Smirking Fred West made sick joke as he revealed where bodies were hidden… he'd killed so many he had to number graves

The Irish Sun

14-05-2025

UNDER the cover of darkness, serial killer Fred West was led by cops into the back garden of his home.
Wearing welly boots and a quilted jacket, he cut an innocuous figure as he scuffed the ground and pointed nonchalantly to the spot where he had buried daughter
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The Wests hid dark secrets behind a veneer of normality
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Fred West confessed all to police volunteer Janet Leach
Credit: Netflix
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Fred West pointed to where he'd buried his victims, while Janet watched on
Credit: Netflix
Police would go on to find another two bodies under the patio slabs and another six women in the cellar of 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester but, on that cold, rainy February night in 1994, only West knew what
As he played cat-and-mouse with detectives he turned and winked at police volunteer Janet Leach - then later taunted her with the chilling truth, even cracking a sickening joke.
In a never-before-seen interview shown in a new Netflix documentary about the killer couple, Janet said: 'It was really strange.
"It was dark, it was raining and he was upset about the state of his garden more than anything. He just kept looking at me and winking as if it was some sort of game.
Read more on serial killers
'When we got back (to the police station) I said to him, 'What did you mean, what were you looking at me for?' He said, 'Didn't you see that bone sticking out? It's just by the back door'.'
Mum-of-five Janet was a trainee social worker who was working as a 'responsible adult' - volunteers who sit in on police interviews with vulnerable suspects - when she was drawn into West's evil world.
He confessed to Janet how he killed so many women that he couldn't remember their names - and drew her a numbered map of where he had buried victims in his cellar.
Over 10 months, the then 39-year-old spent more than 400 hours in a remand cell with West and, astonishingly, was often left alone with him.
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By June 1994 he had been charged with 12 murders and his wife Rose, with ten.
In November 1995 Rose was found guilty of 10 murders, including that of eight-year-old stepdaughter Charmaine in 1971, and
Netflix's Fred & Rose West A British Horror Story launches 14 May
The Netflix documentary - Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story, out today - also reveals how West confided in Janet and shows the extent to which he played games with cops, slowly unveiling the wicked killings as more and more bodies were discovered.
Janet sat in on West's first grilling with detectives when he told them: 'I never meant to hurt Heather at all. All I wanted to do was persuade her to stay at home.
'But by this time I had no control over me thoughts at all [sic]. There was a piece of electric flex, I believe it was 13 amp, and I picked it up and I thought, well I better make sure that she is dead, so I tied it around her neck
'I used a bread knife to dismember her.'
Horrified by the gratuitous details, Janet said: 'I think I was in a state of shock. (I thought) 'What on earth are you actually doing here?'
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Janet accompanied West during a search of his property
Credit: Netflix
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The sick couple in the early days of dating
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Police dig for remains at Cromwell Street
Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
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Janet was left so horrified by West's crimes that she suffered PTSD
Credit: SWNS
'West said to me after, 'Will you come again tomorrow?' I said, 'I don't know about that,' and that's when the police said, 'Will you come tomorrow?' I should have really said no.'
Even West's solicitor Howard Ogden was shocked by the matter-of-fact nature in which West detailed his daughter's murder.
He tells the show: 'A man described murdering and dismembering his daughter but it wasn't with floods of tears and distress and anxiety. It was simply a black and white set of facts.'
It was a pattern which continued with West showing not a shred of remorse.
When we got back (to the police station) I said to him, 'What did you mean, what were you looking at me for?' He said, 'Didn't you see that bone sticking out? It's just by the back door'
Janet Leach
Janet was alongside West when he went with detectives to the dank cellar of his house - where he often made his
She said: 'I had some paper and he drew a diagram of the cellar and numbered where each of the bodies were because he couldn't remember the names. He just numbered them.
'I just hated the man but couldn't afford to let any of my feelings come out because he seemed to see that and the trust wouldn't have been there.
'He said all the children slept down there. It was really dark and damp, the smell was awful, I just… I could smell it even when I went to sleep at night.'
Why West turned on wife Rose
By Grace Macaskill
FRED West did everything he could not to implicate wife Rose in their despicable crimes - until she snubbed him in court.
In previously unheard police interviews, West claimed he kept his wife 'pregnant' or 'with other men' while he killed innocent victims.
He told detectives: 'I've been tempted over the years to tell Rose, I must admit, but I never did.
'One reason is that I didn't know how she would take it, what she'd do, whether she'd walk out on me, or what would happen. Whether she would think she was at risk.
'I mean, Rose might look a bit hard-faced and all that, but she is as soft as a kitten.'
When cops quizzed West on an earlier comment he made about he and Rose being "as one", he remarked: "Well yeah, but there's a slight difference. A lot of difference between evil locking together and love."
When the couple set eyes on each for the first time since their arrest at Gloucester Magistrates Court in June 1994, Fred gently touched his wife's shoulder but she blanked him.
He turned on her within days, telling police: 'You know what Rose is doing now? Distancing herself from me.
'See I'm beginning to wonder, did Rose have any love for me at all or was I somebody there to use all the time.
'The reason I couldn't tell the truth (about the killings) is because I'm protecting somebody. I'm still protecting somebody. I can't say no plainer than that.'
When asked if he was shielding Rose, he replied: 'I didn't do it on my own.'
Leo Goatley, Rose's defence counsel during her initial arrest, told how she showed 'a look of glee' when told about her husband's suicide.
He tells the Netflix documentary: 'I wasn't sure how Rose was going to feel. They were husband and wife and she loved him.
'I got to see Rose and she was calm, she was quiet. There was a tear in her eye, yet a slight look of glee in her face and, in her mind, (she maybe) thought she could well be off the hook.'
The documentary, which features unseen footage and unheard interviews, shows the moment West returned to his previous home in Midland Street, Gloucester, and showed police where his young daughter Charmaine was hidden.
