Episode 34: After Show

Join us in the After Show for Fred & Rose West!

Don't forget to send us your feedback and ideas for future episode content at contact@deadlydivaspodcast.com!

Transcript

0:13

Hey, demons and dudes. Welcome to the after show for Fred and Rose Disgusting West Yeah, just a couple of horrible demons I mean, they both had really bad childhoods, but still. So did a lot of people back then. Yeah, and why don't we just jump right into that, because that's a whole discussion in and of itself. So you have Rose, who, she was sexually abused by her father, right? Yeah. And her mother had a lot of mental instabilities. And her dad also. He also had schizophrenia. Yeah. And it seemed like neither of the parents were managing those disorders. Well, she had her electroshock therapy Jesus throughout the entire pregnancy. Right. It's amazing the baby survived. I know, and this is something that we were just researching, 'cause I couldn't believe they were doing electroshock therapy on a pregnant woman. A pregnant woman. And apparently there are a lot of risks associated with that to both the mother and the fetus, and we understand those risks a lot better now than we did then, and so there are things we can do now that- We don't even use electroshock therapy anymore, right? Right. Well, no, apparently we do in very rare cases where the benefits- Wow kinda outweigh the risks, and- for mental illnesses? Yes, yes. Apparently so. So it's still considered to be an effective... In very rare cases, apparently- Wow. I'm, I'm shocked where the benefits outweigh the risks. And I can't imagine that that would be in very many cases at all, because the risks are so serious. I mean, the risks could be death. But I also thought that it was proven to not really work. I thought the same, but in my research, this is what I've now discovered. Wow. That blows my mind. I know, because it seems like such an inhumane, barbaric thing. Well, and, and throughout this whole thing, we're constantly going, "Well, that was back then. Well, that was back then. Well, that was back then." And then it blows your mind to know that in some cases it's still used now. I would imagine that it would only be in, like, severe, severe extreme cases. Where there's no other- Yeah kind of like last resort. Yeah, where people aren't responding to medication, they're not responding to other professional help, and they just can't cope at all. So really Rose's abuse started in utero. No, really. And then, and then Fred's... So they had eight children, and six survived, and he was the first surviving child, and as a result became his mom's favorite. Right. So I'm assuming that it was the first two that maybe passed as babies, like not miscarriages but passed as babies. Right. Um, again, not so unusual back then, especially for poor families. Mm-hmm. So that's why he was, like, coddled, I guess. Yeah. Or... And forgiven, despite impregnating his 13-year-old. Unbelievable. But also, how could it have possibly gone any other way? I mean, his mother was sexually abusing him and the father was sexually abusing the sister Abusing the, yeah. Mm-hmm and, his response when he was convicted or whatever was literally, "Well, I don't understand. Doesn't everybody do it?" He literally thought it was normal. But also, if you are sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, that 13-year-old girl is gonna be like, "Hey, no. Stop." And if somebody says no and stop, you stop, no matter how you were raised, no matter what the other circumstances are. But- A lot of children who are abused by parents, especially from an early age, don't realize that that's not- Right what happens in every family. But obviously she did, because she came out and eventually told her mother. Yeah, I guess so. I was just thinking that, like, if Dad had been abusing her for so long, for her brother to do it may have been like... Well, it came out 'cause she was pregnant. Right. Yeah. Is it maybe that's, maybe she wasn't saying, "Stop. No, don't do it," because Daddy did it and you do what your parents tell you, right? It's disgusting. It's unfathomable. And then for these two freaks to meet each other was just- It was just one of those, like, unholy meetings. Like the two boys from the Scream murder, and one of their dads said if those two never met, this would have never happened. And like you said, they, obviously they both had issues and psychologists evaluated them and said that like, hey, they would have both gone on to commit some of these heinous acts. But their meeting and their relationship together magnified it Yeah Because they had had children. He, he'd already killed before he met Rose. Mm-hmm. 'Cause he'd killed Anna, right? And Rina. She, I think, would have been a nasty piece of work and would have been abusive. Mm-hmm. And a prostitute and all the other stuff. I don't know if she would have got as far as killing anybody. I think Robson- Yeah, and I think also, I mean, obviously she had a rough childhood and blah, blah, blah. We know that. But who knows the trajectory that she would have taken if she hadn't met Fred because he was what, 27? She was 15. Yes. So- Just turned 15 the relationship was not appropriate. There is a total imbalance of power. There's no telling what kind of abuse he was hurling at her during her formative years, and that helped to shape her as well. So apparently, when they first met, he was very controlling. She didn't know any different. She'd never had a boyfriend. She, like everybody else, fell for him. Mm-hmm. And he was definitely the alpha in the relationship. But apparently, at