House of Horrors: Fred & Rosemary West | Unspeakable Podcast by Kelly Jennings

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

0:51 Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all, welcome back to another episode of Unspeakable. What's going on? I'm so glad to have you here. I'm feeling good and I've got a pretty good, I think a pretty good episode for you today. Before we get started, though, I wanted to tell y'all that quarterly gifts are coming up in December, so get ready for that. I've got some good stuff coming your way and shirts, don't forget. You can go to unspeakablethepodcast dot com and you can find all my merch there and you can order online and it's pretty simple thing to do. I've got something else coming out for my Patreon members. It's gonna be members only glasses, but this time it's whiskey glasses, not wine glasses, so through more inclined to those. They'll be available pretty soon. But I also have an all listener opportunity where I'm gonna put out my hey, y'all, Mason Jar glasses and they have like a little handle on my little country self saying hey, y'all, I thought i'd commemorate that putting it on a glass, So look for that. So glad that y'all like the stuff on putting out, and I hope that you'll get you something if it tickles your fancy. But before I start the episode, I do have some shout outs I want to give, starting with Miss Samantha England all the way from Kentucky. Hey, Samantha, how are you? I want to call you Sam. I don't know if you go by that though, so don't want to make you mad, But hey, Sam, if you like it, if you don't ignore that. Miss Mary Ballard, I'm so tickled Miss Mary.

2:12 I know you, you know me. She's a local girl from Denham and I'm so always so impressed with her. She has a son that has Down syndrome and I follow him. His name is Christopher, and I just love watching this kid thrive. He actually graduated high school, he went to college, graduated from college, and he is doing big things. So even though he wasn't listed on here, Miss Mary, please tell Christopher I said hey, and let him listen to my shout out and tell him I'm his biggest fan. And I love watching him dance when he works at the grocery store. So he's just a triple threat. Okay, intelligent, he dances, and he graduates college. So hey boy, how are you? And hey, miss Mary, thank you so much for your continued support. I really appreciate you. And then Oregon, what I've got Shane Bowen from Oregon.

2:54 Hey, Shane, thank you so much for joining. So glad to have you as well as Miss Laurie. Is it Elias because that's my nephew's last name, E L I A S. I mean that's his first name, it's your last name. But hey, Laurie, how are you doing all the way from Clinton, Louisiana, A little drive down the road. I'm so glad to have you as well. And last but not least, all the way from California, Miss Holly Pritchett, Hey, Holly, how are things in Cali? I've never been there. I want to go. I want to go check it out. I feel like there's some aren't there some wineries there? I might, I might would really enjoyed them, So I might have to take it on to Cali. But hey, girl, thank y'all so much. Your support means everything. And I was thinking about it this morning. When the day comes where I'm able to podcast full time, it is on like fricking donkey Kong. I'm gonna be rolling out more episodes than your heads could even muster the strength to listen to. But I can't do it yet. I'm still a full time teacher. So I'm doing my best, and I'm gonna go ahead and get started on this episode.

3:53 Now. I don't know if you've ever heard of Rosemary lets but I'm gonna give you all the information I found on this thing here. Now, Rosemary Letts, she went by Rose too, but she was the fifth of seven children born to a working class, you know, family, and something that was kind of important in her life to note was that her parents both suffered with extreme mental health issues. And you know how difficult that can be to deal with when people are, you know, having struggles mentally, and then they're raising obviously a whole gaggle of kids here. But it's also reported that her father physically tormented the family and regularly sexually abused Rose and her sisters.

4:40 So she's kind of got a lot happening here in childhood. And she was born in nineteen fifty three, so she you know, she's older than I am. But something that was commented on that I thought i'd released too is that you know, when mom has mental illness and she's pregnant, that number one is a bad combo, but also when she has a problematic pregnancy, that just adds to the frustration and the and the problems that you know, pregnant women would deal with. And I remember this. I had a problematic pregnancy with my first child because I was sicker than shit and I was a hot mess, a hot you know case, glass case of emotion, whatever you want to call it. But I was sicker than crap, pukean all of the time. But I didn't have mental illness. I mean, my husband might say I did, but I don't think I did. But uh, just going through a whole lot of things, and then in order to try to help herself. Rose's mom, while pregnant with her, went and got electro convulsive therapy for deep, deep depression. So arguments were made that, hey, and I'd say for good cause, that maybe this affected Rose.

5:53 You know that her mom had this this electro therapy done and something that that you know, as Rose was growing, she didn't do too well in school, okay, and so she had this lackluster performance. She didn't seem like she was the top of the intelligence chain there, and a lot of people were like, oh, what must because her mom had that electric convulsive therapy. So curiosity did get the best of me on this one. So I did research it a little bit, and I found out that science actually completely disagrees with what I would have thought and what a lot of people say in terms of electro therapy to a fetus. So I went to the National Library of Medicine and it said that the indication and appropriateness of electroconvulsive therapy and pregnancy must be carefully weighed against the risks of an untreated mental illness and those of alternative treatment options. Well, her mother was considered to be of high risk, okay, but mental illness and depression on top of problematic pregnancy.

