Hey y’all, it’s Julie Mattson, and this week on Pushing Up Lilies, we’re heading across the pond to the UK to explore one of the most disturbing serial killer cases in British history, Fred and Rose West, the infamous husband-and-wife duo responsible for a string of brutal murders spanning decades. Together, they lured vulnerable young women, some of them their own children or tenants, into their Gloucester home, where many were abused, tortured, and murdered, then buried beneath the floors and garden. In this episode, I’ll walk you through how this twisted pair got away with their crimes for so long, the shocking discoveries made at 25 Cromwell Street, and how justice finally caught up with them. This one is dark and difficult, but it’s a case that shocked a nation and changed the way investigators approach crimes within families. Join me as we step inside the House of Horrors and uncover the horrifying legacy of Fred and Rose West. * Listener discretion is advised.
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00:06
Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies. I'm your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing Up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
00:24
Do I have some stories for you? Are you ready? Hey guys, I am sitting here having my Dr. Pepper Zero. It is kind of what gets me going every morning. I know we all have that drink. Mine used to be coffee, but now it's Dr.
00:43
Pepper Zero. I mean, I've always been a Dr. Pepper girl because, you know, I'm from Texas and you know what they say. My husband's like, you've got Dr. Pepper going to your veins. And that's probably true.
00:54
I don't drink enough water, but I am literally addicted to Dr. Pepper Zero. It tastes so much better than Diet Dr. Pepper, but that's how I start my day. It's not a good day if I can't have one as soon as I wake up.
01:08
And who else is addicted? It's literally crazy. Me and my coworker, Bob, we take turns every morning on our way to the medical examiner's office, buying each other Sonic drinks. Mine is always a Diet Dr.
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Pepper with vanilla and Bob's is half and half tea. And so it's so funny because in the mornings, we always text each other to see who's going. But I only work Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and he works the same day.
01:38
So we're always there on the same day. So usually it's him Monday, me Tuesday, him Wednesday, or whatever. So anyway, it's so funny. But that's one thing I love. I think I've told y'all about our little medical examiner family is that we're all friends.
01:54
It's really nice to have that. I mean, I've had jobs, they're miserable and I'm I'm sure all y'all have too and some are still stuck. And I hate that because I've been in that position. I know how miserable it is.
02:10
You'd drive into work and your shoulders are tense and you're gripping your steering wheel and it's not because of traffic or anything else other than just you dread going to work. It's kind of nice to finally, of course I've had this job here for 11 years, but it's nice to be in a position where you don't dread it, you know.
02:32
You enjoy seeing your coworkers and you look forward to lunch with them and you visit throughout the day. We have like one big office so we can all just sit and talk. It's just nice and we help each other, and I love the work relationship that we all have.
02:48
But anyway, I know that even though I'm sitting here having my Dr. Pepper Zero now, that Bob's probably going to bring me a Diet Dr. Pepper with vanilla from Sonic and it'll be sitting on my desk waiting and many times I'll stop and get donuts or just something for everybody.
03:04
Yesterday was our boss Jen's birthday so shout out to Jen. We all went to Olive Garden for lunch. There were nine of us and so it was just really nice. We had a nice visit. That's kind of one good thing about our office too is you know our phone never stops ringing.
03:21
We're 24-7 but we do get to eat occasionally and so we just answer our phone when we're not in the office. Of course our night shift people have the luxury of working from home which when I first started doing death investigation I was on nights and I was in a bigger office so we had a morgue and we had staff in the morgue and we had a transport crew that actually worked for the medical examiner's office and so we were all there at night and we didn't have the luxury of working from home.
03:54
We were at the office all night long. It's wonderful. We love it here. I know that everybody kind of goes I can't wait till y'all get your own medical examiner's office and your own pathologist but you know what I'm not looking forward to that day and I'll probably be retired when that happens and I'm glad because that luxury of being able to like my shift starts at five a.m.
04:16
You know the luxury of being able to stay in bed and not be at the office until eight is amazing. If we had a morgue and a staff that had to be in and out I'd have to be in the office at five and that wouldn't be cool.
04:29
Done it before and I just don't want to do it again. Anyway, I heard that our night shift had kind of a rough night. I always hate when that happens. I think we had three scenes drop like within 30 minutes of each other so we had all three investigators that were on duty as soon as I went off all got seen so I know that they were super busy and it's all It's always weird when some of them are in the same place.
04:54
Two of them were at the same apartment complex and they were completely unrelated. Anyway, that's always kind of interesting, but very convenient. You know, as a death investigator, you're like, just walk next door.
