The Case Against Serial Killers Fred & Rose West Part 1

Fred West

Fred Walter Stephen West was born in September of 1941.  He was born in Much Markle, Herefordshire, in the West Midlands of England.  It’s said that his father, Walter Stephen West was a strict disciplinarian, while his mother Daisy Hannah Hill, was very overprotective.  Fred had seven siblings, two of which died very early in life, leaving Fred and his five siblings.  Growing up, they were a very poor family that worked on farms.  People described them as very close knit and protective of one another.  

When Fred was just a few years old, the family moved to the outskirts of Much Markle, into a cottage that was adjacent to the farm that his father worked at.  It was a small cottage, with no electricity and in the winter it could only be heated by a log fire.  By 1951, Daisy had given birth to eight total children, and like we mentioned, two of them didn’t survive.  But Fred was always her favorite.  Others said that Fred was a  “mama’s boy” who was coddled by her at every opportunity. 

The children were raised in a home that valued hard work, and they were assigned chores to do.  Well, when we say chores, we mean that they had to get jobs at a very young age.  The children all worked seasonal jobs; the three girls would pick hops and strawberries when they were in season.  The boys harvested wheat while in season and hunted small game to provide food for the family or to sell.  

In school, Fred was not a great student.  Classmates described him as scruffy, lethargic, and he was regularly in trouble.  Throughout his life, Fred was barely literate.  He did however excel in classes that involved less traditional learning, particularly woodworking and art classes.  But, school never really seemed like it was something that Fred valued, and in 1956 at the age of 15, he quit school  and then took a job on the same farm that his father worked on.

Around the age of 17, Fred would frequent a youth club in a neighboring town where his thick accent would give him away as being from Herefordshire, and people would label him as a country bumpkin.  But, while going to this club, Fred can only be described as a complete and utter shit head.  While there, he would aggressively come on to girls and young women.  He regularly groped and fondled them, and later in his life would say that he believed that they were just objects there for his pleasure.  If someone would accept his advances for some crazy reason, they would always say that he would leave them extremely unsatisfied because all he cared about was his own gratification.  

At 17 years old Fred was in a serious motorcycle accident that left him with a fractured skull, broken arm, and a broken leg.  He was unconscious for a week and had to use braces to help him walk for months.  This led him to develop an intense fear of hospitals, and everyone noticed that after his accident, he was prone to fits of rage at a moment’s notice.  Two years later, Fred suffered another head injury when he fell two stories off a fire escape… after he groped a girl against her wishes and she punched him.  

First Marriage

In 1960, Fred met and started dating Catherine “Rena” Costello.  They had met at a dance hall and dated for several months, until Rena had to return home to Scotland.  Then, in 1962, they met up again when Rena was living back in England.  When she was living in Scotland, Rena had been seeing a bus driver, who happened to be Asian.  She got pregnant, and her family was not happy at all with her carrying a mixed-race child, prompting her to return to England.  She and Fred rekindled their relationship, and quickly married.. Like they started seeing one another (again) in September of 1962, then they were married in November of the same year.  The only person at their wedding was Fred’s younger brother, John.  The following March, Rena’s daughter, Charmaine was born.  To cover up the fact that Charmaine was mixed race, the couple told people that Rena had a miscarriage when she was pregnant, and the baby was actually adopted. Not long after she was born, they moved to Glasgow, Scotland.  A couple of years later, they had a daughter, Anna Marie.  

Now, this will probably come as a shock considering what we know about Fred in his younger years, but he did not treat Rena and the girls well at all.  Neighbors said that Rena seemed like a young mother, struggling to try to raise the two children.  They said that Fred treated Rena and the girls “harshly.”  The girls had a bunk bed, but Fred had installed bars on the bottom bunk and made the girls stay there.  The only time they were allowed out was when he was at work.  

Some time passed, and Fred had affairs and cheated on Rena regularly.  Eventually, he admitted to the affairs and cheating, and even fathering a child with one of the women.  So, Rena began to have an affair with a man named John McLachlan.  One day, Fred caught them hugging and he grabbed Rena and punched her.  This led to the first (of what appears to be many) beatings of Fred at the hands of John McLachlan.  John punched Fred, who pulled a knife and swung it at John, grazing his side.  Then John punched him again, and Fred stopped defending himself.  Rena and John’s affair continued, and on different occasions, John would see Rena with bruises and black eyes.  Each time, he would find Fred and beat him.  One time, John saw Fred smack Charmaine (who was basically a toddler at the time) when she asked for an ice cream cone from his (Fred’s) ice cream truck, so John again beat the hell out of Fred.  Later in his life, John said that Fred “couldn’t tackle a man, but he wasn’t so slow in attacking women.”

