Grisly plots to KILL Rose West behind bars revealed – from sock stuffed with pool balls to threats from fellow killer

The Sun

29-05-2025

SERIAL killer Rose West is considered among the most sadistic murderers in British history.
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In 1995, Rose was jailed for life for her callous crimes after police uncovered multiple mutilated female bodies buried in their garden, under their patio and in a sex-dungeon cellar.
Fred never faced justice for his crimes, killing himself in HMP Birmingham before the couple's trial.
However, Rose was among the few evil criminals to be sentenced to a whole life term - meaning she will never be released from prison.
And the vile killer's story did not end when she went to jail with Rose, now 71, subjected to numerous threats behind bars over the years.
West has now spent nearly 30 years in prison, with regular transfers due to threats of violence from other lags.
She previously served her sentence at HMP Bronzefield, Middlesex, but was moved to Low Newton in 2008 after a plot to batter her with pool balls in a sock.
She then spent 11 years at Durham's Low Newton where she was allegedly targeted in other attacks.
Locked up with other lifers, in HMP Durham, her former legal representative Leo Goatley says she had been targeted in an arson attack.
He revealed to The Sun: "Rose was on a female wing with lots of other women serving long sentences, women who just wanted to get on and have some peace and quiet, even though they'd been convicted of some serious offences.
"About two years after her conviction, in the late nineties, they had women serving shorter sentences coming into the wing.
"Someone tried to set light to her cell and that was a total disruption for her.
"Rose was never scared of these women but she wanted her space and to get on with her life.
Netflix documentary delves into the crimes of Fred and Rose West with new testimony and footage
"That was her home so to be moved out of her cell she found distressing."
And it is also believed she was moved on after threats from a fellow serial killer.
Joanna Dennehy - who was convicted of murdering three men within 10 days in Peterborough - allegedly threatened to kill West during her time at HMP Durham.
However, a former inmate who claimed she had been in prison with West dismissed the security concerns and said no one could have gotten near her.
West, who was moved once again in 2019, is now being held in a special unit at women-only HMP New Hall near Wakefield in West Yorkshire.
She has been at New Hall for six years and enjoys a cushy life.
West is one of 36 women serving life sentences at the jail, and one of around a dozen over the age of 60.
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She is allowed a comfortable life behind bars despite her ongoing refusal to help investigators find the remains of 20 other rumoured victims of her and her husband.
But insiders said she sometimes lashes out at staff if she does not get her own way.
The Wests have come back in to the spotlight upon the release of new Netflix docuseries Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story.
The harrowing crimes of the couple, who were branded 'the epitome of evil' in court, came to light in 1992 after their daughter Louise, 13, accused Fred of rape and Rose of child cruelty.
The case collapsed when eldest daughter Anne Marie, who was abused by them from the age of eight, refused to testify but remarks by the West children raised serious concern with police.
They launched a major investigation after hearing the youngsters were regularly threatened to be buried 'under the patio like their sister Heather', who vanished five years prior.
Collectively the Wests killed at least 12 women and girls - ranging from youngest victim, Rose's stepdaughter Charmaine, eight, to the eldest Fred's ex-wife Catherine 'Reno' Costello, 27.
Eight of the murdered young women were teenagers, some of whom lived with the couple.
Others were employed as nannies and some schoolgirls were abducted from the street.
LIVES LOST: The victims of Fred and Rose West
By Raphael Adelugba, Tanyel Mustafa and Caroline Peacock
Anna McFall
The nanny of Fred and Rena West's children, McFall was believed to have been murdered in 1967.
She was pregnant when she died, with West believed to have been the father.
Her body was found in June 1994 in a shallow grave.
Fred West denied murdering McFall but he is said to have confided to a visitor after his arrest that he stabbed her following an argument.
This happened before Rosemary West met him.
Charmaine West
With Fred in prison for the theft of car tyres and a vehicle tax disc, Rosemary was left to look after Fred and Rena's daughters Charmaine and Anne Marie.
A neighbour Tracey is said to have found Charmaine tied to a wooden chair with her hands behind a back with Rosemary standing with a large wooden spoon.
Rosemary claimed she'd been taken by her mother, but her skeleton was found at the Midland Road property, hidden and missing bones.
Rena West
Rena is believed to have been murdered by strangulation.
Rosemary was not charged for this murder.
Lynda Gough
Lynda Gough was the first sexually motivated killing conducted by the Wests.
She moved into Cromwell Street in April 1973, having had affairs with several lodgers.
The Wests later claimed she'd been asked to leave after hitting one of their children.
Strangulation and suffocation were the likely causes of death.
Carol Ann Cooper
Cooper was murdered in November 1973, aged just 15.
On the night of November 9, she was allowed to spend the night at her grandmother's house before a doctor's appointment the next morning.
She attended the appointment and then met her boyfriend, before somehow ending up on Cromwell Street.
Her body was found more than twenty years later.
Lucy Partington
A 21-year-old medieval English student at Exeter University, she returned home for Christmas in December 1973.
She left a friend's house in a rush to get the last bus from Cheltenham to Gretton on 27 December, with it believed she was abducted from this bus stop.
She was found more twenty years later, her dismembered body in the cellar of Cromwell Street.
Therese Siegenthaler
A 21-year-old Swiss sociology student at Woolwich Polytechnic.
She had planned to hitchhike to Ireland in Easter 1974. Her family reported her missing having not heard from her for some time.
Prosecution believe she was abducted before being killed, with Fred West later building a fake chimney over her grave.
Shirley Hubbard
Just 15 at the time of her death, Hubbard is believed to have been abducted by the Wests.
Her body was found following an excavation in the concrete and plastic membrane of the cellar floor.
Juanita Mott
In the summer of 1974, Mott moved into 25 Cromwell Street but later went missing when she was living in Newent.
Her body was found in March 1994, 19 years later, with West having concreted over the floor of the cellar.
Shirley Robinson
The first victim buried outside the house, Robinson had an affair with Fred West, and by autumn 1977, she was pregnant with West's child.
It was initially claimed she had moved to Scotland but her body was later found.
When questioned, Rosemary West, herself pregnant with her daughter Tara at the time of the murder, claimed she did not remember her, which was described as 'ludicrous' by the prosecution.
Alison Chambers
The last murder with a sexual motive established. She disappeared just before her 17 th birthday, having been seen at 25 Cromwell Street throughout the summer.
Her body was buried underneath the patio.
Heather West
The first child born to Fred and Rosemary West, there is no evidence she was aware of the killings.
Sexually abused by her parents and having told friends, she suddenly went missing in 1987, with Rosemary claiming she had gone to Wales to be with a lesbian partner.
The couple would joke to their other children that they would 'end up under the patio like Heather' if they misbehaved.
This, and their changing stories, lead to the search warrants for the property, which lead to their arrests.