Janet said: 'He was just looking around the back yard, (there was) just like, a crack right up the house, and there was a mark on the wall and he said, 'That's where Charmaine was,' in the middle of the foundations.'
West's lawyer Ogden said West was like two different characters as he paid a visit to the cellar.
'It was really strange,' he said. 'He talked like everything was so matter-of-fact. Then he'd get a bit upset, then compose himself - it was like two different people.
He talked like everything was so matter-of-fact. Then he'd get a bit upset, then compose himself - it was like two different people
Howard Ogden
'He marked the floors where the bodies were, which had been drawn on (his) diagram and quite near to the chimney breast.'
West's crime had such an impact on Janet that she suffered a stroke during Rose's trial. She later sued police, claiming she suffered from post-traumatic stress, but the case was thrown out of court on a technicality.
Janet's son Paul later told the Sun on Sunday how his mum 'fell under West's spell' and was devastated when he was discovered dead in his cell.
Hidden microphones
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Pictures of the Wests' victims - Ann McFall, Catherine 'Rena' Costello, Charmaine West, Lynda Gough, Carole Ann Cooper, Lucy Partington, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Juanita Mott, Shirley Anne Robinson, Alison Chambers and Heather West
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Inside the cellar of the house of horrors
Credit: SWNS:South West News Service
Paul, who was 18 when West killed himself, said: 'I've never seen a woman so heartbroken. She was hysterical, screaming and crying her eyes out, an absolute mess.'
Between them Fred and Rose West, now 71, raped, tortured and killed 12 women and girls between 1967 and 1987, including his first wife Catherine Costello, who he married in 1962.
As the couple's bloodlust grew they sought out vulnerable women, who had very often been in care, to stay at their house.
They also enticed young women into their car, with Rose's presence in the front seat used as a way to make them feel safe.
The victims were taken to Cromwell Street where they were bound, gagged, sexually assaulted and murdered.
He couldn't remember the names. He just numbered them
Police volunteer Janet Leach
Yet neighbours had no idea what went on behind closed doors.
Ex neighbour Elizabeth Aguis said Rose once told her about her life as a prostitute and 'went into details that she had microphones or something in the bedroom'.
She added: 'Fred was on the opposite side of the room because he liked to listen to things like that. But it was their life, and it was up to them to do whatever turned them on. I never took much notice really.'
Elizabeth, who lived near the couple on Midland Street, Gloucester, was later called as a witness against Rose after she told her she liked to go out at night with Fred to pick up hitchhikers.
'I escaped Fred West'
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Caroline Owens is the only victim to have escaped the pair
Credit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
The West's ex-nanny Caroline Owens was the only victim to escape the couple.
She fled Cromwell Street as a 16-year-old in January 1972 after they asked her to 'join their sex circle' but weeks later the Wests spotted her on the street and offered to give her a lift.
Talking in old footage, Caroline said: 'They put a gag in my mouth, tied my hands behind my back and put a blindfold on me. Then they put me on to this mattress on the floor and that's when the sexual assaults started.
'In the early hours of the morning all of that stopped. Fred grabbed me by my throat, lifted me up, shouting at me, telling me 'When I'm finished with you I'll kill you, bury you under the paving stones'.'
Caroline went to the police but could not face the trauma of giving evidence and, unbelievably, the couple were fined just £50 for the attack.
The pair's former lodger Hayne Hamer, who was just 16 when she moved in in 1976, tells documentary makers how she forged a bond with 18-year-old Shirley Robinson, who was also staying at the house.
The West's victims
Most of the sick couple's victims were lodgers or women they picked up while hitchhiking
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 Rose West met him.
Charmaine West
With Fred in prison for the theft of car tyres and a vehicle tax disc, Rose was left to look after Charmaine and Anne Marie.
The former just eight-years-old, was Fred West's stepdaughter from his previous marriage.
A neighbour Tracey is said to have found Charmaine tied to a wooden chair with her hands behind her back with Rose standing with a large wooden spoon.
Rose claimed she'd been taken by her mother, but her skeleton was found at the Midland Road property, hidden and missing bones.
Rena West
Fred's first wife Rena is believed to have been murdered by strangulation.
Rose 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, Lucy returned home for Christmas in December 1973.
Lucy (pictured) 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 hitch-hike 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 his child.
It was initially claimed she had moved to Scotland but her body was later found.
When questioned, Rose 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 Rose 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 her mum 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, led to the search warrants for the property, and subsequently to their arrests.
Shirley confided to Hayne that she was pregnant with West's child.
Hayne cries: 'Whenever I think of Shirley it hurts. She was there when I needed a friend and she should still be here now.'
In police interviews, West tells police how he killed Shirley after they got into a row because he wouldn't run away with her to Bristol and wanted to stay with Rose.
He is recorded saying: 'Shirley said, 'Well, I'm going down to tell Rose that this is yours' (the unborn baby). And I turned around and I just smacked her straight in the jaw and she went on the floor.
'I got a piece of flex and tied it around her neck.'
The murder also saw the loss of Shirley and West's unborn child but - as ever - he showed no sympathy, calling her 'the girl who caused the problem'.
Fred and Rose West: A British Horror Story is available to stream on Netflix today.
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Shirley was killed while pregnant with Fred West's baby
Credit: PA:Press Association
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The Wests' daughter Heather was 16 when she disappeared in 1987, though the Wests had never reported her missing
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Police carry on their search for human remains in the garden of the Wests' Cromwell St home
Credit: Getty Images
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Eight of Fred and Rose West's victims were found buried in their home and garden
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Fred and Rose West raped, tortured and killed 12 women and girls between 1967 and 1987
Credit: Rex Features