Thirty years after their reign of terror ended, Fred and Rose West remain among Britain’s most notorious serial killers for carrying out a campaign of abuse so vicious, the pair were branded ‘the epitome of evil’.
Between 1967 and 1987, the depraved couple tortured, raped, and murdered at least 12 young women – including two of their own children – in Gloucester, before Fred died by suicide and Rose was sentenced to life in prison in 1995.
Three decades later, a new Netflix true crime docuseries is set to re-examine the chilling case, including how Gloucestershire police unearthed the remains of the couple’s victims and collected evidence against them.
Among their 12 victims was their eldest daughter Heather, who was 16 when West killed and dismembered her, and Charmaine, Fred’s eight-year-old daughter from his first marriage to Rena Costello.
During their time together, Fred and Rose shared ten children in total – including five they had together.
Then there were the two girls, including Charmaine, Fred had from his previous relationship with Rena, and three daughters Rose gave birth to after becoming pregnant from clients she slept with while working as a prostitute.
Of their 10 children, only seven are still alive – but their story is rarely told.
Four of them are believed to have moved to other parts of the UK to begin new lives, away from the ‘House of Horrors’ they were forced to share with their killer parents – but three have remained in Gloucester and live barely ten minutes from each other.
Rose and Fred West collaborated on their heinous crimes but Fred escaped justice when he died by suicide while awaiting trial while Rose was sentence to life imprisonment
Charmaine West, died aged 8
Born in 1963, Charmaine was the oldest of the ten children and would now have been 62 – had she survived the ‘House of Horrors’.
Charmaine was Fred’s daughter from his first marriage to Rena Costello, although her biological father was believed to be a bus driver.
After Fred left Rena, Rose, then 16, moved in with Fred and Charmaine, who was eight when she disappeared in 1971.
It is believed Rose would attempt to enforce her father’s strict rules on to Charmaine, but when the child defied her authority, she became incensed.
It is thought Rose killed the eight-year-old in a red mist of rage while Fred was in prison for petty theft in 1971.
While Rose stashed her remains in the cellar of the house, Fred later hid her body underneath the kitchen floor after he was released from jail.
The child’s skeleton was dug up at their old home in Gloucester – 25 Midland Road.
Charmaine West (pictured) was murdered by Rose West at the age of eight and buried in the garden by Fred upon his release from prison
There were just ten years in age between Rose and her stepdaughter Charmaine, who endured terrible torture at the hands of her stepmother.
One day, Charmaine’s best friend and next door neighbour Tracey Giles walked into the house to borrow a pint of milk.
Instead, she found Charmaine standing on a chair with her hands bound behind her back by a belt.
Rose was holding a large wooden spoon, and was poised as if to beat her.
During Rose’s conviction in 1995, the jury was told by the prosecution that: ‘There is clear evidence that Charmaine was greatly disliked by Rosemary West’ because she despised the child’s rebellious nature.
Anne-Marie Davis, 60
Anne-Marie is Charmaine’s younger sister and the oldest of the surviving West siblings.
She was the second of Fred’s children from his first marriage to Rena, and among the West’s first victims after they moved into the house in Gloucester.
When they converted their cellar into a torture chamber, Anne-Marie was ordered to strip before being tied to a mattress, gagged and raped by her father. She was eight at the time.
She was also routinely raped by clients who came to her basement room, and was raped 300 times by her uncle John West who died by suicide while awaiting trial.
Anne-Marie was the only sibling to give evidence against her stepmother Rose during her trial in 1995, revealing details of the horrific torture inflicted by her parents.
‘It was obvious from the word go that Rose had a hell of a temper and was not able to control it,’ Anne-Marie later said.
‘She made us do most of the household chores, despite our ages, and if we didn’t do them right she erupted.’
Speaking of her sister Charmaine’s disappearance, Anne-Marie said: ‘The police found it difficult to pinpoint exactly when my sister was killed and I wasn’t able to help much because I was so young at the time.’
