16.980
She's believed to be Fred's first victim, killed in 1967
457
00:27:16.980 --> 00:27:18.599
when she was six months pregnant.
458
00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:22.420
As he did with all his killings, he dismembered the
459
00:27:22.460 --> 00:27:23.720
bodies before he buried them.
460
00:27:24.160 --> 00:27:25.740
So he didn't bury them in a skeleton.
461
00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:29.640
He buried them in a tube, if you like, in
462
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:34.680
which the body was compressed, the torso, head separated, arms
463
00:27:34.740 --> 00:27:38.880
and legs separated and shoved into a smaller hole. It
464
00:27:38.940 --> 00:27:42.180
made the search for those bodies a very complicated affair.
465
00:27:42.509 --> 00:27:46.009
The problem with Anne McFall's body was that the whole
466
00:27:46.029 --> 00:27:48.710
land had been re-landscaped, and so there was this topsoil
467
00:27:48.890 --> 00:27:51.769
that had been put on there. Now, when you're looking
468
00:27:51.849 --> 00:27:55.230
for human remains, you can't just bring a big digger
469
00:27:55.319 --> 00:27:56.079
in and.
470
00:27:56.059 --> 00:27:56.799
Shove it all out.
471
00:27:56.839 --> 00:28:00.339
You are literally doing it by spadefuls and sieving every spadeful.
472
00:28:01.079 --> 00:28:03.799
And we actually excavated.
473
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:06.160
A hole the size of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. We
474
00:28:06.180 --> 00:28:08.059
were almost giving up hope that we were going to
475
00:28:08.099 --> 00:28:10.160
find the body, and we set a deadline for ourselves
476
00:28:10.180 --> 00:28:12.549
that if we didn't find them by date X... Then
477
00:28:12.589 --> 00:28:15.789
we were stopped, but fortunately, a couple of days before
478
00:28:15.839 --> 00:28:19.039
that deadline came in, we found some bones and then
479
00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:21.079
subsequently recovered the body.
480
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:25.200
During the two months of digging for Ann McFall's remains,
481
00:28:25.259 --> 00:28:28.380
the police had arrested and charged Rose West with murder.
482
00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:32.900
For each victim, she claimed, I'm innocent. The police's evidence
483
00:28:32.940 --> 00:28:36.220
was circumstantial, and defense lawyers felt there wasn't enough to
484
00:28:36.259 --> 00:28:37.619
connect her to the murders.
485
00:28:39.789 --> 00:28:42.089
Rose West said, I had nothing to do with this.
486
00:28:42.650 --> 00:28:45.329
And the Crown are saying, well, we've got a statement
487
00:28:45.369 --> 00:28:48.690
from so-and-so who says that you were involved in an
488
00:28:48.789 --> 00:28:52.670
abduction and sexual abuse. Well, to a point you say, well,
489
00:28:53.049 --> 00:28:56.750
so what? What's that got to do with murder? Fred
490
00:28:56.809 --> 00:28:59.750
had said in his interviews, he fully admitted them and
491
00:28:59.789 --> 00:29:03.299
said Rose had nothing to do with them. So the
492
00:29:03.670 --> 00:29:08.099
first point is to say, well, what is the strength
493
00:29:08.140 --> 00:29:11.970
of the case against Rose? She's denying it. Where's the
494
00:29:12.029 --> 00:29:13.369
proof that she was involved?
495
00:29:17.529 --> 00:29:21.400
While police continued their search at Cromwell Street, they also
496
00:29:21.500 --> 00:29:25.660
turned their attention to a second address, 25 Midland Road,
497
00:29:26.019 --> 00:29:30.980
Fred and Rose's first home together in Gloucester. Investigators believe
498
00:29:31.019 --> 00:29:34.230
that somewhere in the house or garden, they might find
499
00:29:34.269 --> 00:29:38.009
the body of Charmaine West, Fred's stepdaughter from his marriage
500
00:29:38.049 --> 00:29:40.920
to Rena. An extensive investigation search began.
