Fred West was never convicted of killing anyone. He was charged with the murders of 12 people, young women and girls among them his first wife, his stepdaughter and his eldest daughter, and he died in his cell at Winson Green prison in Birmingham on January 1, 1995, before any of those charges came to trial. He was 53. What is known about the deaths attributed to him rests on the remains police found in 1994, on what he told detectives in many recorded interviews, and on the evidence heard at the one trial that did take place: that of his wife, Rosemary West, who was convicted of ten of the murders at Winchester Crown Court in November 1995 and is serving a whole life sentence.
The inquiry began with a search for one girl. Heather West, the couple's eldest child, had not been seen since June 1987, when she was 16. Her parents gave changing accounts of where she had gone, and nobody had reported her missing. Their younger children, by then in council care, repeated a family joke that anyone who misbehaved would end up under the patio like Heather. In February 1994 Gloucestershire police obtained a warrant to dig the back garden of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester. Fred West admitted killing his daughter, and within 11 days the remains of nine young women and girls had been found at the house. Three more sets of remains were later found at the family's previous home in Gloucester and in fields near his birthplace in Herefordshire.
Frederick Walter Stephen West was born at 8:30 a.m. on September 29, 1941, at Bickerton Cottage, Saycells' Corner, in Much Marcle, a farming village in Herefordshire about 120 miles west of London and some 14 miles from Gloucester. Howard Sounes describes his childhood in the first chapter of his book Fred & Rose. The cottage had no electricity or gas, and water came from a hand pump. He was christened about four weeks later at St Bartholomew's church.
His father, Walter West, born in 1914, was a farm worker who had left school at 11 and later worked as a cowman. Walter's first wife died in June 1939. At the Marcle Fair that August he met Daisy Hill, then 16, and they married at St Bartholomew's on January 27, 1940. Their first child, a daughter, was born prematurely and died within days. Fred was the first child to survive. Daisy had eight children in ten years, and six lived; one brother, born in October 1943, died a month later from a heart defect.
In July 1946 the family moved to Moorcourt Cottage, a tied cottage belonging to Moorcourt Farm. Eight people lived in three bedrooms, with a tin bath and no indoor toilet, and the family lived partly off the land and on seasonal work picking daffodils, hops and strawberries. Daisy was openly devoted to Fred, and his brother Doug remembered him as their mother's favorite. Classmates at the village school, the only school he attended, recalled him as dirty, slow and often in trouble; he was caned, and his mother complained to the school about it. He left at 15 without qualifications, barely able to read or write, though he was good with his hands and made a milking stool and a bench for his mother. He then worked alongside his father on local farms as a general laborer. Sounes records village rumors and later claims by West himself about abuse within the family; the book presents them as rumor and as West's own statements, not as established fact.
In 1962 West married Catherine Costello, known as Rena. They lived in Glasgow, first in Savoy Street, Bridgeton, and later in McLellan Street, Kinning Park, and West drove a Mr Whippy ice cream van in the Gorbals, the Press and Journal reported in 2023. The household included two small girls: Charmaine, Rena's daughter, whom West raised as his stepdaughter, and a younger daughter born to the couple.
Through Rena's friend Isa McNeill, who looked after the children, the Wests came to know Anne McFall. West left Glasgow at the end of 1965 and moved with the family to caravan parks in Gloucestershire, and Anne and Isa went with them. A former Glasgow gangster, John Knotts, later claimed that West had been run out of the Gorbals by a mob; that is one man's account, given decades later, and no court ever examined it.
By early 1966, the Press and Journal reported, West had become increasingly abusive and controlling toward all three young women. Rena and Isa planned to return to Glasgow with the children, with the help of Rena's former boyfriend, John McLachlan. The plan failed after Anne revealed it, and Rena and Isa left without the children. Anne stayed on with West and the children.
Anne McFall was born in 1949 and grew up in Parkhead, in Glasgow's East End, in a poor household. At ten she was sent to Nazareth House, a children's home in Claremont Street, Aberdeen. Amanda Gavin, whose doctoral research at the University of Glasgow examined children's experiences of the Scottish care system, told the Press and Journal that children in such homes were routinely hit and that family visits were discouraged, and that this kind of upbringing could leave a young person open to exploitation. After leaving care Anne worked at the Livingstone Industrial clothing factory. Her boyfriend had been killed in a workplace accident, and she was eager to start a new life.