6:46 But according to them, it says the safety of this therapy and pregnancy has been documented for over fifty years, and the adverse effects on the fetus are similar to the risks in any individual, And the most common risk that they came up with was that the mother might have premature contractions or premature labor. But you know, other than that, there was no association of electroconvulsive therapy with congenital anomalies or any type of morphological or behavioral issues in the fetuses after it, So it kind of seems like science was like, no, she should have been just fine. So you kind of have to poo poo that idea that was put out there. Okay, so maybe this therapy wasn't a factor in her poor performance whenever she was growing up, But there was a whole lot more going on in Rosa's life than just a poor performance in school.

7:43 Something that was noted was that she seemed overly aggressive compared to other girls her age as she was growing up. In combination with that was that she suffered a weight problem, and so it seemed like she had a whole lot of problems that she was dealing with She was hyper aggressive, and she was overweight, and so she was, you know, a little on the on the edgy side. And I'm sure that alone would have been really difficult to navigate, even if you had proper support from parents to guide you. But then you add the mental illness of her parents, and you mix that with these other problems, and you could see how maybe this girl was gonna end up going down a problematic path. Another issue with little miss Rose was that at a really really young age, she was showing a very obvious interest in older men. So you know that that sent me kind of in the throes of an endless rabbit hole, because I'm like, I want to give good information about why, you know, why do young girls seem to not all of them, but why did they seem to think that older men are attractive?

8:52 Right, especially when they're young, and they don't they don't shop within their own age, you know, age bracket. And so simply put, what I found, based on some psychology websites and articles and things that I read, is that ultimately it's just that they crave stability. It's a misappropriated a relationship where they think that they're misappropriating the stability that they want with love and sex and that sexual attention from an older male. So most people, you know, they're going to spend their younger years, you know, figuring themselves out. And something that's attractive to a young person who's coming from instability is that older men seem to already have it worked out right. I mean, they may seem well established professionally, and then financially they're in a better position and personally speaking, they're in a much better position than the young girls would be. So if you're attracted to that, it would make total sense to me. Success can make you feel protected in a relationship, like if you needed help, he could take care of you. Specifically in place is where it's like he's super successful in his career. He might be able to discuss fascinating, you know, things that he's done or that he's been through that you, as a young person, haven't yet experienced. He might have a nice home or his apartment might be well furnished, and he's had years to make this environment that would seem really really advanced to a young girl.

10:20 And the fact that he's settled financially, the risk taking is less and it just seems way more stable. But the problem is that's what a young girl should be looking for in a male figure, father figure, and instead you're looking at it as a sexual figure, but fulfilling the father roles. AKA, we all talk about daddy issues. That's pretty much what I just summed up for you. She got some daddy issues. She looks for an older man to fulfill that void. So it makes sense to me, your dad can't provide what you're wanting, so you search it out. But that sexual component is added. And this would have been even more enticing to a young Rose, Okay, and more entice because her marriage, her parents marriage was described as an extremely turbulent marriage and her father was also diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. So just I don't know, just a young person trying to figure out life and you're dealing with this level of craziness. I could see how that could kind of jack somebody up. Now, because of this diagnosis, it left him prone to violent behaviors. And Rose would say that these violent behaviors, she would say, were like a dictatorship, and that Rose would be constantly, you know, terrified during these episodes, and she kind of would cower, and she would bend and do whatever her dad told her to do. Now we have these things just for craps and giggles, I'll tell

11:52 you called protective factors and risk factors, and this crazy dynamic would weigh heavily on the side of risk factors for Rose, because it means when you don't have stability and you can't depend on your parents and then you're in a fearful state that puts you at risk for more risky behaviors or doing things that are outside of the normal age, you know, activities. But one protective factor that Rose did have was the fact that her mother, her name was Daisy, eventually left her father. That would have been great, you know, and she took Rose with her, so she was able to separate her from her father. But unfortunately that one good step her mother took would be short lived and they would move back in with her father rather quickly, so it was like she got to escape, but then rather quickly was brought right back into the situation they just left. And about that same time, Rose would have been fifteen years old, so a young teen trying to figure out her life, and that is when she would meet a man named Fred West, and they met at a bus station and quickly would begin a sexual relationship.

13:03 Now, one big issue that may strike you as it struck me, is that Rose was fifteen and Fred was in his late twenties, like twenty eight to twenty nine. You know, pedophile much. It's a young girl, you're a grown ass man. Either way, way too damn old, way too old for a sixteen year old to be starting a relationship with. Added to that insult would be the injury that not only was he too damn old, but he was married. So we have a married man out here, you know, running the streets, cheating on his wife and hooking up with a fifteen year old girl. He's gross amongst other terms I could use, but gross comes to mind. So he was married to a girl that or a woman that they called Rena. Now Rena was not her real name, but that was the name that she went by, but Rena Costello. And together Fred and Reno Rena had two kids. But very quickly their relationship kind of had soured and she would end up leaving him because she said, you know, domestic abuse was at an all time high in this relationship, and she didn't want to deal with it. So a grown woman dealing with an abuser is one thing, right, but a young girl of fifteen taking on this type of man is a whole different ballgame, a different world, and something I would argue she's not prepared nor ready to take on. So she likely looked up to him right like I just mentioned, and felt as though