some point, that switched. Right. And she became the one that was in control of everything, and he was the one that obeyed her every word. Well, it seems like he became completely enamored with her and wanted to keep her at any cost, so I guess he allowed that. And the reason they had looked for, when the police did the search warrant and they found these 99 pornographic tapes, but none consisting of children, is because Louise had told them that when he was abusing and sodomizing her and she was literally laying on the floor bleeding, it was all being taped by Rose. That's heinous. I can't. And they were probably selling those videos. I mean, that's just disgusting. And there was one point before he killed himself where he had mentioned to the appropriate adult, um, Janet, that there were at least 20 more Bodies? Yeah, people that he'd murdered. But police felt that he was trying to impress her. Right. I believe that. But then at the same time, they were saying it's unlikely that a serial killer would go such long stretches between murders. They do believe that the murders were sexually motivated, so they were into the sadomasochism and the bondage and everything, but that they would get off more and more by taking it too far, and that that's how these people would end up dead or deliberately killing them. So they didn't want a consensual BDSM relationship with somebody. They enjoyed, like, inflicting the unwanted pain. Like, they enjoyed the torture. That wasn't- they participated in with each other, but obviously not to the point where one of them was dead. Right. But they enjoyed watching each other torture other people. I mean, I don't know how you get that fucked up or- I don't, I don't know how you get to that point. How does that even come up in conversation? "Hey, how do we take this further?" I can't even imagine. So Janet Leach. Mm-hmm. Um, the last thing that I watched, 'cause I did a lot, a lot of research. I did deep dives and all the other stuff. The last thing that I watched was actually a miniseries, which was a dramatization, um, done by the BBC, called Appropriate Adult. All right. Um, I found it kind of last minute. Like, literally I'd been working on this for two weeks, but yesterday- Mm-hmm I found out about it, and so I cram watched it. Mm-hmm. It was three episodes. It was, like, four hours. And I was looking for maybe further information, 'cause that kind of fascinated me, that part of it. Mm-hmm. Like, this poor woman, this social worker- Mm who had no idea what she was letting herself in for. She was volunteering to give back to her community. Right. She ends up getting freaking screwed because she's not entitled to the counseling because she's a volunteer and not being paid. Because she volunteered. I know. Like, that's more of a reason to help her. What a kick in the face. Yeah. Like, all the people that were paid to deal with all this shit get the counseling, but you not only volunteered all of your time for free, sat through all this shit for free. They promised her she would never have to testify because she was involved with Fred- Mm-hmm on Fred's case, and they said, "Because of everything that he talks about with you is confidential, you will never have to testify in court because they can't ask you anything." But as soon as Fred hung himself- That changed the game that changed the game, and they needed her to testify against Rose, and she was subpoenaed. But she never wanted to be in court or testify or anything. And so I really felt for her and what she went through, so I wanted to watch this miniseries. However, there was a lot of stuff in the miniseries that strayed a lot from the facts that I had pulled in my story. Right. And I wasn't sure how much of, like, liberty they'd taken. Right. So- 'Cause it was a dramatization. Right. And you would hope that it would be Fairly accurate. Mm-hmm. Like for instance, he said to her that Anna was the love of his life and that she very much looked like Anna. Mm-hmm. And he would even slip and call her Anna. Wow. Right? All of that's confirmed in the facts that I've read But in the dramatization, he says things to her like, "You and I will be together one day," and all these things. She did actually get dismissed from the case. Mm-hmm. Like, they no longer needed her, but she stayed in contact with him. Mm. And she says that it's because she knew that there were more people, and she knew that she was possibly the only person he would ever open up to. Right. And she felt like she was maintaining the contact because she had children. Right. She had an obligation on so many levels- Right not just professionally, but personally, because she had children. Right. Morally, she was like, "If it was one of my children, I would want to know." Mm. And in the dramatization, they portray it as a prison guard gives him her personal number. He uses that to call her at home. He begs her to come see him because he's got more information. And, um, he had definitely become attached to her. And the reason that she dealt with all this media scrutiny afterwards was the fact that she kept in contact with him after she was no longer required to- Mm-hmm is that people thought they were either in a relationship or thought that she had actively friended him- Right and liked him. Right. Where she was like, "I'm a mom, and there is more people out there, and I don't believe he's gonna tell anybody but me." Right. So she would continue to visit him in jail, and they wrote to each other constantly. Wow. But a lot of things in the dramatization, like he says to her, "I want everybody to know what really