Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story (2025) s01e01 Episode Script
Fred
1
[Savage] We're in an interview room
on the first floor
at the police station at Gloucester.
Can you tell us your full name?
[Fred] Frederick Walter Stephen West.
- [Savage] And your address?
- [Fred] 25 Cromwell Street.
[Savage] Things are happening
at your house at the moment.
[man] I'm stood at the back door
of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester,
looking down the garden
towards the city center.
[ominous music builds]
[officer] The police
have been there this afternoon,
and they are in fact
digging up your back patio.
[man] Here's the, uh,
first slab being removed.
[ominous music playing]
[officer] We're concerned
about the whereabouts of your daughter.
Is she under the patio at your house?
[Fred] Oh, for God's sake.
I mean, do you believe it?
[Fred] You find her,
and I'll be happy. [laughs]
[reporter 1] 25 Cromwell Street
in Gloucester
continues to yield its secrets.
[reporter 2] Journalists
and TV crews have traveled
from all corners of the earth.
Police say they're not sure
exactly how many bodies there may be.
I've been told that there might be
12 people. Where does it end?
[reporter 3] The priority now is trying
to trace Mr. West's extensive family.
[reporter 4] "We're going to do
a thorough search at 25 Cromwell Street."
"We're not leaving until we've done that."
[officer] You're enjoying it.
[Fred] Yeah, why not?
[officer] I don't know.
I don't understand it.
[Fred] You will in the end.
[music stops]
[ominous music playing]
[phone ringing]
[woman] I was a journalist
on the city's local newspaper,
The Citizen.
It was my first job, so I was very much
a junior reporter at that time.
Quite green, very naive.
And then I was made
the crime correspondent
not long, actually, before February 1994.
I had a phone call
from the reception to say
that one of our paper sellers
was down at the back entrance.
He told me that the police were
digging up a garden in Cromwell Street,
which wasn't that far from the office.
So a photographer and I went down
to take a look.
It was quite a scruffy street.
There were mainly
Edwardian terraced houses.
Most of them had seen better days.
We found number 25.
It was at the end of a row of houses.
It was fairly run down,
but there wasn't anything remarkable
about it.
You couldn't really see anything
from the front,
so we went round the back.
[tools clattering]
There were police officers,
we assumed them to be, with shovels,
levering up paving stones,
and they'd got about three
or four up so far.
So obviously, they hadn't been long there.
We said, "Hello. We're from The Citizen,"
and we asked them
what they were looking for,
and they refused to tell us.
The photographer took a photograph
[camera clicks]
and then we left.
Something important was going on,
that much was clear.
We thought they were probably
looking for a body,
because why else
would the police dig up a garden?
But at that point, we didn't know who.
[man] In 1994,
I'd been in the police for 12 years.
You deal with things, difficult things.
But the West investigation did change me
in terms of
what I thought was possible,
what I [hesitates]
what I thought
people could do to each other.
- [child] Is it on, Dad?
- [Fred] Yeah.
[woman laughing]
[Williams] So at the beginning
of the investigation,
what we had was information
coming from school and social services
who were involved
in the West family at the time
about the way
the children were being treated.
[child laughs]
[Fred] Get down.
You might fall over. [laughs]
[woman laughs]
[Williams] We found out that
Fred and Rose, they were a married couple.
They had ten children.
Some were theirs together,
and some were from other relationships.
The younger children
had been placed into care,
which took them away from the family.
Those children were still going to school,
and there started to reverberate
a common theme between between them all.
It was alleged by the children
that if they misbehaved,
they would end up under the patio,
like their sister Heather.
[ominous music playing]
It's not only the frequency
that it was said,
but how many different children
were saying it.
It got to a level that
it could not be ignored,
because nobody could find Heather.
[music intensifies]
[man] She had literally disappeared
off the face of the earth,
and everyone was hoping that she was
going to be found safe and well somewhere.
[Williams] John Bennett was
senior investigation officer.
He had overall charge of the case.
Darren Law was
a detective assistant on the case,
and Hazel Savage, DC,
took on the mantle of being the officer
in the case for the missing Heather.
[music fades out]
[Williams] Fred hadn't been arrested
on that Thursday.
In fact, he had gone
to the police station voluntarily
to help us with our inquiries.
[eerie music playing]
[Savage] It's Thursday,
24th February 1994.
My name's DC Hazel Savage.
Fred, Heather has not been heard of
since 1986.
Did you report her
as a missing person to the police?
[Fred] No.
[Savage] The children are saying
that it was a family joke
that she was underneath the patio.
[Fred chuckles]
[Savage] You're laughing.
[Fred] Just supposing you did. I mean,
you're not going to sit there and say,
"Your sister's under the patio."
We better pack it away, Hazel.
We're talking rubbish.
[Savage] We can't, can we?
[Fred] You're digging me place up,
so carry on.
- I mean, why bother?
- [Savage] That's right.
And obviously, if there's anybody
under there, Fred, we will find them.
[Fred] There you are.
[sirens wailing]
[Williams] In normal cases,
you arrest somebody,
and then you put the evidence
that you have found to the offender
and listen to their explanation
if they're gonna provide one.
But we weren't in that position
because we were still gathering
the evidence.
We didn't have enough
to charge him with anything at that stage.
So later that night,
he returned to Cromwell Street.
[music fades out]
[gentle music playing]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Rachel] On Friday morning,
we had a tip
that they were looking for a girl
who hadn't been seen for eight years.
I went down to the register office
and asked for the birth certificate
of anyone in the house that might match
the date of this person who was missing,
and we were handed
the birth certificate for Heather West.
And so I called the police and said,
"Is it true
you're looking for Heather West?"
And they were a bit horrified
that we'd worked it out.
There was some to-ing and fro-ing,
but in the end, they admitted they were.
Our first story was front-page news,
and it said, "Police Hunt for Body."
[music grows eerie]
[reporter] Detectives believe the solution
to an eight-year mystery
may be buried in the back garden
of this terraced house in Gloucester.
It belongs to a couple
whose daughter vanished in 1986,
but no one ever reported
that Heather West had disappeared.
By then, other local journalists
had come down to Cromwell Street,
and the local TV news was there as well,
reporting on what was going on.
We've undertaken the inquiries
into her disappearance,
and because of the inquiries
that we've made,
we're at the stage that we are today.
[man 2] What has been found so far?
We have found some some bones,
but at this stage,
they're thought to be animal bones.
[music intensifies]
Digging was still taking place,
and the police were controlling the house.
As the news broke
and as the media became involved,
Fred asked to talk to the detectives.
[man 3] We were invited
into the living room in the address.
They'd both left the room,
leaving myself and WDC Hazel Savage
sort of stood in the room,
wondering really what's going on
at that point.
After a short time, Fred came back
and, uh, basically said
something along the lines of,
"You better take me
to the police station."
"I have killed Heather,
but you're digging in the wrong place."
[ominous music playing]
What is going on?
[music fades out]
[gentle music playing]
[man] I was meant to have
a career as an opera singer,
but having met a solicitor
at a convention,
decided that I wanted to help people.
That was on the false assumption
that people would
necessarily want to be helped.
That afternoon, I was heading out into
the hills to Stroud Magistrates Court.
A call came through, which was that
Fred West had been arrested
on suspicion of murder.
I'm trying to cope with this news,
um, and thinking I've got to get over
to Gloucester as soon as possible.
I was also concerned, of course,
to speak to Fred at the first opportunity.
So I then made a call
to the Gloucester police station
to give him his first professional advice.
[music intensifies]
They put Fred on,
and I rather went
along the traditional, uh, lines
of the, uh, defense solicitor,
which is to, pardon the French,
to shut the fuck up,
um, until I get there.
Fred replied,
"Well, I've already admitted it."
And so you think, "Okay."
[intense, ominous music playing]
[woman] I was working towards
a diploma in social work,
and I'd approached the Homeless Project
in the view of becoming
an appropriate adult.
When someone gets
in trouble with the police,
we'd go down to the police station
just to make sure that
their, um, needs were being met
and they were being properly looked after.
I'd just finished college, and the phone
was ringing when I came through the door.
It was the Homeless Project asking
could I go out
to Gloucester police station?
The police officer came
and took me down to the custody suite,
and I was introduced to Fred West.
He sort of stood up, introduced himself.
And that was it, really.
Soon after, we went into an interview.
- [music stops]
- [recorder clicks and whirs]
[Law] This interview is being recorded
at Gloucester Central Police Station.
I'm Detective Constable Darren Law,
and my colleague
- [Savage] DC Hazel Savage.
- [Law] Everybody introduce themselves.
- [Fred] Frederick West.
- [Leach] Janet Leach, appropriate adult.
