Warning: This article contains details some readers may find upsetting
Netflix’s newest documentary, focused on the notorious married couple Fred and Rose West, shows several newly discovered recordings, including a police interview in which the prolific serial killer is asked about killing his daughter.
The pair, from Herefordshire and Devon, UK, killed an unknown number of women and young girls over the course of 20 years.
Amongst the number that the pair killed was Heather West, their daughter. The 16-year-old went missing in in 1987, with police unable to make any progress for a whole seven years.
Advert
This eventually unravelled when word got back to a police detective that there was a West family ‘joke’ – that Heather was ‘under the patio’.
This joke, along with suspicions raised by one of his children who accused him rape, led police to investigate the Wests.
Netflix’s new documentary, Fred and Rose West: A British Horror story, features hours of police interviews with Fred and Rose West, including an audio recording of Fred being questioned about the idea that Heather is in the back garden.
It reveals Fred’s chilling response to the crimes levied against him, which is sure to unsettle anyone watching it.
Being interviewed by Detective Constable Hazel Savage, he is asked whether he reported Heather as a missing person to the police, to which he simply replies ‘no’.
She then tells him that children have been saying that it is a family joke that Heather is under the patio, to which West shockingly laughs.
When she asks why, he says: “Just supposing you did, I mean you’re not going to say, ‘Your sister’s under the patio’.
“I think we better pack it away, Hazel. We’re talking rubbish aren’t we.”
He went on to finally say: “I mean, you’re digging me place up so carry on doing it. I mean why bother?”
It would later come out that, despite his denials and shockingly laughing at the suggestion he killed his own daughter, he had indeed killed Heather and buried her under the patio, and had joked with his family about it.
The serial killer would go on to admit to police that he had killed her, directing them where to dig in shocking police footage recently found by Netflix.
In this footage he is again shown laughing, smiling as they dug up his back garden to find his daughter’s body.
Eventually, with his direction, police found her bones, however in their continued efforts to dig up the garden found a further eight sets of bones.
Speaking about the day he took police to direct their digging, West’s responsible adult throughout his process noted how jovial he would be even in horrifying circumstances.
She said: “He just kept sort of looking at me and winking, as if it was some sort of game. When we got back, I went to him: ‘What did you mean, what was you looking at me like that for?’”
To which Fred replied: “Didn’t you see that bone sticking out?”
The infamous serial killer would be arrested and charged in 1994, before killing himself in his cell on January 1, 1995.
Fred and Rose West: A British Horror story is available to stream on Netflix now.
Topics: UK News, Crime, True Crime, Netflix
Michael Slavin