She was 18 and eight months pregnant with West's child when she disappeared. The Press and Journal says she was last seen alive at a fair in Gloucester in May 1967. Paul Pender, an author who grew up on her street in Glasgow, said West believed he had a special bond with her, called her his angel, and claimed to see visions of her; Pender quoted him as saying she was the only woman he ever loved.
Her remains were found in June 1994 in Fingerpost Field, near the West family home at Much Marcle, after West offered to help police find three more burials. He was charged with her murder. He never admitted killing her, although he showed police where she was buried. Rosemary West, who had not yet met him in 1967, was never charged with Anne McFall's death.
Rena returned to West for a time and left again. In 1969 West, then 27, met Rosemary Letts, who was 15, at a bus stop in Cheltenham, according to the Press and Journal and TIME. Her parents opposed the relationship. She moved in with him and became pregnant, and their first child, Heather, was born soon afterward. The household later moved to 25 Midland Road, Gloucester, their home before Cromwell Street.
In 1971 West was in prison for stealing car tires and a vehicle tax disc, and Rosemary looked after the children, including Charmaine. Charmaine was about 8. She was taken out of her school in 1971, aged eight; her parents said she had gone to London to live with her natural mother, and the school accepted that, as was then normal practice, the education journalist Josephine Gardiner reported in 1995. Charmaine was never reported missing.
Her remains were found under the kitchen of 25 Midland Road on May 4, 1994. CNN and the Press and Journal, summarizing the case, say that Rosemary killed the child in June 1971 while Fred West was in prison, and CNN reported that West helped conceal the body after his release. The jury at Rosemary West's trial convicted her of Charmaine's murder. He was also charged with Charmaine's murder, so the charge against him, like the others, was never tried.
Rena Costello went missing in August 1971, the Press and Journal reported, while she was looking for her daughter. She, too, was never reported missing to the police. Her remains were found in April 1994 in Letterbox Field, near Much Marcle. Reports differ on her age at her death, giving it as 25, 26 or 27. West was charged with her murder; Rosemary West was not.
Fred and Rosemary West married in Gloucester in 1972, and that year they moved with the children to 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester. It remained the family home until 1994. The couple had more children; in all, ten children grew up in the West household.
The house at 25 Cromwell Street took in lodgers, and some of the young women who lived there or visited were teenagers who had been in council care or had run away from home. According to the case brought against Rosemary West and summarized by the European Commission of Human Rights, the prosecution alleged that the young women whose remains were found at the house had been sexually abused before they died and that Rosemary West took part in the abuse and the killings. Former lodgers and neighbors said Rosemary worked as a prostitute from the house; a former neighbor, Liz Agius, told the makers of a 2025 documentary that Rosemary had told her West listened in from the next room.
In 1972 the Wests took on a young woman as a nanny. She later said West invited her to join what he called a sex circle with him and his wife, and that she escaped. In a police interview in 1994, West dismissed her account as rubbish.
Nine young women and girls disappeared between 1973 and 1987 whose remains were later found at 25 Cromwell Street. West was charged with killing all of them.
Lynda Gough was 19. She lodged at Cromwell Street and was killed in April 1973, the first person to die at that address, according to the account of the 12 deaths published in 2021. Her remains were found in the area of the ground floor bathroom.
Carol Ann Cooper, known as Caz, was 15. She had been placed in care after her mother's death, and she was reported missing in November 1973. Her remains were found in the cellar about two decades later.
Lucy Partington was 21, a student home for Christmas, when she disappeared from a bus stop on December 27, 1973. She was a cousin of the novelist Martin Amis. Her remains were found in the cellar of 25 Cromwell Street in 1994, 20 years later.
Therese Siegenthaler was 21, a sociology student from Switzerland, who was hitchhiking in April 1974, around Easter. Her family reported her missing when they lost touch with her. Her remains were found in the cellar.
Shirley Hubbard was 15, a shop worker from Worcester. She was taken from a bus stop on November 14, 1974. Her remains were found in the cellar.
Juanita Mott was 18 and had lodged at the house. She accepted a lift in April 1975 and was not seen again. Her remains were found in the cellar in 1994. She was the last of the young women to die at Cromwell Street for three years. Her sister, Belinda Mott, still visits her grave, TIME reported in 2025.
