FRED & ROSE WEST

1. EP 01 — Much Marcle
1 min. 46 sec.
The setting of Fred West's early life. Much Marcle is a rural farming village in Herefordshire, western England, populat…
The setting of Fred West's early life. Much Marcle is a rural farming village in Herefordshire, western England, population approximately 600 in the 1940s. The West family — father Walter, mother Daisy, six surviving children — lived in a small two-bedroom labourer's cottage on the Moorcourt Farm estate. Fred was the eldest son. He was born September 29, 1941. He grew up in conditions of extreme rural poverty, minimal formal education, and by later confessions from Fred himself, chronic sexual abuse within the family home. He left school functionally illiterate at age 15. Everything that followed in his life would be shaped, in some way, by the household he had come from.
1. EP 01 — Much Marcle
2. EP 02 — The Head Injuries
1 min. 44 sec.
In 1958, at age 17, Fred West suffered a serious motorcycle accident in Much Marcle. He was thrown from a bike, sustaine…
In 1958, at age 17, Fred West suffered a serious motorcycle accident in Much Marcle. He was thrown from a bike, sustained a fractured skull, and remained in a coma for seven days at Hereford County Hospital. Neurosurgeons documented significant frontal-lobe trauma. He was discharged with visible personality changes his own family later described — sudden mood swings, disinhibition, increased impulsivity. Three years later, in 1961, he fell from a fire escape and suffered a second head injury. Contemporary neurological research would later associate his specific injury pattern with reduced impulse control and possible violent behavioural changes. Fred West's family and later psychiatric evaluators would repeatedly cite the two accidents as pivotal. The precise contribution to his subsequent violence has never been medically resolved.
2. EP 02 — The Head Injuries
3. EP 03 — Rena Costello
1 min. 48 sec.
Fred West's first wife. Catherine 'Rena' Costello, a Scottish teenager from Coatbridge who had run away from home at 15…
Fred West's first wife. Catherine 'Rena' Costello, a Scottish teenager from Coatbridge who had run away from home at 15 and become a low-level prostitute. Fred met her in Glasgow in 1962 when he was 21 and she was 18. He was working as an ice-cream-van driver. They married on November 17, 1962. Their first child, Charmaine — biologically the product of a brief relationship Rena had with a Pakistani bus driver before meeting Fred — was born in 1963. Their second child, Anna Marie, was born in 1964, biologically Fred's daughter. The marriage was violent from the beginning. Rena repeatedly attempted to leave. Fred repeatedly retrieved her. She would eventually try, in 1971, to leave him for the last time.
3. EP 03 — Rena Costello
4. EP 04 — The Cottage on Midland Road
1 min. 43 sec.
1969. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Fred West, then 27, working as a delivery driver for a local baker, was living with R…
1969. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Fred West, then 27, working as a delivery driver for a local baker, was living with Rena and her two young daughters at a small rented cottage on Midland Road. That summer, at a Cheltenham bus stop, he met a 15-year-old girl named Rosemary Letts. She was slim, dark-haired, and had a difficult family background. He was more than a decade older than her. Within weeks, she was staying overnight at Fred's cottage. Within six months, she was pregnant with Fred's child. She was still 15. Her parents attempted, and failed, to intervene. In 1970, she moved in permanently with Fred, Rena, Charmaine, and Anna Marie. The household of five had, within a year, become the household in which the first killings would take place.
4. EP 04 — The Cottage on Midland Road
5. EP 05 — Charmaine
1 min. 49 sec.
Summer 1971. Rena Costello had left Fred West and returned to Scotland. Rose Letts had assumed maternal responsibility f…
Summer 1971. Rena Costello had left Fred West and returned to Scotland. Rose Letts had assumed maternal responsibility for Rena's two young daughters — Charmaine, now 8, and Anna Marie, now 7. Charmaine — biracial, defiant, biologically not Fred's — was, by every subsequent testimony, singled out for particular cruelty by Rose. In late July 1971, Charmaine disappeared. Rose told neighbours she had been collected by Rena and returned to Scotland. Anna Marie, then 7, was told the same. Charmaine's remains would not be recovered until 1994 — buried beneath the kitchen floor of the Midland Road cottage the family had by then long since left. She had been eight years old.
5. EP 05 — Charmaine
6. EP 06 — Rena Costello Returns
1 min. 46 sec.
August 1971. Rena Costello returned from Scotland to Cheltenham, seeking the return of her two daughters. She confronted…