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I can remember years ago in Houston, I had just a natural death, but the guy was decomposed. And then literally two houses down, there was a house fire. And so it was just weird. It was really weird because it was so convenient.
05:22
I just walked from one to the other. And we've even had investigators who've had neighbors pass away and they literally are on shift, and they walk across the street or next door. So, it's a little bit convenient, but you never know.
05:37
It's not always that way, of course. Half the time we're driving from the north end of the county to the south end of the counties. Anyway, I want to talk a little bit about Fred and Rose West. And there is...
05:52
a Netflix documentary on now. I watched some of it last night. I didn't get to finish it, but it's Fred and Rose West, A British Horror Story. The thing is, I'd never heard of this couple. I was already doing research on them when I discovered that there was a new Netflix documentary out on them.
06:14
The home of Fred and Rose West on 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, England, was transferred into a torture chamber. And this was over a span of about two decades. And they tortured their own children, as well as other unsuspecting women and girls.
06:34
This couple were rapists and serial killers, and they had daughters, a lot of daughters. Charmaine, Anna-Marie, May, Tara, Heather, Louise, Rosemary, Junior, which I found was kind of funny. I didn't realize the people named their daughters Junior.
06:52
I don't know if that was her real name or if they just said Junior, because the mom was Rose, but, and Luciana, and then they had two sons, Stephen and Barry. Now, both Charmaine and Heather were killed by their own parents after years of abuse.
07:09
Could you imagine, as a child, just like surviving that, you know, a lot of people would go into a deep depression after having gone through that. And I can't help but think that I would try to find something good about it and like speak about it to others, or I don't know.
07:27
I don't know what I would do with that. But I always love when people try to do good with their bad experiences, if that makes any sense at all. But Fred and Rose killed at least 10 people and sexually abused numerous others, including their own children, until they were both arrested in 1994.
07:52
I'm getting my little text from Bob saying he's getting donuts and so I'm going to tell him that I'll get drinks, so I love it. Okay well we gotta have food and drink because we gotta stay awake and alert and we need some sugar so anyway some of the surviving children have spoken out over the years about the abuse and how they've healed and that would have to be super hard although I have to think like I said that I would be one that would try to teach or help others who'd been through the same thing if I had been through that but Fred born Frederick Walter Stephen West in Hertfordshire England on September 29th of 41 was the eldest boy in his family and he grew up on the family farm.
08:40
He claimed that his mother sexually abused him from a young age and his father had also reportedly sexually assaulted his sisters. So, I mean, I know that a lot of people have a bad childhood. And that doesn't mean you have to carry it on into your adulthood and abuse your own children.
09:01
I don't find that to be a good excuse. I just don't. I mean, I know that I don't love everything my parents did when they were raising me and everything that happened as a child. But I took those things and did the opposite when I had my own children.
09:20
As I'm sure a lot of you did, because we didn't want to make the same mistakes that our parents made. I mean, that's just what we do. We don't want our kids to go through what we went through. I mean, I didn't have a bad childhood, but I'm just saying, just because you did doesn't mean that you have to carry on the tradition.
09:41
Anyway, basically, this is probably what he's saying caused all the behaviors that he had. Now, Rose was born Rosemary Pauline Letts in Devon, England. And she was born November 29th of 1953. Also allegedly grew up being sexually abused by her father.
10:03
And we do find that a lot of people who are abused later become abusers. And that is true, not of most people, but of a lot of people. Again, if you change it up a little bit so that you don't make your kids go through what you went through.
10:19
Fred was 27 when he met Rose at a bus stop. And she was only 15 at the time. And this was back in 1969, so I was one whole year old. Now, at the time, he was married to his first wife, Catherine. Shortly after Rose turned 16, she moved in with Fred.
10:39
And that October, they welcomed their first daughter, Heather. And then a few years later, in January of 1972, Fred and Rose married. So, Rose then began, this is so weird, engaging in sex work during her marriage to Fred who would often watch or participate.
11:02
Again, weird. You do you, but weird. Fred's eldest child was Charmaine, who was his ex-wife Catherine's daughter from a previous relationship. Catherine was pregnant with Charmaine when she and Fred began their relationship, and Charmaine was born in the spring of 63 in Glasgow, Scotland.
11:25
Now Anna Marie was born to Catherine and Fred in July of 64 in the same city. After Fred began a relationship with Rose, the two of them had Heather in October of 1970 in England, and then came Mae, Barry, and Stephen.
