The « courtyard of the horrors » of Fred and Rose West, who killed 12 young women (including two daughters) and buried them in the garden

Between 1967 and 1987 he disappeared in the English city of Gloucester 12 young women. Their bodies were found in 1994, buried in the courtyard at the number 25 of Cromwell Street and nearby. Those women had been adapted, raped, tortured and killed. Some were pregnant, others were minors. Two of the victims were eight and sixteen years old, and for them the killers were nothing more than « mom and dad ». The spouses were accused of these twelve murders Frederick and Rosemary West.

It will be Fred, passed to the chronicles like « The Monster of Gloucester »to confess the crimes and to indicate to the police the burial places of his victims, in a desperate attempt to take guilt and protect his wife from all charges.

But the macabre story behind what was happening in that house pushed the police not to stop investigating, discovering A series of terrible crimes: For years the couple had raped their children, threatening them to make him end « of the underlying sister in the garden », rented the rooms to young desperate women and abused them. After putting some Freds pregnant, killed them, hiding the bodies underground, and continuing for years to torture those who had trusted them.

Rose will be sentenced to life imprisonment for ten murders. Even Fred would have been sentenced, if only he hadn’t taken his life before the trial.
Their history – that of most heinous serial killers of Great Britain – It is now told in the Netflix documentary « A British Horror Story: the story of Fred and Rose West ».

The violence suffered as a child and zoophilia

Brutale was not only what Fred West did during his adult life, but all his childhood was also. Born in a very poor family, he grew up with poor formation, remaining semi -alphabet for a lifetime. According to his stories, he would have suffered violence from the mother when she was 12 years oldwhile the father abused the sisters. He also declared that he had practiced acts of zoophilia with various animalsDespite his younger brother, Doug has always labeled these stories as « fantasies born from Fred’s sick mind ».

In 1961 Fred himself was accused of violence by his younger sister Kitty. The girl told the mother that her brother had abused her and that she was now waiting for a son. During the process, Kity refused to testify, thus leading to the archive of the case. However, Fred was repudiated and chased at home.

A year later, when he has twenty -two, he meets Rena Costelloat the pregnant time of a girl conceived with a bus driver. They decide to get married, and West welcomes Charmaine like his stepdaughter. Together the two conceive another girl, Anne Marie.

Fred with them proves to be a violent man: He beats his wife, forces her to prostitute herself, and mistreat her daughters, Also coming to sexually abuse Charmaine.

The separation from the first wife and the arrival of Rose

In 1967 Fred and Rena separate. It is she actually run away from him, leaving the two girls under his protection. In that same year, Fred performs The first murder: an eighteen year old named Anne Mcfall. In fact, not a person: Anne, in fact, in addition to being the babysitter of his daughters at the time of the wedding with Rena, had become the lover of Fred and waited for a son from him.

Two years later, in 1969, when he was 28, he met Rosemary Letts, just fifteen years old. After a short courtship, the two get engaged and the young woman agrees to take care of Charmaine and Anne Marie. Less than a year later their firstborn was born: Heather Ann. According to some voices, he would have actually been the daughter of Rose’s father, who often abused her.

The following year, in 1971, Fred ends up in prison on charges of theft. At that time the seventeen year old Rose is stained with the first murder by killing Charmaine, 8 years old. Once out of prison, Fred Rena also kills Renareturned to the city to look for her daughter. Then he hides the body of his ex -wife in a field in the village of Kempley, in the Gloucestershire, where there was also that of Anne Mcfall, while that of Charmaine is built in the middle of the foundations of the house at the number 25 of Midland Road, where he lived before moving with Rose.

In 1972 they marry and Rose began working as a prostitute. They will have others eight childrenprobably some fruit of the relationships with customers, but all welcomed by Fred like his own.

Abuses and murders inside and outside the family

In the following years the couple decides to rent free rooms to girls escaped from home or by recovery facilities. Fred confesses to a neighbor in these years that he wants to transform the basement into one torture roomadding that he went around looking for young girls (between 15 and 17 years old), preferring those who made the hitchhiking because they are easier to adapt, for take them home and make them prostitute them.

Fred began to abuse Anne Marie, and with her of her nanny, Catherine Owens. The latter was also kidnapped and subjected to torture. Owens tried to denounce them in 1973, but was forced to a humiliating process refused to continue by falling the accusations against the West. The couple He was only finedfor 25 pounds each, because the court considered the crime of slight entity. Owens’ testimony will prove to be fundamental only during the 1994 process as The only survivor of the couple’s violence.

From that moment, in fact, Fred and Rose no longer leave any witness to life. The raped and tortured women are then killed, and their bodies dismembered and underground in the garden.

Looking at the family sphere, Anne Marie will not be the only daughter to suffer abuse. Fred will also dedicate the same attention to Heather Ann, Mae and the thirteen year old Louise, Arriving to kill the couple’s first -bornat the sixteen -year -old time.

In 1992 Louise confided the violence against a friend, whose mother will denounce the facts to the authorities. These accusations fell, but contributed to bringing the attention of investigators to the couplealready suspected of the disappearance of his daughter Heather.

In fact, the youngest children had started telling about a way of saying that he resorted to the house: if they had behaved badly « They would end up in the courtyard »as had happened for their sister Heather.

The arrest and suicide of Fred

In 1994 the police obtained a mandate to inspect the house, thus managing to find tests (Heather’s bones) and connecting Fred to the disappearance of other women. But it is only thanks to the confessions of man, that he probably hoped, speaking, to protect roses, that the police find the remains of Twelve people in three different sites.

At number 25 of Cromwell Street they are found in everything The bodies of nine girls: Heather Westthe 16 -year -old eldest daughter; Shirley Robinsonpregnant with the eighth month of Fred; Alison Chamberswho lived in an institute in Gloucester and was then welcomed by the couple; Lynda Goughalso welcomed after running out of the house in 1973; Carol Cooperescaped from an institute in Wocester; Lucy Partingtondisappeared after being a friend in Cheltenham; Thérèse SiegenthalerSwiss student who made the hitchhiking; Shirley Hubbardwho lived with adoptive parents in Droitwich e Juanita Mottanother tenant.

On January 1, 1995, before the trial, Fred took his life in prison, Probably thinking, once again, to protect his wife from the process. Rose, however, thanks to the testimony of Owens and the details that lets out during the trial, was judged and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of ten women. Even today, at 69, while discounted his sentence, he continues to declare yourself innocent.