happened- Mm-hmm so I'm gonna write a book." Right. "And will you help me?" And I don't know if that's true. Right. You know? But it was very well done. Mm-hmm. I just would say don't take everything in it to be total fact, but I recommend that people watch it, because it gives you a lot of insight to the case period. Right. Yeah. But she's a poor housewife lady with kids at home, and she's having to listen to all of this stuff- Yeah and keep her cool and, and discuss it with him. And, and we've already said that he was so blase to it that he would just talk to anybody that would listen, and that he would talk about it like it was no big deal. I just really felt for her. I didn't wanna put her right up there with the victims, 'cause she didn't lose her life. Right. I mean, that's a whole nother level, obviously. Right. But what she went through by trying to be a volunteer to her community and then ending up with the public being against her. So the public was against her? Because they felt that she had, one, sold herself out to the paper- Right. Right which could've, um, caused Rose to get- Mm-hmm off completely. But she didn't realize that it was wrong to agree to do the story after. Right. The papers were all fighting for her story- Mm-hmm so they're trying to be first. Mm-hmm. So they're like, "Hey, we're gonna give you thousands of dollars if you agree to do this with us- Mm-hmm after the trial." She didn't realize- That she couldn't make a contract with them, even a verbal agreement, until the trial was done. Right. And again, this is because she's not a professional. She's a- Right volunteer. Right. Now, that could have had, um, Rose's case thrown out, right? Right. Because most of the evidence was hers. So the public hated her for that fact. Mm-hmm. Um, the public hated her because she kept in contact with Fred after she needed to, and they all thought, why would anybody want to keep in contact with somebody like that? Right. And that's why after the fact, like, she was just constantly hounded. Like, were you having a relationship with him? Like- Wow was there a romantic relationship with him? Right. Why would you keep on seeing him? And there wasn't any of that- Right supposedly, in as far as I'm concerned. Well, he was enamored with her, but, like, I don't think that was reciprocated by her at all. Not at all, no. And she can't help it, like, that he developed feelings for her because she just happened to look like Anna. Like Anna, yeah. That's not her fault. And I mean, she also, just having to live with that information- Gosh, she's never- it's heavy. Like- She could never unhear that. No. And, I'm not saying that we're similar, but I'm just saying when we research these cases and it becomes your life for two weeks, living with, you know, these horrific details is hard. So I can only imagine actually speaking to the perpetrator of those crimes, and then you have to go home to your kids at night and compartmentalize that and be a mom and live your life. And one of her kids was, like, teenage years. Mm-hmm. So he was aware of what was going on on the TV. He would watch the news. He was aware of the fact that she was the appropriate adult for Fred, 'cause that was even on the news. Right. But she wasn't al- allowed to discuss anything going on with the case with her family. Mm. And they had a hard time understanding, as a volunteer, you can drop out at any time. Mm-hmm. Right? But she felt an obligation to try and get information out of him once he befriended her. Right. And her own kids were watching on TV what he did and was like, "Why are you helping this guy? Why are you going to talk to him? Why, you can step out of this at any time." And so it was struggles within her own family of them not understanding why she felt the need. To stay heavily involved Yeah, but I mean, I guess she felt like it was her civic duty, and I, I can respect that. It would've been very easy for her to drop out, but she felt that obligation, and I really, I respect that. 'Cause it would've been a thousand times easier for her to say, "Bye Fred," and never think about it again. Right. But she took her duty seriously. I believe she, and then she had a conscience, and it is hard for teenagers to understand what a mother feels like- Mm un- until they've matured enough to become a parent and know what it means to have your own offspring. But she was looking at it through the eyes of the murder victims' mothers who didn't know where their children were. Right. And I get that. Mm-hmm. I mean, you get that. Yeah. But it's hard for, like, a 15-year-old boy to get that. Yeah. He's like, just, just quit. He's like, "What are you thinking, like?" Yeah. Yeah. "This is, this is stupid. Why would you do this?" Yeah. And it took up a lot of her time and took her away from the family a lot, and she wasn't even paid to go through all this crap. Right. Right. So she had no financial obligation to say- Which is why I'm sure the papers offering thousands of dollars was, uh, tempting. And it would've been, and I don't understand why she wasn't told, like, prior, "Hey, you can't make a deal with the media right now. You can't..." Like, those rules should've been laid out very clearly for her- Mm before she was able to volunteer. But it seems like they just didn't give a shit about the volunteers at all, which is very sad. It's a good watch. I just wouldn't take everything in it to heart, because I, I spent two weeks solidly researching these facts, and I am glad to be done with this case- Right and move on to something else, because it was horrific. I actually read how he was dismembering... So