Fred & Rosemary West Murders

by IAIN MCDOUGALL
(BRISTOL, ENGLAND)

I remember this case as if it were yesterday. I live in Bristol which is only thirty miles from this house of horror. These are the details :

THURSDAY, February 24, 1994 marked the day that was to be the start of a horror story that shocked the world.

Policemen were digging up the back garden of 25, Cromwell Street, Gloucester - home to Fred and Rosemary West and later dubbed the `House of Horrors'.

Gloucestershire Police announced they were investigating the disappearance of the West's 16-year-old daughter Heather.

At the time nobody - including the police - realised the dig would trigger one of the largest police inquiries Britain had ever seen.

Stephen West, Rosemary and Fred's eldest son, then aged 20, was at home when the police knocked on the door with the search warrant.

One year later, Stephen and his sister Mae, wrote a book, Inside 25 Cromwell Street - their first-hand account of life with the Wests.

In the book, Stephen - who claimed he had been convinced by his father that Heather was living in the Midlands - said: "I told one of the detectives that they were going to end up making fools of themselves and he just replied `That's up to us'.

"I wanted to know the reasons why they thought Heather was buried there but they wouldn't tell me."

Stephen and his mother contacted Fred - who arrived home four hours later, time criminologists have speculated he may have spent disposing of incriminating evidence.

The next day, Fred admitted killing Heather and agreed to point out where he had buried two other girls in the garden - Shirley Robinson and Alison Chambers.

But he kept quiet about six other bodies found buried beneath the cellar and bathroom of the house.

His victims included Carol Cooper, aged 15, of Worcester and Shirley Hubbard, also 15, of Droitwich.

Later West admitted he had buried another victim - an eight-year-old girl born to his first wife but fathered by another man - at another house in Gloucester.

He also confessed to having dumped the bodies of his first wife, Rena, aged 25, and a former lover, Ann McFall, aged 18, both from Scotland, in fields near his childhood home at Much Marcle, Herefordshire.

Detectives were convinced from the start that Rose West was involved in the murders but she denied everything.

She was bailed to a police safe house - where she lived with Stephen and Mae - but remained under suspicion.

In October 1995, Rosemary was tried for 10 murders and is now serving a life sentence for each.

On New Year's Day 1995, Fred West hanged himself in prison where he was awaiting trial for 12 murder charges.

Legacy

In October 1996, 25 Cromwell Street was demolished - but the legacy of the House of Horrors continues to take its toll.

Fred West's brother, John hanged himself as he waited to find out if a jury would find him guilty of raping Anne-Marie - Fred's daughter who has struggled to come to terms with the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father and stepmother.

In November 1999, she was rescued after throwing herself into the water from a bridge near Gloucester in an apparent suicide bid.

In January 2002, Stephen West attempted suicide at his home in Bussage, near Stroud, Gloucestershire, after his girlfriend left him - he had tried to hang himself but survived when the rope snapped.

And in June this year, the brother of Carol Cooper spoke of his outrage that her grave, at Worcester's Astwood Cemetery, remains anonymous because of a family feud.

The Christopher Whitehead schoolgirl was living at a children's home in Bilford Road, Worcester, when she vanished.


The victims:

1967 Ann McFall The Scottish nanny and lover of Fred, who was eight months pregnant with his child. Body found in Letterbox Field, near Much Marcle.

1970 Rena Costello Fred's first wife. Body found in Fingerpost Field, near Much Marcle.

1972 Charmaine West, aged eight Rena's eldest child. Body found beneath 25 Midland Road, Gloucester

1973 Linda Gough, aged 21 seamstress from Gloucester.

Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street.

1973 Lucy Partington, aged 21 university student, from Gloucestershire. Body found

beneath 25 Cromwell Street.

1974 Carol Cooper, aged 15 schoolgirl from Worcester. Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street.

1975 Juanita Mott, aged 19 from Newent, Gloucestershire. Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street.

1975 Shirley Hubbard, aged 15 schoolgirl from Droitwich. Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street.

1977 Therese Siegenthaler, aged 21 a Swiss hitchhiker. Body found beneath 25 Cromwell Street.

1977 - Alison Chambers, aged 17, originally from Swansea. Body found in garden of 25 Cromwell Street.

1978 Shirley Robinson, aged 18 Fred's heavily pregnant lodger. Body found in garden of 25 Cromwell Street.

1987 - Heather West, aged 16 - Fred and Rose's eldest daughter. Body found in garden of 25 Cromwell Street.