Fred & Rose West

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
In May nineteen ninety two, Gloucester Police in England received
a tip that a young teenage girl had opened up
about having been sexually abused by her father.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Oh god.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
The girl had nine siblings, only seven of whom still
lived at home at twenty five Cromwell Street. The two
no longer lived there, had left of their own accord,
or had they. Police had no idea that this one
tip would end up uncovering one of the most horrific
stories they would ever hear, and we will ever hear,

(00:34):
I hope, of the most heinous crimes, including multiple murders
over twenty years. Twenty years committed by a husband and wife.
Oh my god, this is the story of the House
of Horrors and Fred and Rosemary West.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Oh my god, I know this story, and I don't
know this story, so I'm very excited to hear you
tell this story.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Unfortunately, after researching this one deeply, I know it very well.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hey there, everybody, welcome to not another crime podcast. You
love and I'm back, I'm saying Peterson, and I'm back.
You're always, I'm always, and I am not as always.
If you want to skip ahead and just listen to
the story, the time code is in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
And we're not going to yab it for too long.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
You're going too long. It is absolutely but g love.
You've been sick recently.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Oh my god. I feel like our listeners who haven't
known me before this year will think I'm all sick
and or on holidays. And I will say that this
year has been permeated by both of those.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes it has.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
I'm not usually this sick. I've been very rundown.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Are you usually this holiday?

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yes? I don't understand the point of working if it's
not to spend your money on travel like that is
the biggest said it just then, and I'll say it
again later when you least expect it. So yes, I
do travel a lot sometimes holidays. Sometimes it's work, sometimes
it's both. But I have been sick often this year.

(02:34):
It's not fun for me. It's also not fun for you,
as my podcast partner. It's not fun for the listeners
who are like this bitch. Like the whole one of
this podcast when it started was like, I'm a journal
so I'm going to tell you crime stories, and it's.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
It's been a lot of years.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
That's right, So yes, thank you very much for carrying me.
I've just been so rundown, so sick, and then I
finally got over like the LOGI part of it that
stopped me from physically getting out of bed for a
full week, the lurgy, and when I finally could get
out of bed again, my body punished me by just

(03:16):
simply removing my voice, which is also fun for my
job as a radio.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, of course, so what you've been producing this week.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
Has been producing. I have literally not been able to speak,
so I've just been writing stuff for everyone, just been
you know, real a guy around the office, and finally
today I was back on air. I know I always
have a husky voice, but I'm also where it is
huskier than usual. But I'm back and I'm going to
do I think the longest story I've ever done, which

(03:44):
is great to do with asky voice. So apologize if
there's some like reverse ASMI stuff happening. If your ASMR
kink is coughing, is husky voices, You're welcome.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
You're welcome. God, You're welcome, And thank you to your
crazy for filling love my God.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Thank you to Joel. So. Joel has been a dear
friend of mine for I think like eight or nine
years now, and I love him and Australia loves him,
and we asked.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Him on this podcastle I was always telling.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Him he laughs. And then when he finally came on,
all on him here. Thank you Joel, Thank you Sammy
as always for just being the goddamn best and somehow
just always delivering. Well, you're just the best anyway. One

(04:41):
thing that has happened it is important to mention since
we last recorded you and I together, is that Wicked
for Good has been released. Yes, I'm not going to
harp on it too much, but it would be remiss
of me not to bring it up. Also, it is
at the forefront of my mind every second in the day, so.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
I happy to bring it out.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
YEA.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Theater girlies have always known Jonathan Balley is the sexiest
man alive.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
So who is this person? So he is? So he's
a Broadway.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
Who Okay, he's English. He started as a West End performer,
he was. He became more commercially known when he featured
in Bridgeton and now he is very world famous and
will go down in history as playing Fierro in both
of the playing in both of the Wicked movies. And

(05:34):
this year he has been voted People's Sexiest man Alive.
And actually I think that was announced when I was
last recording, But since then Wicked for Good has come
out and I just like.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
We got passed up again again again Anthony Wig that's right,
he is.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
The first openly gay man to be named People's sexiest
man alive.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Really, what about David Williams, He's.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Never actually been named?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Really otten everyone great reference.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
He is the sexiest man alive. I am so deeply
obsessed with him. That's not about Wicked, that's just about him.
He's really hot. Just anyway, Wicked for Good has been
torn apart by critics. Really, I will say the only
thing I'm gonna.

Speaker 4 (06:26):
Sun's first worship No, you know, sorry, I'll put that
on myself when people comment on something haven't actually seen.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
I have heard that it is the worsho of all time.
It has also been renewed, renewed for a second season.
I think there has been so much hate watching, which
I understand because Mum and Me Too is inarguably the
worst movie of all time, and I think it six
times the Austronimo My Mummy or with a double M

(07:03):
to the musical is the worst movie of all time
and one.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Of my favorites say you can't rag on your employee
like that.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
I watched it actually get on the weekend through the
People's We Could. Two has been not torn apart, but
it's it's critics of how to go at it.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
I have two things to say about that. One is
one is people are talking about it as a piece
of cinema that has been created this year. It is
the second half of a musical that was written and
it has been released since two thousand and three, so

(07:48):
the story has already written. Stop commenting on that is
my first thing to say.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
The second thing to say is people always rag on
things that are popular, and that wasn't meant to be
a wicked one, but it happened to be, and particularly
that women really like. And that's just gonna be my
only feminist rant for today that just because it's popular

(08:13):
and women love it does not mean you have to
say it shit.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Cynthia Arrivo singing No Good Deed was an out of
body experience for me and no one can take that
away from me.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
And Anthony Lloyd Webbert wrote that and retired, and he's
lived a very comfortable life.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
I think it's time to get in today's story.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, no, it's okay, so you liked it though, you
thought it was good.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
So I enjoyed the first one more the first. So
if you haven't seen Wicked the movies, it's not a
movie and a sequel. It is one story.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Cut in half.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, and it is the musical cut in half, but
not enough. The first half of the musical and the
second half of the musical. The second act of the
musical is significantly shorter than the first. Added two new
songs to the second Wicked movie.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Which suck, which intended.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
The new song suck. I'm very happy to.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Say that new songs wedged in.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
Two new songs. They both absolutely.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Suck, levitating Julia No.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
But as cliches that the one that alphabar the Wicked
Witch things is called There's No Place Like Home. It's
like they gave school kids an assignment a song to
write a song that the Wicked Witch would have sung, like, Oh,
There's no plates like Home. Oh so unique. The other

(09:40):
song of Glinda sings, it's called The Girl and the Bubble.
They're both shit. They're both basic anyway, whatever, we'll move
on from that. The second half or the second act
of the musical is not as good as the first.
The first half is way more upbeat, fun, happy, musical
dancing sing along. The second art is dark and deep

(10:01):
and emotional. The second movie, to me, was less an
enjoyable experience, but it's meant to be like that. It's
not an enjoyable experience. It is a deeply emotional, beautiful, devastating,
heartbreaking experience. And I said I would say two things
about it. The third thing I will say about people.

(10:22):
Can the men male critics saying the second movie was
not as good do and will never understand the depth
and complexities of female friendships. That's all I have to say,
thank you and good night.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
And Andrew Lord Webber would be spinning in his Grave's
not He's not.

Speaker 1 (10:53):
Definitely definitely posted on Instagram today. He posted on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
Okay, at the time recording, Angela Webber.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
Don't put the mos on Andrew.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Because Max Paul Sheffield is still alive, so I imagine
they're similar ages.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
If no, no, no, I'm not even going to say it's okay.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
At the time of recording, he is not dead. And
if this comes out on Monday and Andrela Webber is
still not dead.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Then we have, as in often another crime podcast where
we investigate where the Sammy murdered and.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
I was nowhere near there at the time. Hey, enjoy
this week's episode. Please the word well yeah, I know.
Please do leave us a five star rating, five star review.
The more you share this podcast around, the more we
can keep doing it. We love doing this podcast, so
please do continually share this with a friend, friends ends,

(11:43):
lots of them, heaps of friends and rating. Leave if
you want, leave a five star rating, five star review.
Can they follow us?

Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yes, they can on Instagram and TikTok, both of them
have the same handle not Another Crime Podcast. They can
also email us at Sammy at just Another podcast dot
com dot are you just an the company?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
Do it? Do it again? Quick? You got it?

Speaker 1 (12:08):
They can email us at Sammy at just Another company
dot com dot.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
You that was good that episode?

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Is this like forty seven or forty yeah?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
And also a voicemail which we call a speak pipe
is the website. All of the links are in.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
The show and if you do so, we'll play it
in the mailbox.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Believe it will play it, hey, enjoy again listen, listen
to this week's episode.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Listen to this episode, and if you are negatively affected
by it, yes, don't leave a review about that. Yes,
email us about that. Yeah, but still leave a five
star rating for the podcast in general.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
And Andreela Webber, May you rest or not rest in peace?
This is This is this week's episode.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
This episode, All of our episodes that deal with crime
obviously come with trigger warnings. I want to give some
really strong trigger warnings up the top of this one.
In particular, it deals with the deaths of children and
physical and sexual abuse of adults and children. Now I
won't go I don't go into detail about the sexual abuse,

(13:27):
but it does come up unfortunately, So lots of trigger
warnings here. All right, are you ready?

Speaker 2 (13:36):
No?

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Fred West was born in nineteen forty one in rural
Herod for Shit and now Herod for Shit. Yes, I
think it's that, like Leicester is Leicester not life. I
think it's Herod for shit, har for ship, Herod for shit,
and I apologize if it's not. In England into a

(14:00):
large and economically struggling family. His parents were named Walter
and Daisy, which sounds like a Disney couple, it.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Does, and also like very British as well, Walter, they.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Were not a Disney couple, that's right. Oh yeah, maybe.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
That's why.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
My brain is not that like. It's pretty easy to read.
Fred was the second of eight children, but two of
his siblings died during all shortly after childbirth. Okay, Fred
was born a year after Daisy's first daughter, Violet, had died.
By all accounts, Fred was very much Daisy's favorite, even
above her husband. Because of this, he did not have

(14:42):
a good relationship with his father, Walter, because you know,
being jealous of a baby is totally normal and.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
Fine, normal and fine and cool and actually pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
The living space where they lived on a farm was
very cramped. The bathrooms were simply buckets, and they ate
a lot of the time. All the children ate in
a day was the unpasteurized milk Dad would bring home.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Oh wow, okay.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
Despite being very much loved by his mother at home,
it was not a good upbringing and he did not
have good relationships otherwise. Fred was bullied for being a
mummies boy him and was described as dim, which it's
not a nice way to describe someone. But I enjoy.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
That work dim is dim is a fun way to
describe very.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Like you can see it's like a light.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Not yeah, yeah, it makes total sense when you say it,
but everyone knows exactly what you mean if you've never
heard the wood.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
And also were allowed to call for a dim because
he's much worse than that. His brothers, Doug and John
in particular, really hated him, and they would all the
siblings would be physically punished by their father. Fred dropped
out of school early. He was academically stunted, but he
was dim exactly. But also there were questions raised about

(15:53):
whether he was also stunted in other areas, particularly socially, emotionally,
and even sexually. He would later say he was sexually
abused by his mother, but I'm very much noting that
he was the only one that ever said this. His
brothers have come out and said that they don't believe

(16:14):
it to be true at all of Fred's accusations, and
they may be, but Fred is not reliable perhaps a
reliable source. And that his dad taught him about sex
by showing him how to do it, not on him,

(16:34):
but I don't need to go now. But his dad
taught him about sex, which is not very nice. By
his mid teens, Fred had developed a very strong interest
in the female sex and in the idea of sex.
If he saw a girl he wanted, he would go
for it whether he wanted it or not. And I
don't mean in sexual I'm not insinuating rape, but he

(16:55):
would just you know, like physically grab it girl and
try to get them to come with him. And like
at dances and on the streets, he was grabby and
touchy and yuck. He had a bad motorbike accident in
nineteen fifty eight and he was in a coma hanging
sorry what does that make him? About sixteen seventeen and

(17:17):
he was in a coma for a week. They didn't
know if he would sig week.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah, oh wow. It must have been a really bad one.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Very bad. He slowly regained the ability to speak, but
he had a significant head injury, and it's not known
if this caused lasting brain damage, plus a severe fear
and hatred of hospitals full shadowing. During his recovery, he
would still go out and try to live a normal life.

