Fred West – Bio, Net Worth, Death Cause, Death, Married, Wife, Children, Age, Family, Nationality, Parents, Siblings, Facts, Wiki, Life Story, Trivia

Frederick Walter Stephen West, known as Fred West was an English serial killer who committed at least 12 murders between 1967 and 1987 in Gloucestershire. Many of these murders reflected Fred’s sexual depravity; there was a pattern of rape, bondage, and torture before the killings. He had a sexual interest in his own daughters and tortured and killed two of them, helped by his wife. The duo was arrested several times but was acquitted due to a lack of evidence. West fatally asphyxiated himself while detained on remand at HM Prison Birmingham on 1st January 1995, at which time he and Rose were jointly charged with nine murders, and he with three further murders.  

Famous For

• Being an English serial killer.
• For being committed at least two murders on his own.

Source: @independent.co.uk

Where was Fred West from?

Fred West took birth on 29th September 1941 with the real name of Frederick Walter Stephen West in Much Marcle, Herefordshire, England. He was British by nationality and British-white by ethnicity. Similarly, his religion was Christian and his race was white. Fred lastly celebrated his 53rd birthday in the September of 1994. As per his birthdate, his zodiac sign was Libra. West was born as the first surviving child to his father, Walter Stephen West (1914-1992), and his mother, Daisy Hannah Hill (1922-1968). Fred was from a poor family of farmworkers, close-knit and mutually protective; his father was a disciplinarian, and his mother was overprotective. By 1951, West’s mother had given birth to eight children, six of whom survived, but Fred was always his mother’s favorite.

Talking about Fred’s education, classmates recall him as scruffy, dim, lethargic, and regularly in trouble. Throughout his life, he remained scarcely literate, yet displayed an aptitude for woodwork and artwork. He left school in December 1956 at age 15, initially working as a laborer at Moorcourt Farm.

Fred West Career Timeline, Marriage and Life Story 

• Fred and his brother John frequently socialized at a youth club in nearby Ledbury by 1957, where his distinct and guttural Herefordshire accent marked him as a “country bumpkin”. 
• His 13-year-old sister, the Kitty, told her mother in June 1961 that Fred had been raping her since the previous December, and had impregnated her. Arrested the same month, he freely admitted to police he had been molesting young girls since his early teens and asked, “Doesn’t everybody do it?” He was tried on 9th November at Herefordshire Assizes. Though disgusted by her son’s actions, his mother had been prepared to testify in his defense. Kitty refused to testify, and the case collapsed.
• Then his mother banished him from the household, and he moved into the Much Marcle house of his aunt Violet. By mid-1962, he had reconciled with his parents, but his relationship with most of his family remained fraught.

Marriage

• West became re-acquainted with Catherine Bernadette Costello in September 1962, when he was 21. He had first met Costello, who came from Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, at a Much Marcle dance hall in 1960, and dated her for several months before she returned to Scotland. Costello was pregnant by an Asian bus driver at the time of her marriage to Fred and may have relocated from Glasgow to England due to members of her family expressing their displeasure at her being pregnant with a mixed-race child.
• She married Fred in Ledbury on 17th November and the couple initially lived in Fred’s aunt’s home, then moved to Coatbridge, where Fred worked as an ice-cream van driver. 
• Rena’s daughter, Charmaine, was born in March 1963; to explain the child’s mixed ancestry, Rena and Fred claimed that she had suffered a miscarriage and that Charmaine was adopted. Shortly thereafter, the couple relocated to Savoy Street, in the Bridgeton district of Glasgow.
• In July 1964, Rena bore Fred a daughter, Anna Marie. The child was born at the couple’s Savoy Street home.
• He accidentally ran over and killed a small boy in Glasgow with his van on 4th November 1965. Fred was cleared of any wrongdoing by police but feared the hostile reaction and potential reprisals for the accident from the locals, whom he relied upon to make his living.
• By early 1966, he had begun to exhibit dominance and control over all three women as he was also prone to violent mood swings, and Rena and McNeill typically bore the brunt of his fury.
• He also physically attacked his stepdaughter more than once. He is also reported to have begun sexually abusing Charmaine, and to have encouraged Rena to turn to prostitution to supplement his meagre income.

