Speaker 1: In May nineteen ninety two, Gloucester Police in England received
Speaker 1: a tip that a young teenage girl had opened up
Speaker 1: about having been sexually abused by her father.
Speaker 2: Oh god.
Speaker 1: The girl had nine siblings, only seven of whom still
Speaker 1: lived at home at twenty five Cromwell Street. The two
Speaker 1: no longer lived there, had left of their own accord,
Speaker 1: or had they. Police had no idea that this one
Speaker 1: tip would end up uncovering one of the most horrific
Speaker 1: stories they would ever hear, and we will ever hear,
Speaker 1: I hope, of the most heinous crimes, including multiple murders
Speaker 1: over twenty years. Twenty years committed by a husband and wife.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is the story of the House
Speaker 1: of Horrors and Fred and Rosemary West.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I know this story, and I don't
Speaker 2: know this story, so I'm very excited to hear you
Speaker 2: tell this story.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, after researching this one deeply, I know it very well.
Speaker 2: My god.
Speaker 1: This episode. All of our episodes that deal with crime
Speaker 1: obviously come with trigger warnings. I want to give some
Speaker 1: really strong trigger warnings up the top of this one.
Speaker 1: In particular, it deals with the deaths of children and
Speaker 1: physical and sexual abuse of adults and children. Now I
Speaker 1: won't go I don't go into detail about the sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: but it does come up unfortunately, so lots of trigger warnings.
Speaker 1: All right, are you ready? No? Fred West was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty one in rural Herod for shit.
Speaker 2: And now Herod for shit.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think it's that, Like Leicester is Leicester not life.
Speaker 1: I think it's Herod for shit, for ship, Herod for shit,
Speaker 1: and I apologize if it's not. In England into a
Speaker 1: large and economically struggling family. His parents were named Walter
Speaker 1: and Daisy, which sounds like a Disney couple.
Speaker 2: It does, and also like very British as well, Walter, they.
Speaker 1: Were not a Disney couple, that's right. Oh yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: that's my brain, is not that? Like, it's pretty easy
Speaker 1: to read. Fred was the second of eight children, but
Speaker 1: two of his siblings died during all shortly after childbirth.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Fred was born a year after Daisy's first daughter, Violet,
Speaker 1: had died. By all accounts, Fred was very much Daisy's favorite,
Speaker 1: even above her husband. Because of this, he did not
Speaker 1: have a good relationship with his father, Walter, because you know,
Speaker 1: being jealous of a baby is totally.
Speaker 2: Normal and fine, normal and fine and cool and actually
Speaker 2: pretty cool.
Speaker 1: The living space where they lived on a farm was
Speaker 1: very cramped. The bathrooms were simply buckets, and and they
Speaker 1: ate a lot of time. All the children ate in
Speaker 1: a day was the unpasteurized milk his dad would bring home.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay.
Speaker 1: Despite being very much loved by his mother at home,
Speaker 1: it was not a good upbringing and he did not
Speaker 1: have good relationships otherwise. Fred was bullied for being a
Speaker 1: mummies boy and was described as dim, which it's not
Speaker 1: a nice way to describe someone, but I enjoy that work.
Speaker 2: Dim is dim is a fun way to describe, so.
Speaker 1: You can see it's like a light note.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it makes total sense when you say it,
Speaker 2: but everyone knows exactly what you mean, even I've never
Speaker 2: heard the word.
Speaker 1: You also are allowed to call for a dim because
Speaker 1: he's much worse than that. His brothers, Doug and John
Speaker 1: in particular, really hated him, and they all the siblings
Speaker 1: would be physically punished by their father. Fred dropped out
Speaker 1: of school early. He was academically stunted, but he was
Speaker 1: dim exactly. But also there were questions raised about whether
Speaker 1: he was also stunted in other areas, particularly socially, emotionally,
Speaker 1: and even sexually. He would later say he was sexually
Speaker 1: abused by his mother, but I'm very much noting that
Speaker 1: he was the only one that ever said this. His
Speaker 1: brothers have come out and said that they don't believe
Speaker 1: it to be true at.
Speaker 2: All of Fred's accusations. I don't believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, and they may be, but Fred is not
Speaker 1: reliable perhaps a reliable source. And that his dad taught
Speaker 1: him about sex by showing him how to do it,
Speaker 1: not on him, but I don't need to go now,
Speaker 1: but his dad taught him about sex, which is not
Speaker 1: very nice. By his mid teens, Fred had developed a
Speaker 1: very strong interest in the female sex and in the
Speaker 1: idea of sex. If he saw a girl he wanted,
Speaker 1: he would go for it whether he wanted it or not.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean in sexual I'm not insinuating rape.
Speaker 1: But he would just you know, like physically grab it
Speaker 1: girl and try to get them to come with him,
Speaker 1: and like a dances and on the streets he was
Speaker 1: grabby and touching and yuck. He had a bad motorbike
Speaker 1: accident in nineteen fifty eight and he was in a
Speaker 1: coma hanging sorry, what does that make him? About sixteen seven,
Speaker 1: and he was in a coma for a week. They
Speaker 1: didn't know if he would.
Speaker 2: Sam for a week. Yeah, oh wow, it must have
Speaker 2: been a really bad.
Speaker 1: One, very bad. He slowly regained the ability to speak,
Speaker 1: but he had a significant head injury, and it's not
Speaker 1: known if this caused lasting brain damage, plus a severe
Speaker 1: fear and hatred of hospitals full shadowing. During his recovery,
Speaker 1: he would still go out and try to live a
Speaker 1: normal life. But after the accident, everyone in his life
Speaker 1: noted a big change in his attitude, particularly when it
Speaker 1: came to anger. He became much more aggressive and angered
Speaker 1: very quickly.
Speaker 2: He didn't seem great before, still exactly he.
Speaker 1: Told people he was deeply unhappy living at the farm
Speaker 1: and living under his parents' rule. In the early sixties,
Speaker 1: he started to get in regular trouble with the law,
Speaker 1: mostly shoplifting, petty thefts, and fights. The worst of his
Speaker 1: crimes at this time was that he had sexually assaulted
Speaker 1: his young teenage sister. He didn't understand why his parents
Speaker 1: and the police were so angry. He admitted while being
Speaker 1: questioned to assaulting multiple young women and girls and didn't
Speaker 1: realize why everyone had a problem with this.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I guess if like, you know, not
Speaker 2: excuse him this at all. But I think like if
Speaker 2: his dad has shown him certain things, he's obviously got
Speaker 2: a very warped sense of what's right and what's wrong with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's kind of for this background, I suppose from
Speaker 1: all the research suggests in absolutely no way, shape or
Speaker 1: form excusing or explaining anything, but it does. There is
Speaker 1: a lot about the multiple head injuries. I haven't gone
Speaker 1: into the others, but there were other things like fights
Speaker 1: where he had bad knocks to the head.
Speaker 2: When you hear him talk as well, he does like
Speaker 2: his voice is kind of it's a strange voice as well.
Speaker 1: He's been a very very low IQ And so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the way I've put it is stunted in
Speaker 1: kind of all aspects of you know, emotion, social interactions, everything.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty two, he met eighteen year old Rena,
Speaker 1: who was also described as a difficult child. Again, was
Speaker 1: in trouble for petty theft fighting. She'd been moved around
Speaker 1: to different family members to try to bring her back
Speaker 1: on track. She was actually from Glasgow but was living
Speaker 1: in England, where and when she met Fred.
Speaker 2: Just a side note, that's my favorite accent in the
Speaker 2: Glaswegian accent, Glasgow exactly, that's exactly right on. My favorite accent.
Speaker 1: The way I can think of a Scottish accent is
Speaker 1: this one a little bit, this one sentence that's from
Speaker 1: like a little nursery rhyme type thing that my friend Shanaid,
Speaker 1: who is Scottish, taught me. I don't know the rest
Speaker 1: of the rhyme, but one because Danni where thruz. Oh great,
Speaker 1: that's what Marina sounds. And Shrek, come on, do Shrek?
Speaker 1: I know you want to come on.
Speaker 2: I don't know what the regular phrase I used to
Speaker 2: say as Shrek was, but it was like Gama swamp,
Speaker 2: don't care?
Speaker 1: Was that.
Speaker 2: Said?
Speaker 1: Exactly that? So, yes, Rena was Glaswegian but living in
Speaker 1: England when she met Fred. She was working as a
Speaker 1: sex worker. And when she met Fred, she was pregnant
Speaker 1: to a Pakistani man. It is speculated that she may
Speaker 1: have moved to England because her family didn't agree with
Speaker 1: the pregnancy, particularly given it was going to be a
Speaker 1: mixed race child.
Speaker 2: And this was the sixties. Was sixties and you were imagine,
Speaker 2: oh my god, and you're mad and sex work. At
Speaker 2: that time, they didn't call it that, but sex work.
Speaker 2: You imagine just how horrible that would have been for her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the racism as well. But when she met Fred,
Speaker 1: they quickly got into a relationship, and when her baby
Speaker 1: daughter arrived, the couple told people that she had actually
Speaker 1: lost her baby during childbirth and they had adopted this
Speaker 1: baby to explain why the baby girl had darker skin
Speaker 1: than both of her parents. The baby's name was Charmaine.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the film The Jerk with Steve Martin
Speaker 2: and his and he's grown up and finds out he's adopted,
Speaker 2: and he's with a clearly African American, beautiful family, and
Speaker 2: he finds out he's adopted that like when he was
Speaker 2: like Elf. Yeah, it's exactly like Elf as well.
Speaker 1: If he doesn't know he's a human by now, he's.
Speaker 2: Beautiful because my brother was adopted. And I think it
Speaker 2: and be hard sometimes realizing that you feel different or
Speaker 2: you look different or anything. And you know, obviously back
Speaker 2: then that would have been harder. You know, my parents
Speaker 2: found it hard to explain to people, you know, you
Speaker 2: just so I imagine at this time it would have
Speaker 2: been even harder to explain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and isn't that awful as well? But you know,
Speaker 1: people just go, well, why exactly. A friend of mine
Speaker 1: is adopted. She was born in Korea and was adopted
Speaker 1: to an Australian fam, a white Australian family, And she
Speaker 1: said she didn't have any concept that she didn't look
Speaker 1: the same until she started school and people asked her
Speaker 1: why she looked different to people.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, isn't that fast? Yeah? Quickly. I found a
Speaker 2: book when I was really young, and the book was
Speaker 2: called why Am I Adopted? And I thought it for me.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Sammy, oh stop, I'm just picturing kittling
Speaker 1: face kid photos I've seen.
Speaker 2: Just ask him the question. Oh.
Speaker 1: My sister always tried to tell me I was adopted
Speaker 1: because she didn't like me and my mom. I like
Speaker 1: the spitting image of.
Speaker 2: It, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. So baby Charmain arrived in nineteen sixty two.
Speaker 1: Fred became very obsessed with Rena, very quickly, thinking she
Speaker 1: was quite worldly and wild. You know, she'd come from
Speaker 1: a different country, she you know, had a baby, she'd
Speaker 1: been working in the sex industry. He would demand sex
Speaker 1: from her whenever he wanted it, and yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: and Rena essentially felt she had no choice. She also
Speaker 1: became obsessed with him in what I am describing as
Speaker 1: a very toxic way. She tattooed his name onto her
Speaker 1: with a backyard tattoo pin.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that would be so painful and not Higland
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah also that also that, Yeah, don't do that at home.
Speaker 1: It's been suggested that Rena was likely seeking stability and
Speaker 1: the love she felt she didn't otherwise have in her life.
Speaker 1: They married in nineteen sixty two, the year they met,
Speaker 1: Fred aged twenty one and Rena eighteen.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: They moved out together back to Scotland, where Rena was from,
Speaker 1: with Baby Charmain. Fred kept his worrying sexual behaviors up
Speaker 1: and encouraged Rena to go back to sex work to
Speaker 1: help them make money, but he would berate and punish
Speaker 1: her for sleeping with other people.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: It seemed he really used this as a form of
Speaker 1: serious control and manipulation. He essentially brought up baby Charmain
Speaker 1: as his own, but he didn't ever really bond with her.
