A shabby semi-detached house at 25 Cromwell Street in the tranquil county of Gloucester in southwest England went down in English criminal history as the “House of Horror.” This house was purchased in 1972 by Rosemary and Frederick West, helpful and friendly neighbors. No one suspected that behind the bourgeois façade lay horror itself. Fred and Rose were one of the worst serial killers in criminal history, who had set up a soundproof torture chamber in the basement of their home in Gloucester, where they raped, tortured, and killed young women. They buried their bodies in the garden of the house. The series of murders would probably never have been discovered if the burly Fred West had not been arrested in 1992 after raping his own daughter Louise. This brought not only Fred but also his wife Rose to the attention of investigators, who carried out extensive house searches. These searches revealed something horrific. Investigators found not only the dismembered remains of Fred’s missing daughter Heather Ann, but also a total of 11 other female body parts, whose human remains showed signs of brutal torture. Some of the skulls were wrapped in plastic, others were held together by rotting leather belts. But how could this hair-raising series of murders have come about? Frederick Walter Stephen West was born on September 29, 1941, in Much Marcle, England, the second of eight children, six of whom survived, to farm worker Walter Stephen West and housewife Daisy Hannah Hill. Fred West and his siblings grew up in poor circumstances. His father allegedly abused his sisters. He himself claimed to have been abused by his mother at the age of 12. According to Fred, abuse and rape were commonplace. There was no evidence to support this. Fred West was considered a mama’s boy and a notorious liar who was teased at school and was a poor student, which is why he left school without a diploma at the age of 15. Since then, he had been getting by as a casual worker. He often rode his motorcycle aimlessly around the area until, at the age of 17, he had a serious accident that was his own fault. In this accident, he suffered a skull base fracture and a broken arm and leg. After the accident, Fred’s personality changed. He became increasingly aggressive and suffered from outbursts of rage. Two years later, Fred suffered another serious head injury when he fell from the fire escape of the Ledbury Youth Club. He was in a coma for 24 hours. In 1961, his 13-year-old sister Kitty accused him of raping her. A doctor who was a friend of the family certified that he suffered from epileptic seizures. Fred pleaded insanity and his mother testified in his favor at the Herefordshire Assizes. Kitty refused to testify. The case collapsed. Fred was then banished from the house and moved in with his Aunt Violet. In September 1962, Fred met Catherine Bernadette Costello, known as Rena, a known police crook and prostitute. After a brief relationship, she returned to her native Scotland for a short time. When she reappeared at Fred’s house a little later, he married her on November 17, 1962, in Ledbury. From the outset, the relationship was marked by violence and infidelity. In March 1963, Rena gave birth to her first child, Charmaine. The child was the result of an affair with an Asian bus driver. They lived in their aunt’s house. Shortly after the birth, they moved to Glasgow. The couple explained the Asian ancestry by saying that their child had died of sudden infant death syndrome at birth and that they had now adopted a child. In July 1964, Rena gave birth to her second child, Anna Marie. While Rena lovingly cared for the children, Fred preferred to lock them up. Only when he was at work were they allowed to move freely around the house. Fred was extremely violent towards his wife and children. Rena’s nanny, Isa McNeill, was a real support to her, and it was through her that she met 17-year-old Anna McFall, who also took care of the children from then on. Anna became Fred’s mistress, while Rena had been having an affair with John McLachlan for some time. When Fred, who worked as a mobile ice cream vendor, ran over a child with his truck on November 4, 1965, the young family moved with the two nannies to Gloucester, where they lived in a trailer park. Fred found work as a truck driver for a local slaughterhouse. In early 1966, Fred began sexually abusing Charmaine and forced Rena into prostitution to supplement their income. Rena wanted to flee to Glasgow with her two children with the help of her former lover McLachlan. They hatched a plan, but Anna McFall betrayed Fred because she was in love with him and he had promised to marry her. The plan failed and Rena returned to Glasgow without her children, whom she visited frequently. During one visit, Rena stole valuables from Fred, for which she was sentenced to three years’ probation on November 29, 1966. Anna McFall became pregnant by Fred. Shortly before the birth, Fred killed her in July 1967, when Anna was just 18 years and 8 months old. He dismembered her