Fred and Rose West’s daughter reveals a big secret she’s keeping from her own son, and a chilling letter her mother wrote from prison
Standing in the kitchen of her smart home, no one — even her own son — could imagine the horrors of Mae West’s childhood.
The mother-of-two may be keeping the darkest secret imaginable from the teenager: the fact that her parents are Britain’s most notorious serial killers Fred And Rose West.
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Mae grew up in the house of horrors at 25 Cromwell Street, where she was subjected to vile sexual abuse by her mother and father.
But even more chilling was that she was forced to do so sleep on rotting bodies buried in the basement.
Her own sister Heather was murdered and dumped in the backyard – one of twelve known victims of the couple.
Mae, now 52, has somehow managed to escape a similar fate and now tries every day to fight the demons that threaten to overwhelm her.
Read more about Fred & Rose West
Speaking about the 30th anniversary of her parents’ arrest, she told The Sun Online: “I just try to live a normal, everyday life – well, as normal and everyday as it can be.
‘My life now revolves around protecting my children, especially the youngest. He doesn’t know anything about my past. No idea.
“He is now at an age where he is starting to ask questions. The only thing I told him is that my father is dead and that I don’t talk to my mother.
‘As far as I’m concerned, he never will. At least not from me.”
Mae’s childhood was spent as a victim of violent abuse by her parents, who attacked and sexually abused their eight children.
She was never read a story or tucked in; treats instead meant wearing the clothes of Fred and Rose’s victims or managing to escape her father’s depraved sexual fantasies.
Instead of a Saturday job at a local cafe or store, Mae had to work as a secretary for her prostitute mother.
By the time she was even born in 1972, Fred and Rose had already murdered two people: her half-sister Charmaine and her father’s previous wife, Catherine “Rena” West.
In spite of the horror around her, she has now managed to build a normal life for herself with a husband and two children.
But the ghosts of her upbringing can never truly disappear – despite how deeply Mae tries to bury them.
She said: “Now it feels like another life that wasn’t mine. The years have helped. It’s true what they say, time heals.
“Sometimes it feels like a story you read and had no part in. Other times you are reminded of something from back then and you know you are going to have a bad day.
“I don’t talk about it. No one in my life, except my husband, knows who I am in terms of my connection to Fred and Rose. I think I’m wearing a mask now.”
It’s best if I leave that to you.
Rose West in a letter to Mae from prison
As the couple’s bloodlust grew, Fred and Rose expanded their collection of victims by luring tenants to stay in their home house of horrors.
They also lured young women into their car, using Rose’s presence in the front seat to make them feel safe.
Once inside, they were bound, gagged, sexually assaulted and murdered.
Fred and Rose’s killing spree finally ended on February 25, 1994 Police started excavation work on the house.
The apparent joke Fred made to his children about the fact that he, like Heather, would be “buried under the patio” if she spoke out was revealed as an actual threat when officers discovered a leg bone in the yard.
Further digging led police to nine more bodies in the house, while three more victims were found buried elsewhere.
With a chilling cache of evidence against them, the couple was indicted on June 30, 1994.
Fred took his own life jail the following year, while Rose received a life tariff for ten of the murders.
While serving her sentence, Mae received a note from her mother, effectively cutting all ties.
Having parents like I had made me who I am. My challenge is to deal with the effect they have had on me, rather than who they are.
Mae West
She said: “My mother and I stopped talking 16 years ago. We dropped out. It was her choice.
“She wrote me a letter basically telling me, ‘It’s best if I leave it to you.’ In other words, she no longer wanted to see me or communicate with me.
“It made me question a lot of things at the time, like was I with her or not with her. It’s strange that someone your older and still alive, but you don’t see them anymore.”
Over the past thirty years, Mae has built a new life for herself, away from the horrific shackles of her youth.
While she used to talk about her hell, she now tells people she’s doing “fine” and moves on.
Mae believes that by throwing herself into family life she has been able to cope, but there is still a part of her previous story that she cannot rewrite.
The mother was always close to sister Heather, who was murdered and dismembered after years of being subjected to vicious abuse and torture.