14:37 he would act as a protector of her, something she liked in her father, and she needed that, right, She needed somebody that was going to say you matter, you're important, I love you. The problem is he's a thirty thing near thirty year old man who's married, and that's not where you probably need to go when you're searching for a partner, all right. So the reality was, though whatever his issues may have been, her father objected heavily to the two of them being together. So even if he was a paranoid schizophrenic, even if he was mean and tormented her, he still had the mindset to say that ain't good and he's too old for my daughter. But it was just of no use. Rose was gonna do what Rose wanted to do. So she was rather strong willed, And something else that I noted was that she seemed to lack the regular level of fear that a teen would have in response to her father's wishes. I'm not saying all teens are going to agree with her dad, obviously, right, young girls know everything and dads know nothing. But she did not have that healthy fear of her dad of where maybe I ought to do what he says. She didn't have it at all, Like it was gone and she had been doing what she wanted for a while. Now Daddy wasn't going to change that, even so far as she was displaying troubling sexual like sexually charged behaviors. And it was kind of strange, like she had no objections to displaying herself in the

16:08 nude, like no shame to walk about the house naked as a fifteen year old girl in front of her father or her mother or any of her siblings. And that's a bit troubling. You know, an ounce of modesty is worth something. But she didn't have it, and she didn't care. Was it rebellion, I don't know. Was it just a sense of I can control who sees what on me since I can't control anything externally, I don't know. You can figure that out for yourself and decide, but either way, she didn't have that modesty about her and there were other troubling behaviors that she was displaying as a young girl too. Reportedly, she molested her younger brothers. And something a lot of people don't realize is that sexual abuse amongst siblings happens way more frequently than people realize. And there's even some research that suggests that the most common form of child sexual abuse with sibling abuse occurs up to three times more often than sexual abuse by a parent. So we hear all the stories of parents abusing kids sexually and we're horrified by that. What if we multiplied at times three and we're having to look at the siblings, right, And so, just to explain this to you, why would a young girl molest her younger brothers? And it's really, I think tied back to the lack of control with her father and the lack of power she felt.

17:29 Because sibling sexual abuse, y'all, is all about power. It's very rarely about pleasure. So you know, research would even indicate that the misuse of power is present in most siblings sexual abuse cases. And when thinking of power, someone in a parent role may be the first to come to mind, right, because you're the adult and you're supposed to be in charge, but siblings can be in a a position of power as well, and often when you're the older in age and you're more advanced developmentally, that would make sense that Rose would be the one that would abused her younger brothers. Not saying it's right, just psychologically speaking, I guess it falls into place.

18:11 But either way, there was a lot of misconduct by everyone in the family, whether it was mental illness driven, whether it was sexual abuse, whatever the case was, there was a tumultuous family life going on behind those closed doors. So here she is with an older man. Rose is with this older man, Fred, and you know he is obviously going to be her love interest. And as you can probably guess, young girl hooks up with older man. Guess where Rose finds herself shortly thereafter? That's right, knocked up, all right, So she's pregnant by this older man, and very quickly on she would even have to take on an even more important role, and that role would be called stepmother because Fred, being the amazing man that he is, already had two other children from that first marriage to Rena, and he would soon be sent to prison, obviously for his taste in young girls. Right, I mean, duh, he needs to go to prison.

19:14 Wrong, that's not why he was sent to prison. That actually had nothing to do with the fact he was having a sexual relationship with a teenager. He went to prison on various charges, but most of them were along the lines of like petty theft and like tax evasion or not paying fines that he was supposed to find pay things like that. So Rose would go on to give birth to a daughter, and this is around nineteen seventy and she would name their daughter together, Heather. Around nineteen seventy two, she and Fred West would marry. That is beyond me, this grown man marrying a young girl. But hey, he can control her, right He was married to an older woman before, older than comparatively to Rose, and he couldn't control her right now, Arguably, our pickers are probably broken when we're teenagers.

20:06 And I would say Roses was broken, faux show, Like you know, we have to learn about people. And she very quickly and way too young, chose someone and then quickly had a child with him and then made him her husband. But who was her husband prior to their marriage. Let's go down that road. Let's set Rose aside for a second, and let's go talk about Fred real quick. That we met at a bus stop. So Fred was born originally into a poor farm working family, and his parents' name were Walter and Daisy West. But he was one of many children, and he wasn't necessarily a product of superior breeding or anything. At school, he was said to be talented, like using his hands. He was pretty good at woodworking and art, but he did not excel academically. So it kind of sounds like Rose and Fred as far as academics go, we're two dumbmasses in a pod. They weren't very good at schooling. And according to those that knew him, Fred was really really close to his mom, like really close. In fact that, according to Fred, his mother started abusing him at age twelve, and that also tied in with that claim was that his father was forcing him to participate in bestiality with sheep. So old Fred from a young age is, you know, being abused by his mom and having sex with animals at the urging of his father. Now, interestingly enough,

21:37 one of his younger brothers, his name is Doug. Doug vehemently disputed this and said, no, you know, Fred's a liar and there wasn't any abuse in our home growing up, and that's just total nonsense. But adding to the confusion of truth and lies is that one of Fred's sisters, her name was Kitty, you know, little Kitty Forward, and claimed that their father had raped all of his daughters. Specifically, she said that at age thirteen, she even went and confided in her own mother that not only was Dad raping them and having ancestual sex with them, but her brother, Fred was also raping her. Now, even worse than being raped by your father and your brother is that as the result of the rape from her brother, she had become pregnant. So she's pregnant with her own brother's child.

