Serial killer Rose West has been urged to confess to the crimes she committed in Gloucester with her husband Fred. She has been in jail for 30 years but is still pleading her innocence as she approaches her 70th birthday in November.
Now her lawyer, Leo Goatley, 67, is urging her to 'find redemption' by confessing. West was convicted of 10 murders and is in HM Prison New Hall, in Flocton, West Yorkshire.
Leo Goatley, 67, represented West after she and her husband were first arrested in 1994 at 25 Cromwell Street, where they raped and killed many of their victims. Mr Goatley says she is overweight, reclusive and in poor health, the Mirror reports.
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Mr Goatley, who represented her for 12 years, particularly wants her to reveal what she knows about the disappearance of Mary Bastholm, 15, in 1968. He told the Mirror: “There is an awful lot Rose knows that she hasn’t revealed.
"There isn’t much that Fred did that she wasn’t aware of. If her inner journey has really gone anywhere since she has been in prison there are things she should say that would help the families of her victims.
"To start with, she could clear up the Mary Bastholm disappearance. This blanket pleading of total ignorance of everything that happened is just daft at this point.
"Also she could very simply clear up if there are other victims we don’t even know about.”
The Wests committed at least 12 murders – even killing their daughters, Charmaine and Heather. The Wests targeted young women and girls.
It has long been suspected that they were connected to more killings but Fred West, who was charged with 12 murders, took his own life in prison before the trial. And his wife has protested her innocence since going to jail almost 30 years ago.
Mr Goatley has written to her in prison – accusing her of knowing that her husband abducted and killed Mary Bastholm – in the hope West will unburden herself.
He believes Fred West used his wife to get Mary into his car before killing her. It would have been Rose West’s introduction into a web of evil as a teenager and Mr Goatley wonders if she could ever bring herself to admit it.
He said: “I am absolutely certain she knows an awful lot more than she has ever told us. She has clammed up about everything.
"The only concessions she ever made after she was convicted was that she admitted what her daughter Anne Marie was saying was true and that Anne Marie was abused by her own dad. But the rest of it she has tried to deny.”
Mr Goatley used to visit West regularly in prison but lost touch in recent years. He said: “I think she has closed herself off from the world now. I don’t think any of her family or kids are in contact with her.
"I think she has one friend, the wife of a church minister. I’ve heard she has put on a lot of weight and I don’t think she’s in great health.
“The way I feel is whatever process she has gone through in prison, while trying to project this image of a mellowed old lady, means if she really has become like that she would want to find some kind of redemption.”
He paints a complex picture of the killer. He said: “She had presented as a mother, preoccupied with the daily routine and chores. She was always knitting for them.
"She did have a strange pride in how they looked yet there was this other side to her that was totally wicked. She would be shopping with the kids one minute, then busy with her prostitution the next, before kidnapping girls and killing them.
“The Wests had their own version of normality. I often wonder if the evil side of them even recognised it.
"The kids knew about it, obviously, because they were on the other end of it because they were beaten by her.”
Mr Goatley said there is some truth to the idea that Rose West was “subjugated by her husband But he said: “There is no doubt there was a wicked drive within her – she could not have done the things she did without one.
“Once she was fired up she participated with real evil vigour, I am quite certain about that.”
He said that one the hardest things was separating the mother from the killer.
“It is disturbing that you can meet someone who seems quite normal and who can be so reasonable in conversation and yet such wickedness could lurk within.
“It is not as though you feel you are in the presence of the Devil. I mean, I have seen her kick off at times but she was often very normal.
“She could spit fury and swear, her eyes would flicker and she would salivate and bite her lip. There were times when she would blow her top but she would go up the gears without ever going off the cliff.”
The known victims
Anna McFall, 18, killed by Fred in July 1967. Discovered June 1994 at Fingerpost Field near Much Marcle. She was eight months pregnant at the time of her death.
Charmaine West, 8, Fred's stepdaughter. Believed to have been killed by Rose in 1971 while Fred was serving a sentence at HMP Leyhill. Buried in the cellar at 25 Midland Road.
Rena Costello, 27, Fred's first wife, also killed in 1971, buried at Letterbox Field in Much Marcle.
Lynda Gough, 19, killed April 1973. Buried in 25 Cromwell Street.
Carol Ann Cooper, 15, killed November 1973. Burried in the cellar at 25 Cromwell Street.
Lucy Partington, 21, killed December 1973. Last seen at a bus stop in Cheltenham, her body was discovered in the cellar in Cromwell Street in 1994.
Therese Siegenthaler, 21, abducted in 1974 while hitchhiking. Buried under an extension built by Fred at 25 Cromwell Street.
Shirley Hubbard, 15, abducted from a bus stop in Droitwich in November 1974. Dismembered remains were found in the cellar in Cromwell Street.
Juanita Mott, 18, a former lodger at Cromwell Street. She was last seen in April 1975. Her body was found buried at Cromwell Street.
Shirley Robinson, 18, a former lodger who was eight months pregnant with Fred's child. She was killed in May 1978.
Alison Chambers, 16, living in care in Gloucester. She was last seen in the summer of 1979, her body was buried in the Cromwell Street garden.
Heather West, 16, the eldest daughter of Fred and Rose. A pupil at Oxstalls School at the time of her death in June 1987. Her dismembered body was found buried in the garden at Cromwell Street. Her brother Stephen claims their father asked him to help dig the hole she was buried in.
Possible victim
Mary Bastholm, 15, disappeared in January 1968. Last seen in Bristol Road at a bus stop. She is widely believed to have been killed by Fred.
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