[Ogden] Howard Ogden, solicitor.
[soft, eerie music playing]
[Ogden] So here we are,
concerning the murder of Heather.
We are all there with a different role.
We were subsequently to have
an interview that was chilling
and affected everybody who was present
for the rest of their lives.
[Savage] Do you understand
the difference between telling the truth
and telling fibs?
[Fred] Yeah.
I never intended to hurt Heather at all.
All I wanted to do was
persuade Heather to stay at home,
and if she wouldn't, let her go.
But by this time,
I had no control over me thoughts at all.
There was a piece of electric flex,
I believe it was 13 amp,
and I picked it up and I thought,
"I better make sure that she is dead,"
so I tied it round her neck.
I then went back to the cupboard to try
and find something to cut her up with.
[Ogden] Tell the officers then, Fred,
what item did you use to complete
the exercise of dismembering Heather.
[Fred] The bread knife.
[music fades out]
[recorder clicks]
[Ogden] A man is describing
murdering and dismembering his daughter.
It wasn't with floods of tears
and distress and anxiety.
It was simply
a black-and-white set of facts.
When the tape finished,
all of us present
in that interview just rose
and went to a tiny little tea area,
and we just had a group hug.
Complete strangers. Never met one another.
A silent group hug.
I think I was in a state of shock.
I just thought, you know,
"What on earth
are you actually doing here?"
You know, "You shouldn't be here," but
He sort of said to me afterwards,
"Would you come again tomorrow?"
And I said, "Oh, well, you know,
I don't know about that."
And that's when the police said,
you know, "Will you come tomorrow?"
Um I should have really said no.
[ominous music playing]
[music swells, fades out]
[dramatic music playing]
[man] I got a call from my secretary
to say that Rose West
had also been arrested
on suspicion of murder,
and I was taken to the holding cell
where Rose West was straightaway.
She looked rather dowdy
in slacks and a loose-fitting top.
It was put to her that
Fred had confessed to killing Heather,
and that evoked a shriek from her.
And she was constantly saying,
"If Fred's done anything,
it's that Fred West."
My job there is to act
on the client's instructions,
and those remained very clear.
That it was nothing to do with her.
It was all Fred West.
[music stops]
[Williams] At that point,
Fred and Rose's interviews
were what solicitors
would refer to as a "fishing exercise,"
insomuch as we were still in the dark
about a lot of these things
and still reliant upon them
providing that information.
Fred was taken back
to 25 Cromwell Street, still in custody,
to point out where Heather was buried.
I think maybe the strategy
that Fred was hoping for is
if he makes admissions,
points out where Heather was buried,
then the police would be satisfied
with that and stop the digging.
[eerie music playing]
[man] That's the prisoner in front of you.
The appropriate adult,
DC Savage, Mr. Ogden.
[Law] Where's the location?
Where do you think she's buried?
Across there.
[man] In the center of your screen
is the position indicated
by the prisoner
as to where the deceased was buried.
[Leach] It was really strange.
It was dark. It was raining.
He was upset about the state
of his garden, more so than anything.
There's no footings under that building.
Oh. Right, okay.
- [Savage] It's a separate matter, is that?
- [Law] We haven't gone right to the edge.
[Leach] He just kept looking at me
and winking.
As if it was some sort of game.
When we got back, I said to him,
you know, "What did you mean?"
"Why were You know,
what was you looking at me like that for?"
And he said,
"Didn't you see that bone sticking out?"
And I said, "Well, no, I didn't."
And he said, "It's just by the back door."
[man] Uh, this is the support group
beginning to dig in the area
where the prisoner indicated.
Okay, 19:52,
and the boys have found something.
[music fades out]
[unsettling music playing]
[Bennett] Uh, ladies and gentlemen,
excavations have continued
in Cromwell Street.
Police officers searching the scene
found what appear to be human remains.
[music continues]
[man] I had a call from Gloucester Police
to go up there,
and they brought a bone
to the police station,
and it was obviously
a human thighbone, a femur,
and obviously a youngish person
and obviously female.
You can tell that just at a glance.
Off we go to Cromwell Street.
I scrabbled about a bit
in the muck and the mud.
The bones are in a filthy state.
We washed them on the spot
as well as we could.
Some of the bones
had been deliberately damaged.
They had cuts on them from what could be
an axe or a very sharp cleaver.
[music fades out]
[Savage] Professor Knight,
the gentleman from the Home Office,
has looked at the bones, and he's saying
that you do not cut
a full-grown body into pieces cleanly,
quickly, unless you are
very well experienced at it.
[Fred] He obviously hasn't done it, then.
[Savage] Well,
he probably hasn't murdered, no.
[Fred] You know, there's a difference
between thinking and knowing.
[dramatic music playing]
[Ogden] I'm taken
to Cromwell Street to see the remains.
So in looking down into this pit,
there was the skeleton
with the hair in place.
Long, black hair.
As lawyers,
we deal with evidential matters
and paperwork and so on,
but here, you are looking at the result
of criminality before your very eyes.
The kids were right
when they talked about Heather.
We have found her.
This was meant to be finding Heather.
End of story.
It turned out, tragically,
that it was only the beginning.
[soft, eerie music playing]
[Fred] Has Rose been told?
How did she take it?
I expect she hates me at the moment.
[Williams] All through the interview,
Rose went, "No comment."
Ultimately, the decision's got to be made,
uh, about how much evidence there is
to keep that person in custody.
As a solicitor,
you have to believe your client.
Otherwise, you can't act for them,
and if she was saying she was innocent,
then Leo had to say she was innocent
because that was his role.
He was saying,
"She's answered all your questions."
"She denies an offense."
"You either charge my client,
or you release them on bail."
"What's it gonna be?"
Rose was bailed, but the police
were concerned about arrangements,
and so they decided it was essential
that she would go into a safe house
and that the older children be with her.
[Williams] We put a listening device
into the safe house
to catch Rose from making
any forms of admission
or providing any evidence to what happened
to Heather and what she knew.
There was a win-win situation
for the police in terms of,
"We've got nothing to lose
and potentially an awful lot to gain."
It was just about waiting patiently.
[gentle music playing]
[Carlyle] We were trying
to build up a picture
of what the house was like,
and we discovered that
the top floor was given over to lodgers.
We spoke to a couple of ex-lodgers
who said it was a strange place,
lots of men coming and going,
so we were beginning to build up a picture
of a household that wasn't normal.
But beyond that, we
we didn't really know that much more.
[woman] I lived at Cromwell Street
from October '76 to November '77.
I was basically a runaway.
When I left home, I was 16.
I didn't realize
at the time that I was grieving.
My dad passed away when I was 14,
and I just went
into self-preservation mode.
Initially, when I left home,
I moved in with a friend,
and then I bumped into
Fred and Rose's daughter.
She said, "My parents have got a bedsit
they're renting if you're interested."
So I was taken to see them.
They just seemed like a normal couple,
just renting a place out.
They had a room to rent,
and it was mine if I wanted it.
I felt happy.
I had my own room. I had my own music.
I could put it on
and nobody complained about it.
A fair few of the girls
came from care homes.
There was a couple that were backpacking.
I think if you find yourself
in a situation
that someone's gonna give you
a hot meal and a bit of attention,
you're gonna be grateful,
you're gonna be thankful.
Fred absolutely was besotted
and adored Rose.
They were very loving to each other
in front of everybody.
It didn't matter who was there.
They were constantly
giving each other attention.
Rose definitely ran the roost.
She was the one that shouted the orders.
I think I was probably
a little bit frightened of her [laughs]
because she seemed so stern.
It was just say hello to her,
and have it over and done with.
You had to ask permission
to go through the house.
A couple of times it was "No, no, no."
I can remember going out the back garden
one day and Fred said,
"Be careful. I'm laying a patio."
[music intensifies]
I thought he was making it better for
the children so they could play out there.
I first met Shirley Robinson
when I was walking down the stairs
and she came out of her room.
I said, "Do you live here as well?
Are you one of the family?"
"No, I'm a lodger."
She was just a year
or so older than myself,
so she'd have been about 18.
She then explained that she was pregnant,
and she said to me, "It's Fred's baby."
I went, "Yeah, whatever,"
not believing her,
thinking, "Maybe she's got a soft spot
for the landlord," sort of thing.
We were in a lot of danger,
but we couldn't see it.
[music fades out]
[unsettling music playing]
[reporter] Today, Heather's father,
52-year-old Frederick West,
appeared in court
charged with killing her sometime between
May 28, 1987, and February 27 this year.
The search of the house
and garden continued,
although detectives refused to say
what they're looking for.