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And then Rose had daughters, Tara, Louise. Rosemary Jr. and Luciana reportedly born from sexual relationships with other men who were presumed to have been her clients because, you know, she did sex work.
12:01
Over two decades, Fred and Rose West murdered at least 10 women and girls, and the total might be higher. Of course, we never know with these serial killers, like, especially when they're hiding bodies like these guys.
12:15
We only know what they tell us, and we only know what deaths are related, or that we think are related. So, they allegedly sexually abused even more people, including their own children, and a seller that they used as a torture chamber.
12:31
Now Fred and Rose would pick up women that they found hitchhiking, and then bring them home, and basically, you know, saying, hey, we have a ton of kids, which they did, we need a nanny. So, they would ask them to be a nanny for the children, and that's how they would get them to move into their house.
12:47
They would both rape and beat the victims, forcing them to have sex with others. And at least one victim, Caroline Owens, left after Fred's advances towards her. She was very uncomfortable. She didn't like it.
13:04
Several weeks later, she ran into them, and they both sexually assaulted her. I don't know what all is behind that story. I don't know how she ran into them, and how she ended up being in the situation that she was to be assaulted alone with them, because she was already uncomfortable with Fred's advances and had left their house.
13:24
So, I'm not sure the whole backstory to that, but Owens later escaped their home by going to the laundromat with Rose and then running away. The pair were arrested, but charges were dropped when Owens was too traumatized to testify.
13:43
And I know that that is so hard. I mean, when I did sexual assault cases, it was difficult. for the children to get up on stand and testify and Owens was an adult or I don't know she may have been a teenager I'm not sure exactly how she was we're gonna cover all the victims in the next episode but she couldn't testify and it is difficult I know that I've testified a lot of sexual assault cases I have seen the victims on stand it's hard it's hard to sit in front of the difficult I've always been so proud of the people who get up there and just tell their story Fred and Rose dismembered their victims before burying them so allegedly they took body parts like fingers toes or even kneecaps as trophies among their victims were two of their own daughters Charmaine and Heather Charmaine had disappeared in 1971 when she was eight years old Rose had allegedly murdered her while Fred was in prison for car theft,
14:51
so, I mean, really. He later buried her under the kitchen window when he was released. Rosa's like, hey, take care of this. So, he buried her outside. Their oldest daughter, Heather, was 16 when they killed her after she threatened to report the abuse to the police.
15:13
Her remains were found buried under the patio in the garden behind their house. And the couple said that she'd gone to live with her mother. I think I told y'all the story about the kids whose mom was on hospice, and they found their siblings' bones in the attic in a rubbermaid.
15:32
They believed mom when mom told them that she went to live with their aunt. And they never saw her again. And you lose touch. And as children, I mean, way back then, there weren't cell phones, so it's not like you could just holler at your aunt and be like, hey, I want to talk to my sister.
15:46
They all probably believed this story, and they probably hoped it was true because she wasn't being abused, but in August of 1992, social workers retained custody of the surviving children of Fred and Rose after child abuse allegations.
16:04
The children said that their parents would joke about Heather being buried under the patio. Can you believe that they would say that to their children? It's almost like an everyday threat, like your sister's been buried, we killed your sister, you better behave.
16:20
It's like an everyday threat, and they made it a joke. But anyway, that was reported to the police. So, after six months of finding no evidence that Heather was alive, I don't even know why it went six months.
16:32
I tell you what, if someone had said to the police here nowadays that there was a child buried under the patio, the police would have been digging that patio up within five minutes, I guarantee you. Anyway, six months went by, and there was no evidence that Heather was alive.
16:49
was alive. So on February of 94, two years later, police obtained a warrant to search the property. Fred actually lied and said that he had seen her recently. When officers went to the house to search it, he confessed to murdering her.
17:07
So, he was arrested, and Rose was actually arrested a year later. And, you know, they keep saying on the documentary that, you know, he keeps saying that she didn't have anything to do with it. She didn't know about it, but I'm sorry.
17:20
There is absolutely no way that your spouse is killing, raping, murdering and torturing people and you don't know about it. Rose did deny involvement with the murders and Fred returned to the home to help locate the victim's remains after he was arrested.
17:38
Fred eventually died by suicide on January 1st of 1995 while he was awaiting trial. Rose pled not guilty. And she basically insisted that Fred committed the murders alone and that she attempted to stop at least one of the sexual assaults.