Speaker 1: Fred and Rena together biologically this time, had a second baby,
Speaker 1: Anna Marie, in nineteen sixty four. Only a little over
Speaker 1: a year older than Charmaine. As soon as she arrived,
Speaker 1: Fred neglected Charmain even more. In nineteen sixty five, Fred
Speaker 1: was working as an ice cream van driver, which like,
Speaker 1: so yeah, when you know it's not gross to be
Speaker 1: ice cream, he's one of the most heinous men in history.
Speaker 1: And like, by then the marriage was really faltering. He
Speaker 1: was cheating on Rena a lot, and over time he
Speaker 1: didn't even try to hide it. Rena hide a nanny
Speaker 1: to help look after the girls. Her name was Isa McNeil.
Speaker 1: She moved in with them and was helping them. She
Speaker 1: was a teenage girl herself. She Issa described Rena and
Speaker 1: Fred's marriage as very tumultuous and very violent. He said
Speaker 1: the sorry, she said. The little girl slept in a
Speaker 1: bottom bunk with bars fitted to essentially cage them in,
Speaker 1: and they were only allowed out while Fred was at work.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. A friend of issues so he wouldn't guess.
Speaker 1: He was so violent and young. But also he just
Speaker 1: didn't He didn't want them around. He wanted his time
Speaker 1: and his peace at home. A friend of Isa's so
Speaker 1: is the only A friend of hers named Anne mcfull
Speaker 1: who was also from Scotland, came over to England and
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time at the home as well.
Speaker 1: She was sixteen. Her boyfriend had been killed in a
Speaker 1: workplace accident and she really leant on her friend Issa
Speaker 1: for support and essentially ended up boarding with Fred and
Speaker 1: Rena as well. In November of the same year, baby
Speaker 1: Anna Marie was born. Fred accidentally hit and killed a
Speaker 1: child with the ice cream van.
Speaker 2: Oh how horrific.
Speaker 1: And it was ruled that this was in an accident.
Speaker 1: How horrific for everyone involved with that, but the town
Speaker 1: very much turned against him. It would be very hard
Speaker 1: to see the person that that had been behind the
Speaker 1: wheel when that happened, whether they were deemed responsible or not.
Speaker 1: So Fred made the decision to move back to England.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to live in this town anymore. He
Speaker 1: took the two baby girls and moved, while Rena set
Speaker 1: herself up to move as well. I don't really I
Speaker 1: couldn't really find out why she didn't move away as well.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was a bit of a
Speaker 1: He just went I'm getting rid of your bye, and
Speaker 1: then she was like, okay, hang on, let me come.
Speaker 1: But three months later she moved over and joined them
Speaker 1: as well, and she also.
Speaker 2: Brought I thought that might have been a split. I
Speaker 2: thought that might have been a way to get out.
Speaker 1: She brought Isa McNeil and Anne McFall, the two kind
Speaker 1: of pseudo well you know, nanny and kind of border
Speaker 1: slash nanny with her back to England as well. Both
Speaker 1: these girls came from very poor backgrounds and hoped England
Speaker 1: would be a better place for them to find jobs
Speaker 1: and make a start on new lives. They all so, Fred, Rena, Issa,
Speaker 1: and the two baby girls all moved into a caravan together.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, clammed.
Speaker 1: And Fred found work as a lorry driver for a
Speaker 1: local abattoir, which I just feel like the only time
Speaker 1: I hear about people obvious people who aren't. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Rena got a job at a local fame. Fred did
Speaker 1: not stop his violent outbursts, and he also started turning
Speaker 1: on Isa in particular as well as Rena, And so
Speaker 1: he kind of any female who was kind of living
Speaker 1: with him, and he saw us under his reign, and
Speaker 1: he could be violent and angry towards and he would
Speaker 1: blow up really quickly and really easily and be very violent.
Speaker 1: The three women together hatched a plan to escape Fred.
Speaker 1: They had had enough and they didn't want to be
Speaker 1: part of this anymore. They Rena actually called in an
Speaker 1: old boyfriend of hers to help get the mount while
Speaker 1: Fred was at work one day. I think it was
Speaker 1: Feathers mcral exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to explain anything together.
Speaker 1: If you guys haven't listened to all the other episodes, one.
Speaker 2: Of the greatest criminals all times, you never.
Speaker 1: Really had much context to bring him up.
Speaker 2: I never come up in a natural way.
Speaker 1: So they made a pre arranged time to have him
Speaker 1: come in. Not Feathers, this man come in and help
Speaker 1: them kind of pack up and leave. While Fred was
Speaker 1: at work.
Speaker 2: Do you look like a penguin?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I didn't look up photos, but if
Speaker 1: you want to afterwards, we can. It was a chicken
Speaker 1: he was meant to look No, he was a penguin.
Speaker 1: He's meant to look like a He got me he can.
Speaker 1: At the pre arranged time, Fred unexpectedly came home and
Speaker 1: found them leaving. Wow never home at this time, and
Speaker 1: both Rena and Issa noted that Anne didn't seem that surprised,
Speaker 1: and she was very calm at Fred's arrival. She stayed
Speaker 1: calm while Fred was obviously blowing up and tried to
Speaker 1: placate him. She said she would stay with him and
Speaker 1: the children if Fred was saying you're not taking my
Speaker 1: children anywhere, and was kind of saying it's okay, like
Speaker 1: I'll keep him calm you guys go, we'll work this
Speaker 1: out later, and Issa left. They went back to Glasgow
Speaker 1: and left the two little girls with their violent and
Speaker 1: abusive father and this young border slash nanny and McFall.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until the women were back in Scotland it
Speaker 1: was revealed what had gone on and Fred had been
Speaker 1: having an affair and told her that's why she wasn't
Speaker 1: surprised when he him home. She had actually tipped him off,
Speaker 1: wanting them to go so they couldn't take the children
Speaker 1: and she could stay with him.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And told her friends and family violetters that she'd become
Speaker 1: infatuated with Fred and believed that living in England with
Speaker 1: him would set her up for a good life and
Speaker 1: she was trying to encourage him to divorce Rena and
Speaker 1: marry her.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Over the coming couple of years, Rena was coming back
Speaker 1: and forth to see her children and try to take
Speaker 1: them back into her care. While also trying to remain
Speaker 1: kind of safe from Fred as well.
Speaker 2: Sure she was terrified of him.
Speaker 1: Fred was placing them in the care of social services
Speaker 1: on and off, so that's when she would come back.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that if they're in social services care
Speaker 1: on their mother or take them back. But they continued.
Speaker 1: I haven't gone into this here, but Riena and Fred
Speaker 1: continued on and off very toxic, very tumultuous relationship over
Speaker 1: this time as well. Whether it was you know, manipulation
Speaker 1: about being with the children, whether it was you know,
Speaker 1: parts of jealousy of not wanting and to be with him,
Speaker 1: or just wanting to keep the family together. But they were,
Speaker 1: they were and stayed and stayed.
Speaker 2: Andrina came back and yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow yeah in nineteen sixty seven and fell pregnant with
Speaker 1: Fred's baby, but it seemed he was none too pleased
Speaker 1: about this by the time she was almost full term.
Speaker 1: When she was eight months pregnant, and left the home
Speaker 1: one day and Fred never saw her again.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Over the next eighteen months, Fred spiraled downwards, which is
Speaker 1: pretty low from where he do it. He was arrested
Speaker 1: multiple times for thefts, He lost his job as a driver,
Speaker 1: He put his kids back in the care of social services.
Speaker 1: But Fred's luck was about to change. After being a
Speaker 1: single dad kind of in and out of social service
Speaker 1: care for about eighteen months, he set his sights on
Speaker 1: a woman named Rosemary Letts or a girl I should say.
Speaker 1: She was fifteen Fred fifteen Fred at this time was
Speaker 1: twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: They met waiting for a bus. Rose initially said she
Speaker 1: was repulsed by Fred. He was dirty, unkempt, and creepy.
Speaker 1: But Fred didn't let up. He showered her with attention
Speaker 1: and adoration, and this soon became quite flattering to the
Speaker 1: young Rosemary.
Speaker 2: Lets stayed in touch after meeting at a bus stop.
Speaker 1: Somehow the same bus every day.
Speaker 2: And long, ah okay, I met her at the bust.
Speaker 1: To this first day, became infatuated with her, kept going
Speaker 1: back to the same bus stop and they were getting
Speaker 1: the same bus. Called a meat fowl, a meat fowl exact,
Speaker 1: that's good fowl like chicken like if you w l like.
Speaker 2: Got me again, feathers.
Speaker 1: He would like go to. He found out where she
Speaker 1: worked and would go to the cafe and bring her
Speaker 1: gifts and fowls, and was really trying to woo her,
Speaker 1: and it worked. The two standed a relationship within weeks.
Speaker 2: After being repulsed by someone that he's such a wild
Speaker 2: turn around.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, I've missed a little paragraph here. Fred founder
Speaker 1: out that Rose hadn't ever had a boyfriend, but was
Speaker 1: quite promiscuous, and he really liked this.
Speaker 2: He liked that Rose was promiscuous. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: He also very much played up the sob story about
Speaker 1: being the single father to two little girls having been
Speaker 1: abandoned by their mother.
Speaker 2: Also like, you might not know this information.
Speaker 1: But I know everything. I mean, you know that.
Speaker 2: If Rena has left of our own volition and everything.
Speaker 2: There was no obviously because she was scared of him.
Speaker 2: There was no like court thing where it was like
Speaker 2: you have custody blah blah blah, because that the guy
Speaker 2: usually have the kids.
Speaker 1: Is that the I mean, I know that to be
Speaker 1: a generalization, but typically true these days. However, it wasn't
Speaker 1: so much so then. But that aside, that wasn't the
Speaker 1: case here, because I remember I said they were like
Speaker 1: in kind of an on again, off again relationship, Like
Speaker 1: it wasn't. She wasn't saying I'm terrified you and I'm
Speaker 1: out for good I want the kids back. There was
Speaker 1: I don't know the details about if she ever tried
Speaker 1: to fight for custody or anything like that in these
Speaker 1: early days, or if she was trying to get them
Speaker 1: at together, or she was just trying to argue with
Speaker 1: him for custody. Sure, okay, but no, it wasn't that
Speaker 1: they were you know, there was, and there were any
Speaker 1: court orders. They weren't legally separated or anything. This sob
Speaker 1: story and the adoration and wooing and pursuing work. The
Speaker 1: two started a relationship, and within weeks, Rose quit her
Speaker 1: job at the bakery to become a full time career
Speaker 1: for Fred's daughters. She noted they seemed neglected and she
Speaker 1: wanted to care for them. Fred would provide her with
Speaker 1: sufficient money to send to her family every Friday, so
Speaker 1: they didn't know she'd quit her job.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, and she was already doing that. She was
Speaker 2: already sending money to her family.
Speaker 1: And yeah, bringing money home.
Speaker 2: Bringing money home.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, she'd get her paycheck every Friday.
Speaker 1: It was Fred giving her. So she'd go to work
Speaker 1: in inverted commas.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and look after and bakers famously aren't very
Speaker 2: good accounting because of the baker's doesn't.
Speaker 1: Because baker's doesn't not a.
Speaker 2: Dozen thirteen is it? Yeah? Why? Because I think the
Speaker 2: baker always wanted to have one for themselves.
Speaker 1: The older twelve for you, one for me.
Speaker 2: Literally, let me let me actually check that, because I
Speaker 2: have that. I made made that up.
Speaker 1: My very first job was at Baker's Delight, and I
Speaker 1: really maybe the delight is that thirteenth role.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a baker's doesn't. And I just looked up images
Speaker 2: lovely bread I'm seeing right now. A baker's dozen't is
Speaker 2: thirteen items one more than a standard dozen twelve. The
Speaker 2: term originated from medieval English law that penalized bakers for
Speaker 2: selling underweight loads of bread. To avoid penalties, bakers would
Speaker 2: add an extra loaf to every dozen to ensure they
Speaker 2: met the legal weight requirement.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just make the rolls bigger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure about that. But yeah, but so
Speaker 2: they're not very good. That was my joke. Anyway, it
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter. It was good, Thank you.
Speaker 1: It was a good joke. I'm edited here and I'll
Speaker 1: go like this, of course, because of thirteen thirteen very good,
Speaker 1: you're very good, all right? A bit of background on
Speaker 1: Rosemary Pauline West. She was born in rural England in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three to parents Bill and Daisy.
Speaker 2: Let's Daisy again, Daisy again as well?
Speaker 1: Isn't that funny?
Speaker 2: Funny anyway?