501
00:29:40.940 --> 00:29:46.700
At the time of Charmaine's death, she was living at
502
00:29:46.700 --> 00:29:50.599
25 Midland Road, a house that subsequently Fred and Rose
503
00:29:51.059 --> 00:29:55.059
had left. But we went to the house and, again,
504
00:29:55.180 --> 00:30:00.200
excavating under the floor of the kitchen, we found Charmaine's body.
505
00:30:01.019 --> 00:30:03.799
Charmaine hadn't been seen since she was 8 years old
506
00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:07.519
in 1971 and hadn't been reported as missing. In the
507
00:30:07.559 --> 00:30:10.039
same year, Fred was in jail for 9 months for
508
00:30:10.079 --> 00:30:14.289
motoring offences and stealing fence panels from his then-employer. The
509
00:30:14.329 --> 00:30:17.849
police were convinced they'd finally got a breakthrough. They were
510
00:30:17.910 --> 00:30:21.490
confident Charmaine must have been murdered by Rose while Fred
511
00:30:21.549 --> 00:30:22.410
was serving time.
512
00:30:23.529 --> 00:30:27.079
Rose was jealous of Charmaine. Charmaine was a very bright
513
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:30.339
little girl and I think Rose could see that she
514
00:30:30.400 --> 00:30:32.460
was getting the upper hand of her and she didn't
515
00:30:32.500 --> 00:30:36.279
like it. The younger sister knew to keep quiet was
516
00:30:36.339 --> 00:30:39.619
best not to antagonize Rose. And Charmaine was quite a
517
00:30:39.680 --> 00:30:40.660
feisty little girl.
518
00:30:42.900 --> 00:30:48.549
So there were slight differences in the modus operandi, you know,
519
00:30:49.970 --> 00:30:53.519
certainly with the others, You can imagine Fred going about
520
00:30:53.779 --> 00:31:00.660
his work with a sort of builder's precision and routine,
521
00:31:00.680 --> 00:31:04.900
you know, severing the limbs and the head, digging a
522
00:31:05.119 --> 00:31:08.849
hole in the ground and placing them in it. Charmaine
523
00:31:08.869 --> 00:31:12.329
was different. Nevertheless, Fred was charged with Charmaine, even though
524
00:31:12.369 --> 00:31:16.269
there were, from the outset, issues about whether Fred was
525
00:31:16.369 --> 00:31:19.430
present or whether he was in prison. So there was
526
00:31:19.470 --> 00:31:24.130
always that slightly nebulous issue about how old Saiti Charmaine
527
00:31:24.170 --> 00:31:26.690
was and the dates when she died.
528
00:31:27.589 --> 00:31:31.069
With the high-profile trials imminent, the police had to somehow
529
00:31:31.170 --> 00:31:34.319
prove that Rose West was just as guilty as her
530
00:31:34.359 --> 00:31:37.759
husband Fred. But before they got a chance, there was
531
00:31:37.819 --> 00:31:43.220
a major setback in their case. In December 1994, ten
532
00:31:43.319 --> 00:31:47.119
months after police had begun to search 25 Cromwell Street
533
00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:50.069
for Heather West, the bodies of 12 young women had
534
00:31:50.089 --> 00:31:53.309
been unearthed across Gloucester. Fred West was thought to be
535
00:31:53.369 --> 00:31:56.650
responsible for all of the deaths and police were desperately
536
00:31:56.690 --> 00:31:59.549
trying to find some evidence to prove that his wife
537
00:31:59.630 --> 00:32:03.130
Rose was implicit in ten of the murders. Both had
538
00:32:03.170 --> 00:32:06.819
been arrested, charged and were awaiting trial, but on January
539
00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:10.920
1st 1995, Fred West took his secrets to the grave.
540
00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:16.299
Fred was in custody at Winston Green Prison in Birmingham
541
00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:20.359
and on the 1st of January 1995 he was found
542
00:32:20.440 --> 00:32:22.980
dead in his cell. He died from hanging and it
543
00:32:23.029 --> 00:32:25.950
was subsequently determined that he committed suicide.