17:56
Well, thank you, ma'am, but you should have stopped all of them. At least one, like that's supposed to be a pat on the back. I don't think so. She was convicted of all 10 murder charges. And in November of 1995, she was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
18:12
And she did appeal that her appeal was denied. Now, Anna Marie, their oldest surviving child, was the only one to testify against her and the abuse that she suffered. In May of 2025, so this is just this month, Anna Marie's husband said that she was estranged from all the siblings, even though they all kind of live fairly close.
18:37
May is married and has at least two children. And she wrote a book in 2018 called Love As Always, Mom. And that was published again in 2018. And it basically talks just about her struggles to come to terms with the crimes that her parents committed.
18:57
In her book, and it's always funny how sometimes victims find the good still in the perpetrators. But in her book, she talks about Rose being tender and gentle at times with a sense of humor. And then she talks about Fred being sometimes friendly and that he made the kids laugh a lot.
19:16
It's just kind of funny how they can still find good in these people when they're raised in such abuse. Now, Steven, one of the sons, would frequently run away from home. And he cut ties with his mom, Rose, back in 1999.
19:35
Three years later, he spent nine months in prison for statutory rape. He apparently raped a 14-year-old girl. He's now married with two children and works in the construction. business. He tries to keep the family history from his kids.
19:51
That, I think, is super smart. Again, you know, some people just carry on the tradition of abuse and neglect and sexual assault, and some people choose to make it a part of their past and move forward and try to be positive.
20:07
Barry West, the other son, died by suicide in August of 2020. He was 40 at the time. He was receiving mental health care, and apparently, he was so bad that he was living in assisted living, so he couldn't even like completely be on his own.
20:25
One of the journalists, Howard Sorns, reported that he was haunted by seeing his parents murder his sister. He apparently was very immature for his age and had some mental problems related to what happened.
20:38
You know, who wouldn't, honestly? Tara Louise Rosemary Jr. and Luciana all allegedly had their names changed back in 92 after they were taken into foster care. They wanted to try to move on with their lives is what it sounds like.
20:54
They didn't even want the name. Rose had become known as one half of Britain's most notorious serial killer couple. She grew up in England. Again, she had six siblings and while her mom was pregnant, she was treated with electroconvulsive therapy for depression, which may have read to Rose's craziness and her abnormal behavior as a child.
21:19
They said that sometimes she would just stare into space and then at other times she would like bang her head on things. Who knows? I mean, that electroconvulsive therapy was brutal. Fred also dealt with psychiatric issues of his own.
21:35
And then Rose was groomed and sexually assaulted by her father and may have even been abused by her grandfather. Fred, on the other hand, reportedly suffered multiple instances of head trauma, which they say kind of changed his personality.
21:51
And we've seen that before in traumatic brain injuries. But in one instance, he shattered his skull in a motorbike accident that left him unconscious for seven days. And then he'd also reportedly suffered some brain damage from a previous fall.
22:10
Now, when he was younger, back in 61, Fred's sister Kitty accused him of raping and impregnating her and he was arrested. And he did confess, but Kitty declined to testify. So the case was closed. Again, how could this case possibly be closed?
22:28
Like your sister says you raped me and I'm pregnant with your baby. You confess. And just because she wouldn't testify, the case was closed. I mean, there's proof in the child. The child belongs to your brother.
22:41
I don't understand how the police. could just close the case. Like, okay, you don't want to testify, fine, we're done. But Fred and Catherine, his first wife, so this is Fred's first wife, lived with a nanny.
22:53
So this was kind of interesting too, when you go back, a nanny and her teenage friend, Anne McFall. And in 67, when McFall was 18 and eight months pregnant with Fred's baby, she disappeared. And decades later, her body was one of the ones that was found buried in a field, Fred confessed to murdering her after an argument.
23:19
The other eight women murdered between 1973 and 1979 were Linda Goh, Carol Ann Cooper, Lucy Partington, Teresa Seigenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Juanita Mott, Shirley Ann Robinson, and Alison Chambers. So, they were all two.
23:42
tortured, dismembered, and buried under the couple's home. The strange thing is too, is that between 1972 and 1992, so over a period of 20 years, the children of Fred and Rose were admitted to the hospital on 31 different occasions.
24:02
And it was never reported to social services. That would never happen these days, like never. The family was never investigated, despite the kids having bruises and excessive absences from school. Heather and May had been the primary subjects of their father's sexual attention.
24:23
Heather reportedly presided in friends about the abuse which infuriated Fred and Rose, as you can imagine. When Louise was 13, Fred actually began sexually abusing her, and she confessed to a friend who told her mother, and then the mom made an anonymous report.