[Knight] Every time a bone is handed
from one person to the next,
there must be
a special exhibit label signed
so that everyone knows
who's handed what to whom.
And I always remember
picking up a couple more bones
and looking up
at Superintendent Bennett and saying,
"Well, we've got three thighbones."
That's the first time
they knew there was more than one.
[music fades out]
[Savage] Are there
anybody else's bones there?
Could there be anybody else's bones
in any part of the garden?
[Fred] That's a peculiar question
to ask, innit?
[Savage] I ask lots of peculiar questions.
If there's anything else, Fred,
I'm asking you. Tell us now.
[Fred] I can't make out
what you're on about. Others?
I mean, there's one. Heather.
[Savage] Why did you find that so hard,
then, just to say one?
- Is there anybody else?
- [Fred] No.
[Savage] Because if anything else
is there, we'll find it.
[indistinct chatter]
Interviewing is all about how much power
do you want to give the interviewee.
The power in the relationship
was still with Fred
because we were still very much
reliant on him providing us information.
Oh, boy.
- [child] Hello.
- [woman] That was good.
[Williams] The more power you give,
the more likelihood they're gonna talk.
But of course, there's a danger in that
because Fred could say, "Well, actually,
I've given you all the information
that I want to give you."
"This is what you've got to work with.
I don't want to speak to you anymore."
We needed some help.
- [ominous music playing]
- [church bells toll in distance]
[man] The detective rang me up to say,
"Paul, we've got a problem. Can you help?"
"We have a man."
"He seems to be a warm,
affable, straightforward sort of man,
and we have found in his garden
the remains of his daughter and,
we think, another young woman,
and we don't know how to talk to him."
"Could you please come
and help us to interview this man
in a way that allows him
to explain what it is that happened?"
When I'm asked
to help investigate any serious crime,
one of the key features
that's of great importance to me
is to go to the scene.
[man] This is the front door
of 25 Cromwell Street.
This is inside the premises,
with my back to the front door.
[Britton] I look through the eyes
of a psychologist,
not the eyes of a detective.
I needed to know everything about him.
I looked carefully at the furnishings,
the knickknacks, if you like.
I was particularly interested and informed
by photo albums
that I found in the drawer.
[children laughing]
In my world, looking at family photographs
allows me to see quite a lot
about the relationships between the people
who are photographed and the photographer.
And what I didn't see
was any evidence
of the usual family warmth pictures.
There was very little there that indicated
a loving family domestic setting.
At the middle floor in this house,
there is a lounge that is set up,
almost like the reception room
of a seedy hotel.
We go from this room,
up a flight of stairs, to a bedroom area.
On the other side,
there's a hole in the wall,
and out of that hole,
there are cables coming.
There are microphones and cameras that are
run through into the four-poster bedroom,
where films and listening can happen.
It's clear that Fred had been able
to adapt the building
to his sexual pleasure,
and that was important.
But it was also clear
that understanding the relationship
between Frederick and Rosemary West
would be essential to this whole case.
[music intensifies, stops]
[Savage] We're going to talk to you about
a few bits and pieces this morning.
And so, if you can cope with me
jumping around a bit, okay?
- But if you can't, will you tell me?
- [Fred] Yeah.
[officer] When you were about 30,
you meet Rose, is that right?
[Fred] She was working
in a cake shop in Cheltenham.
- [Savage] She's how old then?
- [Fred] Fifteen and a half.
I knew Rose for three or four months,
and then I took her out
on her 16th birthday.
We had a good night.
A month later, she was pregnant.
So a month over her 16th birthday,
she was in the family way.
The police interviewers needed
to allow Frederick West
the space to become himself,
and that meant allowing him to think
that he and the interviewer
were in a shared conversation.
He would be allowed to smoke.
He would be allowed to wax lyrically.
He would be allowed to relax.
Ask him open questions, and let him talk.
[Fred] Anybody can say what they like
about Rose, but she is a perfect mother.
[Savage] Why didn't you ever tell her
that you killed your daughter?
[Fred] That's the reason why, innit.
We both loved Heather.
[Savage] In another part
of your garden, Fred,
the police have found another human bone.
[officer 2] Have you any knowledge
where this other bone might've come from?
[Fred] Yeah.
Shirley
Robinson.
The girl who caused the problem.
[ominous music playing]
[Hamer] And we just, bit by bit,
got very friendly with each other.
We started talking about,
"When we're ready to move out of here,
we'll move out together,
and we'll have a place where we can live,
and you can bring the baby up there."
That was our that was our aim.
One night I heard
a child screaming and crying.
It was, "Stop it, Daddy. Stop it, Daddy."
Very, very high-pitched.
So I pushed it to the back of my mind.
Then a few nights later,
I heard the same thing.
The third time, it was much clearer.
That's when I made my decision to leave.
I did think of going to see somebody,
but I didn't know who to talk to
because I didn't think
the police'd believe me.
I was a runaway.
You know, I was 17 by then.
It would have been a waste of my time,
I thought.
[Fred] We were having an affair
behind Rose.
Shirley fell pregnant.
[Ogden] At the time Shirley died,
she was carrying your child?
[Fred] Yeah.
[eerie music playing]
[Fred] I took Rose into hospital
because Rose was in labor.
[Law] Okay.
[Fred] I came back, and Shirley said,
"You're taking me down to Bristol now."
And I said,
"I can't. I got to go back to Rose."
She said, "I'm going down
to tell Rose that this is yours."
I turned round and smacked her in the jaw.
She went straight on the floor.
Then I went and got a piece of flex
and tied it round her neck.
[Law] Okay.
[Leach] You said to me earlier that you
dismembered her the same as Heather was.
[Fred] I probably did.
I was looking at her body, and I thought,
"Where's this gonna end?"
And by this time,
I am realizing that that is three.
Two.
Sorry, that's two. Not three.
[music stops]
He suddenly thinks,
"Oh, what have I said?"
These lapses in the cognitive control
of the story
help the interviewer to see
the limits of this man's preparedness,
and that's one of the reasons
that the police are able
to go a little bit further
and to unwrap what's really happened.
[Savage] You said to Mr. Ogden
you wanted to tell him
about further matters.
[Fred] Yeah.
- [Savage] Is that right?
- [Fred] Right.
[Savage] What do you want
to tell us, Fred?
[Fred] Just where the three are.
[Savage] Now, when you say "the three,"
can you just remind me
of who we're talking about?
[Fred] Well, Heather, Shirley,
and the other girl I don't know.
- [Ogden] Who is the third?
- [Fred] I don't know.
[Savage] What did you call her?
[Fred] Nothing.
I don't recall her name at all.
[Savage] What can we refer to her as now?
[Fred] Shirley's mate.
I mean, that's all I
[Law] Shirley's mate. Okay.
[Ogden] We all realized that we were
in a bizarre
and unique set of circumstances.
For example, "Shirley's mate."
This is somebody that he's murdered,
uh, whose name he doesn't even know.
[somber music playing]
[woman] I'm the taller one.
Alison is the shorter one.
[man] Were you guys close?
Yeah. Yeah.
We didn't have a great childhood.
Our parents were strict.
I had in my head,
"When I'm 18, I can leave home."
"Follow the rules, put up with it."
Alison didn't.
She rebelled.
She'd be out till 1:00 in the morning,
then our parents would phone the police
and then they'd go and find her,
or she'd been by a friend, at a friend's,
and hadn't come home, that sort of thing.
All of a sudden,
yeah, the police have been too much.
Yeah, you get told
that she's, uh, being put into care.
She's hurt, she's crying, she's upset,
she wants to come home and, yeah,
there's nothing you can do about it.
She got moved then to Gloucester.
I think that was when,
yeah, she was about 16.
A few months later, we got told by
social services that Alison had run away.
[gentle music playing]
In '79, my mother received a letter.
"I am at present
living with a very homely family,
and I look after their children
and do some of their housework."
"They know that I was in care
and are more than willing
to help me on my feet."
"We all get on great together and I have
readily accepted them as a second family."
"But please note, you shall,
are, and always will be my own family."
[sighs] "I just wanted
to let you know I'm safe
and shall continue to write
to let you know how I'm doing."
"One thing I don't want
anyone to do is to worry about me."
"I love and miss you all.
Please believe that."
"Until I write again,
take care of yourselves."
"All my fondest love, Alison."
[crying] May 26, 1979.
May 26, 1979, she wrote that.
Once you know everything,
you think of that letter, and it's like,
she was so taken in
with how loving they were
what a nice family they seemed to be.
[music fades out]
[indistinct chatter]
Stay on this side.
Right, Fred. What I want you to do is,
can you show me, first of all,
where you buried Shirley's friend?
Right by that.
Right in the middle of this,
between the two walls?