Murder of Anne McFall

• McFall, aged 18 and eight months pregnant with Fred’s child, vanished in July 1967. She was never reported missing, but her dismembered remains were found buried at the edge of a cornfield between Much Marcle and Kempley in June 1994.
• Fred initially denied he had killed McFall, but confided to one visitor following his arrest that he had stabbed her to death following an argument.
• The following month, Rena returned to live with Fred, and the couple relocated to the Lake House Caravan Park. Their relationship initially improved, but Rena left the following year, again leaving the children in his care. On these occasions when Fred had no woman to supervise and care for the girls, he temporarily placed them in the care of Gloucester social services.

Rosemary Letts

• West first encountered Rosemary Letts in early 1969, shortly after her 15th birthday. Rose started a relationship with Fred, becoming a frequent visitor at the Lake House Caravan Park, and a willing childminder to Charmaine and Anna Marie, whom she noted were neglected and whom she initially treated with care and affection. 
• Within weeks of her first meeting with Fred, Rose left her job at the bread shop in order to become the nanny to Charmaine and Anna Marie.
• Several months later, Rose introduced Fred to her family, who were aghast at their daughter’s choice of partner.
• Rose’s mother, Daisy Letts, was unimpressed with Fred’s braggadocio, and correctly concluded he was a pathological liar; her father, Bill Letts a diagnosed schizophrenic who is believed to have molested his daughter vehemently disapproved of the relationship, threatening Fred directly and promising to call social services if he continued to date his daughter.
• Rose was placed in a home for troubled teenagers in Cheltenham in August 1969 and was only allowed to leave under controlled conditions. On her 16th birthday, Rose left the home for troubled teenagers to return to her parents. Rose opted to live with Fred, resulting in her father forbidding his daughter from ever again setting foot in his household.
• Three months later, the couple vacated the Cheltenham flat and relocated to the ground floor flat of a two-story house in Midland Road, Gloucester. On 17th October 1970, Rose gave birth to their first child: a daughter they named Heather Ann.
• Two months later, Fred was imprisoned for the theft of car tyres and a vehicle tax disc. He remained imprisoned until 24th June 1971. As he served this six-and-a-half-month sentence, Rose, having just turned 17, looked after the three girls, with Charmaine and Anna Marie being told to refer to Rose as their mother.

Murder of Charmaine West

• Rose is believed to have killed Charmaine shortly before Fred’s prison release date of 24th June 1971. She is known to have taken Charmaine, Anna Marie, and Heather to visit Fred on 15th June. 
• Charmaine’s body was initially stowed in the coal cellar of Midland Road until Fred was released from prison. He later buried her naked body in the yard close to the back door of the flat, and he remained adamant he had not dismembered her.

Murder of Catherine “Rena” West

• When her body was discovered, a short length of metal tubing was found with her remains, leaving an equal possibility she had been restrained and subjected to a sexual assault prior to her murder. Rena’s body was extensively dismembered, placed into plastic bags, and buried close to a cluster of trees known as Yewtree Coppice at Letterbox Field, about 1 mile (1.6 km) from Much Marcle.

Marriage to Letts

• Fred and Rosemary married on 29th January 1972 and Rose became pregnant with her second child, the couple moved from Midland Road to an address nearby: 25 Cromwell Street. On 1st June, Rose gave birth to a second daughter. The date of her birth led Fred and Rose to name the child Mae June.