(17:43):
But after the accident, everyone in his life noted a
big change in his attitude, particularly when it came to anger.
He became much more aggressive and angered very quickly.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
He didn't seem great before the start, so exactly he.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Told people who was deeply unhappy living at them and
living under his parents' rule. In the early sixties, he
started to get in regular trouble with the law, mostly shoplifting,
petty thefts, and fights. The worst of his crimes at
this time was that he had sexually assaulted his young
teenage sister. He didn't understand why his parents and the

(18:19):
police were so angry. He admitted while being questioned to
assaulting multiple young women and girls and didn't realize why
everyone had a problem with this.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Oh my god. I guess if like, you know, not
excuse him this at all. But I think, like, if
his dad has shown him certain things, he's obviously got
a very warped sense of what's right and what's wrong.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Yeah, that's kind of all this background, I suppose, from
all the research suggests in absolutely no way, shape or
form excusing or explaining anything, but it does. There is
a lot about the multiple head injuries. I haven't gone
into the others, but there were other things like fights
where he had bad knocks to the head and hear.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
Him talk as well. He does, like his voice is
kind of it's a strange voice.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah, well he's got a very very low IQ and
so yeah, I mean the way I've put it is
stunted in kind of all aspects of you know, emotion,
social interactions, everything.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
In nineteen sixty two, he met eighteen year old Rena,
who was also described as a difficult child. Again was
in trouble for petty theft fighting. She'd been moved around
to different family members to try to bring her back
on track. She was actually from Glasgow but was living
in England where and when she met Fred.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Just a side note, that's my favorite accent in the Glaswegian.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Accent Glasgow, exactly exactly right. The only favorite, the way
I can think of a Scottish accent is this one
a little bit, this one sentence that's from like a
little nursery rhyme type thing that my friend Shanaid, who
is Scottish, taught me. I don't know the rest of
the rhyme, but one because Dani wertruzers, Oh great, that's

(20:09):
maybe what Marina sounds Dan and Shrek. Come on, do Shrek?
I know you want to come on?

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I don't know what the regular phrase I used to
say as Shrek was, but it was like gama swamp,
don't queer? Was that said exactly that?

Speaker 5 (20:31):
So?

Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yes, Rena was Glaswegian but living in England when she
met Fred. She was working as a sex worker. And
when she met Fred she was pregnant to a Pakistani man.
It is speculated that she may have moved to England
because her family didn't agree with the pregnancy right, particularly
given it was going to be a mixed race child.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
And this was the sixties.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Was it sixties?

Speaker 2 (20:56):
She was years old? Oh my god, And you imagine
sex work at that time. They didn't call it that,
but sex work. You imagine just how horrible that would
have been for her.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, and the racism with it as well. Right, But
when she met Fred, they quickly got into a relationship,
and when her baby daughter arrived, the couple told people
that she had actually lost her baby during childbirth and
they had adopted this baby to explain why the baby

(21:27):
girl had darker skin than both of her parents. The
baby's name was Charmaine.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Have you seen the film The Jerk with Steve Martin
and his and he's grown up and finds out he's adopted,
and he's with a clearly African American, beautiful family and
he finds out he's adopted that like when he was
like twenty years like Elf, Yeah, it's exactly like als well,
Elf as well.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
If he doesn't know he's a human by now.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
He's.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Beautiful because my brother was adopted. And I think, you know,
it can be hard sometimes realizing that you feel different
or you're look different or anything. And you know, obviously
back then that would have been harder. You know, my
parents found it hard to explain to people, you know,
you just so, so I imagine at this time it
would have been even harder, Oh God, to explain.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, and isn't that awful as well? But you know,
people just go, well, why yeah, exactly. A friend of
mine is adopted. She was born in Korea and was
adopted to an Australian family, a white Australian family, and
she said she didn't have any concept that she didn't
look the same as her until she started school and

(22:36):
people asked her why she looked different to her perpent
Oh wow, isn't that fast?

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Quickly? I found a book when I was really young,
and the book was called why am I adopted? And
I thought it for me?

Speaker 1 (22:47):
Oh my god, Sammy, Oh stop, I'm just picturing kittling
face kid photos.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
I've seen of you, just asking the question. Oh.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
My sister always tried to tell me I was adopted
because she didn't like me and my mom. I like
the spitting image.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
Of it, exactly.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, all right, So baby Charmain arrived in nineteen sixty two.
Fred became very obsessed with Rena, very quickly, thinking she
was quite worldly and wild. You know, she'd come from
a different country, she you know, had a baby, she'd
been working in the sex industry. He would demand sex

(23:29):
from her whenever he wanted it, and yeah, and Rena
essentially felt she had no choice. She also became obsessed
with him in what I am describing as a very
toxic way. She tattooed his name onto her with a
backyard tattoo pin.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Oh wow, that would be so painful and not highland
as well?

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah also that also that, Yeah, don't do that at home.
It's been suggested that Rena was likely seeking stability and
the love she felt she didn't otherwise have in her life.
They married in nineteen sixty two, the year they met
Fred aged twenty one and Rena eighteen. They moved out
together back to Scotland, where Rena was from, with baby Charmain.

(24:13):
Fred kept his worrying sexual behaviors up and encouraged Rena
to go back to sex work to help them make money,
but he would berate and punish her for sleeping with
other people. It seemed he really used this as a
form of serious control and manipulation. He essentially brought up
baby Charmain as his own, but he didn't ever really

(24:35):
bond with her. Fred and Rena together biologically this time,
had a second baby, Anna Marie, in nineteen sixty four,
only a little over a year older than Charmain. As
soon as she arrived, Fred neglected Charmain even more. In
nineteen sixty five, Fred was working as an ice cream

(24:56):
van driver, which like our yeah, so when you know
it's not gross to be ice cream. This is one
of the most heinous men in history.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
And like.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
By then the marriage was really faltering. He was cheating
on Rena a lot, and over time he didn't even
try to hide it. Rena hide a nanny to help
look after the girls. Her name was Isa McNeil. She
moved in with them and was helping them. She was
a teenage girl herself. Isa described Rena and Fred's marriage

(25:29):
as very tumultuous and very violent. He said, the sorry,
she said. The little girl slept in a bottom bunk
with bars fitted to essentially cage them in, and they
were only allowed out while Fred was at work. Oh
my god, a friend of Isa's.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
I guess, so he wouldn't guess.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
He was so violent and youk but also he just didn't.
He didn't want them around. He wanted his time and
his peace at home alone. A friend of Isa's, so
is the nanny. A friend of hers named Anne four,
who was also from Scotland, came over to England and
spent a lot of time at the home as well.

(26:06):
She was sixteen. Her boyfriend had been killed in a
workplace accident and she really leant on her friend Issa
for support and essentially ended up boarding with Fred and
Rena as well. In November of the same year, baby
Anna Marie was born, Fred accidentally hit and killed a
child with the ice cream van.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Oh how horrific, and it was.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Ruled that this was totally an accident. How horrific for
everyone involved with that, but the town very much turned
against him. It would be very hard to see the
person that that had been behind the wheel when that happened,
whether they were deemed responsible or not. So Fred made
the decision to move back to England. He didn't want

(26:48):
to live in this town anymore. He took the two
baby girls and moved, while Rena set herself up to
move as well. I don't really I couldn't really find
out why she didn't move straight away as well. I
don't know if it was a bit of he just
went I'm getting out of be By and then she
was like, okay, hang on, let me come. But three
months later she moved over and joined them as well,
and she also brought I.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Thought that might have been a split. I thought that
might have been a way to get out.

Speaker 1 (27:12):
She brought Isa McNeil and Anne McFall, the two kind
of pseudo well you know, nanny and kind of border
slash nanny with her back to England as well. Both
these girls came from very poor backgrounds and hoped England
would be a better place for them to find jobs
and make a start on new lives. They all so, Fred, Rena,

(27:34):
Issa and the two baby girls all moved into a
caravan together.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Oh wow, crammed.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
And Fred found work as a lorry driver for a
local abatoir, which I just feel like the only time
I hear about people people who aren't think yeah. And
Rina got a job at a local cafe. Fred did
not stop his violent outbursts, and he also started turning

(28:03):
on Isa in particular, as well as Rena and Nanny.
So we kind of any female who was kind of
living with him, and he saw us under his reign,
and he could be violent and angry towards and he
would blow up really quickly and really easily and be
very violent. The three women together hatched a plan to

(28:27):
escape Fred. They had had enough and they didn't want
to be part of this anymore. They are. Rena actually
called in an old boyfriend of hers to help get
the mount while Fred was at work one day. I
think it was Feathers mcral exactly.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
I'm not going to explain anything if you.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
Guys haven't listened to all the other episodes.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
One of the greatest criminals all times.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
You never really had much context to bring him up.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
I know, it's never come up in a natural way.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
So they made pre arranged time to have him come in,
not feathers, this man come in and help them kind
of pack up and leave while Fred was at work.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Do you look like a penguin?

Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'm not sure. I didn't look up photos, but if
you want to afterwards we can. It was a chicken
he was meant to look No, he was a penguin.
He was meant to look like a chitch. He got
me again. At the pre arranged time, Fred unexpectedly came
home and found them leaving. He was never home at

(29:30):
this time, and both Rena and Isa noted that Anne
didn't seem that surprised, and she was very calm at
Fred's arrival. She stayed calm while Fred was obviously blowing
up and tried to placate him. She said she would
stay with him and the children if Fred was saying
you're not taking my children anywhere, and was kind of saying,

(29:53):
it's okay, I'll keep him calm. You guys go, we'll
work this out later. So Rena and Issa left. They
went back to Glasgow and left the two little girls
with their violent and abusive father and this young border
slash nanny and McFall. It wasn't until the women were
back in Scotland, it was revealed what had gone on

(30:14):
and Fred had been having an affair and told her
that's why she wasn't surprised whinning him home, because she'd
actually tipped him off, wanting them to go so they
couldn't take the children and she could stay with him.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
And told her friends and family violetters that she'd become
infatuated with Fred and believed that living in England with
him would set her up for a good life, and
she was trying to encourage him to divorce Rena and
marry her.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (30:43):
Over the coming couple of years, Rena was coming back
and forth to see her children and try to take
them back into her care, while also trying to remain
kind of safe from Fred as well.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Sure she was terrified of him.

Speaker 1 (30:57):
Fred was placing them in the care of social services
on and off, so that's when she would come back.
I'm gonna say that if they in social services care
on their mother, I'll take them back, but they continued,
I haven't gone into this here, but Reena and Fred
continued on and off very toxic, very tumultuous relationship over
this time as well. Whether it was you know, manipulation

(31:18):
about being with the children, whether it was you know,
parts of the jealousy of not wanting and to be
with him or just wanting to keep the family together.
But they were they.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Were a little wit and stayed back and yeah wow yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
In nineteen sixty seven, and fell pregnant with Fred's baby,
but it seemed he was none too pleased about this
by the time she was almost full term. When she
was eight months pregnant, and left the home one day
and Fred never saw her again.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Over the next eighteen months, Fred spiraled downwards, which is
pretty low from where he do any being. He was
arrested multiple times for thefts, He lost his job as
a driver. He put his kids back in the care
of social services. But Fred's luck was about to change.
After being a single dad kind of in and out

(32:12):
of social service care for about eighteen months, he set
his sights on a woman named Rosemary Lets or a
girl I should say she was fifteen Fredan Fred at
this time was twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (32:26):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
He set his sights on a woman named Rosemary Lets
or a girl I should say she was fifteen Fred
Fred at this time was twenty seven.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
They met waiting for a bus. Rose initially said she
was repulsed by Fred. He was dirty, unkempt, and creepy.
Fred didn't let up. He showered her with attention and adoration,
and this soon became quite flattering to the young Rosemary.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
Letts stayed in touch after meeting at a.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Bus the same bus every day on the same okay,
so met her at the bus so this first day,
became infatuated with her. Kept going back to the same
bus stop and they were getting the same bus.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
This is called a meat fowl, a.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Meat foul exact, that's good fowl, like chicken, like I
f you w l like feathers. He would like go
to He found out where she worked and would go
to the cafe and bring her gifts and flowers and
was really trying to woo her, and it worked. The

(33:43):
two started a relationship within weeks.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
After being repulsed by someone. That is such a wild turnaround.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
Oh sorry, I've missed a little paragraph here. Fred found
her out that Rose hadn't ever had a boyfriend, but
was quite promiscuous, and he really liked this.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
He liked that Rose was promiscuous.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, okay, he also very much played up the sob
story about being the single father to two little girls
having been abandoned by their mother.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Also like you might not know this information.

