A former prison governor has shared her belief that Rose West had immediately planned to pin hers and her husband’s murders solely on Fred West when she was informed of his death
Infamous serial killer Rose West had a bizarre reaction to her partner-in-crime husband’s death after she was informed by his then-prison warden.
Fred West’s vicious 20-year killing spree took the lives of at least a dozen people between 1967 to 1987, aided by his second wife Rose, who helped him carry out the vast majority of murders. The twisted duo, in a depraved bid for sexual gratification, had pursued young women in their native Gloucestershire almost unnoticed until they were arrested and charged with nine murders in 1994. But only Rose would ever serve time for their crimes, with Fred dying in custody in 1995.
READ MORE: ‘I went into Fred and Rose West’s house of horrors – what I saw sickened me’
West, then 53, fatally asphyxiated himself while on remand at HM Prison Birmingham on January 1, 1995, as his wife awaited trial at HMP Holloway Women’s Prison.
News of his death was broken by now retired prison governor Vanessa Frake-Harris, who told The Sun she saw “no emotion” in her charge’s eyes at the time. She said she believed the soon-to-be-convicted killer was thinking about how she could pin her crimes on her dead husband.
She said: “I told her along with the duty governor that Fred had committed suicide, and there was no emotion. She blinked a couple of times and then said, ‘Oh right’.”
“She didn’t even flinch — nothing had altered in her expression. No tears, no nothing — just that glazed stare. The level of control and dissociation was staggering. I firmly believe she felt that with Fred dying, she would get off all of the charges. There was almost a glint in her eye as if to say, ‘OK, he’s dead — he can take the rap for it. I’m happy to plead to the lesser charges’.
“Fortunately for all the victims and survivors, she was convicted.” West was convicted on ten counts of murder and sexual assault in 1995, after 12 bodies were discovered, nine in the couple’s “House of Horrors” on 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, two in a field near Herefordshire, and one in the couple’s former home, and handed ten life terms and a whole life order.
But, as Ms Frake-Harris said she believed at the time, she did try to pin the killings entirely on her husband in an appeal lodged with the Court of Appeal almost immediately following her sentencing. She claimed Fred West had committed the murders on his own, and that she was victimised by her husband.
She went as far as to suggest she had even tried to prevent one of the assaults, but her appeal was ultimately dismissed, with the court refusing to consider the application.
Now 71 and having spent more than 30 years behind bars, she is currently an inmate at HM Prison New Hall in Flockton, West Yorkshire.