Shirley Robinson was 18 and lived at 25 Cromwell Street. She had a relationship with West and was about eight months pregnant with his child when she died in May 1978. TIME, describing the 2025 documentary, reported that she had threatened to tell Rosemary West, who was then in hospital after giving birth. Her remains were found in the garden, and West admitted killing her on February 26, 1994.
Alison Chambers grew up partly in West Germany and in Swansea, and moved to Gloucester at 16 to train at a firm of solicitors. She had lived at Jordan's Brook House, a children's home in Gloucester; a 1995 inquiry found no evidence that its staff knew of any link to Cromwell Street. In a letter to her mother dated May 26, 1979, she wrote that she was living with the Wests and caring for their children. She went missing a few months later, in August 1979, at 16; a Press Association account in 2021 gave her age as 17. Her remains were found at the house, and West admitted killing her on February 26, 1994. Her sister, Dezra Chambers, read the letter aloud in the 2025 documentary, and said that talking about Alison had helped her.
Heather Anne West was the first child of Fred and Rosemary West. She was 16 and had just finished her GCSE examinations when she was last seen on June 19, 1987. Her parents said she had gone to work at a holiday camp in Devon, and gave changing accounts of her afterward. She was never reported missing. Her death is believed to be the last of the 12. She is buried in the churchyard at Tintern, in Monmouthshire, Wales.
The inquiry that led to Cromwell Street began in 1992 with a conversation between schoolchildren and a police officer on the beat in Gloucester. A schoolgirl told a passing policeman that she was worried about a friend, one of the West children, TES reported in 1995.
In August 1992 the five youngest West children were taken into local authority care over allegations of child abuse. Fred and Rosemary West were charged with sexually abusing one of their daughters. The case did not go forward: the main witness withdrew her evidence, and in 1993 West was found not guilty. His solicitor in that case, Howard Ogden, later took part in the 2025 Netflix documentary on the family.
Social workers noticed what the children in care kept saying about Heather. In the summer of 1993 police were told of the social workers' concern about the family joke that Heather was under the patio. The detective who pursued it was Detective Constable Hazel Savage of Gloucestershire police. About six months later, officers applied for a warrant to search the rear garden of 25 Cromwell Street. It was granted on February 23, 1994.
A son later said in archive footage used in the 2025 documentary that school had felt safer than home, and that the children had kept quiet because they feared child protection officers would split them up. John Fitzgerald, a government adviser on child protection interviewed in the series, said the children had suffered appalling abuse and that the killings would not have come to light without them speaking up.
Police began digging at the house in late February 1994. In his first interview West denied the accusations and laughed, telling Hazel Savage that she was talking rubbish, according to the recordings released in 2025. On February 25, 1994, he admitted killing Heather, and he and Rosemary were arrested at the house on suspicion of her murder. He told officers they were digging in the wrong place.
Heather's remains were found in the garden on February 26, 1994. That day West admitted killing two more young women, Shirley Robinson and Alison Chambers, whose remains were found in the garden soon afterward. On March 4 he wrote a note to his solicitor saying he wished to admit to "a further (approx) nine killings." On March 5 police using electronic sensing equipment found two sets of remains in the cellar, a sixth body the next day and a seventh on March 7. The remains in the cellar and the bathroom area were identified as those of Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Lucy Partington, Juanita Mott, Carol Ann Cooper and Lynda Gough. Nine were found at Cromwell Street in 11 days. The search of the house lasted 55 days.
The inquiry then moved to the family's earlier home at 25 Midland Road, where Charmaine's remains were found under the kitchen on May 4, 1994, and to the fields around Much Marcle and Kempley, where the remains of Rena Costello were found in April and those of Anne McFall in June. The investigation was the largest Gloucestershire police had undertaken. Detective Superintendent John Bennett spoke for the inquiry at news conferences, and it formally ended in 1996. Gloucestershire Constabulary later said that the search for possible further victims had led police to trace 110 missing people, who were found safe and well.
The case drew reporters from across Britain. Chris Summers, who covered it for the Gloucester Citizen, later recalled the national newspapers and television crews descending on the city.
West was questioned many times over the following months. SoGlos, describing the 2025 documentary, put the number of police interviews at 151. Because police considered him unable to read or write well enough, a social worker, Janet Leach, sat with him as his appropriate adult. In archive footage she said he seemed more upset about the damage to his garden than about anything else, and that he kept winking at officers during the digging.