Fred and Rose West pictured with Anne-Marie, one of Fred’s two daughters from his first marriage to Rena Costello
Anne-Marie, pictured as an adult, is the eldest of the surviving siblings and the only one of the Wests’ children to give evidence against her mother
Anne-Marie pointed to hospital records that showed Charmaine had been treated for an ankle injury in March, 1971.
However, the notes don’t specify what caused the puncture wound.
‘One day I came home from school to be told by Rose that Charmaine had gone off with her mother,’ Anne-Marie said.
‘I knew better than to question my stepmother and simply accepted what she said as fact.’
A year after giving evidence at Rose’s trial, Anne-Marie attempted to commit suicide by jumping off Westgate bridge in Gloucester, but she was rescued by firefighters.
She is married and currently lives in the Gloucester area.
Heather West, died aged 16
Born in December, 1970, Heather was the eldest of the Wests’ five biological children and would now have been 54.
She was 16 when she disappeared in 1987, but was never reported missing.
Five years later, in 1992, her absence finally aroused police suspicion.
This prompted an investigation into Fred after police were informed by social workers that his children told them the term ‘she was under the patio’ had become a standing family joke.
Her sister Mae West said the children were told Heather had got a job, ‘packed up her things’ and left.
‘It didn’t sound like the whole truth but then nothing Dad said ever did and we had no reason to doubt the story was basically true,’ Mae said.
‘Then one day one of us, I can’t remember who, suddenly said, “Suppose Dad killed Heather and buried her in the garden?”
Heather West (pictured), the eldest of Fred and Rose’s biological children, was murdered, dismembered and buried in the garden when she was 16
‘It was said as a joke, but the more we thought about it, the more we started to wonder if, just possibly, it could be true.’
In 1994, Fred admitted to Heather’s murder, leading police to uncover the ‘House of Horrors.’
The teenager’s body was discovered under the patio of 25 Cromwell Street, the Wests’ new home, in February, 1994.
When she was found, her fingernails were in a pile separate from her body, suggesting they had been painfully removed during torture.
Fred said in a police interview: ‘I cut her legs off… and then I cut her head off and then I put her in the bin and put the lid on and rolled it down to the bottom of the garden behind the Wendy house.’
Mae West, 52
Born to the Wests in September, 1972, Mae is now a mother-of-two living in a secret location away from the West Country.
Unlike her younger siblings, she was not taken into care and is believed to be the only one who remained in contact with Rose after she was sentenced to life in prison for her crimes – which she continues to deny to this day.
Mae wrote a memoir about her childhood in 2018 called ‘Love as Always Mum xxx.’
The book’s title was a reference to Rose’s sign-off in the letters she wrote to Mae from prison, with each one ending with the same salutation ‘Love as always, Mum’.
Mae has since clarified that she is no longer on the prison’s visitors’ list and contact with her mother is now ‘a burden’.
She described how Fred often put ‘hardcore porn’ videos on TV for his children to watch, some featuring ‘mum and her clients’.
‘Dad didn’t make any secret of the fact he sometimes filmed her having sex,’ she said.
‘I used to find it completely repulsive. We always knew about their interest in kinky sex. They never tried to hide it from us.
Mae West (pictured as a teenager) was not taken into care and is believed to be the only one of the siblings who maintained contact with Rose after she was imprisoned
Mae West (L) and her older sister Heather, who was murdered at 16, pictured as children
‘They’d leave porn magazines lying around the house, along with bondage gear: masks, rubber suits, whips and the like.
‘It wasn’t unusual for us kids to come across dildos, vibrators and other sex toys just lying around the house. It amused Dad, more than anything, to see how we reacted.
‘Sometimes I feel, “It’s all right for [Rose]”,’ Mae later said.
‘She’s had counselling, she’s done a degree in English; every course she’s been offered she’s said “yes” to.
‘She has a full life of hobbies, gym, sewing, cookery. She lives in a bubble.
‘But what about us, her children? There’s no place for us to be ourselves.
‘She’s a hypocrite,’ Mae continued.
‘She became quite high and mighty in prison, intervening in our lives … Her death will be the next thing and I suppose she might make a deathbed confession.