In December of 1965, Fred, Rena, their children, and two other women moved back to England.  The two other women were Isa McNeill and Anne McFall.  Isa had worked as a nanny for Fred and Rena, and Anne was a friend of hers.  They both came from poorer backgrounds and moved in hopes of finding jobs in Gloucester.  What caused the abrupt move though?  Well, Fred was out doing his ice cream man thing when he ran over a young boy, killing him.  The police cleared Fred of any wrongdoing and ruled that it was just an accident.  But Fred felt like there would be retaliation from the locals, and he relied on them to make a living in the ice cream truck, so they just left.  Once back in England, Fred found a job as a truck driver for a slaughterhouse.  

As you might expect, when they moved back to England, Fred was still a shithead to everyone.  He was extremely domineering over Rena, Isa, Anne, and the children.  And the physical and mental abuse continued, along with accusations of sexual abuse of Charmaine.  Fred even encouraged Rena to turn to sex work to supplement his income.  Finally fed up with it all, Rena called John McLachaln and begged him to come get her, Isa, and the children.  So, the three along with Isa’s boyfriend devised a plan to show up and take the women and children back to Scotland. But, Anne McFall had become infatuated with Fred by this time, and it’s suspected that she told him about the plan for the women to escape.  

When McLachlan showed up, Fred was there.  Words were exchanged, and Anne told them that she was staying with Fred to be the children’s nanny.  It ended with Fred clutching the children while John again beat him.  The police were called, and  John, Rena, Isa, and Isa’s boyfriend left, leaving the children with Fred and Anne. 

Rena would end up traveling back and forth from Scotland to England frequently to see the children and make sure they were being taken care of.  She tried to remain cordial with Anne, but over time resented her because of how she was trying to take over the role of the girl’s mother.  In letters that Anne wrote to family members, she said that she felt like staying with Fred was the correct choice because it gave her a shot at a better life.  She frequently tried to get Fred to divorce Rena, whom he was still legally married to, and marry her. Then, in July of 1967, Anne McFall vanished.  No one heard from her and she was never reported missing. 

About a month after Anne’s disappearance, Rena returned to England and Fred.  Their relationship was good initially, but eventually, Fred returned to his ways and Rena left again the following year, leaving the children with Fred again.  Having no one to help him with the children, Fred placed them with social services until he had a woman in his life who would take care of them. 

Rose Letts (West)

Rosemary Pauline Letts was the fifth of seven children born to Andrew Letts and Daisy Fuller.  The pregnancy was said to have been very difficult for Daisy, something that many attributed to the electroconvulsive therapy (electroshock therapy) she received to treat her depression.  People said that the ECT most likely caused prenatal developmental injuries to Rose.  The Letts family, like the West family, was very poor and struggled to make ends meet.  Rose was described as a bit of a daydreamer, who did poorly in school.  

When she was a teenager, her parents divorced and she briefly lived with her mom before returning to live with her father.  Her father suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and was prone to violent outbursts.  While living with him, Rose suffered violence and sexual abuse at his hands. 

When Rose turned 15, she was at a bus stop when she was approached by an unkempt 27 year old.  Initially, she was repulsed by the man, but he continued to show her attention over the course of days.  Eventually, she became flattered by the attention.  For days, the man met her at the bus stop and would talk with her.  He asked her out twice and she said no both times, but did agree to let the man walk her home.  That man was Fred West. 

Through talking with Rose, Fred learned that she worked at a nearby bakery and he hatched a plan.  He persuaded a woman to go in and give her a gift and say that it was from a man outside.  Minutes later he went  in and asked Rose out for a third time, which she accepted.  That date led to a relationship, and Rose would frequently visit Fred’s home with the children, Anna and Charmaine.  Rose saw that the girls were being neglected, and stepped in as a motherly figure to help with them.  She insisted that they all go out on various excursions, like picking wildflowers or just being outdoors together.  

Within weeks of meeting, Rose left her job and agreed to be a full time nanny for Fred.  They agreed that Fred would give her enough money so she could continue to give money to her family on a weekly basis, to keep up the charade that she still worked at the bakery.  After months of dating, Rose introduced Fred to her family… They were aghast basically.   Her mom said that his behavior was arrogant and boastful, and to her, he seemed like a pathological liar.  Rose’s dad was just as unimpressed, threatening to fight Fred and call social services to take the children away if he didn’t stay away from Rose. 