August 1971. Rena Costello returned from Scotland to Cheltenham, seeking the return of her two daughters. She confronted Fred and Rose at the Midland Road cottage. She was told that Charmaine had already been taken back to Scotland. She did not believe them. She threatened to go to the police. She was murdered in the cottage that same night by Fred West. Her body was subsequently dismembered and buried in a shallow grave in a field near the village of Much Marcle — the field where Fred West had grown up. Her remains would not be recovered until 1994. She had been 27 years old.
6. EP 06 — Rena Costello Returns
7. EP 07 — 25 Cromwell Street
1 min. 58 sec.
September 1972. Fred and Rose West — Rose now legally married to Fred following his divorce from the missing Rena — move…
September 1972. Fred and Rose West — Rose now legally married to Fred following his divorce from the missing Rena — moved from Midland Road, Cheltenham to a small mid-terrace Victorian house at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester's Longlevens district. The property had three floors, a garage extension, a small rear garden, and a substantial dry cellar. Fred purchased the house on a working-class mortgage. He immediately began extensive renovation work himself, expanding the cellar, adding internal walls, and constructing a series of small confined rooms that would, across the following two decades, become known collectively as the House of Horrors. He was 30 years old.
7. EP 07 — 25 Cromwell Street
8. EP 08 — The Cellar
1 min. 28 sec.
Between 1972 and 1974, Fred West systematically converted the basement of 25 Cromwell Street into a self-designed tortur…
Between 1972 and 1974, Fred West systematically converted the basement of 25 Cromwell Street into a self-designed torture chamber. He installed thick soundproofing insulation. He constructed padded restraint fittings on the walls. He installed ceiling hooks. He built a stone plinth in the centre of the room. He created what he himself later described as 'my workroom.' He and Rose used it initially for consensual sexual encounters, then for the sexual abuse of their own children, then — from 1973 forward — for the abduction, torture, and murder of victims lured to the property under various pretexts. The cellar's construction predated the killings. He had built the room specifically for what he intended to do inside it.
8. EP 08 — The Cellar
9. EP 09 — Anna Marie
2 min. 7 sec.
1971 to 1979. Anna Marie West — Fred's daughter with Rena Costello, and stepdaughter of Rose — became, by her own later…
1971 to 1979. Anna Marie West — Fred's daughter with Rena Costello, and stepdaughter of Rose — became, by her own later testimony, the family's earliest documented victim of prolonged sexual abuse. Her assault began when she was 8. It was committed by both Fred and Rose. It included ritualised humiliation in the Cromwell Street cellar, restraint on the wall fittings Fred had built, and the participation of both parents. It continued across her childhood and early adolescence. She would eventually attempt to leave the household as a teenager. She would give evidence, decades later, at Rose West's trial. Her testimony would form one of the central pillars of the 1995 prosecution.
9. EP 09 — Anna Marie
10. EP 10 — Lynda Gough
2 min. 22 sec.
April 1973. Lynda Gough, a 19-year-old seamstress from Gloucester, had responded to a hand-lettered advertisement Rose W…
April 1973. Lynda Gough, a 19-year-old seamstress from Gloucester, had responded to a hand-lettered advertisement Rose West had posted in a local newsagent seeking a live-in nanny for the family's growing number of children. Lynda arrived at 25 Cromwell Street in mid-April to interview for the position. She was taken to the cellar. She was killed by Fred and Rose that same evening. Her body was buried beneath the ground floor of the newly-constructed garage extension. Her mother, June Gough, subsequently visited Cromwell Street repeatedly across the following weeks searching for her daughter. Rose West met her at the door on multiple occasions and told her Lynda had left England to work abroad. Lynda's remains would not be recovered until 1994.
10. EP 10 — Lynda Gough
11. EP 11 — Carol Ann Cooper
1 min. 49 sec.
November 1973. Carol Ann Cooper, 15, was a resident at the Pines Children's Home in Worcester. On the evening of Novembe…
November 1973. Carol Ann Cooper, 15, was a resident at the Pines Children's Home in Worcester. On the evening of November 10, she left the home with permission to attend a cinema showing in central Worcester. She was seen at the bus stop outside the cinema at approximately 10:30 p.m. that same evening. She never returned to the children's home. She had, according to subsequent Fred West confession, been offered a lift by Fred and Rose in their van. She had been taken to Cromwell Street. She had been killed there that night. Her body was buried beneath the cellar floor. Her disappearance was reported to the Worcester Police the following morning. The investigation produced no leads. Her mother believed, for the following twenty years, that her daughter had run away.