22:40 But she wouldn't carry that baby to term. And I tried to figure out why or what happened, and I'm not sure, honestly. I looked for a while and I was like, Okay, well, you know this is fruitless. But she did not carry that baby to term for whatever the reason would be. But according to Fred, incest was an accepted thing in their family, and Fred was even quoted as saying that his father told him, quote, do whatever you want, just don't get caught. Now you would think that Fred's lying, right, no way that this can happen. But let me sidebar just for a second. Y'all know, I'm in Louisiana. There is a facet of our society. It's not large, but they believe that it is the role of the father to introduce the daughters sexually to a life of what it's like. And this is documented, and there are plenty of cases of this that you could look up. But where fathers are taking their daughter's virginity in essence is what it is. So even though Fred's a piece of shit, I'm not doubting that maybe that did happen because there was so much other stuff going on that was rampant. And I also am incline to believe it because this would actually end up being he would end up going to court over this, all right, So don't forget that. So Kitty got pregnant as a young girl, and Fred then shortly thereafter he left school

24:15 at age fifteen. Okay, and two years later, around nineteen fifty eight, Fred suffered a fractured skull, a broken arm, and a broken leg in a motorcycle accident, and he would actually lay in a coma for about eight days as a result of hitting his head, but luckily he pulled through. But his family reported that after the accident his behaviors kind of changed and he was very prone to sudden fits of rage and he would get angry very quickly. But with brain injuries, you can't have these kinds of changes, so it wasn't a huge deal. I guess it just was really noticeable to the family. Now, you don't want to get hit in the head again after you've already hit your head, right, But two years later, he would hit his head again in a fall from a fire escape and he would lay unconscious for twenty four hours before he actually woke up. So I wanted to see more. I'm like wild boy falling off of fire escapes, Like, what's that about? But there's more to this story than what meets the eye. Because this is going to go back to the fact that Fred was the proverbial pervert. In my opinion and based on multiple sources, Fred was aggressively sexual and would basically pester females of all ages teenagers up through grown ass women. And basically what I'm telling you is sexual assault laws were literally like designed for people like Fred. His picture should be in the law books as

25:47 a prime example of literally don't be this guy. He is the poster child for sexual assault. He clearly objectified women, and he felt that his pleasure was the main purpose for women, and without a care in the world. He was said to approach and fondle women like just would go up and grab anybody if he felt like, you know, he wanted to. He was God's gift to them. And some that even hooked up with him would make the same complaint about him. Okay, they would say it was very clear that his primary objective when hooking up with these people was his own gratification, and he would often leave the girls unfulfilled. If you know it to me because it was all about him. What a legacy to leave my guy.

26:36 You know, you're known as the crappy lover, you know, and it's all about you. And why does this, you know, tie into the fire escape when he fell, well, it was reported the reason he fell from the fire escape was, as I just mentioned, there was a girl on the fire escape that he was trying to grope and she smoked his ass with a right hook and he fell off the fire escape and hit his head. Karma's a bitch, my friend, right, So maybe the first one was his fault with the motorcycle, but the second was definitely his fault. But old girl got the best of him and knocked him off of it.

27:18 So obviously Fred's not the best decision maker. But you can't seem to like kill weeds, can you. They always come back no matter what. And Fred was like these weeds, and he would just continue making his own path in life, which would include being arrested at age twenty for that molestation of his sister. So that's why I'm saying I tend to kind of believe what he said about the ancestual thing because he ended up being held accountable for it, sort of. He got arrested for molesting his sister, and as it always seems to go, he was convicted, okay, but he escaped any imprisonment for his abuse use of her. He abuses his sister to the point that she can't even really testify against him. She is so distraught and so destroyed by what her brother did to her, and he literally benefits from the fact that she is so tormented and y'all, this is back in the sixties, right, sixty seventy, So I'm assuming they didn't have victim victims advocates, victim rights advocates out there to kind of help her through this process, and so she kind of just Withdrew couldn't bear to explain all this in court.

28:30 So the case against him kind of fell apart. But it seems like he was convicted, but he didn't serve any time for it. The only punishment that he seemed to get was the fact that his family disowned him afterwards. They shunned him, and he was an embarrassment to the family. Now, where there is smoke, y'all, there is usually fired. Don't you think I'm one of those people? And so his sister claims sex abuse by her brother, right, even though that case fell apart, Well, imagine this. Years later that first wife I mentioned Rena, she would echo the same sentiments about Fred. Fred would meet up with her. Her name, Rena's real name was Catherine Costello, and she was actually a former girlfriend of Fred, but she now was a prostitute and she was working the streets and they hit things off once again and rekindled that relationship. And soon after they would get married and she would quickly have a child. But y'all, it wasn't Fred's. She was already pregnant when they got together. So they would claim to other people once the baby was born that they adopted this child.