544
00:32:27.049 --> 00:32:31.930
Fred West was always a cunning man. He planned his
545
00:32:32.029 --> 00:32:36.930
suicide as carefully as he concealed his bodies. He groomed
546
00:32:37.500 --> 00:32:41.000
the prison officers, into thinking that he was an absolutely safe,
547
00:32:41.299 --> 00:32:44.599
harmless little man who could do no wrong and was
548
00:32:44.700 --> 00:32:49.730
very happy to collaborate with anything they wanted. Indeed, he volunteered.
549
00:32:50.069 --> 00:32:53.470
He said, I'll mend shirts. Don't worry, give me something
550
00:32:53.509 --> 00:32:56.450
to do. Be a pastime for me while I'm waiting
551
00:32:56.490 --> 00:33:01.890
for my trial. Painstakingly, over a period of weeks, he
552
00:33:02.009 --> 00:33:06.009
stitched together a rope, partly from bits of the blanket
553
00:33:06.049 --> 00:33:10.940
on his bed, partly from pieces of shirt, very carefully,
554
00:33:11.799 --> 00:33:15.599
because he had decided that he was not going to
555
00:33:16.359 --> 00:33:20.279
trial and that he was not ever going to confess
556
00:33:21.369 --> 00:33:24.970
the true extent of what his crimes amounted to.
557
00:33:25.730 --> 00:33:30.369
There was a total loss of control by Fred over Rose,
558
00:33:30.730 --> 00:33:34.069
I've no doubt about that. She made it abundantly clear
559
00:33:34.089 --> 00:33:36.430
she wanted absolutely nothing else to do with him and
560
00:33:36.509 --> 00:33:42.220
she blanked him in the dock. Independent of his relationship
561
00:33:42.339 --> 00:33:46.700
with Rose, he lacked empathy with people. People were objects
562
00:33:46.779 --> 00:33:49.200
to be used and abused. The fact of the matter
563
00:33:49.259 --> 00:33:51.759
was he knew the game was up. He'd made the admissions,
564
00:33:51.940 --> 00:33:54.640
the remains had been found, the terrible story of those
565
00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:55.819
victims unfolded.
566
00:33:57.440 --> 00:33:59.680
For those who knew the West family, this is just
567
00:33:59.740 --> 00:34:02.799
another macabre twist in a story that first came to
568
00:34:02.859 --> 00:34:05.480
light 10 months ago. In the words of one neighbor,
569
00:34:05.880 --> 00:34:09.099
if Frederick West really did kill himself, then it seems
570
00:34:09.199 --> 00:34:12.320
almost appropriate that a man accused of taking so many
571
00:34:12.360 --> 00:34:14.840
people's lives should end up taking his own.
572
00:34:15.880 --> 00:34:19.239
Fred's suicide was a huge problem for the police. It
573
00:34:19.280 --> 00:34:21.530
put the entire case in jeopardy.
574
00:34:22.170 --> 00:34:24.929
With the death of Fred, we were concerned that the
575
00:34:24.969 --> 00:34:27.809
press might feel, well, the case against Fred is now finished,
576
00:34:28.239 --> 00:34:32.559
and therefore we can disclose information because the case is closed.
577
00:34:33.360 --> 00:34:36.219
That would have been a disaster for us because it
578
00:34:36.260 --> 00:34:39.780
would have then compromised the trial of Rose West.
579
00:34:40.420 --> 00:34:43.780
The police were desperate. While Fred had confessed to 11
580
00:34:43.780 --> 00:34:47.440
of the killings, Rose had always claimed her innocence. Without
581
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:50.599
any solid evidence, there was a real chance that Rose
582
00:34:50.679 --> 00:34:53.239
West was going to get away with murder.
583
00:34:54.280 --> 00:34:56.969
I think it's the Crown that need to... review their
584
00:34:57.030 --> 00:35:00.880
case and decide where they want to take it from here.
585
00:35:00.900 --> 00:35:02.179
I would hope.
586
00:35:02.860 --> 00:35:06.400
That they will drop the case. I thought it was
587
00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:09.699
possible the case might have been dropped. There were a
588
00:35:09.739 --> 00:35:13.139
lot of eminent observers suggesting that would be the case.
