A prison governor has described the spine-chilling moment Rose West learned of her husband’s death and her creepy reaction.
Infamous killers Rose and Fred West tortured at least twelve young women to death in sick sexual games. She remains one of only four British women to be given a whole life prison sentence. Rose West and husband Fred killed, dismembered and buried young women and girls at their home at Cromwell Street, Gloucester. They carried out the killings between 1967 and 1987 before Rose was jailed for life in 1995. Fred hanged himself in jail on New Year’s Day 1995 while awaiting trial for 12 murders.
Their victims included one of their daughters and a step-daughter. Rose helped Fred rape their daughter Heather in 1987, kill her and bury her under their patio. In 1997 the then-home secretary Jack Straw imposed a whole-life tariff on Rose West. Now 69, she has continued to protest her innocence.
Rose is one of only four women in modern times to be given a while life prison sentence. Lucy Letby, the worst child serial killer in modern British history, joined the list in August after she was found guilty of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six more. The list also includes moors murderer Myra Hindley who, with her partner Ian Brady, murdered five children between July 1963 and October 1965.In 1966 both Hindley and Brady were jailed until their deaths. Hindley unsuccessfully mounted a legal challenge against her whole-life tariff and died in 2002 at the age of 60.
The fourth member of the list is Joanna Dennehy who is serving a whole-life tariff for murdering three men "just for fun" over a 10-day period in March 2013. She dumped the bodies in remote ditches in Cambridgeshire and, while police were searching for her, drove 140 miles to Hereford where she repeatedly stabbed two dog walkers at random.
'I ventured into Alcatraz after dark and was terrified by what I saw and heard'
But in prison Rose West was a model of good behaviour, quietly knitting an endless scarf and making the occasional cup of tea for her jailers, who called her “Auntie Rose”, according to former prison governor Vanessa Frake. Rose even persuaded a prison governor to take her on a day out to Regent’s Park in central London, and buy her an ice cream, Vanessa told podcaster Shaun Attwood, the Star reports.
Vanessa was in charge of the segregation unit at Holloway Prison in North London where Rose was imprisoned. “It was New Year’s Day about four or five o’clock, when the duty governor came down,” she recalled. Vanessa was told that Fred West had hung himself in Winson Green prison and Rose needed to be given the news.
Vanessa took Rose into the office, and the duty governor advised her to sit down, explaining that he had some very bad news for her. Expecting an emotional reaction, he sympathetically told her that Fred had hung himself in his cell. “There was just nothing, no emotion… there was almost a little bit of a twinkle in her eye”.
Vanessa said she had the impression that Rose thought her husband’s death would mean that she wouldn’t face prosecution for their crimes. “I think that’s what Fred thought too, that if he topped himself, Rose would get off scot free. And I’m pretty sure that’s what Rose thought – there was no emotion there at all."
Vanessa said she thought Rose was “as evil in her own right” as Fred. She added that people commonly believe that women can only be the passive partners in horrific crimes, but people like Rose, and Myra Hindley – who briefly had an affair with Rose when they were both in HMP Durham – are proof that some women can be just as evil as men can.
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