Speaker 1 (34:15):
But I know everything. I mean, you know that about me.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
If Rena has left of our own volition and everything.
There was no obviously, because she was scared of him.
There was no like court thing where it was like
you have custody blah blah blah, because that the guy
usually have the kids.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Is that the I mean, I know that to be
a generalization, but typically true these days. However, it wasn't
so much so then. But that aside, that wasn't the
case here because remember I they were like in kind
of an on again, off again relationship. Like it wasn't.
She wasn't saying I'm terrified you and I'm out for good.

(34:53):
I want the kids back. Yep, there was. I don't
know the details about if she ever tried to fight
for custody or anything like that in the early days,
or if she was trying to get them at dealer
or she was just trying to argue with him for custody. Sure, okay,
but no, it wasn't that they were you know, there
was and there were any court orders. They weren't legally
separated or anything. This sob story and the adoration and

(35:17):
wooing and pursuing work. The two started a relationship, and
within weeks Rose quit her job at the bakery to
become a full time career for Fred's daughters. She noted
they seemed neglected and she wanted to care for them.
Fred would provide her with sufficient money to send to
her family every Friday, so they didn't know she'd quit

(35:39):
her job.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Oh okay, and she was already doing that. She was
already sending money to her family.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
And yeah, bringing money home, bringing money home, so you know,
she'd get her paycheck every Friday. It was Fred giving her.
So she'd go to work in invert commas and yeah
and look after.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
And bakers famously aren't very good accounting because of the Baker's.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
Doesn't, because Baker's doesn't.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Not a dozen thirteen, is it? Yeah? Why? Because I
think the baker always wanted to have one for themselves.

Speaker 1 (36:08):
The older twelve for you, one for me.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Literally, let me let me actually check that, because I
have that. I made I made that up.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
My very first job was at Baker's Delight and I
really that maybe the delight is that thirteenth role.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, a baker's doesn't. And I'm just looked up images
lovely bread I'm seeing right now. A baker's doesn't is
thirteen items one more than a standard dozen twelve. The
term originated from medieval English law that penalized bakers for
selling underweight loads of bread. To avoid penalties, bakers would
add an extra loaf to every dozen to ensure they

(36:44):
met the legal weight requirement.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
I'm going to just make the rolls bigger.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, I'm not sure about that, but yeah, but so
they're not very good. That was my joke anyway, It
doesn't really matter.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
It was good.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
It was a good joke. I'm edited here and I'll
go like this, of course, because of thirteen thirteen you're
very good. You're very good, all right. A bit of
background on Rosemary Pauline West. She was born in rural
England in nineteen fifty three to parents Bill and Daisy.
Let's Daisy again again. Well isn't that funny?

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Funny?

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Anyway? She was described as quote remarkably unintelligent dim Her
brother said she was quote thick as two planks.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
You don't want to hear that from your brother.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
I kind of like love these like English. She was
also described as very lazy and belligerent. She too, like Fred,
had a very stunted upbringing. Both academically socially, I've written both,
and then I've listed three things academically, socially and intellectually.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
You're bloody good as a counter as bloody baker.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
As cameras real real good at real well English, and
I struggled to.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Actually think of something that was pooring.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
In hindsight. When people found that out she was with Fred,
people said that they weren't surprised that she ended up
with an older man. She always wanted to feel grown
up and like she could make it in the world
without her parents and the proople who were calling her laziness,
thick as two blanks.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah yeah, and not a loving family. They're calling her that,
But also like the wildness of her only being fifteen
years old. I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
That fifteen and he was twenty seven. And the thing
like age differences feel different at different stages of life,
twenty seven is and fifteen. Anyway, after they had dated
for a few months, Rose introduced Fred to her family
and they were, and I want you to guess the

(38:51):
next word I've used.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Disgusted. Yes, yeah, it's actually good.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
They forbade her from dating Fred and said they would
report him to social services if they ever saw him again,
but she defied her parents' wishes. Well, like, what do
you not say to a teenage girl? Don't do that.
They're going to do it even harder.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
Yeap, do it. We love him. She said that reverse
psychology exactly.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
I thought you were saying that to me. I was like, no,
don't do it. This bad story, it is okay, Yeah,
I was yeah, reverse psychologe genie or something. Yes. So
she defied their wishes and her parents did report him.
They reported, you report him to social services. He was
seven and she was fifteen. She was ok under age

(39:40):
under age relationship, and they also reported rumors, rumors they'd heard,
all fears they had that she was engaging in sex work.
Given she was a minor, she was taken into a
home for troubled teenagers, only allowed home to her parents
on weekends, and when she was home, she almost always
went out and visited Fred. As soon as she turned sixteen,

(40:04):
she left the state run home because she was now
allowed to do something sixteen and straight into Fred's flat,
in another sign that this guy was an absolute canch.
Fred was actually in prison at the time of her
sixteenth birthday and her release from the girl's home. He

(40:25):
was serving thirty days for theft, so when he got out,
he went and picked up Charmaine and Anne Marie, who
had been placed in social services while he was in prison,
and took the baby girl's home to his new girlfriend.
In one last ditch attempt to get his daughter away
from Fred, Bill Let's had her examined by a police

(40:48):
surgeon and it was discovered she was pregnant. No she
was again placed into care, but after a month it
was agreed that she could leave under the street understanding
she would terminate the pregnancy and return to her family.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Who made that decision, I.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Don't really understand how you can get somebody not examined
without there Maybe it was something to do with like
between sixteen and eighteen. Maybe at sixteen you are legally
allowed to kind of go eversewhear, but until eighteen you're
still under the legal guardianship of your parents.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Perhaps different autonomy for that sort of yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
Yeah, So she agreed to that she would terminate the
pregnancy and return her to her family. She did neither.
Her defiance this time resulted in her father forbidding her
from ever stepping foot back into the family home. Wow,
he had tried really hard to protect her, to help her,
she had defied him so severely, he said, in this case,

(41:51):
we never want to see you again. You've made a choice.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
That's enormousn't it. Did you know what their family was
like in terms of like, you know, even even socio
can like, were they similar to Fred?

Speaker 1 (42:03):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (42:03):
They were, Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
I believe I didn't go heaps into yeah, into either
of their upbringings because there's so freaking much to go,
but they both were low kind of intellectual, like low IQ,
low socioeconomic. I think that Fred was kind of lower socioecono.

(42:26):
His family was lower socio economic.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
But it's hard because it's just like, you know, if
they were this poor family that were like struggling as
it was, and then they're trying to get their daughter away,
and they're trying to do all this to make that decision,
would be would be enormous.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, it seems they were a lot kind of closer
and more a more family than Fred's was. If I'm
wrong on that, I do apologize. They didn't go deep
into her background upbringing.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
The documentary on this on Netflix. Isn't that yeah, yeah,
yeah is just watch that but don't know that, but
also like there are very descriptive details in that that are.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
That's why I've put that at the end.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Okay, well I didn't even know.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
So they listened this whole thing and they love it,
and they've really connected and they love us, and they
tell all their friends and family members to listen to
this podcast. And at the end, I'm like, if you
want to know more, guess what.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, listen to this thing. Also if you want to
know more, it is such.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Don't you don't want to know more? But again, that's
why she listened to this as they are they're hearing this.
Love you guys. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So here
we have a twenty eight year old Fred, sixteen year
old Rose, six year old Charmaine, and five year old
and Marie and another baby on the way.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Lipping, slipping, slipping, where.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Living happily ever after?

Speaker 2 (44:00):
That's not true that I hate.

Speaker 1 (44:04):
I'm going to bring back not this is happy story nat.
In October nineteen seventy, Rose gave birth to another baby
girl named Heather. Another is her first, but they've got
charm as well, named.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Heather bring for Baker's three.

Speaker 1 (44:23):
Yeah, two months later, so two months after baby head,
No it doesn't. I think a Baker's too were going on.
I liked it though. Two months after Heather was born,
Fred was imprisoned for six and a half months four

(44:44):
theft so he was known. Oh yes, yeah, And there
were many incidences of a lot of petty theft as
kind of his go to violence, fights and things.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
That's the thing you don't always like. I mean to
to uncover this later. You don't link those.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Oh, there was a lot that was not linked. So
Rose was left looking after all three girls on her
own as a teenager. Charmaine and Anna Marie were told
to refer to Rose as their mother. Rose didn't like
being in charge of these three baby girl or two

(45:21):
little girls and one baby on her own. The older
girls were frequently subjected to criticism, beatings, and other forms
of punishment under Rose's care. As soon as she had
her own biological baby, Heather, she just had an absolute
disdain for these two other.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Girls so loved Heather, but yes, yep okay.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Ana Marie was generally submissive and prone to display more emotion.
She was the one that was younger. She would get
upset and kind of you know, say sorry, what do
you want me to do? While Charmaine, the eldest, was
very stoic. She rarely cried and she yelled back, which
infuriated Rose more. She would talk to Anna Marie of

(46:05):
her belief that her mummy will come and save me,
and often antagonized Rose. When Rose was yelling at her
and berating her, she would say things like, my real
mummy wouldn't swear or shout at us. When Rose was
doing just that. A friend of Charmaine's called going to
the house one day unannounced, walking in to find Charmaine naked,

(46:26):
standing on a chair with a gag in her mouth
and her hands bound with a leather strap. As Rose
stood next to her with a wooden spoon. Charmaine stood
silent and uncrying. That's just one example of something that
was sin. In June nineteen seventy one, just weeks before

(46:49):
Fred's release from prison, Rose took the girls to go
and visit him. And this was the last time Fred
would see his firstborn daughter, Charmain, not biological daughter, but
his first daughter before his release on June twenty four.
Charmaine did, in fact finally get taken back by her mother, Rena.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I was just about to ask if Rena kept coming back.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
Yes, Serena kept coming back, And while Fred was in prison,
Rose said she's gone with Rena. Rose, Fred, nor her
school friends or any neighbors ever saw Charmaine again.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (47:29):
The same friend who saw her on the chair that
day went around, Sorry, went around to see her friend
Charmaine and was told by Rose quote, she's gone to
live with her mother, and bloody good riddance. This is
an eight year old girl. She's talking about awful. When
her little sister Anna Marie asked why Rena hadn't taken

(47:49):
her as well, she was told by Rose she wouldn't
want you or the wrong color. Now, Charmaine was the
one who was actually half a Kistani, but she was
insinuating you're a different color to your sister, So she's
chosen your sister, right, Okay, So life went on now

(48:10):
as a family of four upon Fred. Upon Fred's release
from prison in January nineteen seventy two, Fred and Rose married.
He was actually still legally married to Rena, but he
just lied on the marriage certificate, which you know something
I guess you can do. It's not a few months
later Rose felt pregnant again. The family moved to what

(48:33):
would become their more permanent, bigger home at twenty five
Cromwell Street, Gloucester. Might be, unfortunately an address that is
etched in infamy. They initially rented this house before going

(48:54):
on to buy it from the council for seven thousand pounds.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Oh wow, it was.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
I mean, I suppose what we would call here or
would call now Commission housing, and it was an agreement.
So to facilitate the sale of the house, they bought
it from council, but they agreed to turn the upper
two it was a three story home, like a very
tall skinny you know those ones you see, a tall

(49:21):
skinny home. The top two stories were turned into bedsits
so they could house lodgers and borders and that would
supplement the household.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Income that money would go.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
I don't really understand how it was they Fred bought
the home, but to facilitate the sale agreed to some
sort of yeah, so they would have borders and lodgers
living upstairs while the family lived downstairs with access through
that garden. In June nineteen seventy two, Rose gave birth

(49:54):
to another baby, girl named May June. It's spelled Mae,
but yes, her name is May June.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
June July. Yep. The sister's just a good name.

Speaker 1 (50:06):
It's just a good just a good name. It's giving Northwest,
it is.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:16):
Almost immediately after giving birth, Rose returned to sex work
to make money on Fred's insistence, or not so much
insistence but encouragement, and she regularly engaged in casual sex
with male and female lodgers they had living at twenty
five Cromwell Street, not always for money, but just for

(50:39):
her benefit.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Right.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
She was a very sexual person. Fred would also bring
home people he encountered at work, either to pay Rose
for sex or just to engage in sex. Fred often
bragged that it didn't matter how many people Rose slept with,
he was the only one that could truly satisfy her

(51:03):
lovely Sure, babe, that's what they all say. Rose would
beat and suffocate her sexual partners. She was very into
dominate trex yeah BDSM Yeah. The brutality and violence in
her sexual encounters became worse and more violent over time.

(51:25):
Fred would often join in, and many of the people
they slept with would describe the encounters as violent. With
both Fred and Rose enjoying severe dominance, they massed a
huge amount of bondage equipment. I've written the equipment because
I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Yeah, Like, I almost laughed at myself.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
How dorky that is writing equipment.