Speaker 1: She was described as quote remarkably unintelligent, dim Her brother
Speaker 1: said she was quote thick as two planks.
Speaker 2: You don't want to hear that from your brother.
Speaker 1: I kind of love these like.
Speaker 2: Brutal.
Speaker 1: She was also described as very lazy and belligerent. She too,
Speaker 1: like Fred, had a very stunted upbringing. Both academically socially,
Speaker 1: I've written both, and then I've listed three things. Academically,
Speaker 1: socially and intellectually.
Speaker 2: You're bloody good as a counter as bloody Baker.
Speaker 1: Cameras real real good at real well English, and.
Speaker 2: I struggled to actually that was.
Speaker 1: Poor in hindsight. When people found that out she was
Speaker 1: with Fred, people said that they weren't surprised that she
Speaker 1: ended up with an older man. She always wanted to
Speaker 1: feel grown up and like she could make it in
Speaker 1: the world without her parents in the who were calling
Speaker 1: her laziness, thick as two blanks.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and not a loving family. They're calling her that,
Speaker 2: but also like the wildness of her only being fifteen
Speaker 2: years old. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: That fifteen and he was twenty six. And the thing
Speaker 1: like age differences feel different at different states of life
Speaker 1: year seven and fifteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: After they had dated for a few months, Rose introduced
Speaker 1: Fred to her family and they were and I want
Speaker 1: you to guess the next word I've used, disgusted.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it's actually.
Speaker 1: They forbade her from dating Fred and said they would
Speaker 1: report him to social services if they ever saw him again.
Speaker 1: But she defied her parents' wishes. Well, like, what do
Speaker 1: you not say to a teenage girl? Don't do that.
Speaker 1: They're going to do it even harder.
Speaker 2: Yeap, do it? We love him? She said that reverse
Speaker 2: psychology exactly.
Speaker 1: I thought you were saying that to me. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: don't do it. Yeah, I was, yeah, reverse psychollege genie
Speaker 1: or something. Yes. So she divided their wishes and her
Speaker 1: parents did report him. They reported, you report him to
Speaker 1: social services, and she was fifteen. She was ah, okay
Speaker 1: engage under its relationship, and they also reported rumors, rumors
Speaker 1: they'd heard, all fears they had that she was engaging
Speaker 1: in sex work, given she was a minor, She was
Speaker 1: taken into a home for troubled teenagers, only allowed home
Speaker 1: to her parents on weekends, and when she was home
Speaker 1: she almost always went out and visited Fred. As soon
Speaker 1: as she turned sixteen, she left the state run home
Speaker 1: because she was now allowed to do stuff, so sixteen
Speaker 1: sixteen and straight into Fred's flat, in another sign that
Speaker 1: this guy was an absolute catch. Fred was actually in
Speaker 1: prison at the time of her sixteenth birthday and her
Speaker 1: release from the girl's home. He was serving thirty days
Speaker 1: for theft, so when he got out, he went and
Speaker 1: picked up Charmaine and Anne Marie, who had been placed
Speaker 1: in social services while he was in prison, and took
Speaker 1: the baby girls home to his new girlfriend, Rose Wow.
Speaker 1: In one last ditch attempt to get his daughter away
Speaker 1: from Fred, bill Lett's had her examined by a police
Speaker 1: surgeon and it was discovered she was pregnant. No she
Speaker 1: was again placed into care, but after a month it
Speaker 1: was agreed that she could leave under the strict understanding
Speaker 1: she would terminate the pregnancy and return to her family.
Speaker 2: Who made that decision.
Speaker 1: I don't really understand how you can get somebody not
Speaker 1: examined without there Maybe it was something to do with
Speaker 1: like between sixteen and eighteen. Maybe at sixteen you were
Speaker 1: legally allowed to kind of welsewhere, but until eighteen, you're
Speaker 1: still under the legal guardage your parents, perhaps.
Speaker 2: Different autonomy for that sort of Yeah, that's interesting, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, So she agreed to that she would termin
Speaker 1: out the pregnancy and return her to her family. She
Speaker 1: did neither. Her defiance this time resulted in her father
Speaker 1: forbidding her from ever stepping foot back into the family home.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: He had tried really hard to protect her, to help her.
Speaker 1: She had defied him so severely he said, in this case,
Speaker 1: we never want to see you again.
Speaker 2: You've made that's enormous. Did you know what their family
Speaker 2: was like in terms of, like, you know, even even
Speaker 2: socio economic Like were they similar to Fred?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: They were? Yeah, right.
Speaker 1: I believe I didn't go heaps into into either of
Speaker 1: their upbringings because there's so freaking much to go massive,
Speaker 1: but they both were low kind of intellectual, like low IQ,
Speaker 1: low socioeconomic. I think that Fred was kind of lower
Speaker 1: socioecono his.
Speaker 2: Family was lower. But it's hard because it's just like,
Speaker 2: you know, if they were this poor family that were
Speaker 2: like struggling as it was, and then they're trying to
Speaker 2: get their daughter away and they're trying to do all
Speaker 2: this to make that decision would be would be enormous.
Speaker 1: It seems they were a lot kind of closer and
Speaker 1: more a more family than friends.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: If I'm wrong, and then I do apologize. They didn't
Speaker 1: go deep into her background.
Speaker 2: Up brings a documentary on this on Netflix, isn't there Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: there is, just watch that but don't know, but also
Speaker 2: like there are very descriptive details in that that.
Speaker 1: That's why I've put that at the end.
Speaker 2: Okay, well I didn't even know.
Speaker 1: So they listened this whole thing and they love it
Speaker 1: and they've really connected and then asked and they tell
Speaker 1: all their friends and family members who listen to this podcast.
Speaker 1: And at the end, I'm like, if you want to
Speaker 1: know more, guess what.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go listen to this thing. Also if you want
Speaker 2: to know more, it is such you.
Speaker 1: Don't want to know more. But again, that's why she
Speaker 1: listened to this, as they are if they're hearing this,
Speaker 1: love you guys. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So here
Speaker 1: we have a twenty eight year old Fred sixteen year
Speaker 1: old Rose, six year old Charmaine and five year old
Speaker 1: and Marie and another baby on the way.
Speaker 2: Lipping slipping, slipping where.
Speaker 1: Living happily ever after?
Speaker 2: And that's not true, Nat.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring back not yet. This is happy
Speaker 1: story Nat. In October nineteen seventy, Rose gave birth to
Speaker 1: another baby, girl named Heather. Another is in her first,
Speaker 1: but they've got charmis well named.
Speaker 2: Heather for Baker's three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, two months later, so two months after maybe head, No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. I think a Baker's too, if we're going on.
Speaker 1: I liked it though. Two months after Heather was born,
Speaker 1: Fred was imprisoned for six and a half months four theft.
Speaker 2: So he was known. Oh yes, yeh.
Speaker 1: And there were many incidences of a lot of petty theft.
Speaker 1: It's kind of his go to violence, fights and things.
Speaker 2: That's the thing you don't always like. I mean to
Speaker 2: to uncover this later. You don't link those.
Speaker 1: Oh there was a lot that was not yea. So
Speaker 1: Rose was left looking after all three girls on her
Speaker 1: own as a teenager. Charmaine and Anna Marie were told
Speaker 1: to refer to Rose as their mother. Rose didn't like
Speaker 1: being in charge of these three baby girl or two
Speaker 1: little girls and one baby on her on. The older
Speaker 1: girls were frequently subjected to criticism, beatings, and other forms
Speaker 1: of punishment under Rose's care. Wow as soon as she
Speaker 1: had her own biological baby, Heather, she just had an
Speaker 1: absolute disdain for these two other girls.
Speaker 2: So loved Heather. But yes, yep, okay.
Speaker 1: Anna Marie was generally submissive and prone to display more emotion,
Speaker 1: so she was the one that was younger. She would
Speaker 1: get upset and kind of you know, say sorry, what
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? While Charmaine, the eldest,
Speaker 1: was very stoic. She rarely cried and she yelled back,
Speaker 1: which infuriated Rose more. She would talk to Anna Marie
Speaker 1: of her belief that her mummy will come and save me,
Speaker 1: and often antagonize Rose. When Rose was yelling at her
Speaker 1: and berating her, she would say things like my real
Speaker 1: mummy wouldn't swear or shot us when Rose was doing
Speaker 1: just that. A friend of Charmaine's recalled going to the
Speaker 1: house one day unannounced, walking in to find Charmaine naked,
Speaker 1: standing on a chair with a gag in her mouth
Speaker 1: and her hands bound with a leather strap. As Rose
Speaker 1: stood next to her with a wooden spoon. Charmaine stood
Speaker 1: silent and uncrying. That's just one example of In June
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, just weeks before Fred's release from prison,
Speaker 1: Rose took the girls to go and visit him, and
Speaker 1: this was the last time Fred would see his firstborn daughter, Charmain,
Speaker 1: not his biological daughter, but his first daughter before his
Speaker 1: release on June twenty four. Charmaine did, in fact finally
Speaker 1: get taken back by her mother, Rena.
Speaker 2: Let's just about to ask if Reena kept coming back
Speaker 2: and Sena kept coming back.
Speaker 1: And while Fred was in prison, Rose said she's gone
Speaker 1: with Rena. Rose, Fred, nor her school friends or any
Speaker 1: neighbors ever saw Charmaine again.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: The same friend who saw her on the chair that
Speaker 1: day went around, sorry, went around to see your friend
Speaker 1: Charmaine and was told by Rose quote, she's gone to
Speaker 1: live with her mother, and bloody good riddance. This is
Speaker 1: an eight year old girl. She's talking about.
Speaker 2: Awful.
Speaker 1: When her little sister Anna Marie asked why Rena hadn't
Speaker 1: taken her as well, she was told by Rose, she
Speaker 1: wouldn't want you. You're the wrong color. Now. Charmaine was
Speaker 1: the one who was actually half Pakistani, but she was
Speaker 1: insinuating you're a different color to your sister, so she's
Speaker 1: chosen your sister, right, Okay, So life went on now
Speaker 1: as a family of four upon Fred. Upon Fred's release
Speaker 1: from prison in January nineteen seventy two, Fred and Rose married.
Speaker 1: He was actually still legally married to Rena, but he
Speaker 1: just lied on the marriage certificate, which you know something
Speaker 1: I guess you can do. It's not a few months later,
Speaker 1: Rose felt pregnant again. The family moved to what would
Speaker 1: become their more permanent, bigger home at twenty five Cromwell Street, Gloucester,
Speaker 1: might be, unfortunately an address that is etched in infamy.
Speaker 1: They initially rented this house before going on to buy
Speaker 1: it from the council for seven thousand pounds.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, it.
Speaker 1: Was I mean, I suppose what we would call here,
Speaker 1: or would call now Commission housing, And it was an
Speaker 1: agreement so to facilitate the sale of the house, they
Speaker 1: bought it from council, but they agreed to turn the
Speaker 1: upper two It was a three story home, like a
Speaker 1: very tall skinny you know those ones you see, Yeah,
Speaker 1: tall skinny home. The top two stories were turned into
Speaker 1: bedsits so they could house lodgers and borders and that
Speaker 1: would supplement the household.
Speaker 2: Income that money would go. I don't really understand how
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: They Fred bought the home, but to facilitate the sale
Speaker 1: agreed to.
Speaker 2: Some sort of payment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they would have borders and lodgers living upstairs
Speaker 1: while the family lived downstairs with access through that garden.
Speaker 1: In June nineteen seventy two, Rose gave birth to another baby,
Speaker 1: girl named May June. It's spelled m a E, but yes,
Speaker 1: her name is May June.
Speaker 2: June July. Yep, the sister.
Speaker 1: It's just a good name. It's just a good just
Speaker 1: a good name. It's giving Northwest, it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately after giving birth, Rose returned to sex work
Speaker 1: to make money on Fred's insistence, or not so much
Speaker 1: insistence but encouragement, and she regularly engaged in casual sex
Speaker 1: with male and female lodgers they had living at twenty
Speaker 1: five Cromwell Street, not always for money, but just for
Speaker 1: her benefit.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: She was a very sexual person. Fred would also bring
Speaker 1: home people he encountered at work, either to pay Rose
Speaker 1: for sex or just to engage in sex. Fred often
Speaker 1: bragged that it didn't matter how many people Rose slept with.
