Frederick West

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British homicide; charged with 11 murders, nine of them with his wife, Rosemary. West first married 11/17/1962. He met Rosemary late summer 1969 and they married after West's wife Rena was murdered in 1971. Rosemary was born 11/29/1953, time unknown. One account gives Barnstable as her birth place, another gives Northam, England. They shared a knowledge of each other which bound them together, a dark and monstrous link. In 1994 the two serial killers dominated the British news. Their grisly story began its countdown on 2/23/1994 when the police arrived at #25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester with a search warrant. It seems that pieces of bodies had been discovered by workers who were clearing blocked drains. Two days later they found the body of the West's daughter, Heather, in the garden, along with a stepdaughter, Charmaine, and other dismembered corpses. All of the victims were young women who had been sexually abused, tortured and butchered. Other young women who could be connected with the West's had disappeared over the years and their bodies never found. The West house had been used as a brothel and it seemed strange that no one ever reported hearing screams from the torture dungeon. When Rosemary worked as a prostitute, Frederick listened in through the intercom that he had wired into her room. On 6/02/1994, Fred West was charged with 11 murders and Rose jointly with 9. Fred committed suicide in prison, hanging himself in his cell on 1/01/1995. Rose faced the counts alone in a trial that began 10/03/1995. On November 22, she was found guilty and given ten life sentences.