Speaker 6 (51:46):
Bondage equipment, side toys, restraining devices, and explicit magazines and
photographs that they would actually plaster around the house.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
All right, Okay, I mean they had little girls as well.
The room. Rose would conduct her sex work out of
contained peapoles for Fred to watch even when he wasn't involved,
and they had a baby monitor in the room for
him to listen from other parts of the house. Rose
had the only key to this room and kept it
on a necklace she wore at all times. Rose also

(52:20):
controlled the family's finances. Fred would give her his pay
packet and she would decide where the money was spent,
and it was often on home improvements. Now, there was
one incident in nineteen seventy three that almost landed Fred
and Rose West in prison, probably for a very long time,

(52:40):
and hindsight would have should have could sliding doors. There
was one incident in nineteen seventy three that almost or
certainly could have landed Fred and Rose West in prison,
probably for a very long time. Hindsight sliding doors and
look at that. However, this is what happened a seventeen

(53:04):
year old Caroline Owens, who was working for them again
as a nanny casually on and off. They had met
her while she was hitch hiking and while she was
in the house nannying, Fred made constant sexual advances to her,
and after a few months of working with them, she
decided she no longer enjoyed being there and decided to leave.

(53:25):
She did so, and under the guise of apologizing to her,
they lured her to meet with them. They said, let
us just catch up and apologize for making me feel uncomfortable.
They lured her into their car, took her home, They abducted, assaulted,
and raped her repeatedly. She was able to escape the

(53:47):
following day after pretending to agree to return to work
as their nanny, so they tortured her all night and
said we'd come back and work with us. She said
yes to get away. Oh god, she escaped the house
when they left her alone to do the vacuuming. She
reported the horrific abuse, and Fred and Rose were charged,

(54:08):
but when it came to trial, a seventeen year old
Caroline was too traumatized to relive the events exactly and
face them in court. The couple was fined fifty pounds
each and allowed to walk.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Free fifty pounds each. Ah, that's terrified.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
All the sexual charges were dropped because they were witnessed
testimony only. I think that she had physical bruises, so
that they were kind of charged with low level physicality
and fined. And so life went on in the West household.

(54:48):
So that was nineteen seventy three. By nineteen eighty three,
Rose had given birth to eight children.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
Sorry, so what what years.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
Is eighty three? So in ten years?

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Ten years? Okay, we're right, Okay, yeah, the one year old, Like.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
I know your mouth's is yeah, okay, octopus, that's eight legs,
not eight babies.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Some sort of reference. I wanted to bring up octorpus
in this episode.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
You've bit there with a we look on your face.
You've been trying to bring up an octopus. Bring up,
you heard the word eight?

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Of course? Is it a buzzer? Of course?

Speaker 1 (55:28):
If I really like the idea that maybe octopi can
have eight babies in a year, and you've unwittingly please
call in right now. Will wait and tell us where
a baker's does and octopus babies? Oh Jesus, all right. So,

(55:51):
by nineteen eighty three, Rose West had given birth to
eight children, at least three of whom were conceived by
her clients. Not fair, Fred willingly accepted all of the
children as his own, telling those with different skin tones
that his great grandmother had been black. When each of

(56:13):
the West children reached the age of seven, they were
assigned numerous daily chores to perform in the house. They
were very rarely allowed to socialize with anyone outside the home,
or even socialize outside unless either of their parents were present.
They had to follow strict guidelines imposed by their parents,
with severe punishment, which was almost always physical, being the

(56:37):
penalty for not conforming, not following the household rules we're
talking about. From seven years old, the children really feared this,
not just not these threats of violence, but the acts
of violence that would happen. As well from their parents,
and the vast majority of the violence was inflicted by Rose,

(57:00):
occasionally by Fred. The violence was sometimes completely irrational, it
was sometimes indiscreet, and it was often reported it was
just inflicted for Rose's gratification. Wasn't so much punishment as
her wanting to do it. However, she always took great

(57:20):
care to not mark the children's faces or hands, which
could of course be seen no matter what they were wearing.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
That's that's so crazy.

Speaker 1 (57:29):
Isn't it disgusting? It's okay, I'm sorry, I just.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Can you cut that.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
I did that, but with my mouth closed it would
be quiet, but then I decided to speak.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
I'm so sorry that I spoke.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
I even interrupt myself if that makes you, I interrupt.
Oh my god, that's so horrible. I'm so sorry. Okay.
Two of the West children, Heather so that Heather was
the eldest to Fred and Rose biologically and the eldest boy, Steven,

(58:09):
both ran away from home at one point, but each
returned after sleeping rough for several weeks. They were both
badly beaten upon their return. Between nineteen seventy two and nineteen.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Ninety two, nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Yep, so over the twenty years. Over twenty year is
essentially from when Rose was involved in Fred's life. The
West children were admitted to emergency thirty one times.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
How many of these thirty one would you think were
reported to social services?

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Well, I would say all of them should be. Yes, again,
thirty thirty of them were none.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Not a single incident the child from this household presenting
to accident an emergency was ever reported to social services.
They were all described by the parents as accidents, you know,
they'd fallen off the monkey bars, they tripped over their

(59:15):
sister's foot, whatever it may be. Not one was ever
reported to social.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
The monkey bar is a thing that's is that everywhere?

Speaker 1 (59:22):
Monkey bars are monkey bars everywhere?

Speaker 2 (59:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Can you see any monkey bars in the room right now?

Speaker 2 (59:28):
No monkey bars and monkey bars Australian or an Australian or.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Is it everywhere everywhere? But do you mean this is
the term Australian? Yeah, I don't.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Know monkey bars. Let me have a look up this
right now. Just monkey bars, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
I think that's just what they're called.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Yeah, I'd be interested to know if that's if monkey
bars are everywhere? Or if they're just kind of what
do you think.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
It would be called, like a horizontal ladder?

Speaker 2 (59:58):
It's a horizontal That's exactly what it is. So it's
horizontal ladder.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
So if you don't know what we're talking about, bars,
are I think they called monkeys?

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Okay, great, please right in. I'd love to know.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
It's kind of It is funny if they're not monkey
bars and people like what even Fred occasionally became the

(01:00:31):
recipient of his wife's violence. On one occasion in nineteen
seventy four, Rose chased after Fred with a carving knife
in her hand. Fred was unable to slam shut the
door of the room. Oh sorry, He was able to
slam shut the door of the room in which he'd run,
and Rose lunged at him with the knife, but he
closed the door just in time, and the knife embedded

(01:00:52):
itself in the door.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
Three of Rose's fingers slid down the blade, almost severing
them from her hand. She calmly wrapped her hand in
a tea towel and said, look what you've done, fella.
You've got to take me to the hospital now. Oh like,
if he had noted on the door, she would have
literally plunged the knife into him. That's just one example
that I've There was also a lot of sexual abuse

(01:01:21):
at twenty five Cromwell Street involving the West children. I've
decided not to say any more than that this story
is horrific enough, and I don't feel there's anything to
be gained by talking in detail about any of these
horrific crimes. In nineteen eighty seven, Heather, who was just
months shy of her seventeenth birthday, so again the first

(01:01:44):
biological daughter to friend rose together Yep left the hunt
as stated she'd run away before. She was known by
her classmates and teachers as a serious, light, quiet and
responsible student, and she did a lot of the caring

(01:02:04):
for her younger siblings at home. She spoke a little
bit to school staff about her difficulties at all, sorry
about having difficulties at home, but she never went into
any detail. When she just stopped turning up to school
just before her seventeenth birthday, friends and school staff were concerned,
but calls to the home uncovered that she had run

(01:02:26):
away after a big fight with her parents, and at
age seventeen sorry sixteen, she could do so. She had
run away before and this time she just didn't come home.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
I think in a lot of cases as well. I
don't know if this is a common thing, but you
know kids who are abused, kids who faced a lot
of violence in the home often wouldn't talk about that
sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Well, that is permeates this entire story.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
I kind of feel a lot of shame as well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
I'm sure, of course, her parents did not file a
missing persons report. Over the coming years, when the kids
played up, the family would joke, if you don't behave,
you're going to end up under the patio like your sister.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Ha.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
Five years after Heather ran away in nineteen ninety two,
one of the younger West children who was named whose name,
who is aged thirteen. She was named by media as Louise,
but because she was under age, this was a pseudonym,
so you don't actually know what her name was, but
will call her Louise. She was thirteen and she told

(01:03:38):
a friend one day she was being sexually abused at home.
This friend told her that she should tell some teachers.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Wow, she did, and.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
The school notified social services and police, who interviewed Louise
without her parents' knowledge, and she confirmed and reiterated the
allegations opened a formal investigation. Police searched the West household
on the pretext of searching for stolen property, so they said,

(01:04:12):
especially when he was so known for. Of course, in
the house they found numerous objects of sexual paraphernalia, including
ninety nine pornographic videos of both homemade and commercial nature.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
The children were removed from the home and both parents
were arrested on child cruelty charges. The children gave statements
of years of physical and sexual abuse, and all in
each of their stories were consistent. While these crimes were
being uninvestigated, something else came up. One of the children

(01:04:49):
was unaccounted for. Police discovered that Heather running away in
nineteen eighty seven was never reported to them. Police found
this odd, to say the the children all told police
that Heather had gone away to work at a camp,
not that she'd run away, as the school and other
adults around the neighborhood who had acquired had been told.

(01:05:13):
When Fred and Rose were asked about Heather's departure from
the home, their stories were inconsistent, vague, and sometimes contradictory.
Police checked employment records, benefit records, passport activities, school and
medical records and found no trace of Heather at all
after nineteen eighty seven. There was not a single sign

(01:05:35):
she was alive. While they were looking into this, the
cases against both parents on the cruelty charges fell apart
because the kids did not want to testify in court.
Anna Marie, who was the eldest of the children, because
Charmaine was no longer living with them, she formally withdrew

(01:05:58):
her complaints and breast a desire to return home, noting
the misery of her younger siblings and the fear of
Rose's retaliation.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
The younger children who were under sixteen remained in foster care,
but Fred and Rose were allowed to return to twenty
five Cromwell Street, as were their children who were over sixteen.
The younger children were also allowed supervise visits at the house,
but police were not going to let the mystery of
Heather's whereabouts go unsolved. In February nineteen ninety four, two

(01:06:37):
years after authorities first became aware of Fred and Rose
abusing their children, thanks to Louise's report, police got a
warrant to search twenty five Cromwell Street under the suspicion
of the death of Heather West.

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
When do you think about it, as Wollock, so much
time has passed since he was committing thefts, and you know,
like there was so much that it happened in that time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
It's a lot of this story is a lot argued
about them very much falling through the cracks, very much.
This was a worrying couple for many, many, many reasons.
And yeah, they really didn't fall through the cracks. Due
to the children's reports of the family Invertedcoma's joke that

(01:07:24):
Heather was under the patio. This is where police first
brought in.

Speaker 2 (01:07:29):
Like ground, I mean ground.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
I know all about forklifts and stuff, but some kind
of ground trading, well not even quite some kind of
machinery that like, because the patio is concrete. They kind
of did something and they found that there was disturbed
soil under the concrete patio. The patio had been laid

(01:07:52):
by Fred in nineteen eighty seven. Do you remember what
your Heather went ran away?

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Okay, So, when asked what they might find under the
patio if they were to excavate, Fred confessed to killing
Heather in an act of manslaughter. He said during a
fight they'd had He had gone into a fit of
rage and strangled and accidentally killed his daughter.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
Now's that means because accidental? Oh? Yes, right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
He had cut up her body with a large knife
and stored her remains in a dust bin as he
waited for an opportunity to dig her grave. This is
what he told Pa. He was insistent Rose had no
idea that it had happened at all. When it happened,
he said, she was preoccupied with a client upstairs. He

(01:08:52):
told Rose she had run away, which she had always believed.
Rose backed up this story with police, saying she had
given Heather money and actually would receive phone calls from
Heather over the years, only now discovering that these have
been faked by Fred to keep up the line. On
February twenty six, nineteen ninety four, police excavated and ripped

(01:09:16):
up the patio and excavated the garden and found the
dismembered remains of sixteen year old Heather West. Fred had
told them exactly where to look. He actually accompanied them
to the house and pointed out the exact location of
his daughter's body.

Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
Wow. Was he in custody at this point?