Prostitution

• Rose started to work as a prostitute shortly after giving birth to her second child, operating from an upstairs room at their residence and advertising her services in a local contact magazine. Fred encouraged Rose to seek clients in Gloucester’s West Indian community through these advertisements. In addition to her prostitution, Rose engaged in casual sex with both male and female lodgers within their household, and individuals Fred encountered via his work; she also bragged to several people that no man or woman could completely satisfy her.
• By 1977, Rose’s father had come to tolerate his daughter’s marriage, and to develop a grudging respect for Fred. When Bill Letts discovered Rose’s prostitution, he would also visit to have sex with his daughter. By 1983, she had given birth to eight children, at least three of whom were conceived by clients. Fred willingly accepted these children as his own and falsely informed them the reason their skin was darker than that of their siblings was that his great-grandmother was a black woman.

Domestic violence

• When each of the West children reached the age of seven, they were assigned numerous daily chores to perform in the house; they were rarely allowed to socialize outside the household perimeters unless either of their parents were present, and had to follow strict guidelines imposed by their parents, with severe punishment-almost always physical-being the penalty for not conforming to the household rules. 
• The children feared being the recipients of violence from their parents, the vast majority inflicted by Rose, occasionally by Fred. The violence was sometimes irrational, indiscreet, or just inflicted for Rose’s gratification; she always took great care not to mark the children’s faces or hands in these assaults.
• Fred occasionally became the recipient of his wife’s violence. On one occasion in August 1974, Rose chased after Fred with a carving knife in her hand; Fred was able to slam shut the door of the room into which he had run as Rose lunged at him with the knife, resulting in the knife embedding itself in the door, and three of Rose’s fingers sliding down the blade, almost severing them from her hand.

Initial sexual assaults

• In September 1972, the Wests led eight-year-old Anna Marie to the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street, where the child was ordered to undress, with Rose tearing her dress from her body upon noting the child’s hesitation.
• In October 1972, the Wests hired 17-year-old Caroline Owens as their children’s nanny. They had picked her up one night on a secluded country road as she hitchhiked from Tewkesbury to her Cinderford home, having visited her boyfriend. 

Murders

• Three months after the Wests’ assault trial, the couple committed their first known murder. The victim was a 19-year-old named Lynda Gough, with whom Fred and Rose became acquainted through a male lodger in early 1973. 
• Following the murder of 18-year-old Juanita Mott in April 1975, Fred concreted over the floor of the entire cellar. He later converted this section of the household into a bedroom for his oldest children, and he and his wife are not known to have committed any further murders until May 1978, when Fred either with or without Rose’s participation but certainly with her knowledge murdered an 18-year-old lodger named Shirley Robinson. Robinson had first met Fred at The Green Lantern cafe in April 1977 and had taken lodgings with the Wests the same month. She was heavily pregnant at the time of her murder.
• The final murder Fred and Rose are known to have committed with a definite sexual motive occurred on 5th August 1979. The victim was a 16-year-old named Alison Chambers, who had run away from a local children’s home to become the Wests’ live-in nanny in the middle of 1979.

Arrest

• Fred indicated his wish to be arrested for Heather’s murder and to be taken to Bearland police station to provide a full confession; he was then arrested and formally cautioned. At 11:15 that morning, Fred formally admitted to police he had indeed killed his daughter, albeit in an act of manslaughter. 
• The following day (26th February), police began excavating the section of the garden at Cromwell Street where Fred indicated he had buried his daughter’s body. Shortly after 4 p.m., police found a human thigh bone protruding from a section of the garden Fred had insisted police need not look in. 
• Between 5th and 8th March, police found six further bodies of young females at 25 Cromwell Street. Each victim had been extensively mutilated, and each body bore evidence of having been subjected to extreme sexual abuse prior to the act of murder.

Formal charges

• Fred and Rose West were brought before a magistrates’ court in Gloucester on 30th June 1994; he was charged with 12 murders and she with nine. This was the first time the couple had seen each other since Fred’s February arrest.
• Immediately after this court appearance, Fred was re-arrested on suspicion of murdering Anne McFall, whose body had been found on 7th June but had not been officially identified until this date; he was formally charged with McFall’s murder on 3rd July, appearing in court the following morning.