29:45 And there was two different accounts of what the child looked like specifically, but heritage wise. One of them said that they were saying that she was adopted and the father was from Pakistan, and another one said that the father, the biofather, was an a bus driver. So depending on whatever report you want to believe, either way, Fred was and the daddy, and so they would just claim that they had adopted her. But he wasn't exactly Dad of the year either swooping in and saving this pregnant woman from the streets. He was known to treat these children very harshly, and he had no issues with keeping the girls in the bottom of a bunk bed. But he modified this bunk bed and he he put bars. He modified it with bars between the two bunks, and so basically he created a two story cage, and it was his rules. These girls were required to be controlled at all times in that cage, and they were only allowed to be out whenever he was at work, so he didn't really want to deal with them. So while all of this is going on, and he's got this first wife and all of these other things happening, tragedy would actually strike big time. Fred would be in another accident, but this time he wouldn't hit his head. He was working as an ice cream vendor, and on November fourth, this is nineteen sixty five, Fred was driving his typical route in a Mister Whippy ice

31:15 cream van and as he sped down the road in circumstances at the time that seemed pretty unclear, three year old Henry William Feeney would run out in front of his truck and would be run over, and little William was killed right then and there. He ran the baby over. Police came and did investigate the accident, and they ruled it just that this was a tragic accident, but kind of weird. Shortly after that accident, Fred and his wife would quickly move because you know, Fred was claiming that he feared for his safety after running over the little boy, and this intrigued me. I'm like, why why would you be afraid for your safety if it was an accident?

32:04 Like, that's kind of a weird thing, right. You might be heartbroken, You might would, you know, be really sad and depressed for what you had done, But for all intents and purposes, your conscience should be clear. I don't know why you would fear for your safety after a terrible accident. Well, based on what I found. After some years would pass, a witness would come forward with some information that would make Fred's fear make total sense. But again, this would be years later. But it's now believed that Fred was actually using the ice cream truck or the ice cream van to lure children to him. Like literally what nightmares are made of. You've got this creeper, sexually perverted, hyper sexualized man ride in the streets in an ice cream van and kids are coming up to the truck. And what is actually believed to have happened is that there was a gang of men that had started chasing him, and the reason they had chased him was because they had heard you know, Okay, at first they said, well, we thought he was just a goofy looking dude that just you know, he's kind of a joke or whatever. But then the story started circulating that he would invite kids to get into his van for short little rides for fun. But some things were happening to these kids sexually while they were in that van, And so he was driving down that road when this gang of people actually came and tried to attack him for what he had done to these local kids.

33:35 And so he sped away, driving super recklessly and ended up running over little Henry in the process so that he could get away and save his own skin. Can you imagine just would run over a baby, run in towards an ice cream truck so that you could save your own skin because you know that you've been molesting these children in your van. But at the time this was not fully investigated. That was not an idea because the person that had the information did not come forward at the time, and so it remained an accident and the case was closed well about this same time. And look, I know I started with Rose, okay, but I have to back up to explain all of this to you. About this time, this move that they made because Fred feared for his safety, would also start to intertwine another girl into this story, and her name was Anne McFall. So Anne would leave school and after she left school, she started to work in a knitwear factory where during that timeframe she would befriend Fred and his first wife, Catherine also went by Rena. The eighteen year old girl Anne McFall would soon get the opportunity become a nanny for these two, and as she became the nanny, Fred started saying that she flirted relentlessly with him. Relentlessly. Okay, Fred,

35:07 sure, But something else Fred also said about her was that he found her to be very naive. And naive is his word. And that kind of makes you cringe a little bit, doesn't it. This guy that's obviously not a good guy, and now he's referring to his new nanny as naive and claims that she's, you know, flirting with him relentlessly. Well, she would move in and move with Catherine and Fred, and eventually she also would become his lover. Now I love how all of the I love how all of the the blame is put on her. Right, poor Fred, He's just a victim here. She was just so infatuated with him that that she became his lover. Right. But this usually would happen whenever his wife was away for whatever reason, and soon young young girl would become pregnant by Fred Shocker. I don't guess this guy ever heard of a condom before.

36:06 He's out there just nailing everybody. And you know, obviously he's the father of her child. And so she, you know, is pregnant. She lets him know, and then amazingly shortly thereafter, she disappeared in May of nineteen sixty seven, not to be heard from again. So I guess this isn't isn't reported because nobody seems real worried about what happened to this young girl, and life goes on either way. Catherine the wife, would ultimately leave Fred around nineteen sixty nine because she accused him of being violent towards her. And she says, look, he fled out sexually abused me. Now look, this is coming from a prostitute, a woman who sells sex for a living, and I'm assuming is used to being treated poorly by men, and or she's leaving her own home saying that he's sexually abusing her. It must have been bad, y'all. But go figure, right, it seems to me what we call a pattern is emerging here. He just doesn't seem like the nicest guy to me, and adding to this belief is the fact that in nineteen seventy one, at just twenty seven years old, that very same wife that left him would also go missing. Hmm. Seems rather convenient, doesn't it that all these people who come in contact with Fred and are sexually wrapped up with Fred then disappear. So backing up now, whenever I had