589
00:35:14.369 --> 00:35:17.369
The DPP had a different view, though. In fact, the
590
00:35:17.389 --> 00:35:22.949
case got worse against Rose. They added on the murder
591
00:35:23.070 --> 00:35:27.650
of Charmaine, which prior had been a sole charge in
592
00:35:27.670 --> 00:35:32.309
relation to Fred. I thought that was very curious. Rose
593
00:35:32.349 --> 00:35:34.190
thought the case was going to go away as well,
594
00:35:35.130 --> 00:35:35.750
but it didn't.
595
00:35:36.789 --> 00:35:40.489
Prosecutors needed proof that Rose alone was responsible for the
596
00:35:40.530 --> 00:35:44.829
death of her stepdaughter, Charmaine. They turned to forensic odontologist
597
00:35:45.050 --> 00:35:46.329
Professor David Whittaker.
598
00:35:47.530 --> 00:35:51.989
The police brilliantly discovered, I don't know how, that a
599
00:35:52.230 --> 00:35:57.929
certain newspaper, national newspaper, had acquired a set of negatives,
600
00:35:58.610 --> 00:36:04.480
and they were large professional negatives, and they showed incredible
601
00:36:04.539 --> 00:36:09.059
detail in some of the baby teeth, the deciduous teeth
602
00:36:09.119 --> 00:36:13.360
of Charmaine, which I was then able to match exactly
603
00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:20.050
using our facial superimposition technology and showed, A, that they
604
00:36:20.130 --> 00:36:26.510
matched exactly in terms of tilt and position and grooving,
605
00:36:26.969 --> 00:36:32.230
and little rough edges were a perfect match. But the
606
00:36:32.289 --> 00:36:37.190
position of the teeth had moved, so if we could
607
00:36:37.409 --> 00:36:41.880
calculate that movement and assess it, of being able to determine,
608
00:36:42.179 --> 00:36:48.460
within reasonable accuracy, the time elapsed between the photograph being taken,
609
00:36:48.980 --> 00:36:51.409
which the police had a date for, was written on
610
00:36:51.449 --> 00:36:56.289
the negatives and the time of death. And if that
611
00:36:56.369 --> 00:37:00.780
fitted into the slot where Fred West was in jail,
612
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:06.559
then clearly Mrs West had a lot of questions to answer.
613
00:37:06.599 --> 00:37:10.280
On 3rd October 1995, the world's press flocked to Winchester
614
00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:13.389
Crown Court to report on one of the most sensational
615
00:37:13.449 --> 00:37:15.090
trials of modern times.
616
00:37:15.730 --> 00:37:20.079
Rose's trial attracted Worldwide attention, as you would expect. It's
617
00:37:20.159 --> 00:37:23.320
very rare for a woman to go on trial, let
618
00:37:23.340 --> 00:37:26.460
alone for ten murders. I attended it from the first
619
00:37:26.500 --> 00:37:29.489
day to the last. It was an extraordinary event.
620
00:37:30.610 --> 00:37:33.510
As the trial began, Rose West pleaded not guilty to
621
00:37:33.590 --> 00:37:36.690
all ten counts of murder, the nine girls found buried
622
00:37:36.769 --> 00:37:40.090
at Cromwell Street and Charmaine. But the evidence against her
623
00:37:40.130 --> 00:37:41.239
was irrefutable.
624
00:37:41.940 --> 00:37:46.119
So in court, in front of Rosemary West... I had
625
00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:52.780
all the technology available to reproduce the imaging of Charmaine.
626
00:37:53.699 --> 00:37:57.079
Dreadful thing to have to do in court, but the
627
00:37:57.119 --> 00:38:02.150
judge and the prosecution insisted. So Mrs West actually saw
628
00:38:02.590 --> 00:38:07.289
this imaging developing in front of her. And I think
629
00:38:07.349 --> 00:38:09.730
it was about the only time she looked a little
630
00:38:09.769 --> 00:38:11.250
bit upset.
631
00:38:12.309 --> 00:38:13.030
She marched.
632
00:38:14.230 --> 00:38:18.269
Into the witness box like a very angry traffic warden.
633
00:38:19.570 --> 00:38:24.530
Plain shoes, weighty woman, angry demeanour. This is all an outrage.