Okay.
Just leave it there.
And now can you tell us
where you buried Shirley Robinson?
[Fred] By that slab there.
- [Law] Which one, Fred?
- [officer] Which one?
[Fred] That one.
[officer] This one here?
The one right in the corner?
[Fred] Yeah.
You said it was level
with that new extension post.
You also said, Fred, yesterday,
that you thought that you saw her
- Yeah.
- last time we were here.
- Right.
- There was a big hole in there last time.
Or that was higher up.
[officer 2] And that post
indicates the position
where Mr. West has indicated
he's buried one of the bodies.
[Savage] Whilst you're here, is there
anything else that you want to look at?
We don't want to keep coming back here
with you.
That's it.
No.
- You sure?
- Yes.
You can take it all apart,
there ain't nothing else.
[ominous music playing]
[Law] For me, personally,
it was a surreal moment.
You're there face to face with a man
who is telling you how he has killed
a lot of women, basically.
I do actually recall
driving home and thinking,
I just cannot believe this is going on.
In Gloucester, of all places,
I can't believe this is happening.
[gentle music playing]
In those days, it was the crime reporter's
job every morning at 9:00
to go down to the central police station,
where you'd meet the duty inspector
and he would give you a briefing.
But that morning I went in,
and I was told that
they'd found two more bodies.
And that came totally out of the blue.
It was totally shocking.
I left the police station.
My heart was pounding.
And it's that feeling of knowing something
that no one else does,
and you're about to change
everyone's perception of what's going on.
I practically sprinted back to the office
to make it in time
to write up the story
for that day's paper.
And we knew that
as soon as that paper hit the streets,
the national newspaper reporters
would be down,
because it was
no longer a domestic murder.
It was something much, much bigger.
[reporter] The crowd grows bigger
with every new development.
But morbid fascination in the secrets
of number 25 Cromwell Street
spreads far beyond
this close-knit neighborhood.
[Carlyle] There was almost
a carnival atmosphere.
You know, you had TV reporters
doing pieces to camera.
People leaning out windows,
watching what was going on.
There were rumors
that there was a whole news desk,
plus reporters,
holed up in a hotel in Gloucester.
The whole place was feeling
quite swamped by the national media.
[sirens wailing]
[gentle music playing]
[man] I was a staff reporter
for The Sunday Mirror in London,
national newspaper.
We had millions of readers, and they
enjoyed reading about the royal family,
so this was the era
of Princess Diana and Fergie.
Politicians doing things
they shouldn't do. That sort of thing.
You're dealing in stories
that are sensational.
But the work was fun,
and dare I say it, I was quite good at it.
I mean, I was young and full of energy.
A call came through from Gloucester,
and I was given the job
of speaking to this caller
who had inside information, they said,
about the murder inquiry
ongoing in Gloucester.
My news desk said,
"Howard, drive to Gloucester."
A place I'd never been to in my life,
didn't know where it was,
didn't know how to get there,
had to look on the map.
And for the first time in my life,
I drive into Gloucester.
[dramatic music playing]
[man] The headlines,
police are still searching the garden
of 25 Cromwell Street
in Gloucester's city center.
Television crews,
reporters, and sightseers
have been gathering on the street
for most of the morning.
[Sounes] Every national paper
is there in strength.
You'd turn a corner, and you see
someone you know from London
trying to speak to somebody on the quiet.
The press en masse is called "the pack"
because they hunt like dogs in a pack.
It's a game, and it's also your job
to get the story before they do.
You can't do what everyone else is doing.
You have to do your own thing,
and the thing you're looking for
is an exclusive.
[ominous music playing]
[reporter] They worked into the night
at 25 Cromwell Street,
digging methodically and urgently,
fearful, almost, of what they might find.
Frederick West has already been charged
with the murder of his daughter.
Tonight he was charged with two others,
including that of a former lodger.
The police believe she was
Shirley Robinson, an 18-year-old,
who was heavily pregnant when she died.
[music intensifies]
[Hamer] A neighbor knocked
on the door and said, "Watch the news."
It was just an absolute
oh, I don't know,
mind-blowing sort of thing.
I tried not to listen to it.
I tried to just switch off.
All I can remember
them saying about Shirley,
um, is that she was carrying Fred's baby,
and he disposed of the baby as well.
[somber music playing]
Whenever I think of Shirley, it hurts.
But seeing her face again, it's
[inhales sharply, sighs]
She was there when I needed a friend.
She should still be here now. [sniffles]
[Chambers] You think,
"Why has Alison never got in touch?"
That's one thing I could never understand,
that she never got in touch with me.
You've heard these people talking
that they've seen her.
You know, you're fighting with yourself
'cause you want to believe these people,
but at the same time,
something's telling you
that they haven't seen her.
You want Alison to be there,
but you just want her to be with you.
[gulps]
[crying] And I'm the big sister.
[music ends]
[ominous music playing]
[Ogden] So here I am, Mr. One-Man-Band,
and your own life, separate from
your professional life, goes on.
I continue to deal
with concerns of the media,
trying to get in touch,
my partner, who's concerned about
everything that was occurring,
and all this has to be dealt with
at the same time as dealing with
these horrendous circumstances.
Scott Canavan was a clerk
that I took on to train up.
He struck me as a streetwise individual,
and I felt that he would be
a great asset, um, to me.
[man] Howard said that he had
a murder case and wanted me in on it.
I'd only worked as a clerk for a month,
you know, um, let alone on a murder case.
It was almost like
hearing somebody reading you a story.
You know, it was hard to picture,
but the further the case went on,
the more realistic it became.
A difficult part of this inquiry for me
was helping the police
to cross a threshold.
He has been stoutly denying
that there is anything more wrong
other than the fact that
he mishandled these terrible deaths
of the young women in the garden.
So the question was, well,
why are these people buried in the garden?
And my answer is that
because the house is already full,
and that's why
it's overflowed into the garden.
The strategy that I put forward
for the police at this stage
was to tell him clearly,
in colorful language,
that we are now going
to dig up floors in the house.
Most importantly, we're going
to start digging in the cellar.
If you do that, he will suddenly
start remembering different possibilities.
[music fades out]
- [man] Name?
- Frederick Walter Stephen West.
- [man] Legal representative?
- [Fred] Scott Canavan.
[Savage] Right, I think
it's only right to tell you that, um
the police are actively involved in
digging up the rest of your house.
- Are you aware of that?
- [Fred] No.
[Canavan] How do you mean?
- [Savage] Literally.
- Floors?
- [Savage] Yes. The whole lot.
- [Canavan] Concrete's coming up?
[Savage] Yes. The whole lot.
The floor in the house.
The conservatory's being demolished,
and they do intend to certainly dig up
the whole of the cellar.
[Fred] You'll have the house down.
There's no footings underneath.
[Savage] Well, I'm sure
the police are fully insured.
and whatever for the future,
but at the moment we're inquiring
into serious matters,
of missing girls and missing people.
And bearing in mind what has happened
already in 25 Cromwell Street,
it would be totally wrong of us
to not continue
the investigation vigorously.
- Do you want to say anything else at all?
- [Fred] No.
Hazel stopped the interview,
and the officers left,
and we went into another room.
I just said to Fred,
"Look, you know, enough's enough."
"If there's more, then you've got
to tell them there's more."
And he said,
"No, I've told you everything."
"And there's not. There's not any more."
And I said,
"Well, you know, I don't believe you."
Fred then went silent
for about two minutes.
Sort of looking into oblivion.
And I sort of asked him again, I said,
"Fred, is there any more bodies?"
And his words were,
"There's a fucking load more."
[music intensifies]
I left the police station and went
to phone my boss, Howard Ogden
because I just didn't have a clue
what to do in that sort of situation.
[Ogden] My concern was to get
Fred's admission to Superintendent Bennett
as soon as possible.
I recollect that I said,
"I think you'd better sit down."
He was clearly shocked about something,
and he had
this piece of paper in his hand.
"The note said,
I, Frederick West, wish to admit
to an approx nine further killings."
It was very difficult
to come to terms with
what we were faced with
in those few moments.
John Bennett brought us all in
and explained to us
that Fred had confessed
to another series of killings,
and that was one of those
heart-stopping moments,
as the realization of what we were facing
started to dawn on us.
If you were going to murder people
and bury them in such small property,
then how can you say you didn't know?
Rose must have known.
The burning question,
the crucial question was,
how much she was involved.
[Rose] When they arrested me,
I was devastated, literally.
I was crawling around the police station.
I didn't know what was happening.
I was just crying.
It's just all burning, you know?
He's telling her everything.
It won't make any difference.
