If you’ve never heard of Fred and Rose West, they’re the British couple who murdered at least a dozen people in England back in the late 1900s. There’s an interesting Netflix series on it, three episodes, and you have to wonder how they managed to kill for so long without getting caught.
Couples who are serial killers are rare. Sexual depravity among serial killers is not only common but almost universal. Ted Bundy was the first American serial killer to be loved by the press, and therefore the public, but Bundy’s behavior was sanitized by the press. Even as news stories talked about his soaring intelligence (which wasn’t true) and his ability to charm women (which was overplayed) they left out the necrophilia and cannibalism. Bundy’s undoing may have been an odd form of suicide for he wandered down to Florida and murdered a twelve year old girl. Florida will execute someone for that sort of thing, and Bundy knew it.
Fred West denied his wife, Rose, had anything to do with the murders, and for years they both said he was the sole murderer. She was a prostitute operating out of their home, and Fred liked watching.
While Fred was in prison for a short while, his daughter from a previous marriage was murdered but the body was not found for over twenty years. Fred led them to where the body was hidden, and this is where the story gets even stranger than ever before.
The ten or so women who were murdered, and Fred West confessed to all of the murders, was one thing. But the murder of the eight year old daughter of Fred West and his ex-wife, was pinned on Rose.
No confession, no murder weapon, no cause of death, no witnesses, and no evidence of time of death, yet Rose West was convicted of this murder and nine others. Fred had conveniently committed suicide in prison before the trial.
Do I think Rose was involved in the murders? At the very minimum she had to know about them. The one victim who escaped claimed Rose was a willing partner to rape and attempted murder. Yet that is one witness who did not come forward for over twenty years. No other evidence exists. The bodies buried in their cellar and under their patio speaks to at least one person in the house knowing what happened, and Fred West confessed to all the murders. Both he and Rose said she had nothing to do with it.
In an American court of law, Rose either walks free or gets out on appeal. In a jury box, if given the lack of evidence against her, and also given that Fred defended her until the trial began, you’d find one, maybe more, jurors unable to pull the trigger on Rose.
I think she was 100% guilty. But I also think they didn’t prove it. The members of the jury simply refused to believe a woman lived in the same house with a killer who buried bodies in their basement yet never knew what was going on. I refuse to believe it, too.
Take Care,
Mike
In the US, if one is convicted of murder and is placed on death row, they stay there for years as their appeals go through and either one gets through and they go free, or they all run out and the person gets to own underground furniture.
And in court (at least in the US), I believe one has to be found guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, so the lack of evidence can help the defendant. I imagine British courts work similarly.
By the way, the late 1900’s ended 25 years ago.
Tim, I’m not sure the United Kingdom has the same endless appeals process we have but I am certain she’d have an easier time getting out on a technically here. Some guy would fall in love with her, marry her, get her pregnant, the state would pay for her prenatal care, and she would have the baby at taxpayer’s expense. Her new husband would write a book, go on the talk show tour, she would be declare insane, released, find Jesus, and start a megachurch and make enough money to pay someone to murder for her.