Fred & Rose

by Howard Sounes

  Charmaine’s remains were found on 5 May under the extension at the back of 25 Midland Road, when the top of a child’s skull was uncovered. Despite what Fred had said about not dismembering her body, the skeleton was in pieces (although it is possible that this could have been caused accidentally when the extension was built). There were no clothes with the remains, suggesting that Charmaine was probably naked when she was killed and may have been sexually abused. Her remains were ceremoniously carried from the house in a box covered by a black cloth. Members of the search team left flowers on the doorstep.

  Police had questioned several members of the extended West family, including Graham Letts, Barbara Letts and Fred’s dustman brother, John. All three of them had been close to Fred and Rose and had frequently visited Cromwell Street. Like his brother, who was one year older, John West was a powerfully built man, but his shock of hair had turned completely white. Police searched his home in the Abbeydale area of Gloucester, and towards the end of the month, charged him with raping two under-age girls in the 1970s. Rose was already charged with raping one of these children.

  The dig at Finger Post Field dragged on without success. At one stage the search team were flooded out by storms; by June, they were sweating under a blazing sun. An enormous amount of earth had been moved, and the field looked like the site of an archaeological dig, partly because the farmer who owned the land had raised the level of the field in the years since Fred had buried his lover. John Bennett was criticised by the press for using police officers for manual work – it was suggested that the search had gone on too long and was costing too much money. After all, they had already found the remains of eleven bodies.

  Everybody connected with the case knew that there were more, possibly very many more victims. Even the cautious John Bennett says that he believes the police never found them all. ‘I have never made a secret of the fact that I think there are more,’ he says. As Fred was being led down to the cells one day after a court appearance, he told a guard: ‘They think they know it all, but they don’t know the half of it.’ He had even tantalised the murder squad by saying that he had ‘done one’ in Birmingham when he was in the hostel there, and hinted at other bodies in Scotland, as well as more in Herefordshire. He told prison visitors that he had killed Mary Bastholm, and many others, and that he would tell the police about these only when he was good and ready.

  The police noticed that several of the known victims had been murdered within a short space of time. There were suspiciously long periods between the other crimes.

  Assuming that Anna McFall was the first woman Fred killed, then the murders started in 1967. Mary Bastholm disappeared in 1968. There then followed a three-year gap until 1971, when Charmaine and Rena both disappeared. Caroline Owens was attacked in late 1972. Two girls died in 1973, three died in 1974 alone, and a further one in 1975. This made a total of eight girls murdered by Fred and Rose within four years. Then came another long gap until 1978, when Shirley Robinson was killed. Alison Chambers went missing the following year, and after her murder, there was an eight-year gap until Heather West was killed in 1987.

  An examination of these dates shows that Fred and Rose killed a great many people within apparently isolated, short periods of time. It seems highly unlikely that such a craving for murder could then be left unsatisfied for periods of up to eight years.

  Then there is the rate of killing to be considered. Fred and Rose killed as many as three women in one year, and Fred’s first known murder was committed in 1967. If he, and later he and Rose, had killed once a year on average until 1994, they might be responsible for as many as twenty or thirty murders, and were quite capable of killing twice or three times a year. It is anybody’s guess how many of the hundreds of missing girls on file at Bearland Fred and Rose really accounted for.

  Detectives from Gloucestershire looked at several sites around the country where Fred may have buried these unknown victims. They visited Glasgow, where the M8 motorway had been built over Fred’s allotment. The detectives also looked at the caravan sites where Fred had lived, the café where Mary Bastholm had worked and the Stroud Court Community Trust where Fred had worked as an odd-job man. But the truth was that unless Fred himself confessed and led them to the precise spot where he had buried these other victims, there was nothing that could realistically be done. The cynical view within the murder squad was that there had only ever been one person in charge of the investigation – and that person’s name was Fred.

