Fred and Rose West were both held on remand in high-security prisons, and were watched closely as potential suicide risks. However, Fred’s guards relaxed their alertness and he was able to kill himself by hanging on January 1st, 1995.
Rose’s trial went ahead, and she pleaded not guilty to 10 murders. The trial started in Winchester in October 1995. It lasted 7 weeks, and the jury found her guilty on all charges. She was sentenced to life, with the recommendation that she was never released.
The aftermath
Fred West was cremated and his ashes scattered at Barry Island, a place he used to go on holiday as a kid. Rose remains in prison. The younger West children have all been given new identities. Fred West’s younger brother John hung himself whilst awaiting a verdict in his own trial for multiple rapes of his niece Anne-Marie.
And the House of Horrors in Cromwell Street became so notorious, and attracted many visitors so it was demolished in 1996 and the rubble pulverised to prevent souvenir hunters. The site is now a public pathway.
Other possible victims
During his interviews, Fred West hinted at several other murders, but only gave information about one case: he said he had murdered 15-year-old Mary Bastholm in 1968 and buried her near Bishop’s Cleeve. The case is still open as Mary’s grave has not been found.
Fred also told police that he killed one person while he worked in Birmingham, and that he had buried other victims in Scotland and near Much Marcle. He was assigned an appropriate adult after this arrest, and to them he said he had murdered up to 20 other people with Rose, and that he would reveal one body per year.
Police do think there were other victims – especially as after committing seven sexual murders in 1973-1975, there was a three-year gap before the final known sexual murder in 1978, and none between that and his arrest in 1994. At least 4 young women matching the profile of West’s victims disappeared while West was in Glasgow (he knew of the women, Margaret McAvoy). West had an allotment in Glasgow and only ever used part of it, saying he kept the other part “for something special”. Unfortunately the site cannot be checked, as the M8 motorway was built over the site.
There were almost certainly other victims, but we will probably never know for certain, as Rose West continues to deny her involvement in any murders at all.