24:46
Finally, the children were examined by doctors, and the abuse was confirmed. Rose is currently serving a life sentence at HM Prison New Hall, a female and juvenile prison in West Yorkshire, England. Okay, why are we in a juvenile prison?
25:03
I mean, I know it's a prison, but when we've sexually assaulted children, why are we with children? Anyway, the home where a majority of the murders were committed was demolished. As of 2011, Rose spends her free time listening to music, playing board games, and teaching cross stitch to fellow prisoners.
25:23
She's been transferred to several different prisons because at one point, they uncovered, I guess, a plot to kill her. They moved her so she couldn't be sound or people didn't know where she was. Anyway, the story is just creepy and just the years of abuse.
25:42
you know, kids not coming to school and being covered in bruises and kids disappearing and sexual assault and the police dropping the case because the victim wouldn't testify. All that is just crazy to me.
25:56
And again, I don't think would ever happen now. I mean, when you think about it wasn't that long ago, but 30 plus years ago, things were apparently different. And you know, I'm in Texas, we take it very seriously.
26:08
Maybe they don't in England. I don't know. Not quite sure how that works there. But anyway, next week, we're going to talk a little bit more about the victims and a little bit more about the abuse that they each suffered and some of their history.
26:22
But I do recommend if you're interested in the story, go into Netflix and watching it. Because it's horrifying. And when they interview Fred, he's so calm, like he's so calmly like, yeah, she's buried there.
26:35
I put her there like it's nothing like he doesn't even care. And you know, the children knew that they had murdered and tortured two of their siblings. And so that had to have been horrifying. And as a child, I would have probably told everybody.
26:50
I mean, I would have gone to school and told my friends, and it would have been investigated. But I don't know, maybe they threatened them, and they just didn't do it because they were scared. Who knows?
27:01
Who knows? But anyway, it's terrible to think that children are raised in a home like that. And it goes on for years and years undetected. I can imagine that the PTSD is real and the mental health issues that they have to deal with later are almost debilitating.
27:20
I can only only imagine. But yeah, I'm looking forward to visiting with y'all next week about the victims and talking a little bit about them. I'm on my way to work this morning and everybody just better behave.
27:32
That's all I can say. Like I said, I know they had a busy night. Super excited, y'all. We have our very first annual, and this will be an annual event, I hope, our very first annual Pushing Up Lilies murder mystery dinner.
27:47
It's going to be held October 11th at Prairie House Restaurant in Crossroads, Texas. We will have chicken and beef fajita buffet, as well as a acted out murder mystery. This is going to be a three-hour event.
28:06
Haven't decided on the time yet. I think it'll start at six, which is just kind of a one hour visitation type event where we can have like some hors d'oeuvres and the actors can actually visit with the people who attend and they can kind of pick out who they think might be the better actors to take part in the murder mystery.
28:26
And then the murder mystery itself is two hours. It's going to be so much fun. There's going to be giveaways. Super excited about this event. We are going to roll out a holiday box. I have like some great ideas, y'all.
28:41
Let me just tell you. I'm that person that is up at three in the morning because I have an idea and I'm on my phone and my husband will turn Over and he'll be like, oh, it's it lightning and I'm like, no, it's my phone But yeah, that's me.
28:53
I just think of ideas and if you have that entrepreneurial spirit, you will completely understand It's kind of crazy, but it's a good thing. It's a good thing, right? Because here we are Anyway, I do have my patreon Encourage you to get on there.
29:09
There are free memberships. There are also paid memberships that will get you some little extras But we will have giveaways at the murder mystery. That's gonna be super exciting I'm gonna roll out some things that will be for our VIPs then attend that little dinner Anyway, it's gonna be fun.
29:28
I want to let everybody know and plenty of time I will probably put the tickets on Eventbrite so they can be purchased in advance We will probably limit it to 60 people because of space we have to have enough room for the actors It's going to be amazing.
29:42
I'm looking forward to it. I'm super excited. I just like everybody that loves true crime being together and just having that opportunity to visit and get to know each other. Yeah. So I think that's it, but I'm headed to work.
29:54
Everyone better behave. I hope y'all have a great day and I will talk to you next week. Bye y'all. Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies. If you like this podcast and would like to share with others, please do me a quick favor and leave a review on Apple Podcast.
30:13
This helps to make the podcast more visible to the public. Thanks again for spending your time with me and be sure to visit me at pushinguplilies.com for merchandise and past episodes.