  Finally there was success at Finger Post Field. A member of the search team came across human remains at 6:15 in the evening on Tuesday 7 June. These would later be identified as the bones of Anna McFall. Bindings, similar to those found at Cromwell Street, were in the grave, and the skeleton of a near full-term foetus was by her side.

  All digging work officially ceased on 17 June – one hundred and fifteen days after John Bennett had been granted a search warrant for 25 Cromwell Street. The past months had been a unique police investigation. Never before had so many officers dug up so much of the countryside looking for bodies. Police forces from all over Britain and abroad had helped identify the remains. The inquiry team at Gloucester had comprised a core of between thirty and forty officers, rising to approximately eighty when the investigation was at its height – even more had been employed carrying out clerical work. The scars of the investigation were plain to see: 25 Cromwell Street was a shell of a building; the extension had been demolished and taken away; the garden was a rutted building site strewn with rubble; the windows had been blocked in and the front gate chained. The distinctive wrought-iron address sign had been taken down from the front of the building, to foil souvenir hunters who had already stolen street signs. In the fields outside Much Marcle, mounds of red earth were piled up like the work of giant moles.

  There were disappointments, not least for Peter Bastholm, whose sister, Mary, had not been found despite high hopes. The reasons were explained to him in patient telephone calls by John Bennett, and he accepted that – although the police strongly suspected that Fred had murdered Mary – Fred had chosen not to co-operate, and they simply did not know where to look.

  Fred and Rose were reunited when they made a joint appearance at Gloucester Magistrates Court on 30 June; the first time they had seen each other since February.

  There was a fascinated silence as Fred was led up from the cells into court Number Two. His mouth hung slightly open as he glanced around at the journalists, police officers, officials and curious onlookers – a crowd of at least eighty people. It was as though he were an animal in a zoo looking out at the visitors. Rose was led up next: a plump, dowdy woman wearing large spectacles with purple frames. Husband and wife had to stand together in the same tiny dock. As Rose squeezed past, Fred laid his right hand gently on her shoulder. Rose shrank from his touch.

  The Wests were told that they stood jointly charged with nine murders, and that Fred was charged with the additional murders of his first wife, Rena Costello, and Rena’s daughter, Charmaine.* Rose sat down for the few minutes it took to discuss the remand arrangements. Fred stood behind her, swaying slightly. His son, Steve, was in the crowd and tried to catch his eye, but Fred was only concerned with Rose. They were told to stand again for the magistrate to formally remand them into custody. The hearing was finished.

  As a police officer tried to lead Fred away, he resisted, and moved towards Rose. Again she shrank from him, and when he raised a hand to touch her, it was pushed away by an officer. Rose later said that being next to Fred had made her feel sick.

  *Fred had not yet been charged with Anna McFall’s murder because Dr Whittaker had not finished identifying her remains.

  20

  ALONE

  On a blazing July afternoon in 1994, Steve West married his girlfriend, Andrea Davis, at St George’s Church in the village of Brockworth. It was a pretty service on a perfect summer’s day, and both Fred and Rose sent their best wishes from their respective prison cells. Fre
d signed his good-luck card ‘Dad’, as was his habit. Rose gave the couple a cushion she had made.

  There was a flurry of excitement in August when Fred parted company with his solicitor, Howard Ogden. It emerged that Mr Ogden was planning to sell his account of the case: an agent had prepared a three-page synopsis listing what was on offer. The material included tape recordings of Fred’s prison interviews, his confession statement, details of the 1992 child abuse case, psychological reports of Fred and Rose, and footage from their home-made pornographic videos. Howard Ogden said that he had written permission to do this, but Fred was granted a High Court injunction stopping him. The matter was brought before the Law Society and Howard Ogden later returned all the tapes.