634
00:38:24.550 --> 00:38:26.269
It was all Fred. I had nothing to do with it.
635
00:38:26.360 --> 00:38:26.969
I knew nothing.
636
00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:29.320
It was completely inconceivable I could have done this. I
637
00:38:29.360 --> 00:38:30.619
couldn't have killed my own daughter.
638
00:38:31.340 --> 00:38:32.659
A tissue of lies.
639
00:38:33.860 --> 00:38:36.340
We think of Rose West as this woman in the
640
00:38:36.400 --> 00:38:41.260
courtroom in her 40s, great big glasses that she wore,
641
00:38:41.699 --> 00:38:46.469
quite a frumpy housewife, looking. Those murders had happened a.
642
00:38:46.449 --> 00:38:47.409
Long time before then.
643
00:38:47.469 --> 00:38:49.730
She was actually very young when she committed the murder.
644
00:38:49.750 --> 00:38:52.780
She was in fact a teenage serial killer because she'd
645
00:38:52.860 --> 00:38:56.860
committed three murders before she was 20 and most of
646
00:38:56.900 --> 00:38:59.820
the murders were over by the time she was 26.
647
00:38:59.820 --> 00:39:03.480
The evidence provided by Professor Whittaker convinced the jury that
648
00:39:03.539 --> 00:39:06.500
Rosemary West was guilty of all ten murders.
649
00:39:07.219 --> 00:39:09.889
He was able to say, and the jury accepted this,
650
00:39:10.280 --> 00:39:13.489
that it that he could pinpoint within a few days
651
00:39:13.510 --> 00:39:16.760
of when the child had been killed. And we had
652
00:39:16.820 --> 00:39:20.599
evidence that Fred was in jail during that time. So
653
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:23.820
Fred could not have killed Charmaine at that time because
654
00:39:23.860 --> 00:39:25.989
he physically wasn't around, he was in jail.
655
00:39:26.809 --> 00:39:28.690
I didn't think the trial had gone well for Rose
656
00:39:29.510 --> 00:39:32.050
and the jury took quite a long time. It wasn't
657
00:39:32.130 --> 00:39:35.690
a five-minute decision. It was many hours. They thought about
658
00:39:35.730 --> 00:39:39.530
everything very carefully. They came back and it was pretty
659
00:39:39.570 --> 00:39:43.570
well unanimous on everything. I mean, she was totally defeated.
660
00:39:44.309 --> 00:39:48.769
When the first guilty verdicts came back, Rose did not flicker.
661
00:39:49.869 --> 00:39:53.250
Not a sign of emotion. She just simply stood there.
662
00:39:55.070 --> 00:39:59.090
There was no histrionics, no shouting, no screaming. There was
663
00:39:59.130 --> 00:40:03.750
no sign of any emotion at all, really. And I
664
00:40:03.789 --> 00:40:05.909
was left with the overwhelming feeling that one had been
665
00:40:05.929 --> 00:40:10.730
in the presence of someone who had lost contact with humanity.
666
00:40:11.710 --> 00:40:16.239
Sentencing her, the judge, Mr Justice Mantell, recommended that Rose
667
00:40:16.320 --> 00:40:20.309
West should never be released. she was immediately returned to
668
00:40:20.349 --> 00:40:21.150
Holloway Prison.
669
00:40:21.630 --> 00:40:24.550
Rose has never confessed to me. Whether she's made any
670
00:40:24.630 --> 00:40:27.309
kind of confession to anybody else, I don't know, but.
671
00:40:27.230 --> 00:40:28.179
She certainly hasn't to me.
672
00:40:29.280 --> 00:40:33.980
I would say that tacitly, she, at various stages, gave
673
00:40:34.019 --> 00:40:38.800
the impression to me, with hindsight, that she knew that,
674
00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:41.719
you know, under the floor in Cromwell Street, there were
675
00:40:41.739 --> 00:40:47.010
a lot of secrets. That's slightly different to saying... that
676
00:40:47.159 --> 00:40:51.230
she murdered people. But then the nature of the case,
677
00:40:52.090 --> 00:40:53.170
it was circumstantial.