37:38 mentioned remember how Fred went to prison for those petty charges that I mentioned earlier, and Rose was left is now second wife. Young fifteen year old Rose was left to take care of her step children from Fred's marriage, right, the kids that he produced with Catherine. Well, while he was in prison he would be gone for a ten months. Now. Who are these two children that he shared with his first wife and were now being watched by Rose. Their names were Charmaine and Anne Marie, and a young Rose now about sixteen years old, finds herself, you know, in charge of raising these children as well as her biological daughter with Fred, Heather. So she has three young kids that she's she's in charge of, and rather quickly Rose began abusing eight year old Charmain West and based on the statements of others, Charmaine hated her stepmother Rose and when I say hated, I mean with a passion.

38:36 She could not stand this woman. She literally did not want to be in her presence. And as a result of this, their relationship, as you can imagine, was pretty tumultuous one and the only manner, you know, in the only manner that an eight year old knows how to show her anger towards the woman she hated. Little Charmain was said to act out sometimes being a little you know, ellious and not wanting to do what Rose told her to do. But y'all, in her defense, she's eight years old, she's not seventeen. How bad could it really be? I mean, a smart mouth? Is she voicing her disdain and wanting her real mom? Right? I mean, I can't say that I blame this little girl.

39:16 I'd want my mama too. And now little eight year old Charmain's lost her daddy to prison and she hates her stepmom. You know, I just I kind of feel bad for little Charmain. And then adding insult to injury here is that her stepmom's abusing her, and not just emotionally, y'all, she starts constant physical abuse of this child. Can you imagine the pent up anger and frustration that this eight year old must have had in life because of the circumstances, and now she's being physically hurt. Hell, i'd buck up too, that's all you know how to do. She can't go anywhere, she's stuck. You know what's she gonna do? So she little man had made friends with a neighbor. Her name was Tracy Giles, and one day little Tracy, who was Charmaine's best friend, was sent over to Charmaine's house to borrow a pint of milk, and so, like she would do, she walked in the house. But what she found was rather shocking because see, her best friend, Charmaine was standing on a chair but had her hands tied behind her back with a belt. And little Tracy was in a bit of shock because she saw Rosemary with a wooden spoon in the acts of beating Charmaine with her hands tied behind her back, standing in a chair. And it really didn't sit right with Tracy. But I mean, who was she to question an adult in her eyes, at least for disciplining her stepdaughter who was

40:49 obviously, according to rose being naughty. But I mean, even according to Charmaine's sister Anne Marie. Both of the girls were subject to frequent beatings, but the reason Charmaine took the brunt of them was because she was infuriating Rosemary because she would refuse to cry no matter how severe the beating was. She would not shed a tear, and shortly thereafter, around June of nineteen seventy one, Charmaine would be gone from the home and her best friend Tracy, was really really sad by this because she even would ask Rosemary and say, where is Charmaine. I haven't seen her, and that's whenever Rosemary would respond and sneer at her and say gone to live with her mother, and good riddance. Kind of seems, you know, a bit uncaring, you know that your stepdaughter's gone, and this was really unexpected. Tracy wasn't ready for that, but she didn't question the statement again of an adult, and life just kind of went on. But Anne Marie, Charmaine's sister, was also surprised when she came home from school and was told by rose that Charmain was gone, and she chalked it up to moving to live with their mother.

42:12 Her mom came and got her and just took her away. But you know, strangely, Anne Marie didn't get to go. She was going to have to stay with Rose. And then Rose would pack Anne Marie up and they would go and visit her father in prison, right because he was still incarcerated, and no questions were raised by this. Now, months later, Fred would be released from prison and return home, and the family was together again, minus young Charmain. But what no one knew was that Rose had Charmain closer by than anyone actually thought. And that's because Rose had actually beaten eight year old Charmain to death in a fit of rage, and then she took her battered body to a cool, dark coal cellar for storage. Her beaten and bruised body was then just dumped in the cellar and she laid there in a state of basically unrest until her father got home from prison. She dumped the child in the cellar. And you know, I can't imagine the shock, even Fred, who was in prison, right, he's not a very nice guy, but I can't imagine the shock that Fred must have felt when he stumbled upon her body in the cellar. I mean, his baby girl taken with such you know, depravity and the lack of care while he was gone, and then to find her dead body. I can't imagine. But the reality is actually don't have to imagine, because I know exactly how he felt because he made it crystal fricking clear when all he did was go in

43:46 the cellar and move her body. He carried it out into the yard, and then he buried her beneath the kitchen window at their home. Never called for help, never called police, he never even really made an issue of it. That's the service that he held for his eight year old daughter. Dig a hole, buy the kitchen window, throw her in it, cover her up. And as I continue this story, I don't want you to forget the fact that this murder occurred in the absence of Fred. He wasn't even there. But his response tells me everything I think I need to know about what kind of man he was, if you want to call him a man. And as fate would have it, Charmaine and Anne Marie's mama would then shortly thereafter come looking for them. About two months later, she showed up on their doorstep once she found their address. Now I was kind of confused. Okay, well, you can't just leave your kids with somebody and then all of a sudden become Mother of the Year and show back up.

