The definitive account of one of Britain’s most notorious killer couples, who loved, tortured, and slayed together as husband and wife.Updated with a new afterword from the author on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the arrests From the outside, 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, England, looked as commonplace as the married couple who lived there. But in 1994, Fred and Rose West’s home would … in 1994, Fred and Rose West’s home would become infamous as a “house of horrors” when the remains of nine young women—many of them decapitated, dismembered, and showing evidence of sexual torture—were found interred under its cellar, bathroom floor, and garden. And this wasn’t the only burial ground: Fred’s first wife and nanny were unearthed miles away in a field, while his eight-year-old stepdaughter was found entombed under the Wests’ former residence.
Yet, for more than twenty years, the twosome maintained a façade of normalcy while abusing and murdering female boarders, hitchhikers, and members of their own family. Howard Sounes, who first broke the story about the Wests as a journalist and covered the murder trial, has written a comprehensive account of the case. Beginning with Fred and Rose’s bizarre childhoods, Sounes charts their lives and crimes in forensic detail, constructing a fascinating and frightening tale of a marriage soaked in blood. Indeed, the total number of the Wests’ victims may never be known.
A case reminiscent of the “Moors Murders” committed in the 1960s in Manchester by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady—as if Hindley and Brady had married and kept on killing for decades—Fred & Rose “is a story of obsessive love as well as obsessive murder” (The Times, London).
more
great true crime
True story of a pair of very sick people.
OMG! Now this was a book! Whew! I never knew such people existed & I’ve been into true crime since I was knee high to a grasshopper! I still think about them & how they got that way. I’ll never figure it out. It’s tragic not just because of the perversion & murders, but because children are involved. It’s a great, but terribly tragic, read.
Tragic but glad for the ending. They deserved worse!
This book was really scary. Left me feeling cold and sad that this happened to so many young girls, and perhaps not so young girls. Thier own children! There has to be a better way so that these people can be spotted. There were occasions when they should have seen the red flags and done something. I really believe he did a lot of covering up of his wife’s brutal murders. We will never know just how many people lost their lives to these two crazy, sick people.
Im a True Crime fan, and had never heard this story before!
This is the true tale of Fred and Rose who killed and tortured many young women in England. Very twisted individuals. The book gives a lot of background info on the team of murderers, however, it gets a tad drained down and after some time the reader loses interest. I think some history is essential but not too bogged down. This is why I give this a 4 stars instead of 5.
While I enjoyed reading Fred and Rose, I found many passages that attempted to explain relationships among main characters were often long-winded and not necessary. I found it very sad how no one in authority was able to “catch on” to what was happening to so many girls and women. How on earth was the horror that occurred at 25 Cromwell allowed to go on for more than two decades? It baffles the mind!!!
Unable to finish reading, didn’t have the stomach for it.
Too violent to finish; not the author’s fault.