So, Rose continued to see Fred and her parents tried to “fight back.”  They went to social services and told them that their daughter was having a sexual relationship with an older man… and they also heard that she had started working as a sex worker for him.  Rose was placed in a home for troubled teenagers, and only allowed to visit her family on the weekends, when she would just go see Fred.  When she turned 16, she left the group home and went back to her parents.  Fred was in jail for 30 days for theft, but once he got out, Rose immediately returned to him.  Again, Rose’s parents went to social services and talked with them.  Rose was taken in and examined by a “police surgeon.”  They confirmed that she was pregnant.  She was again placed into care, but was released after agreeing to terminate the pregnancy, which she did not do.  She moved in with Fred, which prompted her father to forbid her from setting foot in their house again.  A few months passed, and Rose gave birth to a daughter, Heather Ann.  Two months later, Fred was sent to jail for stealing car tires and a tax disc.  He would serve a six and a half month sentence.  While he was in jail, Rose, who was just 17 years old, looked after the three girls, and told Charmaine and Anna Marie to refer to her as their mother. 

Rena and Charmaine West

Anna Marie later said that she and Charmaine suffered greatly at the hands of Rose.  Where she would cry and submit to whatever Rose wanted them to do, Charmaine was stoic and would rarely react, which infuriated Rose even more.  Anna said that Charmaine would tell her that Rena was going to come save them.  If Rose swore at the girls, Charmaine would tell her “My real mommy wouldn’t swear at us.”   A friend of Charmaine’s said that one day she stopped by their house unannounced and went in.  She saw Charmaine standing on a chair, naked, with a gag and her hands bound behind her back with a belt.  Rose was standing beside her with a larger wooden spoon, and Anna Marie was in a corner with a blank expression on her face.  She said that Charmaine seemed calm and unconcerned with what was happening.  It doesn’t seem like anything ever came of this. 

There is a record of Charmaine having gotten treatment for a stab wound to an ankle.  It was explained away as a household accident, and Charmaine was treated and released. 

At some point in mid June of 1971, Rose took the children to visit Fred in jail.  Then, in late June, a mother of a playmate of Charmaine’s brought her daughter for a visit, but was shocked when she was told that Charmaine had gone to live with her mother.  Rose added “bloody good riddance,” when she told the mother.  Others said that they asked Rose about Charmaine’s sudden disappearance as well, they were all told similar stories about Rena West coming to get Charmaine to live with her in Bristol.  Rose told the school that Charmaine had moved to London with her mother.  Not long after Charmaine disappeared, Fred got out of jail.  Anna Marie was worried about where her sister was, and Fred told her that she had gone to Scotland to live with Rena.  She asked why Rena took Charmaine and not her, and Fred told her that it was because she was white while Charmaine was part Asian.  He told her “She wouldn’t want you, love. You’re the wrong color.”

Throughout the years, whenever Rena would leave Fred, she always kept contact with her children.  She made sure to visit often and keep up with what was going on with them.  After Fred had been released from jail in 1971, Rena hadn’t talked to the children for a while and was said to be depressed and extremely anxious about it.  Fred and Rose had moved to a different home, and Rena didn’t know where it was.  But, she eventually got their address and went to pay them a visit.  Her plan was to demand custody of the girls and take them back with her.  That visit with Fred was the last time anyone saw Rena.  

Fred – N – Rose: They’re Just The Worst

So, by now, everyone pretty much has an idea of the kind of person Fred West was.  But, we’re going to get into it a little more here.  It’s not pretty. 

We will start back to when he was younger.  We know that he was groping and assaulting girls and young women when he would go to social clubs.  In June of 1961, one of Fred’s sisters, 13 year old Kitty, went to their mother and told her that Fred had been raping her for over 6 months.  Fred would have been around 19 years old at the time. Fred was arrested and…  get this… was like yeah, I did that, “Doesn’t everybody do it?”  The police were pretty much like… Ya know, what, everybody doesn’t do it, in fact, very few people do that. 

He was set for a trial in November of the same year, and even though she was claimed to be disgusted and appalled by his actions, his mother was going to testify on his behalf.  He was her favorite after all.  But, just before she was scheduled to testify, Kitty recanted her story and refused to testify.  The case collapsed, even with him saying he did it.  Pretty much all of their family disowned Fred, and his mom said he was no longer welcomed in their home.  Fred went to live with an aunt Violet.  But, by the summer of 1962, less than a year after the trial collapsed, Fred and his parents had reconciled, but most of the other family did not.  