Speaker 1: He was the only one that could truly satisfy her
Speaker 1: lovely Sure, but that's what they all say. Rose would
Speaker 1: beat and suffocate her sexual partners. She was very injured.
Speaker 2: Dominate trex yeah, bdsm Yeah.
Speaker 1: The brutality and violence in her sexual encounters became worse
Speaker 1: and more violent over time. Fred would often join in,
Speaker 1: and many of the people they slept with would describe
Speaker 1: the encounters as violent, with both Fred and Rose enjoying
Speaker 1: severe dominance. Right, They massed a huge amount of bondage equipment.
Speaker 1: I've written the equipment because I didn't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I almost laughed at myself.
Speaker 1: How dorky that is writing equipment.
Speaker 2: Equipment, serial bondage.
Speaker 1: Toys, restraining devices, and explicit magazines and photographs that they
Speaker 1: would actually plaster around the house.
Speaker 2: All right, Okay, I mean they had.
Speaker 1: Little girls as well. The room Rose would conduct her
Speaker 1: sex work out of contained peepoles for Fred to watch
Speaker 1: even when he wasn't involved, and they had a baby
Speaker 1: monitor in the room for him to listen from other
Speaker 1: parts of the house. Rose had the only key to
Speaker 1: this room and kept it on an She wore at
Speaker 1: all times. Rose also controlled the family's finances. Fred would
Speaker 1: give her his pay packet and she would decide where
Speaker 1: the money was spent, and it was often on home improvements.
Speaker 1: There was one incident in nineteen seventy three that almost
Speaker 1: or certainly could have landed Fred and Rose West in prison,
Speaker 1: probably for a very long time. Hindsight sliding doors, we
Speaker 1: can look at that. However, this is what happened a
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Caroline Owens, who was working for them
Speaker 1: again as a nanny, casually on and off. They had
Speaker 1: met her while she was hitch hiking, and while she
Speaker 1: was in the house nannying, Fred made constant sexual advances
Speaker 1: to her, and after a few months of working with them,
Speaker 1: she decided she no longer enjoyed being there and decided
Speaker 1: to leave. She did so, and under the guise of
Speaker 1: apologizing to her, they lured her to meet with them.
Speaker 1: They said, let us just catch up and apologize for
Speaker 1: making you feel uncomfortable. They lured her into their car,
Speaker 1: took her home. They abducted, assaulted, and raped her repeatedly.
Speaker 1: She was able to escape the following day after pretending
Speaker 1: to agree to return to work as their nanny, so
Speaker 1: they tortured her all night and said we'd come back
Speaker 1: and work with us. She said yes, to get away,
Speaker 1: to get away, oh god. She escaped the house. When
Speaker 1: they left her alone to do the vacuuming. She reported
Speaker 1: the horrific abuse, and Fred and Rose were charged, but
Speaker 1: when it came to trial, a seventeen year old Caroline
Speaker 1: was too traumatized to relive the events exactly and face
Speaker 1: them in court. The couple was fined fifty pounds each
Speaker 1: and allowed to walk.
Speaker 2: Free fifty pounds each. Oh, that's terrified. All the.
Speaker 1: Sexual charges were dropped because they were witness testimony only.
Speaker 1: I think that she had physical bruises, so that they
Speaker 1: were kind of charged with low level physicality and find
Speaker 1: and so life went on in the West household. So
Speaker 1: that was nineteen seventy three. By nineteen eighty three, Rose
Speaker 1: had given birth to eight children.
Speaker 2: Sorry, so what what years?
Speaker 1: This? Nineteen eighty three? So in ten years?
Speaker 2: Ten years? Okay? Rre right? Okay, yep? The one year
Speaker 2: old like.
Speaker 1: No, your mouth is yeah, okay, octopus, that's eight legs,
Speaker 1: not eight babies.
Speaker 2: Some sort of reference. I wanted to bring up doctor
Speaker 2: Pus in this episode.
Speaker 1: You've bit there with a look on your face. You've
Speaker 1: been trying to bring up at octopus, bring up push
Speaker 1: the word eight?
Speaker 2: Of course? Is it got a buzzer? Of course?
Speaker 1: If I really liked the idea that maybe OCTOPI have
Speaker 1: eight babies in a year, and you've unwittingly please call
Speaker 1: in right now, will wait and tell us where a
Speaker 1: baker's does and octopus babies? Oh Jesus, all right. So
Speaker 1: by nineteen eighty three, Rose West had given birth to
Speaker 1: eight children, at least three of whom were conceived by
Speaker 1: her clients. Ohow, Fred willingly accepted all of the children
Speaker 1: as his own, telling those with different skin tones that
Speaker 1: his great grandmother had been black. When each of the
Speaker 1: West children reached the age of seven, they were assigned
Speaker 1: numerous daily chores to perform in the house. They were
Speaker 1: very really allowed to socialize with anyone outside the home
Speaker 1: or even socialize outside unless either of their parents were present.
Speaker 1: They had to follow strict guidelines imposed by their parents,
Speaker 1: with severe punishment, which was almost always physical being the
Speaker 1: penalty for not conforming, not following the household rules we're
Speaker 1: talking about. From seven years old, the children really feared this,
Speaker 1: not just not these threats of violence, but the acts
Speaker 1: of violence that would happen as well from their parents,
Speaker 1: and the vast majority of the violence was inflicted by Rose,
Speaker 1: occasionally by Fred. The violence was sometimes completely irrational, it
Speaker 1: was sometimes indiscreet, and it was often reported it was
Speaker 1: just inflicted for Rose's gratification wasn't so much punishment as
Speaker 1: her wanting to do it.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: However, she always took great care to not mark the
Speaker 1: children's faces or hands, which could of course be seen
Speaker 1: no matter what they were wearing.
Speaker 2: That's so crazy.
Speaker 1: Isn't it disgusting? It's so I'm just proved.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I was fine. Can you cut that? Oh?
Speaker 2: It's fun fun.
Speaker 1: I did that, but with my mouth closed it would
Speaker 1: be quiet. But then I decided to speak.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry that I spoke.
Speaker 1: I even interrupt myself if that makes you, I interrupt.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so horrible. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Two of the West children, Heather so that Heather was
Speaker 1: the eldest to Fred and Rose biologically and the eldest boy, Steven,
Speaker 1: both ran away from home at one point, but each
Speaker 1: returned after sleeping rough for several weeks. They were both
Speaker 1: badly beaten upon their return between nineteen seventy two and nineteen.
Speaker 2: Ninety two, nineteen ninety two, yep.
Speaker 1: So over over the twenty years, over twenty years, essentially
Speaker 1: from when Rose was involved in Fred's life, the West
Speaker 1: children were admitted to emergency thirty one times. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: how many of these thirty one would you think were
Speaker 1: reported to social services?
Speaker 2: I would say all of them should be? Yes, again,
Speaker 2: thirty thirty of them were none.
Speaker 1: Not a single incident that's child from this household presenting
Speaker 1: to accident an emergency was ever reported to social services.
Speaker 1: They were all described by the parents as accidents. You know,
Speaker 1: they'd fallen off the monkey bars, they'd tripped over their
Speaker 1: sister's foot, whatever it may be. Not one was ever
Speaker 1: reported to social.
Speaker 2: The monkey bars A thing that's is that everywhere monkey.
Speaker 1: Bars our monkey bars everywhere? Yeah, can you see any
Speaker 1: monkey bars in the room right now?
Speaker 2: No monkey bars? Monkey bars Australian or Australian or is
Speaker 2: it everywhere because everywhere bars?
Speaker 1: But do you mean this is the term Australian?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know monkey bars. Let me have a
Speaker 2: look up this right now, just monkey bars.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think that's just what they're called.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be interested to know if that's if monkey
Speaker 2: bars are everywhere or if they're just kind of Australia.
Speaker 1: Would be called like a horizontal ladder.
Speaker 2: It's a horizontal ladder. That's exactly what it is. So
Speaker 2: it's horizontal horizontal ladder.
Speaker 1: So if you don't know what we're talking about, the
Speaker 1: bars are I think they called monkey bars?
Speaker 2: Okay, great, please right in. I'd love to know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of it is funny if they're not monkey bars,
Speaker 1: and people like what even Fred occasionally became the recipient
Speaker 1: of his wife's violence. On one occasion in nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: Rose chased after Fred with a carving knife in her hand.
Speaker 1: Fred was unable to slam shut the door of the room.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, he was a to slamsh out the door
Speaker 1: of the room in which he'd run, and Rose lunged
Speaker 1: at him with the knife, but he closed the door
Speaker 1: just in time, and the knife embedded itself in the door.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Three of Rosa's fingers slid down the blade, almost severing
Speaker 1: them from her hand. She calmly wrapped her hand in
Speaker 1: a tea towel and said, look what you've done, Feller.
Speaker 1: You've got to take me to the hospital now, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Like if he had not some of the door,
Speaker 1: she would have plunged the knife into him. That's just
Speaker 1: one example of it. There was also a lot of
Speaker 1: sexual abuse at twenty five Cromwell Street involving the West children.
Speaker 1: I've decided not to say any more than them. This
Speaker 1: story is horrific enough, and I don't feel there's anything
Speaker 1: to be gained by talking in detail about any of
Speaker 1: these horrific crimes. In nineteen eighty seven, Heather, who was
Speaker 1: just months shy of her seventeenth birthday, so again the
Speaker 1: first biological daughter to friend Rose together Yep left the
Speaker 1: hume as stated she'd run away before. She was known
Speaker 1: by her classmates and teachers as a serious, polite, quiet
Speaker 1: and responsible student, and she did a lot of the
Speaker 1: caring for her younger siblings at home. She spoke a
Speaker 1: little bit to school staff about her difficulties at all,
Speaker 1: sorry about having difficulties at home, but she never went
Speaker 1: into any detail. When she just stopped turning up to
Speaker 1: school just before her seventeenth birthday, friends and school staff
Speaker 1: were concerned, but calls to the home uncovered that she
Speaker 1: had run away after a big fight with her parents,
Speaker 1: and at age seventeen, sorry sixteen, she could do so.
Speaker 1: She had run away before and this time she just
Speaker 1: didn't come home.
Speaker 2: I think in a lot of cases as well. I
Speaker 2: don't know if this is a common thing, but you know,
Speaker 2: kids who are abused, kids who face a lot of
Speaker 2: violence in the home often wouldn't talk about that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, that is permeates this entire yeah story.
Speaker 2: They kind of feeld a shame as well. I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Her parents did not file a missing person's report. Over
Speaker 1: the coming years, when the kids played up, the family
Speaker 1: would joke, if you don't behave, you're going to end
Speaker 1: up under the patio like your sister. Five years after
Speaker 1: Heather ran away, in nineteen ninety two, one of the
Speaker 1: younger West children who was named whose name, who is
Speaker 1: aged thirteen. She was named by media as Louise, but
Speaker 1: because she was underage, this was a pseudonym, so we
Speaker 1: don't actually know what her name was, but we'll call
Speaker 1: her Louise. She was thirteen and she told a friend
Speaker 1: one day she was being sexually abused at home. This
Speaker 1: friend told her that she should tell some teachers.
Speaker 2: Wow, she did.
Speaker 1: And the school notified social services and police, who interviewed
Speaker 1: Louise without her parents' knowledge, and she confirmed and reiterated
Speaker 1: the allegations. Police opened a formal investigation. Police searched the
Speaker 1: West household on the pretext of searching for stolen property.
Speaker 1: So they said, that's smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, especially when he was so known for of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the house they found numerous objects of sexual paraphernalia,
Speaker 1: including ninety nine pornographic videos of both homemade and commercial nature.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: The children were removed from the home and both parents
Speaker 1: were arrested on child cruelty charges. The children gave statements
Speaker 1: of years of physical and sexual abuse and all in
Speaker 1: each of their stories were consistent.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: While these crimes were being uninvestigated, something else came up.
Speaker 1: One of the children was unaccounted for. Police discovered that
Speaker 1: Heather running away in nineteen eighty seven was never reported
Speaker 1: to them. Police found this odds, to say the least.
Speaker 1: The children all told police that Heather had gone away
Speaker 1: to work at a camp, not that she'd run away,
Speaker 1: as the school and other adults around the neighborhood who
Speaker 1: had acquired had been told. When Fred and Rose were
Speaker 1: asked about Heather's departure from the home. Their stories were inconsistent, vague,
Speaker 1: and sometimes contradictory. Police checked employment records, benefit records, passport activities,
Speaker 1: school and medical records and found no trace of Heather
Speaker 1: at all after nineteen eighty seven. There was not a
Speaker 1: single sign she was alive. While they were looking into this,
Speaker 1: the cases against both parents on the cruelty charges fell
Speaker 1: apart because the kids did not want to testify in court.
