VIDEO: Serial Killers Fred and Rose West

Frederick “Fred” West and Rosemary “Rose” West were a married couple who killed at least ten young British girls, some of them their own daughters.

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The disappearance of Heather West, Fred and Rose West’s eldest daughter, led ultimately to the Cromwell Street murder inquiry.

According to Criminal Minds, in October 1972, Fred and Rosemary hired a young woman named Caroline Owens to work for them as a nanny for their children. They kept making sexual advances on her, but she declined every time. One night in December, after they both unsuccesfully tried to seduce her, she tried to leave only to be held captive overnight.

When Fred threatened to let some of his friends “have” her and that he would then kill her, she complied. The next day, she was released. Though she pressed charges, Fred was able to convince the court that the acts she was forced into had been consensual, so he and Rosemary were instead only fined £50 for indecent assault.

Over the next six years, they killed at least eight young women who made their way to 25 Cromwell Street as lodgers or employees together. The first was Lynda Gough, a seamstress the Wests knew personally. Next was Carol Ann Cooper, who disappeared while walking home from a movie theater.

In December, Lucy Katherine Partington disappeared from a bus stop while on her way home after Christmas. She was murdered by Fred and Rosemary, who abducted her, held her captive for a week over New Year, raped and tortured her and then killed her. On January 3, Fred was treated for laceration, which is believed to have been inflicted when he dismembered Partington.

From 1974 to 1979, five more women, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Juanita Marion Mott, Shirley Anne Robinson, and Alison Chambers, met the same fate.

While committing murders, Fred also sexually abused Anne Marie West, his daughter from his relationship with Rena Costello. She eventually became pregnant, but the pregnancy had to be terminated because it occured in her fallopian tube. When she left home, he started abusing Heather West, who was conceived by Rosemary and possibly her own father, and one of his own daughters, Mae West.

Fred disposed of the victims by burying them under the garage of the house or in the garden. To cover up the frequent burials, he pretended to be doing regular home improvement. In order to afford the supplies needed, he frequently stole and fenced the loot. Even though he was often brought to the police’s attention for this reason, his killings went unnoticed.

The couple came close to being exposed in 1986, when Heather told her friends about the abuse she suffered. In June of the next year, Fred and Rosemary strangled her to death to silence her. She was then dismembered and buried in the garden.

The Wests were finally exposed in May 1992, when Fred videotaped himself raping one of his daughters. When she told her friends, one of them reported the Wests to the police.