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Yes, so he had. It was February twenty five, that
they had gone to the house with the warrant and said,
what might we you know, where's Heather? What might be
fine if we looked under the patio and he said, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Phrase that they use, Oh might we find we're fine exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
So then yes, he was brought into custody. He said, yeah,
look this happened. I strangled her. I buried her in
the back garden. No one else in the family knew
about it. He said, I'll take you to the house
and I'll sherw exactly where her body will be found.
There were signs that she had been tortured prior to

(01:10:23):
her death, and multiple finger bones were missing, which were
never recovered. I will say now because I won't bring
it up again later, that all of the bodies, unless
I think there is one that I'll bring up later
one that wasn't. But otherwise all of the bodies sorry
spoiler alert, had been There were signs that they had

(01:10:46):
been badly tortured and abused before death. Fred was formally
charged with his daughter's murder that evening, But this was
just the beginning. Police had no idea what they were
about to uncover beyond that while exuming Heather's body, they

(01:11:10):
realized they had found three thigh bones. Now, I'm not
sure if you studied science at all, but humans have two.

Speaker 2 (01:11:19):
Thigh bones, yes, or beakers?

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Three are bakers?

Speaker 2 (01:11:23):
Two beakers? Two? Fuck, I haven't got it yet, I'll
get it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
One, We'll get it. They asked Fred why they may
have found three thigh bones, to which he immediately said
there were two further sets of human remains in his garden.
He agreed to return to twenty five Cromwell Street to
reveal the locations of both of those graves. He said

(01:11:48):
one was a girl named Shirley Robertson, a former tenant
who had been heavily pregnant with his child at the
time of her murder in nineteen seventy eight.

Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
The other victim he described as being quote Shirley's mate,
which turned out but he either would not or could
not elaborate as to her identity beyond that. Both sets
of remains were discovered on the twenty eighth of February,
and Fred was charged with both of those murders as well.

(01:12:22):
Two days later, having discovered three sets of human remains
in the garden, a decision was made to thoroughly search
the entire property. Rose was placed in a safe house
in a nearby town. Police continued to question Fred for
up to sixteen hours a day, with questioning turning to

(01:12:43):
the truth about the first of his daughters to have
gone missing from the home. Remember his stepdaughter Charmaine, who
was eventually taken by her mother Rena and never seen again.
Police went seeing said one daughter went missing, and actually

(01:13:03):
you killed her. Anything you want to tell us about Charmaine.
After days of intense questioning, on March four, Fred authorized
his solicitor to pass Belie a note he had written.
It read in his handwriting, I Frederick West authorized my solicitor,

(01:13:24):
Howard Ogden to advise Superintendent Bennett that I wish to
admit to a further bracket, a prox close bracket nine killings,
nine expressly Charmain, Rena, Rena, Linda Goff, who we have

(01:13:45):
not heard of yet, and this is all quote and
others to be identified f dot West. Fred calmly explained
there were a fur so the five bodies buried in
his cellar, and a six body beneath the ground floor bathroom.

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
Most of these victims Fred claimed had been hitchhikers or
girls who had been lodging with them, who he had
murdered in the nineteen seventies after picking them up a
bus stops right. Initially, Fred claimed these victims had been
killed when they had threatened to inform Rows of his infidelity,

(01:14:29):
and that he had transported their bodies to Cromwell Street
to abuse, dismember, and then bury in shallow graves. So
he said he abducted them, killed them elsewhere and then
brought them to twenty five Cromwell Street, known forever as
the House of Horrors.

Speaker 5 (01:14:49):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
The dismemberment, Fred claimed was only to make it easier
to bury the remains in shallow graves, and he again
agreed to return with police to Cromwell Street to indicate
precisely where he'd buried each victim. Right between March five
and March eight, police found six further bodies of young

(01:15:11):
females at twenty five Cromwell Street.

Speaker 2 (01:15:13):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Each victim had been extensively mutilated, and each body bore
evidence of having been subjected to extreme abuse prior to
their deathsh God. Each set of remains was missing numerous bones,
particularly finger bones. When questioned Fred refused to divulge the

(01:15:35):
whereabouts of the bones missing from each of the set
of remains all the reason for their absence. It's been
speculated he kept them somewhere as trophies, but it's not
known where they went.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
So it's kind of just kind of he's kind of
bragging about it in a way and going, this is
what I did. This is what I did. But he's
not giving away everything.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
In the documentary, which I refused to tell you about
until the end of this episode, there is actually vision
of him with police walking through the backyard. It doesn't
feel like bragging. I'm not a psychologist. I'm certainly not
a criminal psychologist. It doesn't feel to me like bragging.

Speaker 5 (01:16:16):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Uh, he's kind of stone cold, No, not even a
stone cold. He's emotionless. It feels a bit like, well,
I'm found out now, I've got nothing left. I've got
nothing to lose in telling them it's just yep, there,
that's where your phone part. Yep, that's where you'll find.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
That is something to lose. If he's not giving away
everything like he's not. He's not talking about everything. He's
not like, oh the fingers are there, like it feels
like he is holding something back.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
Yes, it's I think more when I'm probably arguing, is
that is the term bragging. He's not going, you know, well,
oh my god, you think I only killed Heather. I
actually heaps more than that. It's not that, it's more,
and he doesn't give it up really willingly. It reminds
me a little bit of Dennis nils Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:17:14):
where they police questioned him and he was like, yeah,
yeah there was another one actually yeah, yeah, actually no,
I do remember there's another one. It felt a bit
more like.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
That, yes, okay, but he was like, you know, Dennis
Nilsen just went, you know, look at the look in
the in my in my living room, in the tea
cups and look in the you know, and was like,
oh my god, yeah, whatever it was.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Whereas Fred West remembered where all the bodies were, but
didn't either didn't remember, didn't give up a lot of
information about why or how he was. He was holding
back details, but just said, yeah, there's a body here, Yep,
there's a body there that's up at this bus stop,

(01:17:58):
not giving a lot of detail, but taking those into bodies. Yes,
Fred continued to cease throughout all of the discoveries that
his wife, Rose had no knowledge of any of it,
and perhaps this is why he was kind of just saying, yes,
don't look into anymore. I'll tell you they're here. Police, however,

(01:18:20):
suspected otherwise.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
Yeah, because if you're living in the house with someone
that's dismembering bodies, that would take time.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Also, remember Heather ran away and she just kind of
didn't seem to care, and then it turns out that
actually Fred had killed her, Like really would a mother
just never Yeah, there's also all those reports. Even though
the chargers never went to court, all of the children
had reported serious abuse by both Fred and Rose.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
And the threat against Rena from yep, yep, from her
as well, just saying, you know, like she did not
want her there. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Rose West was arrested on the twentieth of April, so
it's still nineteen ninety four, so it was the twenty
fifth of February that Fred was first arrested. On the
twentieth of April. Rose was arrested initially on offenses relating
to physical and sexual assault of two children in the
mid nineteen seventies, So that's what they had enough evidence
to arrest her. The following day, she was a refused

(01:19:24):
bail and she was transferred to a prison in the
maximum security wing. Here, she was questioned more closely about
all of the murders that Fred had confessed to. On
April twenty five, she was formally charged with one murder.
And I will go into each of the victims later.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Bear with me, trust me, okay, I'll trust you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
I was up until eleven thirty b finishing story and
I started work at four thirty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
I don't always say to night to me, but he
did message me not imagine everything, no silence, I've muted
this story.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
Aren't you working in five hours? Though?

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
When you messed me because I don't get up as
early as you, and when you message me to say,
because I'm an idol, you know that?

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
And who is it night ol? Who?

Speaker 2 (01:20:20):
That's something like that? Working on? But yeah, you you
messaged me very.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Late last night because I was like, we can record
these episode tomorrow. I've finished.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
You've been sick, and I was like, oh my god,
why are you still up because you're to be at
work at four?

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
Don't you start work at five thirty? And I said no,
this week.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
I started four thirty and so, yeah, so you finished
this very late last night because you've been sick for
the last couple of weeks and I record an episode
with your Crasy last week as a feeling Christie, your Christie,
and so you're coming back to record this episode. So
you've stayed up so late last night to do this.

(01:20:58):
So you just got hooked. And really it fell into
this last night.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
Yes, Slash, I needed to finish it. I'd been working
on it in little dribs and drabs because it's so like,
it's such a big story and it's so intense. And
then I was like, right, I'm recording this. I need
to get this in finished because I need to get
this out of my life. I need to fit. I
need to not be thinking about this heinous couple every day.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
I need to get this out drips and drabs, f y.
I what bakers call dough that they throw away?

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
Oh? Is that says that how bad bakes?

Speaker 5 (01:21:35):
Does?

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
It says that I never knew that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:38):
You're learning a lot today. It's your favorite treat from
bakers to light?

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
Oh God, I would love a near the Hawaiian pizza
kind of scroll. Thing is a scroll like the role
the white making rolls make to your favorite. You might scroll, obviously, cheese,
am I sorry? Cheesy mite scroll? Oh my god, by's
so ozzie. Right now for overseas listeners, there is.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
A white bread roll that has cheese and veggiemie. It's
so good baked into it and it is Did.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
You get lots of staff discounts or you like?

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
No, no, no, no, no, baby dog staff that's what them.
Oh my god, someone never still hot? My god, now's
no staff discounts sm Me Peterson at the end of
each day for health and safety reasons, trips and traps.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
I can tell you you could.

Speaker 1 (01:22:38):
No longer sell the leftovers the next day. So guess
what the staff got to take on. Yes, exactly as
you said, Yes, yeah, exactly. I was very popular in
my neighborhood. Was working there.

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:22:59):
By May nineteen ninety four, Fred and Rose West were
jointly charged with five counts of murder. Rose simply replied
I'm innocent upon hearing each charge, a response that proved
to be a theme throughout each of the forty six
interviews investigators would hold with Rose prior to her trial.

(01:23:22):
Prior to the trial forty six police interviews, she just
said I'm innocent the whole time. Now we all know
I'm no good at maths, But how is yours? You
know that police had exhumed five bodies, and both Fred
and Rose were charged with five counts of murder. But
remember Fred's note through this solicitor that said he had

(01:23:48):
killed a prox.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
Nine people, So that's not as many as nine.

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):
Five less five is fewer than nine.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Well, baby doll, tell me what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
After the first five charges were laid, Fred ended up
openly confessing to killing his first wife, Rena and his
stepdaughter Charmaine. He also confessed to knowing the location of
Anne mcfall's remains. Do you remember that name? It feels
like eighteen years ago. I first started this the friend

(01:24:27):
who stayed with Fred when Rena left back to Scotland.
Anne McFall stayed, wanted to marry him, and was pregnant
with his child when she went missing at eight months pregnant.
Fred ended up confessing to knowing the location of Anne's remains,

(01:24:49):
although he always denied killing her and said he thought
that Rena had. Fred agreed to identify each burial location
and The remains of these other females, women and girls
were unearthed between April ten and June seven.

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
This kind of reminds me a lot of the Green
River killer that just went back to these locations and
just went, oh, there's another one there, there's another one,
there's another one there.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Well, there were their bodies that they eximmed from twenty
five Cromwell Street, and then there were bodies that were
before they before he lived at twenty five Cromwell Street. Eventually,
Fred West was formerly charged with twelve murders.

Speaker 2 (01:25:32):
Wow, and Rose with ten. Oh my god, So.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
Who were these women and girls? This sounds like what
he is a horrendous sentence to say.

Speaker 2 (01:25:50):
But I'm going to gonous.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Yes, I'm going to go through the victims in chronological order,
which is never something that should be said.

Speaker 3 (01:25:58):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
Anne McFall is believed to have been Fred's first victim
before he ever met Rose. As we've discussed, she was
a teenager in a relationship with Fred and pregnant when
she apparently decided to leave him one day in May
nineteen sixty seven. She was the friend So nineen sixty seven.

Speaker 2 (01:26:22):
He's quite young, then, isn't he?

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
He was in his twenties.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Yeah okay, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
Also remember this when this is happening. So all the
changes were laid in nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Yeah yeah wow.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
So yep. She was a friend of Fred and Rina's
first nanny Issa. Fred never admitted to Ann's murder, however,
didn't know where her remains were, which seems fishy to meet.
Her remains and those of her of their unborn baby
were found in a field at Kempley, which is near

(01:26:59):
Fred West's home village where he grew up in the
place name I famously can pronounce very easily, Heredfordshire.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
I'm just covering allay.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
It's really good. No, but how you said it sounded
like you were just making a noise both. Charmain West
was Fred's stepdaughter, the first of his children. Rose hated
Charmain the whole time she was in the little girl's life.
Charmaine was last seen on that final visit to Fred

(01:27:33):
in prison on June fifteenth, nineteen seventy one. She was
killed sometime between that date and Fred's release on June
twenty four. She was killed by Rose alone, who stowed
her body in the cellar of their home until Fred

(01:27:54):
was released from prison. When he got home, he buried
her body in the yard close to the door of
the flat they lived in.