Speaker 1: God Anna Marie, who was the eldest of the children,
Speaker 1: because Charmaine was no longer living with them, she formally
Speaker 1: withdrew her complaints and expressed a desire to return home,
Speaker 1: noting the misery of her younger siblings and the fear
Speaker 1: of Rose's retaliation.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: The younger children who were under sixteen remained in foster care,
Speaker 1: but Fred and Rose were allowed to return to twenty
Speaker 1: five Cromwell Street, as were their children who were over sixteen.
Speaker 1: The younger children were also allowed supervise visits at the house,
Speaker 1: but police were not going to let the mystery of
Speaker 1: Heather's whereabouts go unsolved. In February nineteen ninety four, two
Speaker 1: years after authorities first became aware of Fred and Rose
Speaker 1: abusing their children. Thanks to Louise's report, police got a
Speaker 1: warrant to search twenty five Cromwell Street under the suspicion
Speaker 1: of the death of Heather West.
Speaker 2: When you think about it as well, like so much
Speaker 2: time has passed since he was committing thefts, and you know,
Speaker 2: like there was so much that had happened in that time,
Speaker 2: it's a lot of this.
Speaker 1: Story is a lot argued about them very much falling
Speaker 1: through the crack. This was a worrying couple for many, many,
Speaker 1: many reasons. And yeah, they really didn't fall through the cracks.
Speaker 1: Due to the children's reports of the family Invertedcomma's joke
Speaker 1: that Heather was under the patio. This is where police
Speaker 1: first brought in like ground ground I know, I know
Speaker 1: all about forklifts and stuff kind of ground trading. Well
Speaker 1: not even quite some kind of machinery that like, because
Speaker 1: the patio is concrete something. And they found that there
Speaker 1: was disturbed soil under the concrete patio. The patio had
Speaker 1: been laid by Fred in nineteen eighty seven. Do you
Speaker 1: remember what you Heather ran away nineteen eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, same.
Speaker 1: When asked what they might find under the patio if
Speaker 1: they were to excavate. Fred confessed to killing Heather in
Speaker 1: an act of manslaughter. He said, during a fight they'd had,
Speaker 1: he had gone into a fit of rage and strangled
Speaker 1: and accidentally killed his daughter.
Speaker 2: How's that means? Because accidental? Yes, right.
Speaker 1: He had cut up her body with a large knife
Speaker 1: and staughter remains in a dust bin as he waited
Speaker 1: for an opportunity to dig her grave. This is what
Speaker 1: he told play. He was insistent Rose had no idea
Speaker 1: that it had happened at all. When it happened, he said,
Speaker 1: she was preoccupied with a client upstairs. He told Rose
Speaker 1: she had run away, which she had always believed. Rose
Speaker 1: backed up this story with police, saying she had given
Speaker 1: Heather money and actually would receive phone calls from Heather
Speaker 1: over the years, only now discovering that these had been
Speaker 1: faked by Fred to keep up the line. On February
Speaker 1: twenty six, nineteen ninety four, police excavated and ripped up
Speaker 1: the patio and excavated the garden and found the dismembered
Speaker 1: remains of sixteen year old Heather West. Fred had told
Speaker 1: them exactly where to look. He actually accompanied them to
Speaker 1: the house and pointed out the exact location of his
Speaker 1: daughter's body.
Speaker 2: Wow. Was he in custody at this point?
Speaker 1: Yes, so it was February twenty five that they had
Speaker 1: gone to the house with the warrant and said, what
Speaker 1: might we you know, where's Heather? What might be fine
Speaker 1: if we looked.
Speaker 2: Under the patio and phrase that they used, might we
Speaker 2: we fine?
Speaker 1: Exactly? So, then yes, he was brought into custody. He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: look this happened. I strangled her. I buried her in
Speaker 1: the back guarden. No one else in the family knew
Speaker 1: about it. He said, I'll take you to the house
Speaker 1: and I'll show exactly where her body will be found.
Speaker 1: There were signs that she had been tortured prior to
Speaker 1: her death, and multiple finger bones were missing, which were
Speaker 1: never recovered. I will say now, because I won't bring
Speaker 1: it up again later, that all of the bodies, unless
Speaker 1: I think there is one that I'll bring up later
Speaker 1: one that wasn't. But otherwise all of the bodies sorry
Speaker 1: spoiler alert, had been There were science that they had
Speaker 1: been badly tortured and abused before death. Fred was formally
Speaker 1: charged with his daughter's murder that evening, but this was
Speaker 1: just the beginning. Police had no idea what they were
Speaker 1: about to uncover beyond that, while exuming Heather's body, they
Speaker 1: realized they had found three thigh bones. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you studied science at all, but humans have two.
Speaker 2: Thigh bones, yes, or bakers? Three are bakers? Two beggers? Two?
Speaker 1: Fuck?
Speaker 2: I haven't got it yet, I'll get it.
Speaker 1: One, We'll get it. They asked Fred why they may
Speaker 1: have found three thigh bones, to which he immediately said
Speaker 1: there were two further sets of human remains in his garden.
Speaker 1: He agreed to return to twenty five Cromwell Street to
Speaker 1: reveal the locations of both of those graves. He said
Speaker 1: one was a girl named Shirley Robertson, a former tenant
Speaker 1: who had been heavily pregnant with his child at the
Speaker 1: time of her murder in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: The other victim he described as being quote Shirley's mate,
Speaker 1: which name, but he either would not or could not
Speaker 1: elaborate as to her identity beyond that, both sets of
Speaker 1: remains were discovered on the twenty eighth of February, and
Speaker 1: Fred was charged with both of those murders as well.
Speaker 1: Two days later, having discovered three sets of human remains
Speaker 1: in the garden, a decision was made to thoroughly search
Speaker 1: the entire property. Rose was placed in a safe house
Speaker 1: in a nearby town. Police continued to question Fred for
Speaker 1: up to sixteen hours a day, with questioning turning to
Speaker 1: the truth about the first of his daughters to have
Speaker 1: gone missing from the home. Remember his stepdaughter Charmain, who
Speaker 1: was eventually taken by her mother Rena and never seen again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: police went seeing. You said one daughter went missing, and
Speaker 1: actually you killed her. Anything you want to tell us
Speaker 1: about Charmaine. After days of intense questioning, on March four,
Speaker 1: Fred authorized his solicitor to pass Belie a note he
Speaker 1: had written. It read in his handwriting, I Frederick West
Speaker 1: authorized my solicitor, Howard Ogden to advise Superintendent Bennett that
Speaker 1: I wish to admit to a further bracket, A prox
Speaker 1: closed bracket nine killings, nine expressly Charmain, Rena, Rena, Linda Goff,
Speaker 1: who we have not heard of yet, and this is
Speaker 1: all quote and others to be identified if dot West.
Speaker 1: Fred calmly explained there were a further five bodies buried
Speaker 1: in his cellar, and a six body beneath the ground
Speaker 1: floor bathroom WOW. Most of these victims, Fred claimed, had
Speaker 1: been hitchhikers or girls who had been lodging with them,
Speaker 1: who he had murdered in the nineteen seventies after picking
Speaker 1: them up a bus stops right. Initially, Fred claimed these
Speaker 1: victims had been killed when they had threatened to inform
Speaker 1: Rows of his infidelity, and that he had transported their
Speaker 1: bodies to Cromwell Street to abuse, dismember, and then bury
Speaker 1: in shallow graves. So he said he abducted them, killed
Speaker 1: them elsewhere and then brought them to twenty five Street,
Speaker 1: known forever as the House of Horrors. Now. The dismemberment,
Speaker 1: Fred claimed was only to make it easier to bury
Speaker 1: the remains in shallow graves, and he again agreed to
Speaker 1: return with police to Cromwell Street to indicate precisely where
Speaker 1: he'd buried each victim. Right between March five and March eight,
Speaker 1: police found six further bodies of young females at twenty
Speaker 1: five Cromwell Street Wow. Each victim had been extensively mutilated,
Speaker 1: and each body bore evidence of having been subjected to
Speaker 1: extreme abuse prior to their deaths.
Speaker 2: My god.
Speaker 1: Each set of remains was missing numerous bones, particularly finger bones.
Speaker 1: When questioned, Fred refused to divulge the whereabouts of the
Speaker 1: bones missing from each of the set of remains, all
Speaker 1: the reason for their absence. It's been speculated he kept
Speaker 1: them somewhere as trophies, but it's not known where they went.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of just kind of he's kind of
Speaker 2: bragging about it in a way and going, this is
Speaker 2: what I did. This is what I did. But he's
Speaker 2: not giving away everything.
Speaker 1: In the documentary, which I refuse to tell you about
Speaker 1: until the end of this episode, there is actually vision
Speaker 1: of him with police walking through the backyard. It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like bragging. I'm not a psychologist. I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: a criminal psychologist. It doesn't feel to me like bragging.
Speaker 1: It is. He's kind of stone cold, No, not even
Speaker 1: stone cold, he's emotionless. It feels a bit like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm found out now, I've got nothing left. I've got
Speaker 1: nothing to lose in telling them it's just ye there,
Speaker 1: that's where your phone partisan. Yep, that's where you find that.
Speaker 2: But I mean, there is something to lose if he's
Speaker 2: not giving away everything. Like he's not. He's not talking
Speaker 2: about everything. He's not like, oh the fingers are they're
Speaker 2: like it feels like it is holding something back.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think more when I'm probably arguing. Is that
Speaker 1: is the term bragging? You know, Oh my god, you
Speaker 1: think I only killed Heather. Yeah, I actually killed heaps
Speaker 1: more than that. It's not that, it's more. And he
Speaker 1: doesn't give it up really willingly. It reminds me a
Speaker 1: little bit of.
Speaker 2: Dennis nils Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, where they police
Speaker 2: questioned him and he was like, yeah, yeah, there was
Speaker 2: another one.
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, yeah, yeah, actually no, I do remember there's
Speaker 1: another one.
Speaker 2: It felt a bit more like that, yes, okay, because
Speaker 2: he was like, you know, Dennis Nilsen just went, you know,
Speaker 2: look at the look in the in my in my
Speaker 2: living room, in the tea cups and look in the
Speaker 2: you know, and I was like, oh my god, in
Speaker 2: tea pot or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was where Fred West remembered where all the bodies were,
Speaker 1: but didn't either didn't remember, did give up a lot
Speaker 1: of information about why or how he was holding back details,
Speaker 1: but just said, Yep, there's a body here. Yep, there's
Speaker 1: a body there that's packed up at this bus stop,
Speaker 1: not giving a lot of detail, but taking Fred continued
Speaker 1: to cease throughout all of the discoveries that his wife
Speaker 1: Rose had no knowledge of any of it, and perhaps
Speaker 1: this is why he was kind of just saying, yes,
Speaker 1: don't look into anymore. I'll tell you they're here. Police, however,
Speaker 1: suspected otherwise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because if you're living in the house with someone
Speaker 2: that's dismembering bodies, that would take time.
Speaker 1: Also, remember Heather ran away and she just kind of
Speaker 1: didn't seem to care, and then it turns out that
Speaker 1: actually Fred had killed her, like really would a mother
Speaker 1: just never Yeah, there's also all those reports. Even though
Speaker 1: the charges never went to court, all of the children
Speaker 1: had reported serious abuse by Fred and Rose.
Speaker 2: And the threat against Rena from yep, yep from her
Speaker 2: as well, just saying, you know, like she did not
Speaker 2: want her there.
Speaker 1: Yep. Rose West was arrested on the twentieth of April,
Speaker 1: so still nineteen ninety four, so it was the twenty
Speaker 1: fifth of February that Fred was first arrested. On the
Speaker 1: twentieth of April, Rose was arrested initially on offenses relating
Speaker 1: to physical and sexual assault of two children in the
Speaker 1: mid nineteen seventies, so that's what they had enough evidence.
Speaker 2: To arrested her in anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The following day, she was refused bail and she was
Speaker 1: transferred to a prison in the maximum security wing. Here
Speaker 1: she was questioned more closely about all of the murders
Speaker 1: that Fred had confessed to. On April twenty five, she
Speaker 1: was formally charged with one murder and I will go
Speaker 1: into each of the victim later. Bear with me, trust.