You'll never get a confession
for something I haven't done. [laughs]
[music intensifies]
[dramatic music continues]
[Savage] We're in an interview room
on the first floor
at the police station at Gloucester.
Can you tell us your full name?
[Fred] Frederick Walter Stephen West.
- [Savage] And your address?
- [Fred] 25 Cromwell Street.
[Savage] Things are happening
at your house at the moment.
[man] I'm stood at the back door
of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester,
looking down the garden
towards the city center.
[ominous music builds]
[officer] The police
have been there this afternoon,
and they are in fact
digging up your back patio.
[man] Here's the, uh,
first slab being removed.
[ominous music playing]
[officer] We're concerned
about the whereabouts of your daughter.
Is she under the patio at your house?
[Fred] Oh, for God's sake.
I mean, do you believe it?
[Fred] You find her,
and I'll be happy. [laughs]
[reporter 1] 25 Cromwell Street
in Gloucester
continues to yield its secrets.
[reporter 2] Journalists
and TV crews have traveled
from all corners of the earth.
Police say they're not sure
exactly how many bodies there may be.
I've been told that there might be
12 people. Where does it end?
[reporter 3] The priority now is trying
to trace Mr. West's extensive family.
[reporter 4] "We're going to do
a thorough search at 25 Cromwell Street."
"We're not leaving until we've done that."
[officer] You're enjoying it.
[Fred] Yeah, why not?
[officer] I don't know.
I don't understand it.
[Fred] You will in the end.
[music stops]
[ominous music playing]
[phone ringing]
[woman] I was a journalist
on the city's local newspaper,
The Citizen.
It was my first job, so I was very much
a junior reporter at that time.
Quite green, very naive.
And then I was made
the crime correspondent
not long, actually, before February 1994.
I had a phone call
from the reception to say
that one of our paper sellers
was down at the back entrance.
He told me that the police were
digging up a garden in Cromwell Street,
which wasn't that far from the office.
So a photographer and I went down
to take a look.
It was quite a scruffy street.
There were mainly
Edwardian terraced houses.
Most of them had seen better days.
We found number 25.
It was at the end of a row of houses.
It was fairly run down,
but there wasn't anything remarkable
about it.
You couldn't really see anything
from the front,
so we went round the back.
[tools clattering]
There were police officers,
we assumed them to be, with shovels,
levering up paving stones,
and they'd got about three
or four up so far.
So obviously, they hadn't been long there.
We said, "Hello. We're from The Citizen,"
and we asked them
what they were looking for,
and they refused to tell us.
The photographer took a photograph
[camera clicks]
and then we left.
Something important was going on,
that much was clear.
We thought they were probably
looking for a body,
because why else
would the police dig up a garden?
But at that point, we didn't know who.
[man] In 1994,
I'd been in the police for 12 years.
You deal with things, difficult things.
But the West investigation did change me
in terms of
what I thought was possible,
what I [hesitates]
what I thought
people could do to each other.
- [child] Is it on, Dad?
- [Fred] Yeah.
[woman laughing]
[Williams] So at the beginning
of the investigation,
what we had was information
coming from school and social services
who were involved
in the West family at the time
about the way
the children were being treated.
[child laughs]
[Fred] Get down.
You might fall over. [laughs]
[woman laughs]
[Williams] We found out that
Fred and Rose, they were a married couple.
They had ten children.
Some were theirs together,
and some were from other relationships.
The younger children
had been placed into care,
which took them away from the family.
Those children were still going to school,
and there started to reverberate
a common theme between between them all.
It was alleged by the children
that if they misbehaved,
they would end up under the patio,
like their sister Heather.
[ominous music playing]
It's not only the frequency
that it was said,
but how many different children
were saying it.
It got to a level that
it could not be ignored,
because nobody could find Heather.
[music intensifies]
[man] She had literally disappeared
off the face of the earth,
and everyone was hoping that she was
going to be found safe and well somewhere.
[Williams] John Bennett was
senior investigation officer.
He had overall charge of the case.
Darren Law was
a detective assistant on the case,
and Hazel Savage, DC,
took on the mantle of being the officer
in the case for the missing Heather.
[music fades out]
[Williams] Fred hadn't been arrested
on that Thursday.
In fact, he had gone
to the police station voluntarily
to help us with our inquiries.
[eerie music playing]
[Savage] It's Thursday,
24th February 1994.
My name's DC Hazel Savage.
Fred, Heather has not been heard of
since 1986.
Did you report her
as a missing person to the police?
[Fred] No.
[Savage] The children are saying
that it was a family joke
that she was underneath the patio.
[Fred chuckles]
[Savage] You're laughing.
[Fred] Just supposing you did. I mean,
you're not going to sit there and say,
"Your sister's under the patio."
We better pack it away, Hazel.
We're talking rubbish.
[Savage] We can't, can we?
[Fred] You're digging me place up,
so carry on.
- I mean, why bother?
- [Savage] That's right.
And obviously, if there's anybody
under there, Fred, we will find them.
[Fred] There you are.
[sirens wailing]
[Williams] In normal cases,
you arrest somebody,
and then you put the evidence
that you have found to the offender
and listen to their explanation
if they're gonna provide one.
But we weren't in that position
because we were still gathering
the evidence.
We didn't have enough
to charge him with anything at that stage.
So later that night,
he returned to Cromwell Street.
[music fades out]
[gentle music playing]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[Rachel] On Friday morning,
we had a tip
that they were looking for a girl
who hadn't been seen for eight years.
I went down to the register office
and asked for the birth certificate
of anyone in the house that might match
the date of this person who was missing,
and we were handed
the birth certificate for Heather West.
And so I called the police and said,
"Is it true
you're looking for Heather West?"
And they were a bit horrified
that we'd worked it out.
There was some to-ing and fro-ing,
but in the end, they admitted they were.
Our first story was front-page news,
and it said, "Police Hunt for Body."
[music grows eerie]
[reporter] Detectives believe the solution
to an eight-year mystery
may be buried in the back garden
of this terraced house in Gloucester.
It belongs to a couple
whose daughter vanished in 1986,
but no one ever reported
that Heather West had disappeared.
By then, other local journalists
had come down to Cromwell Street,
and the local TV news was there as well,
reporting on what was going on.
We've undertaken the inquiries
into her disappearance,
and because of the inquiries
that we've made,
we're at the stage that we are today.
[man 2] What has been found so far?
We have found some some bones,
but at this stage,
they're thought to be animal bones.
[music intensifies]
Digging was still taking place,
and the police were controlling the house.
As the news broke
and as the media became involved,
Fred asked to talk to the detectives.
[man 3] We were invited
into the living room in the address.
They'd both left the room,
leaving myself and WDC Hazel Savage
sort of stood in the room,
wondering really what's going on
at that point.
After a short time, Fred came back
and, uh, basically said
something along the lines of,
"You better take me
to the police station."
"I have killed Heather,
but you're digging in the wrong place."
[ominous music playing]
What is going on?
[music fades out]
[gentle music playing]
[man] I was meant to have
a career as an opera singer,
but having met a solicitor
at a convention,
decided that I wanted to help people.
That was on the false assumption
that people would
necessarily want to be helped.
That afternoon, I was heading out into
the hills to Stroud Magistrates Court.
A call came through, which was that
Fred West had been arrested
on suspicion of murder.
I'm trying to cope with this news,
um, and thinking I've got to get over
to Gloucester as soon as possible.
I was also concerned, of course,
to speak to Fred at the first opportunity.
So I then made a call
to the Gloucester police station
to give him his first professional advice.
[music intensifies]
They put Fred on,
and I rather went
along the traditional, uh, lines
of the, uh, defense solicitor,
which is to, pardon the French,
to shut the fuck up,
um, until I get there.
Fred replied,
"Well, I've already admitted it."
And so you think, "Okay."
[intense, ominous music playing]
[woman] I was working towards
a diploma in social work,
and I'd approached the Homeless Project
in the view of becoming
an appropriate adult.
When someone gets
in trouble with the police,
we'd go down to the police station
just to make sure that
their, um, needs were being met
and they were being properly looked after.
I'd just finished college, and the phone
was ringing when I came through the door.
It was the Homeless Project asking
could I go out
to Gloucester police station?
The police officer came
and took me down to the custody suite,
and I was introduced to Fred West.
He sort of stood up, introduced himself.
And that was it, really.
Soon after, we went into an interview.
- [music stops]
- [recorder clicks and whirs]
[Law] This interview is being recorded
at Gloucester Central Police Station.
I'm Detective Constable Darren Law,
and my colleague
- [Savage] DC Hazel Savage.
- [Law] Everybody introduce themselves.
- [Fred] Frederick West.
- [Leach] Janet Leach, appropriate adult.
