Killers_ The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time - Cawthorne, Nigel [96]
In November 1978, Rose gave birth to another daughter. She was Fred’s child and they named her Louise. There were now six children in the household and, from an early age, they were aware of what was going on. They knew that Rose was a prostitute and that Anne-Marie was being sexually abused by her father. Anne-Marie eventually fell pregnant by Fred, but it was an ectopic pregnancy which took place in the fallopian tube rather than the womb itself and the foetus had to be aborted. She then moved out to live with her boyfriend, so Fred turned his sexual attentions on Heather and Mae. Heather tried to resist and was beaten.
Not even the loss of Rose’s father, who died of a lung ailment in May 1979, put the Wests out of their stride. Several months later, they abducted a troubled 17-year-old from Swansea named Alison Chambers, raped and tortured her, then murdered her and buried her in the back garden.
In June 1980, Rose gave birth to Fred’s second son, Barry. In April 1982, Rose had Rosemary Junior, who was not Fred’s child. Then in July 1983, Rose had yet another daughter, Lucyanna. Like Tara and Rosemary Junior, she was mixed race. It is thought that the Wests kept on carrying out sexual abductions throughout this period. But as they did not bury any of the victims at 25 Cromwell Street and refused to confess to any murders during the early 1980s, we cannot be sure.
However, having eight children in the household took its toll on Rose’s temper. She became increasingly irrational and beat them without provocation. This began to loosen the children’s bond of loyalty. Their continued silence was the Wests’ only protection. In May 1987, 16-year-old Heather told a girlfriend about her father’s sexual abuse and the beatings, and her mother’s profession. The girl told her parents, who were friends of the Wests. When Fred and Rose heard of this, they murdered Heather and told the other children that she left home. However, Fred asked his 13-year-old son Stephen to help him dig a hole in the back garden where he later buried Heather’s dismembered body.
Fred and Rose set out to expand the prostitution business by advertising in specialist magazines. They were on the lookout for young women to pimp, who might also be willing to join in their sadistic perversions. A prostitute named Katherine Halliday joined the household. But when she was introduced to the Wests’ collection of whips and chains, the black bondage suits and masks, she took fright and left.
The Wests’ campaign of rape and murder had been going on for 25 years, but only now did they begin to run out of luck. One of the very young girls that they had abducted and raped told her girlfriend what happened. The girl went to the police and the case was assigned to Hazel Savage, now a detective constable. She knew of Fred from 1966 when Rena had told her about his sexual perversions.
On 6 August 1992, the police arrived at 25 Cromwell Street with a search warrant. They were looking for evidence of child abuse, found a mountain of distasteful pornography and arrested both Fred and Rose. Fred was charged with the rape and sodomy of a minor and Rose was charged with assisting him.
DC Savage set about interviewing the Wests’ friends and family members. Anne-Marie talked openly about the abuse she had suffered at Fred’s hands. She also expressed her suspicions about the fate of Charmaine, who Savage had known from her investigations in 1966. Rena, it seemed, had also gone missing. Savage checked tax and national insurance records which showed that Heather had not been employed, drawn benefits or visited a doctor in five years. Either she had moved abroad or she was dead.
The younger children