11. EP 11 — Carol Ann Cooper
12. EP 12 — Lucy Partington
1 min. 39 sec.
December 27, 1973. Lucy Partington, a 21-year-old University of Exeter English literature student and cousin of novelist…
December 27, 1973. Lucy Partington, a 21-year-old University of Exeter English literature student and cousin of novelist Martin Amis, was waiting at a Cheltenham bus stop after visiting friends. She had been due to catch the 10:15 p.m. bus home to her family's house in Gretton, Gloucestershire. She did not arrive home. She was, per Fred West's subsequent confession, abducted by Fred and Rose from that same bus stop. She was taken to Cromwell Street. She was held there and tortured for approximately one week before being killed. Her body was buried beneath the cellar floor. Her disappearance was investigated by the Gloucestershire Police as a missing-person case. She would remain officially missing for the next 21 years.
12. EP 12 — Lucy Partington
13. EP 13 — The Cromwell Street Years
1 min. 55 sec.
Between 1973 and 1979, Fred and Rose West murdered at least seven additional young women at 25 Cromwell Street. The vict…
Between 1973 and 1979, Fred and Rose West murdered at least seven additional young women at 25 Cromwell Street. The victims included Therese Siegenthaler (a 21-year-old Swiss student), Shirley Hubbard (15, disappeared from a Droitwich bus stop), Juanita Mott (18, a family friend), Alison Chambers (16, resident of the same children's home as Carol Cooper), Shirley Robinson (18, the family's live-in nanny, pregnant with Fred's child at the time of her death), and others. Each was tortured extensively in the cellar. Each was buried beneath the property's floors, walls, or garden. Rose West gave birth to seven of her own children across the same period. Neighbours, social workers, and school authorities visited Cromwell Street repeatedly across those years. No one, at any point, suspected the house.
13. EP 13 — The Cromwell Street Years
14. EP 14 — Heather
1 min. 57 sec.
June 17, 1987. Heather Ann West, the couple's eldest biological daughter, was 16 years old. She had been the subject of…
June 17, 1987. Heather Ann West, the couple's eldest biological daughter, was 16 years old. She had been the subject of parental sexual abuse from approximately age 8 forward. She had told a school friend, earlier that year, that she planned to leave home. On the night of June 17, Fred and Rose killed her in the family kitchen at 25 Cromwell Street. Her body was dismembered by Fred and buried beneath the newly-poured patio at the rear of the garden. When the family's remaining children asked where Heather had gone, they were told she had left for a job in the Devon countryside. They were shown a specific patio-stone slab and repeatedly told, as a running family joke, that 'Heather was under the patio.' It was, for the next seven years, precisely true.
14. EP 14 — Heather
15. EP 15 — The Family Falls Apart
2 min. 7 sec.
May 1992. Gloucestershire social services received an anonymous tip from a former friend of Fred and Rose West's childre…
May 1992. Gloucestershire social services received an anonymous tip from a former friend of Fred and Rose West's children — a friend to whom the children had confided details of ongoing sexual abuse within the household. Social workers arrived at 25 Cromwell Street. They interviewed the couple's five youngest children individually. The children's accounts confirmed extensive ongoing abuse. All five were removed from the household on emergency care orders. Rose was subsequently arrested. Fred was subsequently arrested. Both were charged with sexual abuse. The trial, held in June 1993, collapsed when key child witnesses refused to testify against their parents. The children remained in state care. Fred and Rose returned to Cromwell Street. They believed, at that moment, that they had survived the investigation.
15. EP 15 — The Family Falls Apart
16. EP 16 — DC Hazel Savage
1 min. 57 sec.
February 1994. Detective Constable Hazel Savage of the Gloucestershire Constabulary, who had been peripherally involved…