44:47 But y'all, that's not actually what I found. What I found was in order for her to escape such abusive behavior at the hands of their father, she just left him and he wouldn't let her take the kids. And if you don' understand domestic abuse, we need to do more research on it, right, you need to go listen to maybe some of my previous episodes where I'll talk about it. But she did what she felt she had to do to survive, all right, And she showed up once she found the address. And I did see a thing where the sister of Catherine Costello said that her sister had been in a state of just just guttural, just sickness because she didn't know where her girls were. But she still had been visiting with them up until they moved with Rose, and then she didn't know where her girls were. And she found that address, and just two months later, after Charmaine had been killed, is when she showed up on the doorstep.

45:39 She wanted to go see her girls, and when she got there, there was an issue. It's the pretty obvious one. Charmaine wasn't there, and obviously you would think, well, Catherine must have been really alarmed at her daughter's being missing. And no one knows exactly what happened when she arrived, other than the fact that we know she had to have confronted her ex husband, you know, but no one really knows exactly what happened. All that's really known at this point was that after she arrived to collect her girls, she was never seen or heard from again. Later on, when Anne Marie got older, she kind of talked about this, and when she asked her father why her mother had taken Charmaine but never took her, Fred callously replied to her, she wouldn't want you love You're the wrong color. Now.

46:37 That was just sickening to me, just incredibly sick. The poor girl never sees her mom again, and yet her father is going to go ahead and place the blame on the very woman who had arrived to take her babies with her and then goes missing. I'm sure you can guess what happened to her. And the emotional abuse and the lies are enough to make anyone angry. Can you imagine growing up with the belief that your mother came didn't want you, didn't take you took your little sister and then rolled out. It's just sick, and that poor woman's missing, and her daughter's dead and buried under a kitchen window, and the remaining daughter is left to think that they both up and left her Hyindra. So Fred and Rosemary would continue on their marriage as if nothing really happened. One less child feed, one less to look after. I guess that's kind of how they looked at it. But in June of nineteen seventy two, Fred and Rose would have their second biological daughter together, who they would call May. And by this time it was also noted that Rose was interested in making a little extra money, so she would earn this money by doing the side hustle. Oldest time she used her sexual prowess, and she too became a prostitute. Now, when you're out tootin and your husband's out slaying ice cream or doing whatever the hell he's doing,

48:07 you need a nanny, don't you remember? Fred likes to hire nanny's. He had already hired one with his first wife, and now he was needed one with his second wife, And so they look to hire a nanny, and Lucky for them. They were happy when they found seventeen year old Caroline Owens as they picked her up while hitchhiking, and the couple really liked the girl. They said, she's perfect for the job. She's young, she's energetic, the girls are going to love her. She's gonna do great with our kids. So she becomes the nanny. But at some point shortly thereafter, she changed her mind and said, look, I don't want a nanny anymore for y' all, thanks, but no thanks, and she went about her way. But after a few weeks the West picked her up again, presumptively when she was hitchhiking. I don't know exactly what she was doing, but they got her again and they went back to the house. This time, those things were really different because the couple would attack her once inside of the home and they drug her down into their cellar. Now, once they got her down there, you're like, why did they do this? Right?

49:13 Are they mad? Because she quit nannying? What could it be? Well, once they got her down there where no one could hear her screams and could pretty much dominate her, the couple tied her up and they stripped her down, and then they violently raped this girl. Now this wasn't quick. This extended for a period of time, and as this young girl was pleading for them to stop, she was met with the force and threats that if she didn't shut up and comply and do exactly what Fred and Rose wanted, then she was going to be killed. And Fred said he was going to bury her under the paving stones. Now, knowing what you know, obviously this young girl didn't know was he meant with every word said, because he had already buried his own daughter under a window. What do you think he's gonna do with this girl. It's then said that Rose came up and put a pillow over her head, and the abuse continued while Rose can tried to smother her. So, in what can best be described as a total miracle, right, Caroline was able to miraculously escape with her life after promising with everything that she had, I promise you, I'm not going to tell anyone. Please just let me go. Please, I won't tell a soul.

50:34 I just want to live. Kind of echoes the Reagan Tooks episode here, and it's also got a little reminiscent of young Sylvia Lichens. You know, it's like there's a pattern amongst evil. But this time she did convince them and she said, look, I'll even still work for you as a nanny if you will just let me go. Please let me go. And in this since it kind of seems like their selfishness and what they could gain from her as a nanny is ultimately what would end up saving this young girl's life because they let her go. I can't believe that. I'm glad they did, but I can't believe it. But they let her go. But young Caroline Owen, yall, she's not a little little nobody. Okay, this girl had wits about herself, and she didn't leave and not tell a soul. She did what she should have done. She ran straight to the police. She did not pass go, she didn't collect two hundred dollars.

