How Many Victims Did Fred And Rosemary West Actually Have?

Fred and Rosemary West liked young women. They liked to entertain them, and they liked to rape, torture, and murder them for their own perverse sexual gratification. Their killing spree lasted 20 years, across the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, in Gloucestershire county in South West England, and the married couple would become known as two of the most horrific serial killers in the United Kingdom for murdering and dismembering their victims — victims that included teenagers, and even members of their own family. 

Somehow, it wasn't until 1994 before authorities caught up with the couple when, on February 25, Fred and Rose West were arrested at their home at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester so they could be questioned on the disappearance of their daughter, Heather West, according to DevonLive. A search of the property turned up a human bone that was proven to be Heather's. Over the course of months, as police expanded their search at the home, which included an extensive excavation, they made the grizzly discovery of several other women who were brutally killed and buried at what became known as the "house of horror."

Two years before he met Rose, Fred committed his first known murder. He was married to Catherine Costello at the time, with whom he had two daughters, Anne Marie and Charmaine. He also had a relationship with a 16-year-old girl, Anne McFall, the family's nanny. McFall disappeared in 1967 and was found buried with her unborn child in 1994 after Fred West confessed to the murder. Rose's first known murder was in 1971, when she killed Fred's daughter, Charmaine, in 1971, according to the Independent. When Charmaine's mother came looking for her, Fred and Rose killed her, too.

From there, some of the women the Wests murdered had been Rose's sexual partners. The two women would frequently have sadistic sex, while Fred satisfied his voyeuristic desires through peepholes. As the violent sex escalated to just violence, according to Biography, Fred would often join in for torture, murder and dismemberment of the victims.

Although police believed it to be many more, they could only prove 12 murders for Fred West and 10 for Rosemary West. Fred told authorities he killed many more, but repeatedly changed the number. On January 1, 1995, before he could stand trial, Fred West took his own life by hanging himself in his cell, per the Daily Mail. That same year, Rose West was unanimously found guilty of all 10 murders and was sentenced to life in prison without the chance for parole. She maintains her innocence.