[Ogden] Howard Ogden, solicitor.
[soft, eerie music playing]
[Ogden] So here we are,
concerning the murder of Heather.
We are all there with a different role.
We were subsequently to have
an interview that was chilling
and affected everybody who was present
for the rest of their lives.
[Savage] Do you understand
the difference between telling the truth
and telling fibs?
[Fred] Yeah.
I never intended to hurt Heather at all.
All I wanted to do was
persuade Heather to stay at home,
and if she wouldn't, let her go.
But by this time,
I had no control over me thoughts at all.
There was a piece of electric flex,
I believe it was 13 amp,
and I picked it up and I thought,
"I better make sure that she is dead,"
so I tied it round her neck.
I then went back to the cupboard to try
and find something to cut her up with.
[Ogden] Tell the officers then, Fred,
what item did you use to complete
the exercise of dismembering Heather.
[Fred] The bread knife.
[music fades out]
[recorder clicks]
[Ogden] A man is describing
murdering and dismembering his daughter.
It wasn't with floods of tears
and distress and anxiety.
It was simply
a black-and-white set of facts.
When the tape finished,
all of us present
in that interview just rose
and went to a tiny little tea area,
and we just had a group hug.
Complete strangers. Never met one another.
A silent group hug.
I think I was in a state of shock.
I just thought, you know,
"What on earth
are you actually doing here?"
You know, "You shouldn't be here," but
He sort of said to me afterwards,
"Would you come again tomorrow?"
And I said, "Oh, well, you know,
I don't know about that."
And that's when the police said,
you know, "Will you come tomorrow?"
Um I should have really said no.
[ominous music playing]
[music swells, fades out]
[dramatic music playing]
[man] I got a call from my secretary
to say that Rose West
had also been arrested
on suspicion of murder,
and I was taken to the holding cell
where Rose West was straightaway.
She looked rather dowdy
in slacks and a loose-fitting top.
It was put to her that
Fred had confessed to killing Heather,
and that evoked a shriek from her.
And she was constantly saying,
"If Fred's done anything,
it's that Fred West."
My job there is to act
on the client's instructions,
and those remained very clear.
That it was nothing to do with her.
It was all Fred West.
[music stops]
[Williams] At that point,
Fred and Rose's interviews
were what solicitors
would refer to as a "fishing exercise,"
insomuch as we were still in the dark
about a lot of these things
and still reliant upon them
providing that information.
Fred was taken back
to 25 Cromwell Street, still in custody,
to point out where Heather was buried.
I think maybe the strategy
that Fred was hoping for is
if he makes admissions,
points out where Heather was buried,
then the police would be satisfied
with that and stop the digging.
[eerie music playing]
[man] That's the prisoner in front of you.
The appropriate adult,
DC Savage, Mr. Ogden.
[Law] Where's the location?
Where do you think she's buried?
Across there.
[man] In the center of your screen
is the position indicated
by the prisoner
as to where the deceased was buried.
[Leach] It was really strange.
It was dark. It was raining.
He was upset about the state
of his garden, more so than anything.
There's no footings under that building.
Oh. Right, okay.
- [Savage] It's a separate matter, is that?
- [Law] We haven't gone right to the edge.
[Leach] He just kept looking at me
and winking.
As if it was some sort of game.
When we got back, I said to him,
you know, "What did you mean?"
"Why were You know,
what was you looking at me like that for?"
And he said,
"Didn't you see that bone sticking out?"
And I said, "Well, no, I didn't."
And he said, "It's just by the back door."
[man] Uh, this is the support group
beginning to dig in the area
where the prisoner indicated.
Okay, 19:52,
and the boys have found something.
[music fades out]
[unsettling music playing]
[Bennett] Uh, ladies and gentlemen,
excavations have continued
in Cromwell Street.
Police officers searching the scene
found what appear to be human remains.
[music continues]
[man] I had a call from Gloucester Police
to go up there,
and they brought a bone
to the police station,
and it was obviously
a human thighbone, a femur,
and obviously a youngish person
and obviously female.
You can tell that just at a glance.
Off we go to Cromwell Street.
I scrabbled about a bit
in the muck and the mud.
The bones are in a filthy state.
We washed them on the spot
as well as we could.
Some of the bones
had been deliberately damaged.
They had cuts on them from what could be
an axe or a very sharp cleaver.
[music fades out]
[Savage] Professor Knight,
the gentleman from the Home Office,
has looked at the bones, and he's saying
that you do not cut
a full-grown body into pieces cleanly,
quickly, unless you are
very well experienced at it.
[Fred] He obviously hasn't done it, then.
[Savage] Well,
he probably hasn't murdered, no.
[Fred] You know, there's a difference
between thinking and knowing.
[dramatic music playing]
[Ogden] I'm taken
to Cromwell Street to see the remains.
So in looking down into this pit,
there was the skeleton
with the hair in place.
Long, black hair.
As lawyers,
we deal with evidential matters
and paperwork and so on,
but here, you are looking at the result
of criminality before your very eyes.
The kids were right
when they talked about Heather.
We have found her.
This was meant to be finding Heather.
End of story.
It turned out, tragically,
that it was only the beginning.
[soft, eerie music playing]
[Fred] Has Rose been told?
How did she take it?
I expect she hates me at the moment.
[Williams] All through the interview,
Rose went, "No comment."
Ultimately, the decision's got to be made,
uh, about how much evidence there is
to keep that person in custody.
As a solicitor,
you have to believe your client.
Otherwise, you can't act for them,
and if she was saying she was innocent,
then Leo had to say she was innocent
because that was his role.
He was saying,
"She's answered all your questions."
"She denies an offense."
"You either charge my client,
or you release them on bail."
"What's it gonna be?"
Rose was bailed, but the police
were concerned about arrangements,
and so they decided it was essential
that she would go into a safe house
and that the older children be with her.
[Williams] We put a listening device
into the safe house
to catch Rose from making
any forms of admission
or providing any evidence to what happened
to Heather and what she knew.
There was a win-win situation
for the police in terms of,
"We've got nothing to lose
and potentially an awful lot to gain."
It was just about waiting patiently.
[gentle music playing]
[Carlyle] We were trying
to build up a picture
of what the house was like,
and we discovered that
the top floor was given over to lodgers.
We spoke to a couple of ex-lodgers
who said it was a strange place,
lots of men coming and going,
so we were beginning to build up a picture
of a household that wasn't normal.
But beyond that, we
we didn't really know that much more.
[woman] I lived at Cromwell Street
from October '76 to November '77.
I was basically a runaway.
When I left home, I was 16.
I didn't realize
at the time that I was grieving.
My dad passed away when I was 14,
and I just went
into self-preservation mode.
Initially, when I left home,
I moved in with a friend,
and then I bumped into
Fred and Rose's daughter.
She said, "My parents have got a bedsit
they're renting if you're interested."
So I was taken to see them.
They just seemed like a normal couple,
just renting a place out.
They had a room to rent,
and it was mine if I wanted it.
I felt happy.
I had my own room. I had my own music.
I could put it on
and nobody complained about it.
A fair few of the girls
came from care homes.
There was a couple that were backpacking.
I think if you find yourself
in a situation
that someone's gonna give you
a hot meal and a bit of attention,
you're gonna be grateful,
you're gonna be thankful.
Fred absolutely was besotted
and adored Rose.
They were very loving to each other
in front of everybody.
It didn't matter who was there.
They were constantly
giving each other attention.
Rose definitely ran the roost.
She was the one that shouted the orders.
I think I was probably
a little bit frightened of her [laughs]
because she seemed so stern.
It was just say hello to her,
and have it over and done with.
You had to ask permission
to go through the house.
A couple of times it was "No, no, no."
I can remember going out the back garden
one day and Fred said,
"Be careful. I'm laying a patio."
[music intensifies]
I thought he was making it better for
the children so they could play out there.
I first met Shirley Robinson
when I was walking down the stairs
and she came out of her room.
I said, "Do you live here as well?
Are you one of the family?"
"No, I'm a lodger."
She was just a year
or so older than myself,
so she'd have been about 18.
She then explained that she was pregnant,
and she said to me, "It's Fred's baby."
I went, "Yeah, whatever,"
not believing her,
thinking, "Maybe she's got a soft spot
for the landlord," sort of thing.
We were in a lot of danger,
but we couldn't see it.
[music fades out]
[unsettling music playing]
[reporter] Today, Heather's father,
52-year-old Frederick West,
appeared in court
charged with killing her sometime between
May 28, 1987, and February 27 this year.
The search of the house
and garden continued,
although detectives refused to say
what they're looking for.
[Knight] Every time a bone is handed
from one person to the next,
there must be
a special exhibit label signed
so that everyone knows
who's handed what to whom.
