Fred and Rose West: Reopened on ITV1 explores unearthed evidence about the crimes of the UK’s most heinous serial killers.
Presented by Sir Trevor McDonald, a team of investigators explores attempts to prove the Wests were responsible for many more murders than just the 12 they were suspected of.
Fred West committed suicide before he was brought to trial, but his wife Rose was convicted of 10 murders in 1995.
Shockingly, it was Rose that took the lead in the crimes she committed with her husband, Fred.
Criminologist Jaye Woodward said this fact was what left investigators stunned when trying to crack the case.
“Based on the fact that men are almost always the dominant partner in serial-killer relationships, many people believed Rose would surely have been, at worse, complicit under coercion, possibly covering for her husband who carried out the murders,” she wrote in her book, Making a Monster.
“But this wasn’t the case. Rose was not simply an unsuspecting wife and victim of Fred as she maintained at her trial, but a primary player.”
Read more: Rose West: Where are her and Fred West’s surviving children now?
Who did Fred and Rose West kill?
Fred was the first to murder when he brutally killed his pregnant mistress, Ann McFall, in 1967.
After his arrest, he initially denied her murder, but would later confess in a hand-written note to detectives.
Rose first committed murder in 1971, when she slaughtered Fred’s daughter, Charmaine, while Fred was in jail for stealing car tyres. When Fred was released, he removed his daughter’s fingers and toes and then buried her.
Fred’s first wife, Rena Costello, came looking for her daughter, and she was murdered the same year.
Things then took an even darker turn, and their sexually motivated murder spree began in 1972.
The first was Lynda Gough, who the couple both knew personally. Next, was Carol Ann Cooper, who disappeared walking home from the cinema.
In December, Lucy Katherine Partington disappeared from a bus stop. She was held captive for a week before being raped, tortured and finally murdered.
From 1974 to 1979, five more women, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Juanita Marion Mott, Shirley Anne Robinson, and Alison Chambers, were all murdered.
However, it is unknown how many other victims the couple may have had.
While they buried many on their property, police suspect the pair murdered many other innocent women.
In 1987, the couple strangled Fred’s daughter, Heather, to death to silence her after she began to recall her abuse to friends.
Fred was arrested first, being taken into custody in 1994, and he took the blame for all of the murders.
However, after his death, police focused their attention on Rose, and she was eventually convicted of 10 murders in 1995.
In 1996, the couple’s former home, 5 Cromwell Street, was demolished. The site was then turned into a pathway.
Is Rose West still alive?
Rose was sexually abused as a child by her father. At the age of 13, she began abusing her two younger brothers.
At the age of 15, she moved in with Fred West after meeting him at a bus stop and falling in love.
He introduced her to sadomasochism, and she became a step mum to his young girls, Charmaine, then six, and Anne Marie, then five. Their mother was Fred’s ex, Rena Costello.
Rose would strip the girls and tie them to their beds where they were not allowed to speak or make a sound.
Fred and Rose forced Anne Marie to prostitute herself from the age of 13 from within the household. Rose was always present to make sure Anne Marie never revealed her actual age.
Anne Marie, who is still alive, went on to detail her horrific childhood in a book called Out of the Shadows: Fred West’s Daughter Tells Her Harrowing Story of Survival.
Read more: Rose West & Myra Hindley with Trevor McDonald: Viewers praise ex-prisoner for punching child killer
At 17, Rose committed her first murder, later becoming a fully-fledged serial killer.
She currently resides at HM Prison New Hall, Flockton, West Yorkshire, after being convicted in 1995.
Though she maintains her innocence, she confirmed in 2001 that she will not try to appeal her conviction.
Is Fred West still alive?
Fred hanged himself in his prison cell on New Year’s Day in 1995, aged 53, before he could stand trial.
He wrapped an improvised rope he had constructed from a blanket and tags he had stolen from prison laundry bags around his neck days after he had been taken off suicide watch.
Before he died, he claimed that Rose had murdered a further 20 young women.
He alleged that some of the bodies had been buried at a farm, but refused to name the location.
In Fred and Rose West: Reopened, Sir Trevor McDonald and a team of investigators aim to track down more victims.
Fred and Rose West: Reopened airs Wednesday, September 15 and 9pm on ITV1
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