  In September a Gloucestershire police report revealed that the murder inquiry had cost £1.3 million, and was still running at the rate of approximately £2,000 per week as John Bennett’s team prepared for the trial, a date for which had still not been scheduled. Overtime alone had accounted for £309,000; a further £78,000 had been spent on demolition and excavation work. It was an enormous financial burden for the force, and the Home Office was asked for a contribution. The request was turned down.

  Fred spent his fifty-third birthday, 29 September 1994, behind bars in Birmingham’s Winson Green prison, where he had been since April. With the bulk of the police investigation over, and the long wait for the trial ahead, he seldom found himself troubled by visits from detectives, who had tape-recorded 108 hours of interviews with Fred. He had never spoken to them about the sexual torture of the victims, or the masks, or why so many body parts were missing. It had also been realised that the video tapes seized from Cromwell Street in 1992, some of which may have featured evidence of this torture, had been destroyed because the Wests had not wanted them back. (Only four videos were taken in 1994, including graphic film of Rose pleasuring herself intimately, but none were of any use to the police.)

  Some of Fred’s time was occupied with drawing, for which he had a fair aptitude, and with making an attempt to improve his literacy – Fred hoped he would be able to understand his legal papers. His children Steve and Mae were almost his only visitors. Steve remembers his father’s low spirits: ‘He said he loved Rose and missed her. He wished she felt the same, but she didn’t.’

  Fred confided that he had begun to write his autobiography. Each chapter would be dedicated to one of the women in his life. Chapter One had already been written, and was all about Anna McFall. Fred had entitled it ‘I Was Loved By An Angel’.

  If Steve missed a prison visit, his father became agitated and angry that he had been embarrassed in front of the guards. Fred was allowed telephone cards, and used them regularly, chatting with Steve about his marriage and the impending birth of twins to Steve’s new wife. He also wrote crudely-spelled letters offering advice for the future, some of which were reprinted in the News of the World newspaper, which made corrections to the excerpts for the sake of clarity. ‘Always know what’s going on in your home please son,’ he wrote. ‘Always spend as much time with your wife and children as you can and love your wife and children.’ In another, Fred wrote that he now regretted working so hard day and night and cautioned his son not to do the same, in case he, too, came to a bad end. He also advised him not to have too many children because ‘babies cost money, lots of money’. Expressing himself curiously in the past tense, Fred wrote ‘I loved you all’ and said he was sorry for what had happened. He urged the family to sell 25 Cromwell Street and start a new life together. Seemingly in despair, he wrote in another letter that ‘my case is a mess’, and accused Rose of trying to break up the family.

  But he could easily snap out of this gloom. One day Fred asked the prison warders for his clothes, convinced that he was about to go home.

  Fred and Rose met again at another remand appearance at Gloucester Magistrates Court in December. By now they were jointly charged with nine murders, and Fred faced a further three murder charges, making a total of twelve. He appeared tired, and looked all of his fifty-three years. His hair, which had always been bushy, was cropped short, and a hearing-aid had recently been fitted because he was complaining of deafness. Two police women stood between Fred and Rose. He had been warned beforehand that Rose did not wish to talk to him. Rose glanced at her husband just once, giving no sign of the affection he craved.

  When the New Year’s honours list was published on 31 December, Hazel Savage was at last recognised for her tenacity. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, and her Chief Constable, Tony Butler, paid tribute to ‘an exceptional police career’.

  On New Year’s morning, 1995, Fred rose as usual in his cell on the third floor of D-wing at Her Majesty’s Prison Winson Green. His was an old cell, painted cream, with a sink, toilet, and table and chair. The solid door had a spy-hole with a cover that flipped up so the warders could see in. As a remand prisoner, as yet convicted of no crime, Fred was allowed some home comforts. He had his own bed quilt, pillowcase and stereo music system. He had even put curtains up over the tiny, barred window that looked out on to the prison wall. Fred did not share the cell.