body and buried it in a cornfield between Much Marcle and Kempley. In the meantime, Rena returned to Fred. But she soon left Fred again without taking her children with her. Then, in early 1969, Fred met 15-year-old Rosemary Lett. For him, it was love at first sight. Rosemary had brown hair cut into a pageboy style and large brown eyes. Her childhood was marked by violence and abuse. Her mother, a depressed nurse, was unable to protect her and her siblings from their schizophrenic father, who regularly mistreated and abused them all. Rose became Fred’s lover and was completely under his spell. She quit her job at the bakery and became the nanny for Charmaine and Anna Marie. Rose’s parents were against her relationship with Fred, so Rose was sent to a home for troubled teenagers. After Fred served a 30-day prison sentence for theft, Rose moved in with Fred despite all opposition. On October 17, 1970, their daughter Heather Ann was born. But ten months later, Fred had to serve another prison sentence for theft. During this time, Rose killed Charmaine, who was completely overwhelmed with raising the children. When people asked about Charmaine, she said that she was living with her mother Rena in Bristol. Rose kept Charmaine’s dead body in the coal cellar until Fred’s release on June 24, 1971. She then buried Charmaine in the garden. On June 24, 1971, Fred was released from prison. When Rena suddenly appeared at Fred’s door and asked where Charmaine was, he killed her. He dismembered her body and buried the body parts, packed in plastic bags, in a field 1.6 kilometers from Much Marcle. The way to his wedding to Rose was finally clear. On January 29, 1972, Fred married Rose, who gave birth to their second child, Mia Mae, on June 1. Shortly after the birth, Fred forced Rose to work as a prostitute. One of her clients was her own father. In the same year, thanks to their landlord, they purchased the semi-detached house at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester. This became the new home of horror. By 1983, Rose had given birth to eight children, whom she regularly abused. They had been hospitalized 31 times for various injuries, but no suspicion of domestic violence was ever raised. Her eldest daughter, Heather Ann, died at the age of 16 from a skull fracture after Rose repeatedly kicked her in the head. The basement of the semi-detached house became a torture chamber, filled with whips, riding crops, belts, ropes, handcuffs, and all kinds of bondage equipment. In September 1972, Fred abused his own daughter Anna Marie, who was only 8 years old, in the presence of his wife Rose. But it didn’t stop with the abuse of Anna Marie. At the age of 13, she was also forced to sell herself to strange men. In October 1972, they hired 17-year-old Caroline Owens as a nanny. She was horribly tortured in the basement for months and held captive in the house. The Wests gagged Caroline, then Fred raped her, then Fred whipped her genitals with a leather belt, then Rose licked her pussy. Rose was sex-obsessed and sadistic, and beatings became part of Caroline’s everyday life. It was only after months that Owens was able to escape the ordeal. She told her mother everything, who took her daughter to the police. On January 12, 1973, the case was heard in court in Gloucester. Since Owens did not want to and could not testify in court about her sexual abuse, all charges relating to sexual abuse were dropped and the Wests were only sentenced to a fine of £50 each for bodily harm to Owens. Three months later, they began killing young women. Fred and Rose loved to dominate and torture young women. They lured their victims through newspaper advertisements seeking a nanny with free board and lodging, or they simply approached young women on the street. Once the women were in the house, they were tortured and raped. In May 1992, Fred raped Louise’s 13-year-old daughter without Rose’s knowledge. She told Rose everything, but Rose did nothing. Louise then confided in a friend, whose mother informed the police via an anonymous call. Under the pretext of searching for stolen items, the police searched the house at 25 Cromwell Street on August 6, 1992, and confiscated 99 homemade pornographic videos. In the course of the investigation, the dismembered bodies were found in the garden. Over a period of more than 20 years, from 1967 to 1987, Rose and Fred West had raped, tortured, and killed 13 women. In 1994, Fred was charged with 12 counts of murder and Rose with 10 counts of murder. The main witness against the Wests was their former nanny, Caroline Owens, who had now found the courage to tell everything. Fred did not live to see the verdict, as he hanged himself in his prison cell on January 1, 1995. Rose was sentenced to life imprisonment and became engaged to Stephen Saliwon, a sex offender, on September 1, 1997. The children were placed with foster parents. The house of horror at 25 Cromwell Street was eventually demolished.
The House of Horror
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