Inside The Most Disturbing Dungeons And Torture Chambers That Serial Killers Used To Torment Their Victims

Published October 23, 2022
Updated March 12, 2024

Fred And Rosemary West’s Incestuous Murder House

A Body Recovered From 25 Cromwell Street

Ian Cook/Getty ImagesFred and Rosemary West’s home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, England, where the couple tortured and murdered not only their teenage daughter, but a number of other girls over a nearly 20-year period.

Rosemary West was a shy, quiet child, but beneath the unassuming surface, there was something amiss about her.

At age 12, she raped one of her brothers. Later on, she harassed the boys in her village.

Her mother underwent electric shock therapy while Rosemary was still in utero, according to Grunge. Her father was an abusive former Naval officer suffering from schizophrenia, and he may have sexually abused Rosemary as a child.

Perhaps these circumstances fundamentally changed the young girl. In either case, she seemed predisposed toward sex and violence by young adulthood — and meeting Fred West only exacerbated these tendencies.

Rosemary West Leaving Court

Mathieu Polak/Getty ImagesRosemary West leaving court.

He was 27. She was 15. They met at a bus stop. They married and moved in together not long after.

When Fred went to prison for a time, 17-year-old Rosemary West was left in charge of his eight-year-old stepdaughter from his first marriage, Charmaine, and his biological daughter from that same marriage, Anne Marie. But Rosemary was anything but nurturing to the children, and she detested Charmaine.

The young girl went missing in the summer of 1971. Her mother, Rena, had vanished the year before.

25 Cromwell Street Basement

PA/Getty ImagesA child’s drawing in the basement of Fred and Rosemary West’s home.

Once Fred returned from prison, Rosemary began doing sex work in their home while he watched. Soon enough, the couple was fulfilling their perverse sexual desires and sadistic tendencies by luring young women into their home, raping them, and torturing them before they killed them.

The two went on to have multiple children of their own, The Sun reported: daughters Heather Ann, Mae, and Louise, and sons Stephen and Barry.

Each of their children was subjected to beatings, whippings, abuse, and in one instance, murder. The girls were repeatedly raped by their father, men who paid Rosemary to have sex with them, and their uncle. Fred West at one point impregnated Anne Marie and infected her with a sexually transmitted disease.

The girls were also forced to help their mother solicit men for sex, all behind the scenes of a couple who presented themselves as a typical happy family.

Flowers Placed At 25 Cromwell Street

John Giles/PA/Getty ImagesA policewoman sitting by a collection of flowers from well wishers and mourners of Fred and Rosemary West’s victims.

Fred and Rosemary converted their basement into a torture chamber and a burial ground for their victims — until it became too full, and they had to bury their victims’ bodies in the garden.

This horrifying lifestyle continued until 1987, when the couple murdered their daughter Heather and an investigation finally began into their house of horrors.

During their search, police found Heather’s remains, as well as the bodies of ten other girls, including Charmaine and Rena.

Fred and Rosemary West were each found guilty, despite Rosemary’s initial attempts to play innocent. She was sentenced to life in prison in 1995.

Fred died by suicide in jail that same year, scribbling, “Freddy, the mass murderer from Gloucester” on his cell wall.

author
Austin Harvey
author
A staff writer for All That's Interesting, Austin Harvey has also had work published with Discover Magazine, Giddy, and Lucid covering topics on mental health, sexual health, history, and sociology. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Point Park University.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.