February 1994. Detective Constable Hazel Savage of the Gloucestershire Constabulary, who had been peripherally involved in the 1992 sexual-abuse investigation, was reviewing the West family case files as part of a separate follow-up inquiry. She noted the persistent absence of the couple's eldest daughter Heather from the family's care records. She interviewed the West children in their foster placements. The children repeated the family's own running joke — that 'Heather was under the patio.' Savage, unlike previous investigators, took the joke seriously. She obtained a search warrant. On February 24, 1994, a Gloucestershire Police team entered 25 Cromwell Street with excavation equipment. Fred West was at the property. He was arrested that same morning.
16. EP 16 — DC Hazel Savage
17. EP 17 — The Arrest
2 min. 1 sec.
February 24, 1994. Fred West was taken to Gloucester Police Station for questioning. Rose was arrested separately later…
February 24, 1994. Fred West was taken to Gloucester Police Station for questioning. Rose was arrested separately later that day at the couple's temporary residence. Excavation of 25 Cromwell Street continued across the following weeks. On February 26, human remains were recovered from beneath the rear-garden patio. They were subsequently identified as Heather West. Additional excavations across the following months recovered the remains of eleven additional victims — nine at Cromwell Street, one at the Midland Road cottage (Charmaine), and one in the field at Much Marcle (Rena). Fred West began confessing to investigators within 72 hours of his arrest. The total confessed body count reached twelve. There were almost certainly more.
17. EP 17 — The Arrest
18. EP 18 — The Confession
1 min. 50 sec.
March to October 1994. Fred West was interviewed by Gloucestershire detectives for over 145 hours across nine months of…
March to October 1994. Fred West was interviewed by Gloucestershire detectives for over 145 hours across nine months of custodial questioning. He confessed, in extensive detail, to the murders of Heather, Charmaine, Rena, and the ten Cromwell Street victims. He implicated Rose in five of the murders. He gave detailed reconstructions of the cellar's use, the burial procedures, and his motivations. He then, in December 1994, began to retract portions of his confession — specifically the elements implicating Rose. Prosecutors realised he was preparing to shield her at trial by claiming sole responsibility. He would not have the opportunity.
18. EP 18 — The Confession
19. EP 19 — New Year's Day, 1995
1 min. 46 sec.
January 1, 1995. HM Prison Winson Green, Birmingham. Fred West had been held on remand at the prison for the previous 11…
January 1, 1995. HM Prison Winson Green, Birmingham. Fred West had been held on remand at the prison for the previous 11 months awaiting trial on 12 counts of murder. That morning, at approximately 12:57 p.m., prison guards discovered his body hanging from a knotted bedsheet in his cell. He had committed suicide by strangulation. He was 53 years old. He had left no formal note. He had left a small hand-drawn sketch on a scrap of paper depicting a female figure. Beside it, in his own handwriting, were the words 'Rose I love.' The suicide meant, under English law, that Fred West could no longer be tried for the murders he had confessed to. The entire criminal case now rested on the conviction of Rose West alone.
19. EP 19 — New Year's Day, 1995
20. EP 20 — The Trial of Rose
1 min. 47 sec.
October to November 1995. Winchester Crown Court, Hampshire. The trial of Rose West on 10 counts of murder. Prosecuting…
October to November 1995. Winchester Crown Court, Hampshire. The trial of Rose West on 10 counts of murder. Prosecuting — Brian Leveson QC. Presiding — Justice Charles Mantell. The prosecution's central problem — EP 20 — The Trial of Rose physical evidence tied Rose personally to any of the killings. The case had to be built on circumstantial evidence — the impossibility of her not knowing about the deaths given her constant presence at Cromwell Street, the testimony of surviving family members (particularly her stepdaughter Anna Marie), and the testimony of two adult women who had survived Cromwell Street cellar assaults in the 1970s. On November 22, 1995, after five days of jury deliberation, Rose West was found guilty on all 10 counts. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2019, a whole-life tariff was formally added. She remains, in 2026, incarcerated at HM Prison New Hall in West Yorkshire. She will die in prison.
20. EP 20 — The Trial of Rose

1. EP 01 — Much Marcle

2. EP 02 — The Head Injuries

3. EP 03 — Rena Costello

4. EP 04 — The Cottage on Midland Road

5. EP 05 — Charmaine

6. EP 06 — Rena Costello Returns

7. EP 07 — 25 Cromwell Street

8. EP 08 — The Cellar

9. EP 09 — Anna Marie

10. EP 10 — Lynda Gough

11. EP 11 — Carol Ann Cooper

12. EP 12 — Lucy Partington

13. EP 13 — The Cromwell Street Years

14. EP 14 — Heather

15. EP 15 — The Family Falls Apart

16. EP 16 — DC Hazel Savage

17. EP 17 — The Arrest

18. EP 18 — The Confession

19. EP 19 — New Year's Day, 1995

20. EP 20 — The Trial of Rose