Speaker 2: Me, okay, I'll trust you.
Speaker 1: It was up until eleven thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you messaged me when you're.
Speaker 1: Going started work at four thirty.
Speaker 2: You don't always say good night to me, but this
Speaker 2: last night you did message me. Not imagine every night.
Speaker 2: I ignore it in silence. I muted you fished this story.
Speaker 1: Are you working in five hours?
Speaker 2: That was the thing though, when you message me because
Speaker 2: I don't get up as early as you, and when
Speaker 2: you message me to say because I'm a nightl you
Speaker 2: know that, and.
Speaker 1: Who is it night ol?
Speaker 2: Who? That's something like that working on? But yeah, you
Speaker 2: you messaged me very late last night because I was like.
Speaker 1: We can record these episode tomorrow I've finished.
Speaker 2: Because you've been sick, And I was like, oh my God,
Speaker 2: why are you still up because you have to be
Speaker 2: at work at four.
Speaker 1: Thirty, start work at five thirty, and I said no,
Speaker 1: this week, I started four thirty.
Speaker 2: And so, yeah, so you finished this very late last
Speaker 2: night because you've been sick for the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: And I recorded an episode with your crasy last week
Speaker 2: as a feelings you're Christie, and so you're coming back
Speaker 2: to record this episode. So you stayed up so late
Speaker 2: last night to do this. So you just got hooked
Speaker 2: and really fell into this last.
Speaker 1: Night, Yes, Slash, I needed to finish it. Yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: been working on it in little dribs and drabs, so
Speaker 1: like it's such a big story and it's so intense,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, right, I'm recording this. I
Speaker 1: need to get this in finished because I need to
Speaker 1: get this out of my life. I need to fit.
Speaker 1: I need to not be thinking about this heinous couple
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 2: I need to get this out drips and drabs, f y.
Speaker 2: I what bakers call dough that they throw aways? Is that?
Speaker 2: Hom Simpson?
Speaker 1: How bad bakes? Does it?
Speaker 2: Sim sim say that?
Speaker 1: I never knew that you're learning a lot today. It's
Speaker 1: your favorite treat from bakers.
Speaker 2: To night, Paul God, I would love a living the
Speaker 2: Hawaiian pizza kind of scroll thing is a scroll like
Speaker 2: the role the yeah yeah cheese making roll. What's your
Speaker 2: favorite veggie?
Speaker 1: Might scroll? Obviously cheesy mite, Sorry cheesy mike scroll. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, by's so uzzie. Right now, for overseas listeners,
Speaker 1: there is a white bread roll that has cheese and veggimite.
Speaker 1: It's so good aaked into it, and it is Did.
Speaker 2: You get lots of staff discounts or are you.
Speaker 1: Like no, no, no, no, no baby do traps that's what
Speaker 1: they call them. Oh my god, someone never worked. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, now's no staff discounts, so me Peterson at
Speaker 1: the end of each day for health and safety reasons.
Speaker 2: Trips and traps. I can tell you you.
Speaker 1: Could no longer sell the leftovers the next day. So
Speaker 1: guess what the stuff good to take home? Yes, exactly
Speaker 1: as you said while ago, Yes, yeah, exactly. I was
Speaker 1: very popular in my neighborhood working there. Niche all right.
Speaker 1: By May sixth, nineteen ninety four, Fred and Rose West
Speaker 1: were jointly charged with five counts of murder. Rose simply
Speaker 1: replied I'm innocent upon hearing each charge, a response that
Speaker 1: proved to be a theme throughout each of the forty
Speaker 1: six interviews investigators would hold with Rose prior to her trial. Wow,
Speaker 1: prior to the trial forty six police interviews, she just
Speaker 1: said I'm innocent the whole time. Now we all know
Speaker 1: I'm no good at maths, But how is yours? You
Speaker 1: know that police had exhumed five bodies, and both Fred
Speaker 1: and Rose were charged with five counts of murder. But
Speaker 1: remember Fred's through this solicitor that said he had killed
Speaker 1: a prox.
Speaker 2: Nine people, So that's not as many as nine, five.
Speaker 1: Less five fewer than nine.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, baby, don't tell me what happened.
Speaker 1: After the first five charges were laid, Fred ended up
Speaker 1: openly confessing to killing his first wife, Rena and his
Speaker 1: stepdaughter Charmaine. He also confessed to knowing the location of
Speaker 1: Anne mcfall's remains. Do you remember that name? It feels
Speaker 1: like eighteen years ago. First started this. The friend who
Speaker 1: stayed with Fred when Rena left back to Scotland and
Speaker 1: stayed wanted to marry him and was pregnant with his
Speaker 1: child when she went missing. At eight months pregnant. Fred
Speaker 1: ended up con fessing to knowing the location of Anne's remains,
Speaker 1: although he always denied killing her and said he thought
Speaker 1: that Rina had. Fred agreed to identify each burial location,
Speaker 1: and the remains of these other females, women and girls
Speaker 1: were unearthed between April tenth and June seven.
Speaker 2: This kind of reminds me a lot of the Green
Speaker 2: River Killer that just went back to these locations and
Speaker 2: just went, oh, there's another one there, there's another one there,
Speaker 2: there's another one there.
Speaker 1: Well, there were their bodies that they exhumed from twenty
Speaker 1: five Cromwell Street, and then there were bodies that were
Speaker 1: before they before he lived at twenty five Cromwell Street. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Fred West was formerly charged with twelve murders wow, and
Speaker 1: Rose with ten.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, So.
Speaker 1: Who were these women and girls? This sounds like it,
Speaker 1: but he is a horrendous sentence to say, I'm going
Speaker 1: to gondous, I'm going to go through the victims in
Speaker 1: chronological order, which is never something that she should be
Speaker 1: said no, and McFall is believed to have been Fred's
Speaker 1: first victim before he ever met Rose. As we've discussed,
Speaker 1: she was a teenager in a relationship with Fred and
Speaker 1: pregnant when she apparently decided to leave him one day
Speaker 1: in May nineteen sixty seven. She was the friend. So
Speaker 1: nine sixty seven.
Speaker 2: He's quite young then, isn't he.
Speaker 1: He was in his twenties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Also remember this when this is happening, So all the changes.
Speaker 2: Were laid in nineteen ninety yeah yeah wow.
Speaker 1: So yeah. She was a friend of and Rina's first
Speaker 1: nanny Issa. Fred never admitted to An's murder, however, didn't
Speaker 1: know where her remains were, which seems fishy to meet.
Speaker 1: Her remains and those of her of their unborn baby
Speaker 1: were found in a field at Kempley, which is near
Speaker 1: Fred West's home village where he grew up in the
Speaker 1: place name I famously can pronounce very easily, Heredfordshire.
Speaker 2: I'm just covering all basically, really good.
Speaker 1: No, but how you said it sounded like you were
Speaker 1: just making a noise both. Charmain West was Fred's stepdaughter,
Speaker 1: the first of his children. Rose hated Charmain the whole
Speaker 1: time she was in the Little Girl's life. Charmaine was
Speaker 1: last seen on that final visit to Fred in prison
Speaker 1: on June fifteenth, nineteen seventy one. She was killed sometime
Speaker 1: between that date and Fred's release on June twenty four,
Speaker 1: she was killed by Rose alone, who stowed her body
Speaker 1: in the cellar of their home until Fred was released
Speaker 1: from prison. When he got home, he buried her body
Speaker 1: in the yard close to the back door of the
Speaker 1: flat they lived in.
Speaker 2: So we know this because of the timings that Fred
Speaker 2: could not have done it, but she had done it
Speaker 2: and had stowed her until Fred was released and then cons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so when Fred confessed to remember, he ended up
Speaker 1: confessing to Charmainstead. He said that he had killed her,
Speaker 1: and we will go into this. So he killed her
Speaker 1: and where he had buried her, which was in the
Speaker 1: back close to the back door of the flat before
Speaker 1: twenty five Cromwell Street.
Speaker 2: Right, okay, sure, it's in a different house. So did
Speaker 2: he go to this place where to another house where
Speaker 2: people were now living and pointing out that there were
Speaker 2: bodies there? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And I haven't written this in here because I thought
Speaker 1: it was too awful, but I'm going to say it
Speaker 1: just because he brought that up. He was insistent that
Speaker 1: he had not dismembered Charmaine. Her body, though, was found
Speaker 1: in parts. But this is believed to be from when
Speaker 1: New owners of the house had done developments to the
Speaker 1: house and a new wall that like and kind of
Speaker 1: stumpings that have been put in had actually severed her body.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Charmaine was eight years old.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Rena, whose name was actually Catherine Costello but went by Rena,
Speaker 1: was Fred's first wife and Charmaine and Anne Marie's mother.
Speaker 1: She was last reported seen alive in August nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1: Remember it was June nineteen seventy one that Charmaine was killed.
Speaker 1: Rena had been growing extremely anxious about her children's welfare.
Speaker 1: She'd been provided with Fred's address at Midlands Road, which
Speaker 1: is where they were living at the time, and Rena
Speaker 1: sought to confront him, likely to discuss or demand custody
Speaker 1: of her girls. This was the final time Rena was
Speaker 1: seen alive. She's believed to have been murdered by strangulation.
Speaker 1: Her dismembered body was found in a field near Fred's
Speaker 1: first home. She was twenty six years old.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Linda Goloff was the couple's first known murder together. That's
Speaker 1: Fred and Rose West. She lived in Gloucester and was
Speaker 1: friendly with a number of lodgers at twenty five Cromwell Street.
Speaker 1: She ended up moving in there herself, leaving a note
Speaker 1: for her parents saying not to worry about her. She'd
Speaker 1: found a new flat and she would come home to visit,
Speaker 1: but when she didn't, her parents tracked down the address
Speaker 1: and went to see her, to be told at the
Speaker 1: door by Rose West that Linda had actually moved elsewhere.
Speaker 1: Linda's mother said Rose was wearing Linda's slippers and cardigan
Speaker 1: when chancelled the door. It's understood Linda's death was the
Speaker 1: first sexually motivated killing by Fred and Rose West together.
Speaker 1: Sometime in January nineteen seventy two, her dismembered body was
Speaker 1: found under the ground floor bathroom of twenty five Cromwell Street.
Speaker 1: She was nineteen. Caroline Cooper had been staying at a
Speaker 1: children's home in Gloucester, which she disappeared in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: She had been given permission by the home to spend
Speaker 1: the weekend with her grandmother on November ten, but after
Speaker 1: boarding a bus, she was never seen again. It's understood
Speaker 1: she was picked up by Fred and Rosemary West, assaulted,
Speaker 1: tortured and killed. Her remains were found in the cellar
Speaker 1: of twenty five Cromwell Street. She was fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: Good Lucy Park Uttington was also killed in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: She was reported missing by her parents after failing to
Speaker 1: return home after visiting a friend on December twenty seven.
Speaker 1: Believed it was that day she was abducted by Fred
Speaker 1: and Rose, tortured and murdered. Her remains were also found
Speaker 1: in the cellar. She was twenty one. Terreise Sia Agenthala
Speaker 1: was a student hitchhiking from South London to Ireland when
Speaker 1: she was abducted in April nineteen seventy four. Fred only
Speaker 1: knew her as the Dutch girl, she was in fact Swiss.
Speaker 1: Her remains were also found under the cellar. She was
Speaker 1: twenty one. Shirley Hubbard was also killed in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: She was a foster child and was abducted from a
Speaker 1: bus stop on November fifteenth, as she was returning home
Speaker 1: from work experience. She was reported missing when she didn't
Speaker 1: meet her boyfriend the following day as had been planned.
Speaker 1: Her dismembered body was found under the cellar. She was
Speaker 1: fifteen years old. Juanita Mott had been another lodger at
Speaker 1: twenty five Cromwell Street, but at the time of her
Speaker 1: murder in nineteen seventy five was living with a family
Speaker 1: friend in nearby Newitt. It's belief she was abducted as
Speaker 1: she hitch hiked along a highway. Fred only remembered her
Speaker 1: as the girl from Newitt. She was eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: Shirley Robinson was the one Fred had first confessed to
Speaker 1: after his daughter Heather. She had been a lodger with
Speaker 1: the Wests and was known to have casual sex with them.
Speaker 1: At the time of her murder in May nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: she was between six and eight months pregnant with Fred's child.