Fred West Death Cause

• West hung himself on 1st January 1995 in his cell by wrapping an improvised rope he had constructed from a blanket and tags he had stolen from prison laundry bags around his neck, then binding this device to a door handle and window catchment, and sinking to his knees.
• At the bottom of the suicide note found in his cell was a drawing of a gravestone, within which was written: “In loving memory. Fred West. Rose West. Rest in peace where no shadow falls. In perfect peace, he waits for Rose, his wife.”

Victims

• Fred and Rose West are known to have committed at least 12 murders between 1967 and 1987; many of those connected to the case believe there are several other victims whose bodies have never been found. 
• Prior to his suicide, police had recorded over 108 hours of tape-recorded interviews with Fred as on several occasions, Fred made cryptic hints he had claimed several other victims, but refused to divulge any further information beyond that he had murdered 15-year-old Mary Bastholm in 1968 and buried the body on farmland near Bishop’s Cleeve. He also claimed to have killed one victim while working on a construction project in Birmingham, and that other bodies had been buried in Scotland and Herefordshire.
• To his appropriate adult, Fred claimed there were up to 20 further victims he and his wife had killed, “not in one place but spread around”, and he intended to reveal the location of one body per year to investigators.
• Furthermore, the locations of almost all the burial sites of victims both discovered and undiscovered was symbolic to Fred, as each had been buried at or very close to the location he had lived in or worked at the time of the victim’s murder.

Fred West Television Career

• Channel 5 commissioned a three-part documentary series about the murders. The series, entitled “Fred and Rose: The West Murders”, was the first broadcast in October 2001.
• Discovery Networks Europe commissioned a documentary focusing on the West Murders as part of their Crimes that Shook the World series. Entitled “Crimes that Shook the World: The Wests”, this documentary was released in 2006.
• The two-part British crime drama television mini-series, “Appropriate Adult”, was screened in September 2011. 
• A second documentary commissioned by Channel 5 about the West murders, “When Fred met Rose”, was screened in November 2014. 
• The ITV documentary “Fred and Rose West: The Real Story”, narrated by Trevor McDonald, was scheduled for broadcast in the UK on 31st January 2019.

Who was Fred West Wife?

Fred West was a married man. He met Catherine Costello, who was a prostitute. She was then pregnant with another man’s child. Fred married her in November 1962, and her daughter Charmaine was born in March 1963. In 1964, Catherine gave birth to Fred’s daughter Anna Marie. Catherine got murdered in 1971. Then in November 1968, he met Rosemary Letts, who was a teen at that time. She was born after her mentally ill pregnant mother was given electro-convulsive therapy, which may have caused a prenatal injury that would eventually lead to her bouts of aggression. Rose gave birth to Fred’s daughter Heather in 1970. In January 1972, Fred married Rose secretly, and their second daughter Mae was born in June 1972. As the family grew, they moved to 25 Cromwell Street. By this time, Rose had started earning money as a prostitute. In August 1973, Rose’s son Stephen was born. Her daughter Louise was born in 1978. Barry was born in 1980, Rosemary Junior in 1982, and Lucyanna in 1983. Rose had several other children, and not all were fathered by Fred. Concerning Fred’s sexual orientation, he was straight.

Everything That You Need To Know About Rose West

Source: @theweek.co.uk

How much was the Net Worth of Fred West?

Fred West was an English serial killer who had a net worth of thousands of dollars till the time of his death whereas his salary amount had not been disclosed yet. He purchased the property from the council for £7,000. West had not done endorsement work for any brands. In addition, his major source of income was his serial killer career.

What was the Height of Fred West?

Fred West stood at an ideal height with a balanced body weight. He had black hair and dark brown eyes color. Fred’s body build type was average.