His accounts moved back and forth between admission, denial and new claims. He repeatedly told detectives that Rosemary knew nothing about the deaths. In one recording he described their marriage as two people acting as one; in another he said, "I trained Rose to what I wanted." Asked about Heather, he said, "I never intended to hurt Heather at all. All I wanted to do was persuade her to stay at home." In the recordings Hazel Savage put it to him that he was enjoying the interviews, and he agreed. In one tape he told police that he had not told them the whole truth. When a daughter's allegations of abuse were put to him, he answered "no comment."
Howard Ogden, his solicitor, attended an interview in which West described Heather's death, and in the 2025 series he recalled how hard it had been to listen to. He also described how the officers and others present held one another afterward.
Fred West was charged with 12 murders: Anne McFall, Rena Costello, Charmaine West, Lynda Gough, Carol Ann Cooper, Lucy Partington, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Juanita Mott, Shirley Robinson, Alison Chambers and Heather West. When he first appeared at Gloucester Magistrates' Court after Heather's remains were found, he admitted killing her. He and Rosemary were jointly accused of the ten deaths for which she was later tried, and he faced separate charges over Anne McFall and Rena Costello. Radio reports the day after his death described the couple as due to face trial on 12 murder charges.
West was held on remand at Winson Green prison in Birmingham. On January 1, 1995, he was found hanged in his cell. He was 53. The next day John Boddington, vice-chairman of the Prison Officers' Association, spoke on LBC and IRN radio about the decision to end regular checks on him, which was linked in that coverage to his death. Alan Beith, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, and others commented on the death that day in reports that also named the Home Secretary, Michael Howard.
His death ended the proceedings against him, and no court ever heard the evidence against him. On January 3, 1995, Detective Superintendent Bennett told a news conference that the investigation was costly but had to go on.
Rosemary West was charged with ten murders: Charmaine West, Lynda Gough, Carol Ann Cooper, Lucy Partington, Therese Siegenthaler, Shirley Hubbard, Juanita Mott, Shirley Robinson, Alison Chambers and Heather West. She pleaded not guilty and was tried alone at Winchester Crown Court, in Hampshire, before Mr Justice Mantell. Before it opened, the South China Morning Post reported that more than 500 journalists were expected and that the trial was set to last about two months. On October 19, 1995, the jurors visited 25 Cromwell Street, with police guarding the front of the house, a photograph in the Gloucestershire Police Archives records.
The prosecution's case, as the European Commission of Human Rights later summarized it, was that the young women had been sexually abused and that Rosemary West had taken part in the abuse and in the killings. A woman who had lodged at Cromwell Street at 16 said in a 2021 interview that she gave evidence at the trial and that police had told her she was lucky to be alive. A recording of one of Fred West's police interviews was played in court. Rosemary West denied any part in the deaths.
On November 22, 1995, the jury convicted her on all ten counts of murder, and she was sentenced to life imprisonment. Mr Justice Mantell said he hoped she would never be released. Brian Masters, who attended the trial daily, wrote an account of it, She Must Have Known; his publisher says the book leaves readers to judge the question of her guilt.
Rosemary West applied for leave to appeal. Her lawyers argued that the press coverage before the trial, which focused on her sexual conduct and her relationship with her husband, had made a fair trial impossible, and that newspapers had paid or promised payments to important prosecution witnesses, making their evidence unreliable. The Court of Appeal refused leave on March 19, 1996, and gave its full reasons in open court on April 2, 1996 (reported as R v West, [1996] 2 Cr App R 374). As the European Commission of Human Rights summarized that judgment, the court found that the effect of press coverage was essentially short-lived and that a trial itself focuses a jury on the evidence; that the defense had known of the witnesses' media contracts and had cross-examined them about the deals; that no substantial difference had been shown between those witnesses' statements to police and their evidence in court; and that the trial judge had dealt with the contracts carefully in his summing up.
Her solicitor, Leo Goatley of Gloucester, then took the case to Strasbourg. On October 20, 1997, the European Commission of Human Rights declared her application inadmissible because it had been lodged outside the six-month time limit, which ran from the Court of Appeal's reasoned judgment of April 2, 1996. The decision records that she was then held at HM Prison Durham.
In July 1997 the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, decided that she should never be released. A Home Office spokeswoman said the whole life tariff was set in line with the recommendations of the trial judge and the Lord Chief Justice, the Press Association reported. She has always maintained her innocence. In 2025 she was 71 and held at HM Prison New Hall, in West Yorkshire.
The murder convictions for these deaths are hers alone. No court has ever found that Fred West killed anyone.
