Background
Gloucester is a city in south-west England. The house at 25 Cromwell Street belonged to Fred and Rosemary West, who had a large family and rented rooms to lodgers over the years. From the 1970s onwards young women and girls from the area were reported missing, and some families waited many years for answers.
The case came to light through a child-welfare inquiry, and what the children in the household said drew police attention.
The Cromwell Street house had three storeys and was the family's home from the 1970s into the 1990s. During those years neighbours and visitors did not notice anything unusual, which is one reason the case was later discussed under the heading of missed warning signs.
What happened
In February 1994 police searched the garden of the house and began to excavate. Human remains were found quickly. Fred West was arrested, and further remains were later recovered from the house and other locations. Rosemary West was arrested in April of the same year.
The remains belonged to young women who had disappeared between the 1970s and 1987. The victims included members of the Wests' own family and a lodger. They were identified one by one through forensic work and the persistence of their families.
Police excavated not only Cromwell Street but also earlier addresses of the couple during 1994. The inquiry required an exceptionally large forensic operation by Gloucestershire police and reopened old missing-person files. Remains were identified using the methods then available, and families learned decades later what had happened to their daughters.
Trial and outcome
Fred West was found dead in Birmingham Prison on 1 January 1995 while awaiting trial; he had taken his own life, and he was never convicted of murder. In November 1995 Rosemary West was convicted at Winchester Crown Court of ten murders and received ten life sentences, with a whole life order. Her convictions stand.
The Cromwell Street house was demolished in October 1996, and the site was deliberately turned into a walkway rather than being left as a landmark or rebuilt.
Legacy
The case provoked serious debate in England about child protection and missing-person investigations, and in particular about why earlier reports had not been linked in time. This page remembers the young women who disappeared and died by name and as people with lives.
Fred West's death meant that many questions were left unanswered, because the full events could not be examined in court. Debate about the total number of victims continued; Fred West is believed to have killed at least twelve people.