Speaker 1: It's not believe there was any sexual motivation in Shirley's murder,
Speaker 1: but that her pregnancy had threatened the stability of Fred
Speaker 1: and Rose's relationship. Now By saying there was no sexual
Speaker 1: motivation in this murder, insinuates there was in the previous
Speaker 1: and the others to come. Shirley and her unburned baby
Speaker 1: were found in the garden of twenty five Cromwell Street.
Speaker 1: Shirley was eighteen years old. Allison Chambers had been placed
Speaker 1: in Foster Kate care at the age of fourteen she'd
Speaker 1: had a troubled life. She repeatedly absconded from the home
Speaker 1: and was known to be a frequent visitor to twenty
Speaker 1: five Cromwell Street. She was killed in nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: at the house. Fred would later claim that Allison died
Speaker 1: as a result of Rose's quote becoming too bloody vicious
Speaker 1: with her during a sexual encounter. Her body was found
Speaker 1: in the garden she was sixteen. Heather West was the
Speaker 1: last of Fred and Rose's affirmed murder victims. Their daughter
Speaker 1: killed in nineteen eighty seven, dismembered and buried in a
Speaker 1: hole in their backyard that was dug by one of
Speaker 1: her brothers under the pretense they would be installing a
Speaker 1: fish pond. They never got a fishpond, and the area
Speaker 1: the hole had been dug was soon covered by a
Speaker 1: concrete patio by Fred. Heather was sixteen years old. The
Speaker 1: first time Fred and Rose West saw each other since
Speaker 1: Fred's arrest in February was when they were both jointly
Speaker 1: brought to court to be formally charged over these twelve
Speaker 1: murders in June, so four months later. Despite Rose having
Speaker 1: been now charged, Fred maintained and insisted he had acted alone,
Speaker 1: going against any and all testimonies and as from witnesses
Speaker 1: and their children, He fiercely defended and protected his wife.
Speaker 1: When they sat down in court, seeing each other for
Speaker 1: the first time in four months, Fred leaned towards his
Speaker 1: wife and gently placed her hand upon his hand upon
Speaker 1: her shoulder. Smiling, Rose, having ignored her husband's presence, visibly
Speaker 1: winced in discomfort. As police attempted to lead Fred from
Speaker 1: the hearing, He resisted their efforts and again attempted to
Speaker 1: move towards Rose, who again winced and writhed away from
Speaker 1: his grasp, not looking at him. After this public rejection
Speaker 1: from his wife, Fred became increasingly and noticeably depressed. In prison.
Speaker 1: He would write Rose letters daily, to which he never
Speaker 1: got a reply. He asked his adult children, and by
Speaker 1: adult they were still teenage, to pass on his messages
Speaker 1: of love and devotion to their mother, to which she
Speaker 1: never responded. News got back to Fred that Rose had
Speaker 1: assumed the role of a grieving mother who had lost
Speaker 1: a daughter and stepdaughter to her husband's hand, and in
Speaker 1: which she declared both her innocence and her hatred of
Speaker 1: her husband. This caused Fred to drop the act he
Speaker 1: had been betrayed by his wife, his love and so
Speaker 1: his protection of her also fell away. Fred withdrew his
Speaker 1: early confessions to having acted alone in the murders and
Speaker 1: instead said his wife had had almost total culpability in
Speaker 1: all of the murders to which he had been charged,
Speaker 1: excluding that of Anne mcfull, which he still stated he
Speaker 1: didn't commit. This was also before he knew, wrote he
Speaker 1: confirmed what police knew from forensic evidence that Rose had
Speaker 1: killed little Charmaine on her own while Fred was in prison.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: He also confirmed this had not been a planned, discussed,
Speaker 1: nor premeditated act. Fred never heard from Rose again. On
Speaker 1: the first of January nineteen ninety five, ten months after
Speaker 1: he had first been arrested for his daughter Heather's murder,
Speaker 1: Fred hanged himself in his prison cell. He left a
Speaker 1: suicide note which read to Rose, West, Steve and May.
Speaker 1: It's two of his children and Rose obviously Well, Rose,
Speaker 1: it's your birthday on November twenty nine. You will be
Speaker 1: forty one and still beautiful and still lovely, and I
Speaker 1: love you. We will always be in love. The most
Speaker 1: wonderful thing in my life was when I met you.
Speaker 1: Our love is special to us, so love, keep your
Speaker 1: promises to me. You know what they are. Where we
Speaker 1: are put together forever and ever is up to you.
Speaker 1: We loved Heather, both of us. I would love Charmaine
Speaker 1: to be with Heather and Rena. You will always be
Speaker 1: missus West all over the world. That is important to
Speaker 1: me and to you. I haven't got you a present,
Speaker 1: but all I have is my life. I will give
Speaker 1: it to you, my darling. When you are ready come
Speaker 1: to me. I will be waiting for you, my god.
Speaker 1: Fred West was fifty three years old and died alone,
Speaker 1: heart broken in a small, dirty prison cell, with his
Speaker 1: name to be forever tainted and abhorred. This was far
Speaker 1: better than he deserved.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and he was for some reason trying to
Speaker 2: protect Rose out of everything as well.
Speaker 1: He protected her right up until the end.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, when he learned that.
Speaker 1: That she was betrayed. I don't know why he decided
Speaker 1: to implicate her then. Maybe it was for some religious
Speaker 1: reason of his own. I don't know what that could
Speaker 1: have been, because it kind of felt like he's gone
Speaker 1: more fuck you then in this suicide note. He loved her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his suicide note was a letter to her. So after
Speaker 1: his death, Rose West therefore faced trial on her own.
Speaker 1: The prosecution portrayed the Wests as sex obsessed, sadistic murderers,
Speaker 1: terming the bodies discovered at Cromwell Street and Midland Road
Speaker 1: as secrets more terrible than words can express. The last
Speaker 1: moments on earth. For these victims were as objects of
Speaker 1: the deprived of this woman and her husband. The defense
Speaker 1: argued it was all motivated by Fred, and that Rose
Speaker 1: was unaware of her husband's sadism all his crimes. They
Speaker 1: pointed to the fact that he had committed murders before
Speaker 1: he knew Rose. Against the advice of her lawyers, Rose
Speaker 1: took the stand herself. At times she was teary and
Speaker 1: incredibly remorseful. She testified to being herself a victim of
Speaker 1: child abuse and rape who was groomed and coerced by
Speaker 1: an older man into marrying him. However, at other times
Speaker 1: through her testimony, Rose was upbeat, cracking jokes and laughing.
Speaker 1: She gave repeated contrary evidence to multiple other witnesses and
Speaker 1: victims whose accounts were all consistent with each other's, and
Speaker 1: Roses were the only ones of a contradictory The defense
Speaker 1: also tried to discredit witnesses as being motivated by per
Speaker 1: personal grudges towards towards Rose. And this always feels like
Speaker 1: a really last ditch attempt by defense to okay, welling else, well,
Speaker 1: hang on, you can't actually believe the witnesses because yeah,
Speaker 1: so they said that there were personal grudges towards Rose,
Speaker 1: that Fred was responsible and the world knew this, but
Speaker 1: he had killed himself, so they wanted to take someone
Speaker 1: down for this, and or that they were exploiting, that
Speaker 1: witnesses were exploiting them for financial gain, given the high
Speaker 1: profile of the case.
Speaker 2: So it's just it was this huge news everywhere at
Speaker 2: the time was huge.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine one day a man is arrested, he
Speaker 1: takes police to his backyard of his home he lived
Speaker 1: with his I think it's ten children, and they dig
Speaker 1: up five bodies in that backyard, and then more and
Speaker 1: more and more appear over time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just keeps omitting to more over time.
Speaker 1: And this was nineteen ninety four, right, So the first
Speaker 1: murder that we know was in nineteen sixty seven, but
Speaker 1: it was only nineteen ninety four that came out like
Speaker 1: that's in our.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, time, absolutely, Yeah, it.
Speaker 1: Was huge news. So the defense tried to argue that
Speaker 1: witnesses that came forward and people were selling their stories
Speaker 1: just to kind of be part of this big salacious tabloid.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and here as well, where I will bring back
Speaker 1: up the seventeen year old girl called Caroline Owens. Remember
Speaker 1: she was abducted and raped and tortured, and that was
Speaker 1: the case I said could have in a sliding doors moment,
Speaker 1: landed them in prison. Yeah, yeah, I bring her back
Speaker 1: up now because she was one of the witnesses in
Speaker 1: the case, and she did admit to receiving a twenty
Speaker 1: thousand pound payment to tell her story in the media.
Speaker 1: This was used very much against her and other witnesses.
Speaker 1: By Rose's defense, she had every entitlement and it was
Speaker 1: her prerogative to tell her own story, and she had
Speaker 1: extreme survivor's guilt, saying in this story when she spoke
Speaker 1: to the media, I only want to get justice for
Speaker 1: the girls who didn't make it. I feel like it
Speaker 1: was all my fault.
Speaker 2: Is poor, how horrible to live with that girl.
Speaker 1: So I've included that in there to say we've called
Speaker 1: it a sliding doors moment. She has lived with that
Speaker 1: thinking what if I had testified like it is just
Speaker 1: the most awful, awful thought. And this poor girl, who's
Speaker 1: a woman at this point, testified on the stand she
Speaker 1: went through all of that to make sure Rose West
Speaker 1: was put away, and she accepted payment to tell her
Speaker 1: story and her story only, and that was used against her.
Speaker 1: I swear to God. Defense lawyers for people as guilty
Speaker 1: as this have a lot to answerform. Multiple witnesses and
Speaker 1: victims of the couple's assaults testified to Rose being the
Speaker 1: more aggressive perpetrator of the couple. Neighbors described Rose's glee
Speaker 1: at Charmaine's disappearance when she said, like good riddance, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and her completely casual indifference to Heather's disappearance. The final
Speaker 1: witness to testify was a woman named Janet Leech, and you,
Speaker 1: Sammy will remember she features heavily in the Netflix stockut
Speaker 1: I think it's Netflix the documentary, which I will not
Speaker 1: bring up to Janet Leech was Fred's appointed appropriate adult.
Speaker 1: He given his low IQ. He was given essentially like
Speaker 1: a guardian, someone to kind of talk to him and
Speaker 1: act as his representative, but not in a legal sense.
Speaker 1: She was not working for the prosecution all the defense.
Speaker 1: She was a completely separate entity who was tasked with
Speaker 1: talking to him and helping him, kind of.
Speaker 2: Like a social worker. Yeah, yeah, yep.
Speaker 1: Through this role, Fred and Janet Glue grew quite a
Speaker 1: close bond, and Fred really grew to trust her and
Speaker 1: treat her as a confidant. She testified to the court
Speaker 1: that prior to his arrest, he and Rose had formed
Speaker 1: a pact whereby if they were ever caught, Fred would
Speaker 1: take full responsibility for all of the murders, many of
Speaker 1: which he had privately described to Janet as being quote
Speaker 1: some of Rose's miss Wow. After a seven week trial,
Speaker 1: a jury unanimously found Rosemary West guilty of all charges unanimouslyanimously. Wow,
Speaker 1: of all of them.
Speaker 2: There are ten charges for her, Yes, ten murder charges.
Speaker 1: There were also charges of sexual abuses.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just as Charles Mantel described Ros's crimes as appalling and
Speaker 1: depraved and noted strongly that it didn't matter whose hand
Speaker 1: had struck the fatal blow, that the involvement in any
Speaker 1: murders of this magnitude made a person guilty of those
Speaker 1: murders in the strongest degree. So essentially, when you know
Speaker 1: they couldn't appeal by saying well, Fred was the one
Speaker 1: who strangled this person, or if she was there, she
Speaker 1: was implicit, which the jury had found she was completely
Speaker 1: culpable and guilty of murder. He noted that few juries
Speaker 1: in the world would ever face such vital and important
Speaker 1: a task as this one had been owing to the
Speaker 1: sheer horror and complexity of this case.
Speaker 2: Now imagine the evidence they saw, and that.
Speaker 1: I cannot understate how much I have kept out of
Speaker 1: this report.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, how much control available if there were.
Speaker 1: I actually don't think the documentary even went into the
Speaker 1: true horrors, the true horrors, the sexual abuse, the way
Speaker 1: in which the women were killed, the things found with
Speaker 1: their bodies that suggested that the abuse that had gone on.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I've read and listened to things about
Speaker 1: this that have been put out there in the media,
Speaker 1: and I'm just horrified and disturbed. These jury went through
Speaker 1: seven weeks of all of the evidence could be given.