‘I just wish she’d tell the truth to the authorities, then we’d all know, wouldn’t we?’
Stephen West, 42
Stephen regularly ran away from home as a youngster, sleeping rough and enduring savage beatings by Fred on his return.
He was told he would have to have sex with his mother when he turned 17, and was unwittingly made to dig his sister Heather’s grave, with Fred telling him the hole was for a fishpond.
Stephen later admitted: ‘There’s a bit of my dad in me.’
Stephen West pictured as a young boy with his dad Fred and his sister Heather, whose grave he was made to dig
Stephen, pictured as an adult, admitted he has traces of his father’s depravity in him
In January 2002, after a failed suicide attempt, he was jailed for nine months for having sex with 14-year-old girl. He was roughly 20 years old at the time.
Stephen has no contact with Rose and he revealed in a 1999 interview that it was ‘important’ for him to cut ties with her.
He is currently married with two young children and lives in the Gloucester area, where he works as a builder.
Tara West, 47
Tara was born of Rose West’s prostitution and her biological father was one of Rose’s clients.
Rose worked as a prostitute from the family home and other locations under the name of ‘Mandy.’
Tara was named after the Tara Hotel in Gloucester, which Rose frequented with her clients.
Fred and Rose West pictured with their children, two of whom died at their hands
She managed to escape most of the sexual abuse suffered by her older siblings and once claimed that Rose spared her because she felt sorry for her owing to her parentage.
In 1992, she was taken into care and forbidden contact with her parents or her older siblings.
She is now believed to be married and living in the north of England under a different name.
Louise West, 46
Louise was another of the siblings who was taken into care and prevented from contacting the rest of her family for many years.
She was in the care of a foster family as a youngster and is now thought to be living in the north of England.
Louise hasn’t returned to Gloucester since, but is believed to have intermittent contact with some of her younger sisters.
Barry West, died aged 40
Barry West, pictured as a child
Barry died in August 2020, at the age of 40 from a suspected overdose – following years of drug and alcohol addiction.
He was just seven when he watched his parents beat his sister Heather to death at their Cromwell Street home.
An inquest into his death heard how Barry, who was too scared to give evidence at his mother’s 1995 trial, had a ‘complex medical history’.
He was placed under the care of a foster family by social services in 1992 to help him ‘become normal’ but battled severe mental health problems throughout his adult life.
He was found dead at his supported living accommodation in Maidstone, Kent.
Rosemary ‘Junior’ West, 42
Rosemary was named after her mother and was also fathered by one of Rose’s clients.
After being placed into care, she was given a new identity and now lives away from the Gloucester or West Country area.
Lucyanna West, 41
Lucyanna was the third daughter Rose West had by one of her clients.
After being taken into care at the age of nine, she was raised by a foster family and given a new identity.
She attended university and now works as a therapist.
Fred and Rose West, arguably two of the UK’s most prolific murderers, pictured in mugshots
The victims, clockwise from L to R: Ann McFall, Catherine Costello, Charmaine West, Lynda Gough, Carole Ann Cooper, Lucy Partington, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Juanita Mott, Shirley Anne Robinson, Alison Chambers, Heather West
The children who survived being raised at Gloucester’s ‘House of Horrors’, were left with incalculable mental anguish after suffering abhorrent sexual abuse, repeated physical beatings and vicious mental torture.
Stephen, Fred and Rose’s eldest biological son, said: ‘We [the West siblings] don’t have anything to do with each other.
‘I don’t speak to my siblings and there are no large happy family get-togethers.
‘Too much has gone on. It’s probably too painful for us.’
Stephen’s older sister Anne-Marie has not spoken publicly about her upbringing for some years.
But her husband Philip spoke to MailOnline to confirm that she and her siblings are estranged from one another.
He said: ‘It’s the siblings who live with the misery and pain of what went on in that house and the trauma is probably too much for them to have any contact.
‘Even though some of them live near each other, they don’t speak or see each other because that only opens up old wounds for them.
‘Every few years the case is back in the media, like now with this new documentary, and the public gets interested again but it’s the children who live with the pain of what happened on a daily basis.’