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
So we know this because of the timings that Fred
could not have done it, but she had done it
and had stowed her until Fred was released and the concert.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
Yeah, so when Fred confessed to remember, he ended up
confessing to Charmain's dead. He said that he had killed her,
and we will go into this. So he said he
killed her and where he had buried her, which was
in the back close to the back door of the
flat before twenty five Cromwell Street.

Speaker 2 (01:28:29):
Right, Okay, sure, it's in a different house. So did
he go to this place where to another house where
people were now living and pointing out that there were
bodies there? Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
And I haven't written this in here because I thought
it was too awful, but I'm going to say it
just because he brought that up. He was insistent that
he had not dismembered Charmain. Her body, though, was found
in parts, but this is believed to be from when

(01:29:02):
new owners of the house had done developments to the
house and a new wall that like and kind of
stumpings that have been put in had actually severed her body.
Oh wow, Charmaine was eight years old.

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
Rena, whose name was actually Catherine Costello but went by Rena,
was Fred's first wife and Charmaine and Anne Marie's mother.
She was last reported seen alive in August nineteen seventy one.
Remember it was June nineteen seventy one that Charmaine was killed.
Rena had been growing extremely anxious about her children's welfare.

(01:29:46):
She'd been provided with Fred's address at Midlands Road, which
is where they were living at the time, and Rena
sought to confront him, likely to discuss or demand custody
of her girls. This was the final time Raina was
seen alive. She's believed to have been murdered by strangulation.

(01:30:08):
Her dismembered body was found in a field near Fred's
first home. She was twenty six years old.

Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
My god.

Speaker 1 (01:30:17):
Linda Goff was the couple's first known murder together. That's
Fred and Rose West. She lived in Gloucester and was
friendly with a number of lodgers at twenty five Cromwell Street.
She ended up moving in there herself, leaving a note
for her parents saying not to worry about her she'd
found a new flat and she would come home to visit,

(01:30:38):
but when she didn't, her parents tracked down the address
and went to see her, to be told at the
door by Rose West that Linda had actually moved elsewhere.
Linda's mother said Rose was wearing Linda's slippers and cardigan
when she canceered the door. It's understood Linda's death was
the first sexually motion abated killing by Fred and Rose

(01:31:01):
West together. Sometime in January nineteen seventy two, her dismembered
body was found under the ground floor bathroom of twenty
five Cromwell Street. She was nineteen. Caroline Cooper had been
staying at a children's home in Gloucester when she disappeared
in nineteen seventy three. She had been given permission by

(01:31:23):
the home to spend the weekend with her grandmother on
November ten, but after boarding a bus, she was never
seen again. It's understood she was picked up by Fred
and Rosemary West, assaulted, tortured and killed. Her remains were
found in the cellar of twenty five Cromwell Street. She
was fifteen years old. Good Lucy Partington was also killed

(01:31:45):
in nineteen seventy three. She was reported missing by her
parents after failing to return home after visiting a friend
on December twenty seven. It's believed it was that day
she was subducted by Fred and Rose, tortured and murdered.
Her remains also found in the cellar. She was twenty one.
Therese Cia Agenthala was a student hitchhiking from South London

(01:32:07):
to Ireland when she was abducted in April nineteen seventy four.
Fred only knew her as the Dutch girl, she was
in fact Swiss. Her remains were also found under the cellar.
She was twenty one. Shirley Hubbard was also killed in
nineteen seventy four. She was a foster child and was

(01:32:29):
abducted from a bus stop on November fifteenth, as she
was returning home from work experience. She was reported missing
when she didn't meet her boyfriend the following day as
had been planned. Her dismembered body was found under the cellar.
She was fifteen years old. Juanita Mott had been another

(01:32:51):
lodger at twenty five Cromwell Street, but at the time
of her murder in nineteen seventy five was living with
a family friend in nearby knew it. It's belief she
was abducted as she hitch hiked along a highway. Fred
only remembered her as the girl from Newitt. She was
eighteen years old. Shirley Robinson was the one Fred had

(01:33:15):
first confessed to after his daughter Heather. She had been
a lodger with the Wests and was known to have
casual sex with them. At the time of her murder
in May nineteen seventy eight, she was between six and
eight months pregnant with Fred's child. It's not believe there
was any sexual motivation in Shirley's murder, but that her

(01:33:38):
pregnancy had threatened the stability of Fred and Rose's relationship.
Now By saying there was no sexual motivation in this murder,
insinuates there was the other in the previous and the
others to come. Shirley and her unburned baby were found

(01:33:59):
in the garden of twenty five Cromwell Street. Shirley was
eighteen years old. Allison Chambers had been placed in Foster
Kate care at the age of fourteen. She'd had a
troubled life. She repeatedly absconded from the home and was
known to be a frequent visitor to twenty five Cromwell Street.

(01:34:20):
She was killed in nineteen seventy nine at the house.
Fred would later claim that Allison died as a result
of Rose's quote becoming too bloody vicious with her during
a sexual encounter. Her body was found in the garden.
She was sixteen. Heather West was the last of Fred

(01:34:41):
and Rose's confirmed murder victims. Their daughter killed in nineteen
eighty seven, dismembered and buried in a hole in their
backyard that was dug by one of her brothers under
the pretense they would be installing a fish pond. They

(01:35:02):
never got a fish pond, and the area the hole
had been dug was soon covered by a concrete patio
by Fred. Heather was sixteen years old. The first time
Fred and Rose West saw each other since Fred's arrest
in February was when they were both jointly brought to

(01:35:24):
court to be formally charged over these twelve murders in June,
so four months later. Despite Rose having been now charged,
Fred maintained and insisted he had acted alone, going against
any and all testimonies and accounts from witnesses and their children,

(01:35:46):
He fiercely defended and protected his wife. When they sat
down in court, seeing each other for the first time
in four months, Fred leaned towards his wife and gently
placed her hand upon his hand upon her shoulder. Smiling, Rose,
having ignored her husband's presence, visibly winced in discomfort. As

(01:36:10):
police attempted to lead Fred from the hearing, He resisted
their efforts and again attempted to move towards Rose, who
again winced and writhed away from his grasp, not looking
at him. After this public rejection from his wife, Fred
became increasingly and noticeably depressed. In prison. He would write

(01:36:35):
Rose letters daily, to which he never got a reply.
He asked his adult children, and by adult they were
still teenagers, to pass on his messages of love and
devotion to their mother, to which she never responded. News
got back to Fred that Rose had assumed the role

(01:36:57):
of a grieving mother who had lost a daughter and
stepdaughter to her husband's hand, and in which she declared
both her innocence and her hatred of her husband. This
caused Fred to drop the act. He had been betrayed
by his wife. His love and so his protection of

(01:37:18):
her also fell away. Fred withdrew his early confessions to
having acted alone in the murders, and instead said his
wife had had almost total culpability in all of the
murders to which he had been charged, excluding that of
Anne mcfull, which he still stated he didn't commit. This

(01:37:41):
was also before he knew Rose. He confirmed what police
knew from forensic evidence that Rose had killed little Shane
on her own while Fred was in prison. He also
confirmed this had not been a planned, discussed, nor premeditated act.

(01:38:03):
Fred never heard from Rose again. On the first of
January nineteen ninety five, ten months after he had first
been arrested for his daughter Heather's murder, Fred hanged himself
in his prison cell. He left a suicide note which
read to Rose, West, Steve and May. It's two of

(01:38:26):
his children and Rose obviously well, Rose, it's your birthday
on November twenty nine. You will be forty one and
still beautiful and still lovely, and I love you. We
will always be in love. The most wonderful thing in
my life was when I met you. Our love is
special to us, So Love, keep your promises to me.

(01:38:50):
You know what they are. Where we are put together
forever and ever is up to you. We loved Heather.
Both of us. I would love Charmaine to be with
Heather and Rena. You will always be missus West all
over the world. That is important to me and to you.

(01:39:11):
I haven't got you a present, but all I have
is my life. I will give it to you, my darling.
When you are ready come to me. I will be
waiting for you, my god. Fred West was fifty three
years old and died alone, heartbroken, in a small, dirty
prison cell, with his name to be forever tainted and abhored.

(01:39:36):
This was far better than he deserved.

Speaker 2 (01:39:39):
Yeah, and he was, for some reason trying to protect
Rose out of everything as well.

Speaker 1 (01:39:45):
He protected her right up until the.

Speaker 2 (01:39:49):
Land when he learned that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
That she was betraying him. I don't know why he
decided to implicate her then. Maybe it was for some
religious reason of his own. I don't know what that
could have been, because it kind of felt like, oh,
he's gone, well fuck you then than this suicide note.
He loved her. His suicide note was a letter to her.

(01:40:19):
So after his death, Rose West therefore faced trial on
her own. The prosecution portrayed the Wests as sex obsessed,
sadistic murderers, terming the bodies discovered at Cromwell Street and
Midland Road, as secrets more terrible than words can express,

(01:40:41):
the last moments on earth. For these victims were as
objects of the depravity of this woman and her husband.
The defense argued it was all motivated by Fred, and
that Rose was unaware of her husband's sadism all his crimes.
They pointed to the fact that he had committed murders before,
for he knew Rose. Against the advice of her lawyers,

(01:41:05):
Rose took the stand herself. At times she was teary
and incredibly remorseful. She testified to being herself a victim
of child abuse and rape who was groomed and coerced
by an older man into marrying him. However, at other
times through her testimony, Rose was upbeat, cracking jokes and laughing.

(01:41:28):
She gave repeated contrary evidence to multiple other witnesses and
victims whose accounts were all consistent with each other's and
Roses were the only ones of a contradictory. The defense
also tried to discredit witnesses as being motivated by personal
grudges towards towards Rose, and this always feels like a
really last ditch attempt by defense to Okay, well else, well,

(01:41:54):
hang on, you can't actually believe the witnesses because yeah,
so they said that there were personal rudges towards Rose,
that Fred was responsible and the world knew this, but
he had killed himself, so they wanted to take someone
down for this and all that they were exploiting, that
witnesses were exploiting them for financial gain, given the high

(01:42:15):
profile of the case.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
So it's just it was this huge news everywhere at
the time.

Speaker 1 (01:42:21):
Huge huge. Can you imagine one day a man is arrested,
he takes police to his backyard of his home he
lived with his I think it's ten children, and they
dig up five bodies in that backyard, and then more

(01:42:41):
and more and more appear over time.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
Yeah, just keeps omitting to more huge.

Speaker 1 (01:42:47):
And this was nineteen ninety four, it came out, right,
So the first murder that we know was in nineteen
sixty seven, but it was only nineteen ninety four that
came out, like that's in our.

Speaker 2 (01:42:57):
Yeah, yeah, lifetime.

Speaker 3 (01:42:58):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:42:59):
Yeah, it was huge news.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
So the defense tried to argue that witnesses that came
forward and people were selling their stories just to kind
of be part of this big salacious tabloid head. And
here as well, where I will bring back up the
seventeen year old girl called Caroline Owens. Remember she was
abducted and raped and tortured, and that was the case

(01:43:25):
I said could have in a sliding doors moment, landed
them in prison. I bring her back up now because
she was one of the witnesses in the case, and
she did admit to receiving a twenty thousand pound payment
to tell her story in the media, and this was

(01:43:46):
used very much against her and other witnesses. By Rose's defense,
she had every entitlement and it was her prerogative to
tell her own story, and she had extreme survivors guilt,
saying in this story when she spoke to the media,

(01:44:06):
I only want to get justice for the girls who
didn't make it. I feel like it was all.

Speaker 2 (01:44:11):
My fault, this poor, how horrible girl.

Speaker 1 (01:44:18):
So I've included that in there to say we've called
it a sliding doors moment. She has lived with that
thinking what if I had testified like it is just
the most awful, awful thought. And this poor girl, who's
a woman at this point, testified on the stand. She

(01:44:39):
went through all of that to make sure Rose West
was put away and she accepted a payment to tell
her story and her story only, and that was used
against her in the core. I swear to God. Defense
lawyers for people as guilty as this have real a
lot to answerform. Multiple wit says and victims of the

(01:45:01):
couple's assaults testified to Rose being the more aggressive perpetrator
of the couple. Neighbors described Rose's glee at Charmaine's disappearance
when she said like good riddance, and her completely casual
indifference to Heather's disappearance. The final witness to testify was

(01:45:23):
a woman named Janet Leech, and you Sammy will remember
she features heavily in the Netflix documentary or I think
it's Netflix the documentary, which I will not bring up.
Janet Leech was Fred's appointed appropriate adult he given his

(01:45:44):
low IQ. He was given essentially like a guardian, someone
to kind of talk to him and act as his representative,
but not in a legal sense. She was not working
for the prosecution or the defense. She was a completely
separate entity who was tasked with talking to him and
helping him, kind of like.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
A social worker.