Speaker 1: Aged forty one, Rosemary West was sentenced to life in prison,
Speaker 1: never to be released. She has never taken responsibility nor
Speaker 1: shown remorse for any of her crimes. Today she is
Speaker 1: still in prison, aged seventy one. She reportedly suffers health
Speaker 1: and mobility issues. She can barely walk and is housed
Speaker 1: in a unit in maximum security prison for disabled and
Speaker 1: vulnerable prisoners. That is where she will one day die. This,
Speaker 1: like Fred, is far better than she deserves. Absolutely, it
Speaker 1: has long been speculated that Fred, either alone or with Rose,
Speaker 1: committed many more murders. Fred even telling his appropriate adult
Speaker 1: Janet that he had planned to reveal the location of
Speaker 1: one more body per year for the rest of his life,
Speaker 1: but he inevitably took his own life before he revealed anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: we will never know the entire truth, but what we
Speaker 1: do know is that the absolute monsters who are or
Speaker 1: were Fred and Rosemary West will never be able to
Speaker 1: hurt another person again, And that, somehow unbelievably is a
Speaker 1: brief overview of the heinous crimes of I'm going to
Speaker 1: call them because I hope they are and will be
Speaker 1: history's worst married couple.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you for that story. I mean, like
Speaker 2: you know it is. It is such an awful, awful case.
Speaker 2: And I remember seeing that documentary on Netflix and going
Speaker 2: this is awful. And I hadn't heard of these two before,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 1: Was just brought them up in numerous episodes where we've
Speaker 1: said kind of in passing we've been talking about like
Speaker 1: Folly Adure, and we've kind of said in passing it, oh,
Speaker 1: like Fred and Rosemary West, right, and like the House
Speaker 1: of Horrors and twenty five Cromwell Streets kind of known.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people, especially a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, true crime listeners, people who are you know,
Speaker 1: I was going to say, involved in, hopefully not involved
Speaker 1: in interested in yep, have heard of Fred and Rosemary West.
Speaker 1: I think everyone has heard it. To the West you're not.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows they killed lots of people, maybe children involved,
Speaker 1: Maybe they're children involved, not quite sure, but I know
Speaker 1: there was something about they dug up lots of bodies
Speaker 1: in their backyard, right, the details and the depravity and
Speaker 1: the years and years and decades of abuse and not
Speaker 1: being found, a horror that went on in that house
Speaker 1: and outside of it and before. It's just as I said,
Speaker 1: I've known this story for ever, but researching it, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe that's what made me sick. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: why toy is how long to write. It is just
Speaker 1: I am very happy to leave that story behind. But
Speaker 1: before we do, what I will say is there is
Speaker 1: discourse around whether Rose was in some ways a victim herself.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: She was fifteen when she met the twenty seven year
Speaker 1: old Fred, and I think, very much my opinion, I
Speaker 1: would say undoubtedly she was groomed into being with him. However,
Speaker 1: for two decades there are multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple reports,
Speaker 1: witness testimonies that all corroborate that she was very much
Speaker 1: an aggressor. She definitely killed Charmaine on her own. That's improving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well he was in jail at the time exactly.
Speaker 1: That. You know, whether he's groomed her into being an aggressor,
Speaker 1: she was one and continued that way for twenty years.
Speaker 1: She never turned around and said, you know, Fred talked
Speaker 1: me into this. Fred groom me. Now I'm out of
Speaker 1: his I'm not under his spell anymore. I can say this.
Speaker 1: She just denied ever having any involvement, which she clearly did.
Speaker 1: I find it very difficult to side, I suppose, I
Speaker 1: don't know what they want to hear. Side with the
Speaker 1: discourse or the argument that she may have been a
Speaker 1: victim herself. Maybe that's something you say. I think she
Speaker 1: was a victim of being groomed. She was a victim
Speaker 1: of maybe society and the circumstance in her life in
Speaker 1: ending up with him. However, I think when it comes
Speaker 1: to the murders and the abuse, sexual and physical of
Speaker 1: dozens of people over decades, I don't think there is
Speaker 1: any There is no sympathy from me.
Speaker 2: Does that? Does it remind you a little bit of
Speaker 2: the David and Katherine Bernie?
Speaker 1: No? I mean no, yes, sorry, yes, obviously that they're
Speaker 1: a married couple, David and Catherine Bernie, I felt more leniencied.
Speaker 2: Or really yeah, okay, right, okay.
Speaker 1: That to me felt a bit more like a grooming situation.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that Fred and Rose West's crimes
Speaker 1: went on for decades, and that there are multiple reports
Speaker 1: that Rose was the more, yeah, makes it really hard
Speaker 1: for me to see any or find any easy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: Coming from a place of extreme and great grateful privilege
Speaker 1: that I've obviously not been in a situation anywhere near that,
Speaker 1: you know, being groomed and being in in an upbringing
Speaker 1: where you may find yourself in that position. So I
Speaker 1: very much, you know, caveat that with coming from a
Speaker 1: place of privilege, but I find it very very difficult
Speaker 1: to find to find myself leaning it all towards a
Speaker 1: place of feeling like she wasn't extremely and guilty in.
Speaker 2: I would love to see some sort of like you know,
Speaker 2: psycho psychiatrist or someone going this is the mental state
Speaker 2: of someone during that time, because those two like just monsters, yes,
Speaker 2: like you know, and would be you know, you know
Speaker 2: in terms of the TV show Monsters with Ira Murphy,
Speaker 2: they would be I would think up there in terms
Speaker 2: of the next oh yeah, that they could do, like
Speaker 2: you know that Ry Murphy could do about them, because
Speaker 2: they are such monsters. But I do wonder how you
Speaker 2: do tell that because it is such a fascinating thing
Speaker 2: where even watching the documentary, I was like, what is
Speaker 2: going on? It's so hard to know the dynamic of
Speaker 2: that relationship.
Speaker 1: I think one thing for me is that Rose killing
Speaker 1: Charmaine on her own was really early in the past.
Speaker 1: That was nineteen seventy one, so I've closed the document
Speaker 1: I think nineteen seventy one or maybe thirty seventies that
Speaker 1: was like when they just kind of got together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't Again, I don't know the psychology
Speaker 1: about grooming and everything, but it's not to suggest that that,
Speaker 1: you know, there'd been years of where he'd been slowly
Speaker 1: ingratiating her into his you know, sick fantasies and sadism
Speaker 1: and masochism. She killed Charmaine on her own when he
Speaker 1: was in prison, Yeah, when Jamaine was only eight, Like
Speaker 1: they'dn't have been together two years. And all of the
Speaker 1: sexually motivated murders came after that, All these sexually motivated
Speaker 1: murders were in the seventies. Like it just yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't feel sorry for that bitch.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, not at all, not saying that, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it is interesting.
Speaker 1: That the conversations with people who go, but she was groomed,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, she did this, but she was groomed.
Speaker 1: She was a victim herself. And I just find it
Speaker 1: really difficult personally.
Speaker 2: To yeah, feel that, Yeah, for sure, what do you think? No,
Speaker 2: I I you know, I think being fifteen years old,
Speaker 2: being like, you know, she's at a bus stop, she's
Speaker 2: had like, I don't know, there's something about her. It
Speaker 2: seems so you know, I don't even know what the
Speaker 2: word is, but not not right, like you know, like
Speaker 2: and then meeting him.
Speaker 1: And saying like calling him revolting in.
Speaker 2: Discussion, met him and then also hating and having a
Speaker 2: hatred for his ex and his life before her, and
Speaker 2: having that violence and that anger, like you just wonder
Speaker 2: what this life was and what the where that stemmed from,
Speaker 2: because there has to be something other than I think.
Speaker 1: Plays into it a lot for the concept that you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of crazy multiplied two people with the same
Speaker 1: wrong thoughts bring them together, multiplies those thoughts because they're
Speaker 1: kind of feeding off each other. This is a big
Speaker 1: case of that big.
Speaker 2: Huge story. Thank you, g and thank you for doing
Speaker 2: while you're sick as well.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, thank you again, And thank
Speaker 1: you beautiful Joe Chrissy. I just kind of met between
Speaker 1: your Christian and your crazy Christie for filling in for
Speaker 1: me when I was away. It's been it's been a
Speaker 1: goddamn yet. I really hope twenty twenty six. No, I
Speaker 1: hope and believe, and I'm putting out into the universe
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. I'm going to be just so much
Speaker 1: more well and come and prepared and calm. That's the
Speaker 1: word I'm looking.
Speaker 2: You know what it's going to be about. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: we are going to be doing this podcast over the
Speaker 2: Christmas break, so we're going to keep you company all
Speaker 2: over the Christmas holidays. We're going to have some Christmas
Speaker 2: themed shows. Boy dolease have a really nice time.
Speaker 1: We're going to keeping because what I have been a
Speaker 1: big podcast fan for many, many years, and I work
Speaker 1: in an industry that does not have Christmas off, and
Speaker 1: I still drive to work every day, not Christmas Day.
Speaker 1: Don't you know I'm not not playing my little bit
Speaker 1: not by mini violin here, but over when a lot
Speaker 1: of other people have. That's funny, Yeah, Christmas break on,
Speaker 1: I'm still driving to work. I need to put on
Speaker 1: my favorite podcast in the morning. It really annoys me
Speaker 1: when they all take breaks. So you know we've gone well.
Speaker 1: It annoys us as listeners when our favorite shows aren't
Speaker 1: releasing episodes. So we're going to do it.
Speaker 2: Fault you the first year doing the podcast. We want
Speaker 2: to keep going and to keep bringing you the stories.
Speaker 1: We just like really want you to be obsessed with
Speaker 1: us if you're still here. This is such a long episode,
Speaker 1: but hey, maybe this is the new rule. If we
Speaker 1: have to take a week off, whether it be for
Speaker 1: sickness or a cruise in the Caribbean, we have to
Speaker 1: come back with like a double length that's to make
Speaker 1: up for it.
Speaker 2: And Joel Christy I will say. So Joel came into
Speaker 2: the episode. Joel as he messaged me on his way here,
Speaker 2: said Gaze always run late. So then I was like
Speaker 2: half an hour late, had to be at work, which
Speaker 2: is a national radio, live radio, live radio. So Joel's
Speaker 2: having a having a lovely time. And after we finished,
Speaker 2: so during the recording, I said to Joel, hey, this
Speaker 2: is my place. I was like, Joel, do you need
Speaker 2: to go? And Joel said, splash more shard. Now I've
Speaker 2: got ten more minutes, right, So we did. We did
Speaker 2: the rest of the podcast. Then I was like, we
Speaker 2: haven't got a lot of facts here, so I'll come
Speaker 2: back and do that after I did my own recording
Speaker 2: after that. But I said to Joel, after it goes,
Speaker 2: he was just and then told me amazing stories after that,
Speaker 2: and I said you have to go, and he goes
Speaker 2: ten more minutes, ten more minutes, and it was.
Speaker 1: Just how many minutes after he initially said ten minutes,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: About forty minutes. And so then Joel goes a splash
Speaker 2: more shardnay love him and so then was running and
Speaker 2: then looked at the time and went, oh, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: be in so much trouble for like running late to
Speaker 2: work and everything. I was like, it's fine, it's funny
Speaker 2: and anyway, and then after it was on the way out,
Speaker 2: so I had to come back. I had to come out.
Speaker 2: That's so many more stories to tell. So Joel's one
Speaker 2: of those people that has to come back sometime soon.
Speaker 2: We've had amazing responses from Scott Williams aka will Patterson
Speaker 2: and Mith Warhurst as well, so those wonderful I guess
Speaker 2: the best, the goddamn the best.
Speaker 1: Oh, you know, the only people in the whole world
Speaker 1: who are better than our guests listeners.
Speaker 2: That's right, Oh, we love you, we love you. And
Speaker 2: we'll be back with the male bag section in just
Speaker 2: air more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to make it a short one because
Speaker 1: you guys are like you feel like we've all aged
Speaker 1: in this episode.
Speaker 2: Absolutely apart from Diggs, who is sitting with me right
Speaker 2: now looking so gorgeous.
Speaker 1: It's just a little baby, a little bit boy.
Speaker 2: We're back after this