And I always remember
picking up a couple more bones
and looking up
at Superintendent Bennett and saying,
"Well, we've got three thighbones."
That's the first time
they knew there was more than one.
[music fades out]
[Savage] Are there
anybody else's bones there?
Could there be anybody else's bones
in any part of the garden?
[Fred] That's a peculiar question
to ask, innit?
[Savage] I ask lots of peculiar questions.
If there's anything else, Fred,
I'm asking you. Tell us now.
[Fred] I can't make out
what you're on about. Others?
I mean, there's one. Heather.
[Savage] Why did you find that so hard,
then, just to say one?
- Is there anybody else?
- [Fred] No.
[Savage] Because if anything else
is there, we'll find it.
[indistinct chatter]
Interviewing is all about how much power
do you want to give the interviewee.
The power in the relationship
was still with Fred
because we were still very much
reliant on him providing us information.
Oh, boy.
- [child] Hello.
- [woman] That was good.
[Williams] The more power you give,
the more likelihood they're gonna talk.
But of course, there's a danger in that
because Fred could say, "Well, actually,
I've given you all the information
that I want to give you."
"This is what you've got to work with.
I don't want to speak to you anymore."
We needed some help.
- [ominous music playing]
- [church bells toll in distance]
[man] The detective rang me up to say,
"Paul, we've got a problem. Can you help?"
"We have a man."
"He seems to be a warm,
affable, straightforward sort of man,
and we have found in his garden
the remains of his daughter and,
we think, another young woman,
and we don't know how to talk to him."
"Could you please come
and help us to interview this man
in a way that allows him
to explain what it is that happened?"
When I'm asked
to help investigate any serious crime,
one of the key features
that's of great importance to me
is to go to the scene.
[man] This is the front door
of 25 Cromwell Street.
This is inside the premises,
with my back to the front door.
[Britton] I look through the eyes
of a psychologist,
not the eyes of a detective.
I needed to know everything about him.
I looked carefully at the furnishings,
the knickknacks, if you like.
I was particularly interested and informed
by photo albums
that I found in the drawer.
[children laughing]
In my world, looking at family photographs
allows me to see quite a lot
about the relationships between the people
who are photographed and the photographer.
And what I didn't see
was any evidence
of the usual family warmth pictures.
There was very little there that indicated
a loving family domestic setting.
At the middle floor in this house,
there is a lounge that is set up,
almost like the reception room
of a seedy hotel.
We go from this room,
up a flight of stairs, to a bedroom area.
On the other side,
there's a hole in the wall,
and out of that hole,
there are cables coming.
There are microphones and cameras that are
run through into the four-poster bedroom,
where films and listening can happen.
It's clear that Fred had been able
to adapt the building
to his sexual pleasure,
and that was important.
But it was also clear
that understanding the relationship
between Frederick and Rosemary West
would be essential to this whole case.
[music intensifies, stops]
[Savage] We're going to talk to you about
a few bits and pieces this morning.
And so, if you can cope with me
jumping around a bit, okay?
- But if you can't, will you tell me?
- [Fred] Yeah.
[officer] When you were about 30,
you meet Rose, is that right?
[Fred] She was working
in a cake shop in Cheltenham.
- [Savage] She's how old then?
- [Fred] Fifteen and a half.
I knew Rose for three or four months,
and then I took her out
on her 16th birthday.
We had a good night.
A month later, she was pregnant.
So a month over her 16th birthday,
she was in the family way.
The police interviewers needed
to allow Frederick West
the space to become himself,
and that meant allowing him to think
that he and the interviewer
were in a shared conversation.
He would be allowed to smoke.
He would be allowed to wax lyrically.
He would be allowed to relax.
Ask him open questions, and let him talk.
[Fred] Anybody can say what they like
about Rose, but she is a perfect mother.
[Savage] Why didn't you ever tell her
that you killed your daughter?
[Fred] That's the reason why, innit.
We both loved Heather.
[Savage] In another part
of your garden, Fred,
the police have found another human bone.
[officer 2] Have you any knowledge
where this other bone might've come from?
[Fred] Yeah.
Shirley
Robinson.
The girl who caused the problem.
[ominous music playing]
[Hamer] And we just, bit by bit,
got very friendly with each other.
We started talking about,
"When we're ready to move out of here,
we'll move out together,
and we'll have a place where we can live,
and you can bring the baby up there."
That was our that was our aim.
One night I heard
a child screaming and crying.
It was, "Stop it, Daddy. Stop it, Daddy."
Very, very high-pitched.
So I pushed it to the back of my mind.
Then a few nights later,
I heard the same thing.
The third time, it was much clearer.
That's when I made my decision to leave.
I did think of going to see somebody,
but I didn't know who to talk to
because I didn't think
the police'd believe me.
I was a runaway.
You know, I was 17 by then.
It would have been a waste of my time,
I thought.
[Fred] We were having an affair
behind Rose.
Shirley fell pregnant.
[Ogden] At the time Shirley died,
she was carrying your child?
[Fred] Yeah.
[eerie music playing]
[Fred] I took Rose into hospital
because Rose was in labor.
[Law] Okay.
[Fred] I came back, and Shirley said,
"You're taking me down to Bristol now."
And I said,
"I can't. I got to go back to Rose."
She said, "I'm going down
to tell Rose that this is yours."
I turned round and smacked her in the jaw.
She went straight on the floor.
Then I went and got a piece of flex
and tied it round her neck.
[Law] Okay.
[Leach] You said to me earlier that you
dismembered her the same as Heather was.
[Fred] I probably did.
I was looking at her body, and I thought,
"Where's this gonna end?"
And by this time,
I am realizing that that is three.
Two.
Sorry, that's two. Not three.
[music stops]
He suddenly thinks,
"Oh, what have I said?"
These lapses in the cognitive control
of the story
help the interviewer to see
the limits of this man's preparedness,
and that's one of the reasons
that the police are able
to go a little bit further
and to unwrap what's really happened.
[Savage] You said to Mr. Ogden
you wanted to tell him
about further matters.
[Fred] Yeah.
- [Savage] Is that right?
- [Fred] Right.
[Savage] What do you want
to tell us, Fred?
[Fred] Just where the three are.
[Savage] Now, when you say "the three,"
can you just remind me
of who we're talking about?
[Fred] Well, Heather, Shirley,
and the other girl I don't know.
- [Ogden] Who is the third?
- [Fred] I don't know.
[Savage] What did you call her?
[Fred] Nothing.
I don't recall her name at all.
[Savage] What can we refer to her as now?
[Fred] Shirley's mate.
I mean, that's all I
[Law] Shirley's mate. Okay.
[Ogden] We all realized that we were
in a bizarre
and unique set of circumstances.
For example, "Shirley's mate."
This is somebody that he's murdered,
uh, whose name he doesn't even know.
[somber music playing]
[woman] I'm the taller one.
Alison is the shorter one.
[man] Were you guys close?
Yeah. Yeah.
We didn't have a great childhood.
Our parents were strict.
I had in my head,
"When I'm 18, I can leave home."
"Follow the rules, put up with it."
Alison didn't.
She rebelled.
She'd be out till 1:00 in the morning,
then our parents would phone the police
and then they'd go and find her,
or she'd been by a friend, at a friend's,
and hadn't come home, that sort of thing.
All of a sudden,
yeah, the police have been too much.
Yeah, you get told
that she's, uh, being put into care.
She's hurt, she's crying, she's upset,
she wants to come home and, yeah,
there's nothing you can do about it.
She got moved then to Gloucester.
I think that was when,
yeah, she was about 16.
A few months later, we got told by
social services that Alison had run away.
[gentle music playing]
In '79, my mother received a letter.
"I am at present
living with a very homely family,
and I look after their children
and do some of their housework."
"They know that I was in care
and are more than willing
to help me on my feet."
"We all get on great together and I have
readily accepted them as a second family."
"But please note, you shall,
are, and always will be my own family."
[sighs] "I just wanted
to let you know I'm safe
and shall continue to write
to let you know how I'm doing."
"One thing I don't want
anyone to do is to worry about me."
"I love and miss you all.
Please believe that."
"Until I write again,
take care of yourselves."
"All my fondest love, Alison."
[crying] May 26, 1979.
May 26, 1979, she wrote that.
Once you know everything,
you think of that letter, and it's like,
she was so taken in
with how loving they were
what a nice family they seemed to be.
[music fades out]
[indistinct chatter]
Stay on this side.
Right, Fred. What I want you to do is,
can you show me, first of all,
where you buried Shirley's friend?
Right by that.
Right in the middle of this,
between the two walls?
Okay.
Just leave it there.