Speaker 1 (01:46:07):
Yes, yep, yep. Through this role, Fred and Janet grew
quite a close bond, and Fred really grew to trust
her and treat her as a confidant. She testified to
the court that prior to his arrest, he and Rose
had formed a pact whereby if they were ever caught,

(01:46:32):
Fred would take full responsibility for all of the murders,
many of which he had privately described to Janet as
being quote some of Rose's mistakes.

Speaker 2 (01:46:45):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:46:48):
After a seven week trial, a jury unanimously found Rosemary
West guilty of all charges.

Speaker 2 (01:46:56):
Unanimously, nanimously of all of them, ten charges for her yes.

Speaker 1 (01:47:03):
Ten murder charges. There were also charges of sexual abuse
and child just as Charles Mantel described Rose's crimes as
appalling and depraved and noted strongly that it didn't matter
whose hand had struck the fatal blow, that the involvement

(01:47:25):
in any murders of this magnitude made a person guilty
of those murders in the strongest degree. So essentially, when
you know, they couldn't appeal by saying, well, Fred was
the one who strangled this person, or if she was there,
she was implicit, which the jury had found, she was

(01:47:47):
completely culpable and guilty of murder. He noted that few
juries in the world would ever face such vital and
important a task as this one had been owing to
the sheer horror and complexity of this case now they
saw and that I cannot understate how much I have

(01:48:13):
kept out of this report.

Speaker 2 (01:48:14):
Yeah, yeah, how much just from the volume available.

Speaker 1 (01:48:19):
If there were. I actually don't think the documentary even
went into the true horrors, the true horrors, the sexual abuse,
the way in which the women were killed, the things
found with their bodies that suggested that the abuse that

(01:48:40):
had gone on. And I mean, I've read and listened
to things about this that have been put out there
in the media, and I'm just horrified and disturbed. These
jury went through seven weeks of all of the evidence
could be given. Ye aged forty one, Rosemary West was

(01:49:06):
sentenced to life in prison, never to be released. She
has never taken responsibility nor shown remorse for any of
her crimes. Today she is still in prison, aged seventy one.
She reportedly suffers health and mobility issues. She can barely
walk and is housed in a unit in maximum security

(01:49:29):
prison for disabled and vulnerable prisoners. That is where she
will one day die. This, like Fred, is far better
than she deserves.

Speaker 2 (01:49:40):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:49:42):
It has long been speculated that Fred, either alone or
with Rose, committed many more murders. Fred even telling he
is appropriate adult Janet that he had planned to reveal
the location of one more body per year for the
rest of his life, but he inevitably took his own
life before he revealed anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:50:04):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:50:06):
We will never know the entire truth, but what we
do know is that the absolute monsters who are or
were Fred and Rosemary West will never be able to
hurt another person again, and that, somehow unbelievably is a
brief overview of the heinous crimes of I'm going to

(01:50:34):
call them because I hope they are and will be
history's worst married couple.

Speaker 2 (01:50:41):
Yeah, yeah, thank you for that story. I mean, like
you know it. It is such an awful, awful case.
And I remember seeing that documentary on Netflix and going,
this is awful. And I hadn't heard of these two before,
and I've brought.

Speaker 1 (01:50:58):
Them up in numerous epases where we've said, kind of
in passing we've been talking about like Folly Adure, and
we've kind of said in passing it, oh, like Fred
and Rosemary West, and like the House of horrors and
twenty five Cromwell Streets kind of known. And I think
a lot of people, especially a lot of you know,
true crime listeners, people who are you know, I was

(01:51:20):
going to see involved in, hopefully not involved in interested in. Yep,
have heard of Fred and Rosemary West. I think everyone
has heard of Rosemary West. You're not. Everyone knows they
killed lots of people, maybe children involved, maybe their children involved,
not quite sure, but I know there was something about
they dug up lots of bodies in their backyard. Right,

(01:51:41):
the details and the depravity and the years and years
and decades of abuse and not being found and horror
that went on in that house and outside of it
and before it's just as I said, I've known this
story for ever, but researching it, I don't know. Maybe

(01:52:01):
that's what made me sick. Maybe that's why so long
to write it is just I am very happy to
leave that story behind. But before we do, what I
will say is there is discourse around whether Rose was

(01:52:22):
in some ways a victim herself. Right, she was fifteen
when she met the twenty seven year old Fred, and
I think very much my opinion, I would say undoubtedly
she was groomed into being with him. However, for two decades.

(01:52:46):
There are multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple reports, witness testimonies
that all corroborate that she was very much an aggressive.
She definitely killed char Main on her own. That's proven.

Speaker 2 (01:53:02):
Yeah, well, jail at the time exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:53:06):
That you know, whether he's groomed her into being an aggressor,
she was one and continued that way for twenty years.
She never turned around and said, you know, Fred talked
me into this. Fred groom me. Now I'm out of
his I'm not under his spell anymore. I can say this.
She just denied ever having any involvement, which she clearly did.

(01:53:27):
I find it very difficult to side, I suppose, I
don't want to hear side with the discourse or the
argument that she may have been a victim herself. Maybe
that's something to say. I think she was a victim
of being groomed. She was a victim of maybe society

(01:53:48):
and the circumstance in her life in ending up with him. However,
I think when it comes to the murders and the abuse,
sexual and physical of dozens of people over decades, I
don't think there is any There is no sympathy.

Speaker 2 (01:54:04):
From me does Does it remind you a little bit
of the David and Katherine Bernie.

Speaker 1 (01:54:10):
No, I mean yes, sorry, yes, obviously that they're a
married couple, David and Katherine Bernie, I felt.

Speaker 2 (01:54:17):
More Leniencia, right, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:54:22):
That to me felt a bit more like a grooming situation.
I think the the fact that Fred and Rose West's
crimes went on for decades, and that there are multiple
reports that Rose was the more aggressive of the two,

(01:54:47):
makes it really hard for me to see any or
find any Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:54:54):
Sure, yeah, but that's God.

Speaker 1 (01:54:57):
That's coming from a place of extreme and great grateful
privilege that I've obviously not been in a situation anywhere
near that, you know, being groomed and being in in
an upbringing where you may find yourself in that position.
So I very much, you know, caveat that with coming
from a place of privilege, but I find it very

(01:55:18):
very difficult to find to find myself leaning it all
towards a place of feeling like she wasn't extremely composed
and guilty.

Speaker 2 (01:55:30):
In Yes, I would love to see some sort of
like you knows, psychiatrist or someone going this is the
mental state of someone during that time, because those two
like just monsters, yes, you know, and would be you know,
you know in terms of the TV show Monsters with
I Murphy, they would be I would think up there

(01:55:53):
in terms of the next oh yeah, they could do
like you know that Ryan Murphy could do about them,
because they are such monsters. But I do wonder how
you do tell that because it is such a fascinating
thing where even watching the documentary, I was like, what
is going on? It's so hard to know the dynamic

(01:56:15):
of that relationship.

Speaker 1 (01:56:16):
I think one thing for me is that Rose killing
Charmain on her own was really early in the peace.
That was nineteen seventy one, So I've closed the document
I think nineteen seventy.

Speaker 2 (01:56:30):
One four or maybe early seventies.

Speaker 1 (01:56:35):
That was like when they just kind of got together. Yeah,
I mean I don't Again, I don't know the psychology
about grooming and everything, but it's not to suggest that,
you know, there'd been years of where he'd been slowly
ingratiating her into his you know, sick fantasies and sadism

(01:56:55):
and masochism. She killed Charmaine on her own when he
was in prison. Yeah, when Jamaine was only eight, Like,
they don't have been together two years, and all of
the sexually motivated murders came after that. All these sexually
motivated murders were in the seventies. Like it just yeah,
I don't know, I don't feel sorry for that bitch.

Speaker 2 (01:57:17):
No, no, no, not at all, just not saying that. But
it's yeah, it is interesting that the conversations.

Speaker 1 (01:57:22):
With people who go, but she was groomed, you know,
yeah she did this, but she was groomed. She was
a victim herself, And I just find it really difficult
personally to feel that.

Speaker 2 (01:57:31):
Yeah, for sure, what do you think? No, I you know,
I think being fifteen years old, being like, you know,
she's at a bus stop, she's had like, I don't know,
there's something about her. It seems so you know, I
don't even know what the word is, but not not right,
like you know, like.

Speaker 1 (01:57:52):
And then meeting him and saying like calling him revolting
and disgusting, and.

Speaker 2 (01:57:58):
Then met him and then all so hating and having
a hatred for his ex and his life before her,
and having that violence and that anger, Like you just
wonder what this life was and what the where that
stemmed from, because there has to be something other than.

Speaker 1 (01:58:18):
I think Foliodur plays into it a lot of as well.
We speaking about that before. Their concept that you know,
that kind of crazy multiplied. You know, you get two
people with the same wrong thoughts, bring them together, multiplies
those thoughts because they're kind of feeding off each other.
This is a big case of that big case of that.

Speaker 2 (01:58:42):
Huge story. Thank you, g and thank you for doing
it whill you're sick as well.

Speaker 1 (01:58:46):
No no, no, no, no, thank you again. And thank you
beautiful Joe Chrissy. I just kind of met between Joe
Christian and Joe Crazy Christie for filling in for me
when I was away. It's it's been a goddamn yet
I really home twenty twenty six. No, I hope and believe,
and I'm putting out into the universe twenty twenty six.

(01:59:06):
I'm going to be just so much more well and
come and prepared and come that's the word I'm looking at.

Speaker 2 (01:59:16):
It's going to be yeah. And I'm going to be
doing this podcast over the Christmas break well, We're going
to keep your company all over the Christmas holidays. We're
going to have some Christmas themed shows. We have a
really nice time.

Speaker 1 (01:59:29):
We're going to keep going because you know what. I
have been a big podcast fan for many, many years,
and I work in an industry that does not have
Christmas off, and I still drive to work every day,
not Christmas Day, don't you know. I'm not playing my
little not playing mini violin here but over when a

(01:59:50):
lot of other people have. That's funny, Yeah, Christmas break off.
I'm still driving to work wanting to put on my
favorite podcast in the morning.

Speaker 2 (01:59:59):
I'm really annoys.

Speaker 1 (02:00:00):
Me when they all take breaks. So we've gone, well,
it annoys us as listeners when our favorite shows aren't
releasing episodes. So we're going to do it.

Speaker 2 (02:00:08):
Fault you the first year doing the podcast. We want
to keep going and want to keep bringing you the stories.

Speaker 1 (02:00:13):
We just like really want you to be obsessed with
us if you're still here. This is such a long episode,
but hey, maybe this is the new rule. If we
have to take a week off, whether it be for
sickness or a cruise in the Caribbean, we have to
come back with like a double lengths to make up

(02:00:34):
for it.

Speaker 2 (02:00:34):
And Joel Christy, I will say so. Joel came into
the episode. Joel, as he messaged me on his way here, said,
gaze always run late. So then Joel was like half
an hour late, had to be at work, which is
a national.

Speaker 1 (02:00:50):
Radio, live radio, live radio.

Speaker 2 (02:00:52):
So Joel's having a having a lovely time after we finished.
So during the recording, I said to Joel, hey, this
is my place. I was like, Joel, do you need
to go? And Joel said, splash more shard, I've got
ten more minutes, right, So we did. We did the
rest of the podcast. Then I was like, we haven't
got a lot of facts here, so I'll come back
and do it after. I did my own recording after that.

(02:01:14):
But I said to Joel after it because he was
just and then told me amazing stories after that, and
I said you have to go, and he goes ten
more minutes, ten more minutes.

Speaker 1 (02:01:22):
And it was just so how many minutes after he
initially said ten minutes, it was.

Speaker 2 (02:01:26):
About forty minutes. And so then Joel goes a splash
more shardonnay. I love him, And so then was running
and then looked at the time and went, oh, I'm
gonna be in so much trouble for like running lap
to work and everything. I was like, it's fine, it's fine.
And anyway, and then after it was on the way out,
so I had to come back. I have to come back.
I've had so many more stories to tell, So Joel's

(02:01:48):
one of those people that has to come back sometime soon.
We've had amazing responses from Scott Williams aka will Patterson
and Mith Warhurst as well, so those wonderful I guess
the best best.