Gloucestershire County Council commissioned an inquiry by the Bridge Child Care Consultancy into how the agencies had dealt with the West children. Its report, published in 1995, largely cleared them, concluding that no child protection service could have predicted that the family was at the center of multiple killings. It urged teachers, doctors, social workers and police not to dismiss lightly what children said, however odd it sounded. Some newspapers said the report raised more questions than it answered.
TES reported that the ten West children had attended 12 schools over 26 years. Tony Saunders, Gloucester's principal education officer, said they were neat, attended well and had parents who took an interest in their work. Fred Davies, deputy director of social services, said they were not truants, were not in trouble with the police and kept a low profile at school for fear of what would happen at home. Nigel Jones, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham, called for a debate on the school registration rules and for a national system for tracking pupils, which was one of the report's recommendations; the Education Secretary, Gillian Shephard, told him a review was a good idea.
Several of the young women had been in council care. Agencies told TES that support for young people leaving care at 16 or 17 was uneven, and charities warned that runaways could disappear without anyone noticing.
The digging in 1994 had largely taken apart the lower floors of 25 Cromwell Street. The house was demolished in 1996, and the council laid a footpath and a garden on the site. Photographs in the Gloucestershire Police Archives show the demolition and the walkway built afterward.
For years afterward, the case remained part of the city's life. Gloucester has about 120,000 residents, and journalists and others who lived through the inquiry told CNN in 2021 that it still weighed on the city decades later.
Mary Bastholm was 15 when she disappeared in Gloucester on January 6, 1968, after she was last seen waiting for a bus. She worked at the Pop-In Café on Southgate Street, where West was a regular customer. Her disappearance has long been linked to him, but he was never charged in her case, and in his final police interview he denied any involvement. Her parents and her brother, Peter, died without learning what happened to her.
Police reviewed her case more than once. They said the original investigation had pursued more than 250 lines of inquiry and that more than 100 people were interviewed in a later review. In 2012, and again in response to an online petition in 2021, the force said there was not enough evidence to suggest she was buried at the café, citing an open letter from a former chief constable, Tony Melville, which promised to review any fresh evidence.
In May 2021 a television production company gave Gloucestershire police new information. The company's documentary team had put an endoscope camera into the cellar of the building, by then The Clean Plate café, and had seen blue material. Police carried out forensic assessments and then excavated the cellar over about two weeks. On May 27, 2021, Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden announced that no human remains and no items of relevance had been found. The blue material was not identified but was probably connected with a buried pipe. He said everyone working on the case was disappointed, that the main aim had been to let her family bury her after more than 50 years, and that the new information had justified the search. Mary Bastholm has never been found.
Others have argued that there may be further victims. Leo Goatley, who represented Rosemary West from 1992 to 2004, and the criminologist Jane Carter Woodrow both told CNN in 2021 that they believed more bodies remained undiscovered. Goatley said police stopped looking after the inquiry formally ended in 1996, for lack of resources. In April 2026 a Gloucester man, Tim Whittard, who had organized a drone survey of the boundary between Fingerpost Field and Letterbox Field at Much Marcle, called for an excavation. The survey followed ground radar readings taken for a 2022 television documentary presented by Trevor McDonald, which had identified six places of interest; the drone survey found what Whittard described as two anomalies matching the radar results and a possible seventh site. He acknowledged that some readings could be false positives. The report carried no police statement, and none of these sites has been confirmed as a grave.
No charge was ever brought against West in any case beyond the 12, and none can now be.
The case has been the subject of many books and broadcasts. Howard Sounes wrote Fred & Rose, and acted as a producer on the three-part Netflix series Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story, which was released on May 14, 2025. It used previously unseen police video and unheard audio recordings of West, and interviews with relatives of some of the young women, some speaking publicly for the first time. Brian Masters wrote She Must Have Known about the trial. Leo Goatley wrote a book about the couple, and Jane Carter Woodrow published a study of her in 2012. ITV marked the 20th anniversary in 2014 with archive reports from the week of West's first court appearances.
Reviewers of the 2025 series were divided. Emily Baker of the i wrote that she kept waiting for revelations that never came, and LBC noted other critics who questioned what the program added. For the families, the documentaries have meant something different. Dezra Chambers said she had never really worked through her sister's death.