678
00:40:53.170 --> 00:40:57.289
300 miles from Gloucester, Rosemary West en route to the
679
00:40:57.329 --> 00:40:59.250
prison that will be home for a lifetime.
680
00:41:00.650 --> 00:41:04.789
Today, Rose West is serving life imprisonment at Lone Newton
681
00:41:04.869 --> 00:41:12.530
Prison in Durham. In 1996, a year after 25 Cromwell
682
00:41:12.570 --> 00:41:15.719
Street had given up its grisly secrets, it was demolished.
683
00:41:16.380 --> 00:41:19.480
In its place is now a public walkway, but nothing
684
00:41:19.519 --> 00:41:22.599
can erase the painful memories of Fred and Rose West
685
00:41:23.070 --> 00:41:24.369
and their house of horrors.
686
00:41:28.170 --> 00:41:30.449
This certainly was a unique case in my experience, and
687
00:41:30.530 --> 00:41:33.769
I was involved as a detective investigating murders right back
688
00:41:33.789 --> 00:41:36.349
in the 1960s, and this is on a scale that's
689
00:41:36.449 --> 00:41:39.619
completely different. And I think in terms of its complexity,
690
00:41:40.119 --> 00:41:43.480
I think, again, it probably stands out as unique in
691
00:41:43.780 --> 00:41:46.630
criminal history. They were all young women who had their
692
00:41:46.670 --> 00:41:49.250
lives in front of them and it was cut short
693
00:41:49.809 --> 00:41:53.989
for just brutal and selfish self-gratification of Fred and Rose.
694
00:41:54.929 --> 00:41:57.090
I've never for one moment doubted that Frederick West was
695
00:41:57.130 --> 00:42:00.820
a truly evil man. I think he was born and bred.
696
00:42:01.639 --> 00:42:04.340
I think he only ever thought of himself. He was
697
00:42:04.679 --> 00:42:08.000
a psychopath and a sociopath. No concern for society, no
698
00:42:08.039 --> 00:42:11.380
concern for anybody but himself. But he found in Rose
699
00:42:11.880 --> 00:42:13.219
the perfect sorcerer's apprentice.
700
00:42:14.429 --> 00:42:17.880
Many of us reflect on serial killer couples and say, well,
701
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:20.139
if they had never met one another, would they have
702
00:42:20.199 --> 00:42:22.920
gone on to kill? We know that Fred had already
703
00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:25.780
committed one murder before he met Rose. So I think
704
00:42:25.820 --> 00:42:28.400
he would have killed again. When we look at Rose,
705
00:42:28.659 --> 00:42:31.170
I think she would have certainly gone on to harm
706
00:42:31.210 --> 00:42:36.190
other people, whether that was emotionally, financially, a non-physical kind
707
00:42:36.230 --> 00:42:39.750
of harm. But I think having Fred in her life
708
00:42:39.969 --> 00:42:42.800
opened up the door to a different kind of harm,
709
00:42:42.820 --> 00:42:43.940
a different kind of abuse.
710
00:42:45.559 --> 00:42:48.059
I've never been in any doubt that Fred and Rose
711
00:42:48.079 --> 00:42:51.980
committed far more than 12 murders. I've always believed there
712
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:54.659
are other victims and they were buried in other places
713
00:42:54.760 --> 00:42:57.320
or concealed in other places. But to be fair to
714
00:42:57.340 --> 00:43:00.739
Gloucester Police, they can't dig up Gloucestershire in the effort
715
00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:01.800
to find more victims.
716
00:43:02.320 --> 00:43:05.800
Speculation about other possible victims of Fred and Rose West
717
00:43:05.820 --> 00:43:09.469
will always remain. Theirs is a case whose shockwaves continue
718
00:43:09.510 --> 00:43:13.619
to reverberate around the world even today. The sheer depravity
719
00:43:13.719 --> 00:43:17.019
and the unimaginable terror of their victims is why we
720
00:43:17.059 --> 00:43:20.530
should remember them, not Fred and Rose and their house
721
00:43:20.769 --> 00:43:21.289
of horror.
