Fred West (Gloucestershire Constabulary)

Howard Sounes explains how he came to write Fred & Rose

A National Sensation

The question I am most often asked about Fred & Rose, my book about the West murder case, is: "Wasn't it depressing writing about such ghastly crimes?" An ineffable tragedy though these events were for the victims, and their families, as a journalist and author I must truthfully say that the story was grimly fascinating, even exhilarating.

The book came about as a result of my work as a journalist. In March 1994, when I was a reporter for the Sunday Mirror in London, I was fortunate to take a call from a source who started talking in remarkable detail about a murder story in Gloucester.

In recent days and weeks, police had been investigating a middle-aged builder named Fred West and his prostitute wife, Rose, who lived with their large family in a semi-detached house at 25 Cromwell Street in the cathedral city. Years ago, one of the West children, a teenager named Heather, had gone missing, and what with one thing and another detectives suspected she may have been murdered by the couple and buried under the patio in the back garden.

A warrant was obtained, the garden dug up, and Heather's remains were duly found. So were the remains of two other females. Within a few days the story had grown from being a grisly but not uncommon domestic murder into something much more unusual. Still, it was not yet a national sensation.

The House of Horrors

The call I took that Saturday informed me that there was far more to the West story: Fred had confessed to a great number of murders, with 25 Cromwell St. constituting a charnel-house of human remains, with other victims buried elsewhere. The expected total was at least twelve, and indeed the remains of twelve females were eventually recovered.

Working with the Sunday Mirror's crime reporter, Chris House, I wrote a story which gave the first indication of the true extent and bizarre nature of the Gloucester investigation. Searching for a shorthand name for the case, Chris and I came up with House of Horrors, which was far from being original, but caught on. The first major story about the “Gloucester House of Horrors” appeared on the front page of the Sunday Mirror the next day, 6 March,1994.

Over the next few months I wrote many articles about the couple, and came to understand that Rose was as much a part of these killings as her husband. Theirs was a love story, but one in which deviant, violent sex played a central part. In time, both were charged with multiple murder.

Trial for Murder

Then on new year's day, 1995, Fred hanged himself while on remand in HM Prison Winson Green. As a result, at the end of that year, Rose stood trial for murder alone at Winchester Crown Court. She was convicted in November of ten counts of murder, including that of her daughter Heather.

By this time I had moved from the Sunday to Daily Mirror, and I attended the Winchester trial for that newspaper. At the same time I was working on my book about the case, Fred & Rose, which was first published in December 1995.

It is fairly commonplace for tabloid reporters to write true crime books, and usually these are not of high quality. Rather it is hackwork, done for the promise of easy, or at least additional income. Although Fred & Rose was published expeditiously after Mrs. West's trial, a considerable amount of work had already gone into the book, which I approached with seriousness and a view to the future.

If I made a good job of Fred & Rose I hoped I might persuade publishers to advance me the money to write other, more ambitious books, about subjects closer to my heart. At the same time, while true crime is often looked down upon as a literary genre, it can make for very good books indeed, such as The Profession of Violence, In Cold Blood, and The Executioner's Song. There was no reason not to aim high.

A Different Kind of Love Story

In my approach to the West story, I didn't see Fred West as being more interesting than his wife. Rather I wanted to write what amounts to a dual biography of Fred and Rose (the title of the book became obvious), whose individual stories I traced, with equal attention, back to childhood.

As I found out more about the Wests, I came to see that I was writing a love story as well as a murder story. Make no mistake, Fred and Rose loved each other, their sexual deviance, violence, and ultimately murderous behaviour, being part of that love. The fact that a man and woman committed these crimes together, as part of their relationship, is to my mind what makes the case most interesting.

Although my intentions were good, I was an inexperienced author, and was therefore fortunate to work with an exceptionally good editor in Andrew Gordon, whose suggestions improved my manuscript considerably. I also had an excellent publisher in Warner Books (now Time Warner Books), who continue to do an exemplary job with Fred & Rose, the success of which has been remarkable.

Published in 1995, Fred & Rose was a Sunday Times paperback bestseller. The publicity of the trial gave the book an immediate sales boost, of course. Also helpful was a pull-out extract in the Daily Mirror. Such books are, however, often nine day wonders, and several other authors were also writing about the case. To date, at least ten books about the West murders have been published, including very good books by distinguished authors. Most have since gone out of print, while Fred & Rose has continued to sell steadily and strongly.

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