  Prisoner WN 3617 dressed in issue clothing of brown jeans and a blue and white shirt. It was a cold day, with flurries of snow, so Fred also pulled on a warm sweatshirt and a brown prison-issue jacket. He had lost weight recently, and the clothes hung on him a little. After a breakfast of cereal and eggs, Fred went into the exercise area, where he was told he could choose a special New Year lunch. When he had made his decision, Fred went back to his cell to listen to compact discs on his portable stereo and write a note to Rose. It read:

  To Rose West,

  Happy new year darling. All my love, Fred West. All my love for ever and ever.

  Despite the modest comforts he enjoyed, which are not unusual for remand prisoners, Fred was a desperately unhappy man, heartbroken that Rose had rejected him. Each time one of his children visited, Fred entreated them to tell Rose that he loved her, yet Rose sent no message back. He had not received one encouraging word from her since the day he was arrested – Rose had turned against Fred completely. At the end of their long relationship, it was she who had proved to be the stronger of the two, she who was fighting her case while Fred had given in and co-operated with police. (She had said nothing to them during a total of forty-six interviews between 23 April and 1 June, apart from asserting her innocence. In Fred’s case, on the other hand, the police had 6,189 pages of transcribed interviews – enough evidence to put him behind bars for life.) Because of this he was overwhelmed with depression, and often wept.

  Fred was also worried that other prisoners wanted to harm him. The inmates in Winson Green had an ambivalent attitude towards Fred. On one hand they found him amusing, awarding him the macabre nickname ‘Digger’ and yelling out ‘Build us a patio, Fred!’ when he went by. But as a child-abuser and child-killer, he was detested in the same way as the sex offenders on the landing directly beneath him. He was relatively safe as long as he was segregated, but there were still times when Fred came into contact with other prisoners, and on these occasions he appeared to be aggressive, fixing a demented grin and warning anybody who came near to go away. This was only an act: in reality Fred was terrified. His fear had increased since November, when the American mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer had been battered to death by a fellow inmate in his Wisconsin gaol.

  When Fred arrived at Winson Green there had been concern that he might take his own life. He was categorised as a ‘vulnerable prisoner’ because of his unstable mind, and was placed on suicide watch where a warder checked his cell every fifteen minutes. There were also random searches for implements he might use to try and kill himself. Fred gave the warders good reason to think he might attempt suicide, yelling out ‘I’m going to do it!’ when he was first brought in.

  But Fred settled down after a few weeks. He even made the warders laugh by calling out cheery greetings to them in his rustic accent. ‘He would say, “Good morning, guv’nor,”
like he was Farmer Giles leaning over a gate back in Gloucestershire,’ said one fellow inmate. Fred became so amenable, and cheerful, that he was soon put on a more relaxed regime.

  At 11:30 on New Year’s morning Fred was allowed to collect his chosen meal of soup and pork chops, returning to his cell at twelve noon. When the door was locked behind him, Fred knew he would be left alone for one hour to eat. He listened to the warder walk away, and then turned from his food and pulled a sheet from his bed.

  He tore the cotton sheet into strips and plaited these strips together until he had formed a strong ligature. Standing on a chair, Fred reached up and threaded one end of the ligature through the barred opening of the ventilation shaft above the door of his cell, tying it securely. He fashioned the other end into a noose, which he slipped over his head. Fred then kicked the chair from beneath him.

  His neck did not break, so he did not die straight away. Instead he slowly strangled himself, suffering considerable pain.

  Fifty-five minutes later, a prison officer returned to let Fred out to wash his plate, but the warder could not open the cell door. Fred’s body was holding it shut. Another officer quickly arrived on the landing and together they forced the heavy door open. They took Fred down and laid him on the bed. His body was still warm and they made strenuous attempts to revive him, trying both mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage. A nurse also rushed to help, but it was too late. By the time the doctor arrived, all that was left to do was to confirm that Fred West was dead.

  Word of the suicide spread quickly through the echoing halls of the Victorian prison to the door of the deputy Governor. John Bennett was one of the first people he called.