Proven by final judgment: Rosemary West's convictions for ten murders (Winchester Crown Court, November 22, 1995; leave to appeal refused March 19, 1996, reasons April 2, 1996). None of this is a finding against Fred West.
Charged but never tried (Fred West): 12 murders. His statements to police admitted some of these deaths, beginning with Heather's, and his March 1994 note admitted about nine more; he denied killing Anne McFall. His accounts changed often, and no court ever tested them. Several reports and books describe him as having killed all 12; that is an attribution, not a verdict.
Suspected, never charged: Mary Bastholm (1968). Other possible victims are a matter of opinion and of unconfirmed survey readings at Much Marcle.
Details that vary between sources: when Anne McFall was last seen (May 1967 at a Gloucester fair in the Press and Journal; other accounts give July 1967); Rena Costello's age (25, 26 or 27); Alison Chambers's age (16 or 17); and the number of West's police interviews (151 according to SoGlos). Some reports published in 2025 said West was "convicted" or "found guilty" of 12 murders; that is wrong, since he died before trial.
September 29, 1941: Frederick Walter Stephen West is born at Much Marcle, Herefordshire.
July 1946: the family moves to Moorcourt Cottage.
About 1956: leaves the village school at 15 without qualifications.
1962: marries Catherine (Rena) Costello; they live in Glasgow, where he drives an ice cream van.
End of 1965: moves to Gloucestershire with the family, Anne McFall and Isa McNeill.
1966: Rena and Isa return to Glasgow without the children.
May 1967: Anne McFall, 18 and pregnant, is last seen.
January 6, 1968: Mary Bastholm, 15, disappears in Gloucester (never found; West never charged).
1969: West meets Rosemary Letts, 15, at a bus stop in Cheltenham.
1971: West is in prison for theft; Charmaine West, about 8, is taken out of school; in August Rena Costello goes missing.
1972: Fred and Rosemary marry and move to 25 Cromwell Street.
April 1973: Lynda Gough, 19, dies.
November 1973: Carol Ann Cooper, 15, is reported missing.
December 27, 1973: Lucy Partington, 21, disappears from a bus stop.
April 1974: Therese Siegenthaler, 21, disappears while hitchhiking.
November 14, 1974: Shirley Hubbard, 15, disappears.
April 1975: Juanita Mott, 18, disappears.
May 1978: Shirley Robinson, 18, dies.
May 26, 1979: Alison Chambers writes to her mother from the Wests' house; she goes missing in August.
June 19, 1987: Heather West, 16, is last seen.
August 1992: the five youngest West children are taken into care; Fred and Rosemary West are charged with sexually abusing one of their daughters.
1993: the abuse case collapses and West is found not guilty; in the summer police learn of the "under the patio" joke.
February 23, 1994: warrant granted to search the garden of 25 Cromwell Street.
February 25, 1994: West admits killing Heather; he and Rosemary are arrested.
February 26, 1994: Heather's remains are found; West admits two more killings.
March 4, 1994: West writes that he wishes to admit about nine more killings.
March 5 to 7, 1994: remains are found in the cellar; nine are found at the house within 11 days.
April 1994: Rena Costello's remains are found in Letterbox Field.
May 4, 1994: Charmaine's remains are found at 25 Midland Road.
June 1994: Anne McFall's remains are found in Fingerpost Field.
1994: West is charged with 12 murders.
January 1, 1995: West is found hanged in his cell at Winson Green prison, Birmingham, aged 53, before any trial.
1995: the Bridge Child Care Consultancy report for Gloucestershire County Council is published.
October 1995: Rosemary West's trial at Winchester Crown Court; jurors visit Cromwell Street on October 19.
November 22, 1995: Rosemary West is convicted of ten murders and sentenced to life.
March 19, 1996: the Court of Appeal refuses her leave to appeal; reasons given April 2.
1996: 25 Cromwell Street is demolished; the police inquiry formally ends.
July 1997: the Home Secretary sets a whole life tariff for Rosemary West.
October 20, 1997: the European Commission of Human Rights rejects her application as out of time.
2012: police say there is not enough evidence to search the café for Mary Bastholm.
March 2014: 20th anniversary of the Cromwell Street search.
May 2021: police excavate the cellar of The Clean Plate café; no remains are found (announced May 27).
2022: a television documentary takes ground radar readings at Much Marcle.
May 14, 2025: Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story is released, with West's police interview recordings.
April 2026: a private drone survey at Much Marcle leads to calls for an excavation; no police action is reported.