51:32 She rolled straight out to the police and let them know exactly what had happened to her. But this is where you should get really angry. If you're not already mad about what they would do to this team, think about this. Fred had already been accused of molesting and raping what seems like half the damned country at this point. Yet here's the outcome of what happens to him as a result of this girl that ends up escaping his grips. Why we continue to give criminals and abusers the benefit of the doubt absolutely blows my mind. And if you're a follower of my show, you know this. You've seen it over and over and over again. And here's the same shit that happens again. The trauma of the attack that was left you know that that young Caroline dealt with, the trauma of all of it left her unable to face the couple in court. She just it was too much. Just like his sister Kitty, it was too much. I can't go see them again.

52:30 I'm scared of them. I'm lucky to be with my you know, alive right now. So incredibly, because she couldn't face them in court, they got the benefit of the doubt. Fred, the conniving piece of utter shit that he is, was able to convince the judge that Caroline was a willing participant in the events. Oh, she wanted this, She was definitely a part of it. And Fred and Rose walk out of the court with nothing other than a small fine they had to pay. Why did their victims seem to pay a much more serious dangerous and painful price than the attackers themselves.

53:22 It's absolutely ludicrous. And a few months later, after they walk out of that court, she walks out smelling like a Rose. No pun intended, right because her names Rose. But soon right thereafter a few months after, Rose gives birth to the couple's first son that they would have together. His name is Stephen and he would be born in August. So the couple gets out of the ordeal of rape and kidnapping and abusing a teenager. They have a child, and then another young woman would come into their lives. They would come in contact with another young girl who was struggling, and she came from a broken home. Her name was Shirley Robinson and Shirley was eighteen years old when they met her, and she was desperately looking for a role model to help her out. And luckily for her, Rose and Fred West had room in their home and they were willing to be those people for her.

54:20 What are the chances? What luck young Shirley had stumbled upon. But something we can't seem to forget, and you probably have caught on too, is the fact that Fred has a taste for young girls. He likes these young girls, and unfortunately for Rose, she may have been his wife, but she was not his only interest. He was insatiable sexually, and very soon after moving into the home, Shirley and Fred would strike up a relationship that was more than just a role model and mentee. This relationship two became a sexual behind closed doors. Though this wasn't the only scandal taking place, because it would actually be the case that Rose herself wasn't necessarily turned off by this situation. She actually would become really, really comfortable with the thought of this young girl satisfying her husband. But she was so comfortable that she and Shirley too would take their sexual adventures to a new level, participating in lesbian sex with each other as well. So they're kind of getting freaky right behind closed doors. And while this may have been a fun new adventure for the three of them at first, in a tale as old as Time you Knew I was Gonna Sing for You, one woman's gonna become rather jealous of the

55:52 other one's attention gaining behaviors. Shirley's over there living her best life as she saw it, including openly flaunting her relationationship with Fred like other people, even noticed it. She was hugging and kissing on him, and behind closed doors was one thing. But when she started showing this ownership of Fred like out in the public, that wasn't going to work for Rose. And soon this threesome relationship soured quickly, and the understanding between the three became a misunderstanding. And it became really evident, really quickly that Rose West's initial acceptance of this agreement turned into you know, blood red jealousy, and there was a lot of tension in the home, and this tension would grow exponentially over time, and Rose's displeasure with Shirley would become ever so obvious, to the point that Shirley even confided in another woman her name was Elizabeth Brewer, that she was actually scared of the Wests. At this point, Rose scared her and so noted Fred and making the situation even more dire. For surely is she actually had another secret. She was pregnant now and Fred was the father. Can you see where this is going? Seems like I keep repeating the same thing over and over again, doesn't it just a different person? Now? Maybe this makes me mean, but I'm gonna say it anyway, Fred was not

57:24 of admirable looks. You ever been heard of like being hit by the ugly stick? Well, you know, it looks like maybe the whole damn tree fell on Fred. Fred was but fucking ugly. That's all the only way I can. I can put this for you, and I'm gonna post pictures of them so you can make your own opinions. And how he impregnated all these women so far is like impressive to me, Like you know how some people carry condoms in their wallets. I'm like of the mindset that he must have always had a paper bag on hand or something, because damn, there's no way these women looked at this face and thought this is a good thing. But either way, wouldn't you know it? But shortly after that pregnancy happened and Rose had gotten all mad about it, Shirley up and vanished gone, And that same neighbor that Shirley had confided in about her fears of the West would also later say that Rosemary West was in the house and Fred West was at work when Shirley was last seen. She also added that the next day, after Shirley wasn't seen anymore, the West seemed very happy and they told her. Look, yeah, Shirley's gone. She decided to leave.

58:42 She's gone to live with her relatives in Germany. HM. Kind of convenient. All right, check this out. There's so much left to this story. I've literally just like grazed the cusp of what's about to happen. If you don't think there's more, there's a done more, and I'm gonna tell it to you, but it's going to have to go into a part two. But I will conclude in part two for the people who want to know. But I hope that you never get used to murder. I hope that when I'm telling these stories that we don't become so desensitized to it that it's just like, okay, well another one bit the dust. We can't do that. You've got to remember, these are people that are lost. They're gone, no one's seen from them or heard from them. You know, where could they be? We got to know, and I'm going to give it to you. And I hate when people just chalk it up to oh shit happens. But then again, look at Fred's face.