As we mentioned, Fred had been arrested a few times here and there.  Growing up poor, Fred developed a reputation as a petty thief, and would steal small things here and there, when he would get caught, he’d go to jail for a bit and then be out again. 

Fred and Rose got married in January of 1972.  Like with his marriage to Rena, the only person in attendance was Fred’s brother, John, who served as his best man.  After a few months of being married to Rose, she was pregnant with their second child, and they decided to move to a house at 25 Cromwell Street.  The house has since been demolished and turned into an alleyway for people to navigate, but the address is well known to anyone who knows of this case.  They rented the house initially, but eventually bought it for 7 thousand pounds.  It was a huge house, and to supplement family income, they converted the upper floors into bedsits.  (Basically, they took the upper floors and made the rooms into single living spaces.  People could rent a room, but they shared a bathroom.)  They installed a sink and stove on the first floor landing.  The tenants were not allowed to be on the ground floor or in the yards, only the West family was permitted to go in those areas.  After purchasing the Cromwell St house, Rose gave birth to their second daughter, Mae June.  

Not long after the birth of Mae, Rose began to do sex work in one of the rooms they converted and advertised in a local magazine.  She engaged in casual sex with their tenants, male and female, as well as people Fred met while out in town.  Fred participated as well, and people said that they definitely took pleasure in making women go beyond their sexual limits.  Rose would use increasingly larger and larger sex toys on women and when it caused them pain or they asked her to stop, she would respond with “Aren’t you woman enough to take it?”

We mentioned that Rose lived with her father after her parents divorced, and he sexually abused her and her sister.  After she had started to go through puberty, Rose became fascinated by the way her body was changing.  She would just walk around their house naked or almost naked any time she was around her younger brother Graham, who was around 4 years younger than her.  On numerous occasions, Rose would go into Graham’s room at night and molest him.  She was 13, and he was only 9.  Eventually, she started to molest her other young brother Gordon. 

It was known in the West household on Cromwell St that the room that Rose used for work was only hers.  Well, it was “Mandy’s Room,” Mandy being the name that Rose used while working.  It was locked with only one key, which she wore on a necklace around her neck.  There were various peepholes in the walls, so Fred could watch when she had clients over.  She also kept a baby monitor in the room so Fred could listen in when he wanted.  Fred installed a red light outside the door so people could see when she was with a client.  Her clients were instructed to use a particular door and doorbell, which Fred had installed for this purpose.  Rose handled all of the household finances.  When Fred got paid, he turned it all over to her. 

By the time that 1977 rolled around, Rose’s father, Bill, was more tolerant of her and Fred’s relationship.  Some said that it seemed like he developed more of a respect for Fred, and they actually went into business together.  They opened a cafe named The Green Lantern, but it was soon insolvent, meaning they were broke and unable to pay any of their bills.  

Bill also learned that Rose was a sex worker… and he began to visit her for her services. 

By 1983, Rose had given birth to eight children.  At least three of them were fathered by clients, but Fred claimed them as his own.  When he was questioned about why their skin was so much darker than his or Rose’s, he told them that his great-grandmother was black.  

In the West house, when each child turned 7 years old, they were given chores.. Like a lot of chores.  They were not permitted to socialize outside of the house, unless one of their parents was with them.  There were very strict rules and guidelines in place for the house, and if a rule was broken, the punishment was often physical and severe.  The children lived in constant fear of being punished, mainly by Rose.  They said that sometimes they would get in trouble just for Rose’s own gratification, but she made sure to never leave a mark on their faces or hands where people might see them.  

Between 1972 and 1992, the children were admitted to the emergency rooms of various hospitals 31 times.  At one point, Heather and a younger brother ran away and slept outdoors or with friends.  After weeks away, they were returned home and were severely beaten.  

One time, Stephen (one of their sons) was cleaning the floor with a washcloth and a bowl of water.  Rose walked in and stepped in the bowl and flew into a rage.  She shouted that he put the bowl there on purpose so she would step in it.  She hit him in the head with the bowl and repeatedly kicked him in the head and chest.  On a different occasion, a utensil was missing from the kitchen.  Rose had been using a knife to cut up some meat, so she grabbed the knife and then used it to make small cuts on Mae’s chest until she was covered in small wounds. 

The children weren’t the only ones to catch hell from Rose.  One time, they were arguing, and Rose chased Fred through the house with a carving knife.  He ran into a room and slammed the door just as she lunged at him.  The knife stuck in the door, but her hand slipped and her fingers ran down the blade.  She almost severed the fingers and just calmly wrapped them up while saying “Look what you done, fella. You’ve got to take me to the hospital now.”