Killed by depravity – the famous victims of Fred and Rose West
Anna McFall
McFall, the nanny to Fred and Rena West’s children, was believed murdered in 1967.
She was pregnant when she died, with West believed to be the father. Her body was found in a shallow grave in June 1994.
Fred West denied murdering McFall, but after his arrest he allegedly confided to a visitor that he had stabbed her after an argument.
This happened before Rose West met him.
Charmaine West
With Fred in prison for theft of car tires and a motor vehicle tax disc, Rose is left to care for Charmaine and Anne Marie.
The former, only eight years old, was Fred West’s stepdaughter from his previous marriage.
A neighbor Tracey is said to have found Charmaine tied to a wooden chair with her hands behind her back, while Rose stood with a large wooden spoon.
Rose claimed she was taken by her mother, but her skeleton was found on the Midland Road property, hidden and missing bones.
René West
Fred’s first wife Rena is believed to have been murdered by strangulation.
Rose was not charged for this murder.
Lynda Gough
Lynda Gough was the first sexually motivated murder committed by the West.
She moved to Cromwell Street in April 1973, after having affairs with several tenants. The Wests later claimed she was asked to leave after attacking one of their children.
Strangulation and suffocation were the likely causes of death.
Carol Ann Cooper
Cooper was murdered in November 1973 at the age of 15.
On the night of November 9, she was allowed to spend the night with her grandmother before a doctor’s appointment the next morning.
She attended the appointment and then met up with her boyfriend, before somehow ending up on Cromwell Street.
Her body was found more than twenty years later.
Lucia Partington
Lucy, a 21-year-old student of medieval English at the University of Exeter, returned home for Christmas in December 1973.
She hurriedly left a friend’s house to catch the last bus from Cheltenham to Gretton on December 27, believing she had been kidnapped at this bus stop.
Twenty years later she was found, her dismembered body in the basement of Cromwell Street.
Therese Siegenthaler
A 21-year-old Swiss sociology student at Woolwich Polytechnic.
She planned to hitchhike to Ireland at Easter 1974. Her family reported her missing because they hadn’t heard from her in a while.
The prosecution believes she was kidnapped before being murdered, with Fred West later building a fake chimney over her grave.
Shirley Hubbard
Hubbard was only 15 at the time of her death and was allegedly kidnapped by the West.
Her body was found after an excavation in the concrete and plastic membrane of the basement floor.
Juanita Mot
In the summer of 1974, Mott moved to 25 Cromwell Street but later went missing while living in Newent.
Her body was found in March 1994, 19 years later, with West having concreted the basement floor.
Shirley Robinson
Robinson, the first victim buried outside the house, had an affair with Fred West, and by the fall of 1977 she was pregnant with his child.
It was initially claimed that she had moved to Scotland, but her body was later found.
When questioned, Rose West, herself pregnant with her daughter Tara at the time of the murder, claimed she did not remember her, which the prosecutor described as “ridiculous”.
Alison Chambers
The last murder with a sexual motive determined. She disappeared just before she was 17e birthday, after being seen at 25 Cromwell Street all summer.
Her body was buried under the patio.
Heath West
The first child of Fred and Rose West, there is no evidence that she knew of the murders.
She was sexually abused by her parents and after telling friends she suddenly went missing in 1987, with her mother claiming she had gone to Wales to be with a lesbian partner.
The couple joked to their other children that they would “end up under the patio like Heather” if they misbehaved. This, and their varying stories, led to search warrants for the property and subsequently to their arrests.
Mae said: “I get terribly sad when I think about Heather, how old she would be now, what kind of life she would have had. I love her so much.”
But she continued, “Having parents like I had made me who I am. My challenge is dealing with the effect they have had on me, rather than who they are.
“I am now 52, just a year younger than my father was when he died. That’s made me think about things a lot lately. I would never commit suicide, but as an age it has meaning to me, it makes me think about my own mortality, I guess.
‘But you keep going. There’s nothing else you can do, right?
‘I rarely think about Dad. I trained myself not to think about him.
“As for Rose, I won’t let myself go back to that time. There is nothing you can change.”
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