And now can you tell us
where you buried Shirley Robinson?
[Fred] By that slab there.
- [Law] Which one, Fred?
- [officer] Which one?
[Fred] That one.
[officer] This one here?
The one right in the corner?
[Fred] Yeah.
You said it was level
with that new extension post.
You also said, Fred, yesterday,
that you thought that you saw her
- Yeah.
- last time we were here.
- Right.
- There was a big hole in there last time.
Or that was higher up.
[officer 2] And that post
indicates the position
where Mr. West has indicated
he's buried one of the bodies.
[Savage] Whilst you're here, is there
anything else that you want to look at?
We don't want to keep coming back here
with you.
That's it.
No.
- You sure?
- Yes.
You can take it all apart,
there ain't nothing else.
[ominous music playing]
[Law] For me, personally,
it was a surreal moment.
You're there face to face with a man
who is telling you how he has killed
a lot of women, basically.
I do actually recall
driving home and thinking,
I just cannot believe this is going on.
In Gloucester, of all places,
I can't believe this is happening.
[gentle music playing]
In those days, it was the crime reporter's
job every morning at 9:00
to go down to the central police station,
where you'd meet the duty inspector
and he would give you a briefing.
But that morning I went in,
and I was told that
they'd found two more bodies.
And that came totally out of the blue.
It was totally shocking.
I left the police station.
My heart was pounding.
And it's that feeling of knowing something
that no one else does,
and you're about to change
everyone's perception of what's going on.
I practically sprinted back to the office
to make it in time
to write up the story
for that day's paper.
And we knew that
as soon as that paper hit the streets,
the national newspaper reporters
would be down,
because it was
no longer a domestic murder.
It was something much, much bigger.
[reporter] The crowd grows bigger
with every new development.
But morbid fascination in the secrets
of number 25 Cromwell Street
spreads far beyond
this close-knit neighborhood.
[Carlyle] There was almost
a carnival atmosphere.
You know, you had TV reporters
doing pieces to camera.
People leaning out windows,
watching what was going on.
There were rumors
that there was a whole news desk,
plus reporters,
holed up in a hotel in Gloucester.
The whole place was feeling
quite swamped by the national media.
[sirens wailing]
[gentle music playing]
[man] I was a staff reporter
for The Sunday Mirror in London,
national newspaper.
We had millions of readers, and they
enjoyed reading about the royal family,
so this was the era
of Princess Diana and Fergie.
Politicians doing things
they shouldn't do. That sort of thing.
You're dealing in stories
that are sensational.
But the work was fun,
and dare I say it, I was quite good at it.
I mean, I was young and full of energy.
A call came through from Gloucester,
and I was given the job
of speaking to this caller
who had inside information, they said,
about the murder inquiry
ongoing in Gloucester.
My news desk said,
"Howard, drive to Gloucester."
A place I'd never been to in my life,
didn't know where it was,
didn't know how to get there,
had to look on the map.
And for the first time in my life,
I drive into Gloucester.
[dramatic music playing]
[man] The headlines,
police are still searching the garden
of 25 Cromwell Street
in Gloucester's city center.
Television crews,
reporters, and sightseers
have been gathering on the street
for most of the morning.
[Sounes] Every national paper
is there in strength.
You'd turn a corner, and you see
someone you know from London
trying to speak to somebody on the quiet.
The press en masse is called "the pack"
because they hunt like dogs in a pack.
It's a game, and it's also your job
to get the story before they do.
You can't do what everyone else is doing.
You have to do your own thing,
and the thing you're looking for
is an exclusive.
[ominous music playing]
[reporter] They worked into the night
at 25 Cromwell Street,
digging methodically and urgently,
fearful, almost, of what they might find.
Frederick West has already been charged
with the murder of his daughter.
Tonight he was charged with two others,
including that of a former lodger.
The police believe she was
Shirley Robinson, an 18-year-old,
who was heavily pregnant when she died.
[music intensifies]
[Hamer] A neighbor knocked
on the door and said, "Watch the news."
It was just an absolute
oh, I don't know,
mind-blowing sort of thing.
I tried not to listen to it.
I tried to just switch off.
All I can remember
them saying about Shirley,
um, is that she was carrying Fred's baby,
and he disposed of the baby as well.
[somber music playing]
Whenever I think of Shirley, it hurts.
But seeing her face again, it's
[inhales sharply, sighs]
She was there when I needed a friend.
She should still be here now. [sniffles]
[Chambers] You think,
"Why has Alison never got in touch?"
That's one thing I could never understand,
that she never got in touch with me.
You've heard these people talking
that they've seen her.
You know, you're fighting with yourself
'cause you want to believe these people,
but at the same time,
something's telling you
that they haven't seen her.
You want Alison to be there,
but you just want her to be with you.
[gulps]
[crying] And I'm the big sister.
[music ends]
[ominous music playing]
[Ogden] So here I am, Mr. One-Man-Band,
and your own life, separate from
your professional life, goes on.
I continue to deal
with concerns of the media,
trying to get in touch,
my partner, who's concerned about
everything that was occurring,
and all this has to be dealt with
at the same time as dealing with
these horrendous circumstances.
Scott Canavan was a clerk
that I took on to train up.
He struck me as a streetwise individual,
and I felt that he would be
a great asset, um, to me.
[man] Howard said that he had
a murder case and wanted me in on it.
I'd only worked as a clerk for a month,
you know, um, let alone on a murder case.
It was almost like
hearing somebody reading you a story.
You know, it was hard to picture,
but the further the case went on,
the more realistic it became.
A difficult part of this inquiry for me
was helping the police
to cross a threshold.
He has been stoutly denying
that there is anything more wrong
other than the fact that
he mishandled these terrible deaths
of the young women in the garden.
So the question was, well,
why are these people buried in the garden?
And my answer is that
because the house is already full,
and that's why
it's overflowed into the garden.
The strategy that I put forward
for the police at this stage
was to tell him clearly,
in colorful language,
that we are now going
to dig up floors in the house.
Most importantly, we're going
to start digging in the cellar.
If you do that, he will suddenly
start remembering different possibilities.
[music fades out]
- [man] Name?
- Frederick Walter Stephen West.
- [man] Legal representative?
- [Fred] Scott Canavan.
[Savage] Right, I think
it's only right to tell you that, um
the police are actively involved in
digging up the rest of your house.
- Are you aware of that?
- [Fred] No.
[Canavan] How do you mean?
- [Savage] Literally.
- Floors?
- [Savage] Yes. The whole lot.
- [Canavan] Concrete's coming up?
[Savage] Yes. The whole lot.
The floor in the house.
The conservatory's being demolished,
and they do intend to certainly dig up
the whole of the cellar.
[Fred] You'll have the house down.
There's no footings underneath.
[Savage] Well, I'm sure
the police are fully insured.
and whatever for the future,
but at the moment we're inquiring
into serious matters,
of missing girls and missing people.
And bearing in mind what has happened
already in 25 Cromwell Street,
it would be totally wrong of us
to not continue
the investigation vigorously.
- Do you want to say anything else at all?
- [Fred] No.
Hazel stopped the interview,
and the officers left,
and we went into another room.
I just said to Fred,
"Look, you know, enough's enough."
"If there's more, then you've got
to tell them there's more."
And he said,
"No, I've told you everything."
"And there's not. There's not any more."
And I said,
"Well, you know, I don't believe you."
Fred then went silent
for about two minutes.
Sort of looking into oblivion.
And I sort of asked him again, I said,
"Fred, is there any more bodies?"
And his words were,
"There's a fucking load more."
[music intensifies]
I left the police station and went
to phone my boss, Howard Ogden
because I just didn't have a clue
what to do in that sort of situation.
[Ogden] My concern was to get
Fred's admission to Superintendent Bennett
as soon as possible.
I recollect that I said,
"I think you'd better sit down."
He was clearly shocked about something,
and he had
this piece of paper in his hand.
"The note said,
I, Frederick West, wish to admit
to an approx nine further killings."
It was very difficult
to come to terms with
what we were faced with
in those few moments.
John Bennett brought us all in
and explained to us
that Fred had confessed
to another series of killings,
and that was one of those
heart-stopping moments,
as the realization of what we were facing
started to dawn on us.
If you were going to murder people
and bury them in such small property,
then how can you say you didn't know?
Rose must have known.
The burning question,
the crucial question was,
how much she was involved.
[Rose] When they arrested me,
I was devastated, literally.
I was crawling around the police station.
I didn't know what was happening.
I was just crying.
It's just all burning, you know?
He's telling her everything.
It won't make any difference.
You'll never get a confession
for something I haven't done. [laughs]
[music intensifies]
[dramatic music continues]