Speaker 1 (02:02:02):
Oh, you know, the only people in the whole world
who are better than our guests. Right. Oh, we love you, We.

Speaker 2 (02:02:12):
Love you, and we'll be back with the mail bag
section in just air more.

Speaker 1 (02:02:16):
Yeah, We're gonna make it a short one because you
guys are like you feel like we've all aged in
this episode.

Speaker 2 (02:02:21):
Absolutely apart from Diggs, who is sitting with me right
now looking so gorgeous.

Speaker 1 (02:02:26):
It's just a little baby.

Speaker 2 (02:02:28):
We're back after this. Hey there, everybody. We just had
a quick break because we needed a break after this
week's episode.

Speaker 1 (02:02:40):
I know I've had like a break from the podcast
from being sick, but I feel like this has made
me sick in the head this week as well. Don't worry,
I'm not going to take another break from the podcast.
I'll do the next couple of episodes. I love you,
Sammy and I love all of our listeners and I'm
here for you always. Please read me the letters to well.

Speaker 2 (02:03:02):
The first one I'm not going to read to you,
but I'm going to let Brook speak for her. Goddamn
Sammy and Georgia.

Speaker 1 (02:03:09):
It's Brook here.

Speaker 5 (02:03:10):
I've been a long time listener of the podcast, along
with your two Drunkards and previously Confessions where I first
got to listen to Sammy and understanding his weekned sense
of humor. We got to a lot of lockdowns with
that content and took my friends when we got out
of all the Melbourne lockdowns to the Comedy Republic to

(02:03:30):
see a show.

Speaker 3 (02:03:32):
Didn't pre warn them of anything. It was best night
of their lives.

Speaker 1 (02:03:36):
It was. It was absolutely amazing. Thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (02:03:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (02:03:41):
The other thing that happened was I came home one
day and looked up at the balcony across from.

Speaker 3 (02:03:46):
Here and went, it's Missy Diggins.

Speaker 5 (02:03:49):
So by some pure like fate, Sammy ended up in
my building.

Speaker 1 (02:03:57):
I play it cool for quite some time, and who.

Speaker 3 (02:04:00):
Has absolutely loved comedy in Melbourne, so randomly seeing a
comedian or personally through the courtyard and just playing a
cool The other thing I had to play it cool
with Was that Sam you mentioned on this podcast once
that he thought that we could have an only murders

(02:04:22):
in the building kind of situation with Rewindow and what
we could probably see each other's last As much as
I would love to be.

Speaker 5 (02:04:32):
Part of the podcast, maybe not in that kind of
being character anything, but I love the sentiment and love
the pod. Thanks guys for making it.

Speaker 1 (02:04:44):
God Brook, that is hilarious. So many times on this
podcast we've spoken about so the listeners know you have
since moved house, since living in that building that Brook
is talking about. I assume because you can't see any
of the balconies from your new place. Oh my god, Sorry,
did I just docks? You docks all of the buildings
in Melbourne. You can't say another balcony're from. We'd spoken

(02:05:07):
about from your old apartment, how.

Speaker 2 (02:05:08):
You can see all the values everyone everyone's apartments.

Speaker 1 (02:05:12):
And that whole time one of your neighbors.

Speaker 2 (02:05:15):
Knew you and good seeing you do we meet Brookbrook?

Speaker 1 (02:05:18):
That is amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:05:21):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (02:05:22):
Also, what is with that building? There are not that
many parliments in it, but one of your neighbors I
ran into in the courtyard as well, you was the
person who gave me my very first job in Tellivision.

Speaker 2 (02:05:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's incredible.

Speaker 1 (02:05:39):
I feel now, Brook, this is isn't it. I feel
quite good that you moved out of that place. There
are a bit too many, too many connections windows in
the building too quickly.

Speaker 2 (02:05:55):
That is hilarious that you saw Digs and you Digs instantly.
He would have love that. I'm sure you spoke to him.
He'd absolutely love that, Brook. But it's so funny as well,
because I was in the dog park behind like you were,
our walk Diggs regularly, and someone the other day was like,
oh my god, Digs stop it. Yeah and recognized Diggs

(02:06:18):
and he was very excited to get to know them.

Speaker 1 (02:06:21):
Sammy. That's super weird, super weird. But you lived there,
That is amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:06:30):
Look, I hope we had a conversation in that time
as well. I hope that we were running towards that
that huge gate that always broke down so many times.

Speaker 1 (02:06:37):
And also, you've said famously on this podcast many times
you now lived two hundred meters from your old play.
I know you don't even.

Speaker 2 (02:06:44):
Worry about it. The next one comes from our good
friend Melanie.

Speaker 7 (02:06:51):
Hello, Sammy, and Georgia. This is Melanie, and I'm a
huge fan of the podcast and an even bigger fan
of the two of you. I love how you tell
a story. It's like we're all just mates listening in.

Speaker 1 (02:07:03):
So thank you.

Speaker 7 (02:07:05):
Also for telling true crime in a way that doesn't
leave me with that icky, anxious feeling that most other
crime stories do. But I mean, we love to listen
to them, don't we, So thank you for that keeping
me entertained when I'm cleaning, driving, cooking all the things
I do. I'm in the middle of listening to your
latest episode with Myth, and so many moments got me

(02:07:25):
super excited. So I had to leave a speak pipe
because I too, am from the same little sun Asia
bubble and she mentioned she was from road Cliffs, which
I have no idea about. I'm in Irimpaul more Durer,
So thanks for putting a little tropical North Victoria on
the map there. Myth and I have quite a lot

(02:07:46):
of mutual friends with you, Georgia, because I too was
a geo in club menship a few years as a trapeze.

Speaker 1 (02:07:54):
Artist too, So.

Speaker 7 (02:07:56):
Yeah, you just bring back some great memories. Drop that
every now and then, so it feels like a dream
life now. But now that we've both mentioned to club
Med a few times in the podcast, maybe they will
sponsor us to go together on vacation.

Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
I think it would be so.

Speaker 7 (02:08:12):
Much fun just putting it out there anyway. Love you
work guys, and yeah again, thanks for tying such wonderful.

Speaker 2 (02:08:20):
Entertaining, horrendous stories you cut out there.

Speaker 1 (02:08:23):
Oh my god, Melanie, No, no, no, I can't tell you.

Speaker 2 (02:08:25):
I can't tell you.

Speaker 1 (02:08:27):
Anyone who has been even just on a club Med
holiday in their lives will know. It is like there
is something about clubmates. As soon as you hear about
someone else going to club Med, let alone working our
clement as a geo, there is like I'm obsessed, Melanie.
Please message me immediately. I need to know where you worked,
which village you work when I was also artists a

(02:08:50):
clubment as well. Oh my god, Melanie, please message me
who taught.

Speaker 2 (02:08:52):
You to betist club Med? But like someone just randomly
there taught you.

Speaker 1 (02:08:57):
Club Med is a result chain people who don't know,
and some of the result loatus like the White Lotus,
Less murder more Circus, which is the name of my memoir.
Some of the resorts have a flying trapeze as like
an active can do. So my family used to go

(02:09:21):
on club Med holidays growing up, so I learned the
trapeze over time going on holidays. Then I got a
job working at the only Australian club Med on Linderman
Island in Sundays which is no longer there. And I
was working on the reception there and further learned learned

(02:09:43):
more trapeze skills while I was there, and then ended
up being transferred to the club Med in Malaysia called
Cheriting Beach as a circus geo, a trapeze instructor, so
I taught the guests Tropez and I performed circus acts.
Show stop laughing. I know it sounds like a gag.

(02:10:03):
When do I tell people these random little like tidbits
from my life? Every friend of mine's end to me
the other day, how old are you?

Speaker 6 (02:10:10):
Like?

Speaker 1 (02:10:10):
How why do you have so many careers? Where of
these come from? Melanie? Please measure me. I'm desperate to
know which club man he worked down queen and with who?
Because with whom? Because like, oh my god, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (02:10:27):
Sorry, well because I remember once in a talent show
my parents we didn't enter retalent show. But my parents
once took us to like a on a family vacation,
I think in Queensland and.

Speaker 1 (02:10:40):
Tell me you went to lindom And Island. I will
lose my sho.

Speaker 2 (02:10:43):
No, but mum drank a bit of linderman beIN sixty five.
But but yeah, we were like we were. At one
point I got up with my brother and did Don't
Blame It on the Sunshine.

Speaker 1 (02:10:56):
That was one of the club med songs.

Speaker 2 (02:10:57):
Sorry, was it on the book? Was it? Michael Jackson
checks and five Jackson five? Yeah, and did that and
it was just like like a quick like when got
up like that and then like that and it was
just like a like a quick little the wiggles, like
the are you saying that?

Speaker 1 (02:11:14):
The two of you got up and did.

Speaker 2 (02:11:15):
That like for a talent show made okay. It wasn't
like were rehearsed it don't need to.

Speaker 1 (02:11:21):
It wasn't like the whole like people were on stage
doing it and you were copying them. No, oh my god,
I I thought we were going to have a relation
that you've been on Holiday Club mean before.

Speaker 2 (02:11:30):
No, we entered a talent show.

Speaker 1 (02:11:32):
To do that that I need to see footage of yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:11:36):
How long.

Speaker 2 (02:11:38):
Oh, we would have been about like twenty twenty one. No, no,
we would have been. We would have been we would
have been like I know, like he's a year older
than me. I reckon like six and seven. Oh god,
me and my friend Davin we did tap dancing together.
You've met Davin and we got footage of me and
him doing tap dancing together to the song My Boy Lollipop,

(02:12:01):
and that was the song that went.

Speaker 1 (02:12:02):
I'm sorry we have to finished the episode here because
I cannot deal with that real way too.

Speaker 2 (02:12:08):
Cute recommendations because I've already mentioned this once on the
podcast before, but why is crackodcast?

Speaker 1 (02:12:15):
I wanted to bring it up because you recommended it.
I listened to it, loved I don't know why not.

Speaker 2 (02:12:24):
Everyone is talking incredible wise Crack absolutely incredible. It's kind
of like a baby Reindeer esque vibe. Stick with it
because I think when you first listen to it, you
don't know how amazing it's going to be, so stick
with it.

Speaker 1 (02:12:36):
It's one of those ones, is what I loved about it.
I kept thinking different things, like I found myself being
on different sides and thinking it was going to evolved, Oh, I.

Speaker 2 (02:12:46):
Really like Yeah. And the other one is Bethstead, which
is really interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:12:52):
Everyone's talking about it at the moment. I feel like
we can't really say much about that without giving anything.
Just listen to it.

Speaker 2 (02:13:02):
It's, you know, not fascinating.

Speaker 1 (02:13:06):
It's someone's real life story about something they've gone through
unwillingly via a podcast. As in, they've lived this because
of a podcast, and now they've done a podcast about it.

Speaker 2 (02:13:21):
Yes, yeah, so yeah, So listen to those two great recommendations. Also,
g Love has just finished her podcast are Everyone Has
an X?

Speaker 1 (02:13:33):
Took a long time. I finished it. I have finished
the most recent scenes. It will be back. Everyone Has
an X. There are seven seasons now available, ten episodes
each season. Every story is a different standalone story, someone's
story about their ex. Some of them are crime based,

(02:13:54):
some of them are about the breakups. Some of them
are about grief and prison and catfishing. Catfishing.

Speaker 2 (02:14:05):
Yeah, you and I are going to have a great
week because you and I are going to see Genevieve
Morris in a play this week. We're also seeing Alan Davies,
the great British comedian, this Saturday night, which we're very
excited about.

Speaker 1 (02:14:18):
It, and I'm putting up my Christmas treet on Sunday morning.

Speaker 2 (02:14:20):
Now we goddamn Christmas tree. Thank you was always everybody
for leaving five star reviews, five star ratings. You have
to do that right now and whatever app you're on,
the more you do that, the more we can keep
doing this goddamn podcast. Another way is simply sharing this
podcast with a friend also writing to me at Sammy

(02:14:42):
at just Another company dot com dot au.

Speaker 1 (02:14:45):
Please let us know if you have listened to this
entire episode in one sitting without pressing.

Speaker 2 (02:14:50):
Pause even once even and if you have.

Speaker 1 (02:14:54):
Please sit us a selfie of your bloodshot eyes. Yeah,
and I hope you don't have to work at four
today tomorrow morning. Oh my god. We love you so much.
Thank you for listening to our husky voice for so long.
Thank you Sammy and Joel for covering for me while
I was sick. Thank you all for just being like beautiful.
And thank you for to Jonathan Bailey for existing and

(02:15:16):
for one day in the future marrying me. Okay, love you,
Bye bye,

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