when he worked in the farm in the beginning, um, he would work occasionally in the pig slaughtering, which is how he knew how to dismember bodies- Mm and so on. Um, and what he told her and a lot of the, like, case files that you read actually specify the sexual abuse and the murders, how they were murdered, how they were, um, abused. Like, they had a beam they would hang them from while sexually abusing them. I mean, all kinds of stuff like that, that I was like I cannot go into all of that No, that's Rex Heuermann's stuff too. He had that, the beam that he built- Mm-hmm where he would suspend the women. I think that's one of the most sick things that you can possibly do Rose would do it too That, I mean, I can't, I cannot even imagine. So yeah, having researched this, I literally got into all the gory details- Mm but I just, I don't believe that that's what we're here to be telling people about. Certainly not in the main show. Right. Um- After show, some little, little- A little extra bits like that. Yeah. But still, you know, we're not here to go into all the gory details, just the facts of what happened and, um, how they got caught and everything else. But yeah, it's quite harrowing just to like read all of that stuff. Yeah. It really is. That's why I kept saying I was gonna do it. Mm-hmm. And then I was like- And it took you a long time I was like, I've got to be in the right frame of mind- Right to actually delve into this sickness. So this is the most notorious serial killer case in England. Yes. Like by far. By far Who would you compare it to, like if you're in the US? Or is there anything so gruesome that you can even think of? I mean, unfortunately, there's many in the US, and that's partially due to size and population. Right. If you think that Britain is the size of Florida- Mm if you were like, um, okay, what's the most notorious one in Florida, it would be narrowed down a lot. Mm. Okay. So in America, just being a much bigger place- Mm with, with much more incidences. I get John Wayne Gacy vibes- Really? a lot. Yeah, because he was luring, it wasn't women, it was young men and boys. Mm. He would lure them however, and you know, eventually they ended up buried and dead underneath the house. Similarities in that way, yes. I, I guess I thought you were saying, like in notoriety, who was, who's up there with them in American... There's just so many to choose from in America, I guess is what I'm saying. Whereas- Yeah in England there aren't that many. Yeah. I didn't know England was that small. It's the size of Florida? Yeah. And no death penalty. No death penalty. Not that I'm advocating for the death penalty. No. I'm not gung-ho on the death penalty. Um, it's just, it's weird, 'cause you hear about it all the time here. Ac- actually, so, so I don't know if this is still true, but what we were always told at school is there's only one offense that you can use the death penalty for in England. Mm. And what's that? Treason. Treason. If you betray the king or queen- Okay or the royal family. Well, see, I, I think that's nonsense. I think that if you murder children, that, that's a- That's worse more serious offense. Exactly. But that's England, I guess. Exactly. Which is why it's like, you know- That's the monarchy. not even, not even spoken about, because it's- Right just more of a joke in England. Like when- Right people say, "Oh, you know, King Charles, what an ugly man," and other people- Oh my God will be like, "Don't say that, it's treason. You'll get hung." You know? Oh my God. Wow. And I don't think England have ever had, anything like the electric chair or anything. I think the last time that people were- Was it the gallows? Yeah. Oh, wow. Literally. Wow. I don't think they've ever had like lethal injection or anything like that. Wow. I could be wrong. I was thinking that this was a bit more in the past, but they weren't actually- It was in the, it was in the '90s it was in the '90s that they got arrested. Yeah. Right. Wow. Yeah. But their crime started in like the '60s, right? Yes. Correct. So like 30 years of this- Mm-hmm before they were caught. Yeah. And like you said, there were so many red flags and so many organizations and so many instances where somebody could have stepped in and said something, and nobody did. And it cost at least 12 lives, that we know of. Yeah. Not to mention the trauma that everybody else around it endured. Yeah. So Caroline Owens, the one that got away- Mm-hmm um, when she found out that they had gotten literally, like, a $75 fine each- Mm-hmm tried to commit suicide. Wow. She didn't succeed, but she was so devastated that something like that, as bad as that. She honestly thinks that she would've lost her life had she not got away, especially now that she knows of all of this. Right. And she testified against them. Good. But she was so devastated that nothing came of it that, yeah, she tried to take her own life. Because what does that tell you? It tells you that nobody gives a shit about you. Yeah. You don't matter. Society doesn't care. The police don't care. And they're gonna let these idiots keep doing it- Yeah basically. That's horrible. As for the 31 emergency room visits and the school seeing all the welts and everything, I mean, it literally took for a child to be sodomized and for, um, somebody else's mom to make an anonymous phone call for, for police to even look into this. That's unbelievable. It is absolutely unbelievable that it took so long and so many instances. Yeah. So many balls dropped over so much time. So do we know anything about the kids that survived? I mean, did they go on to do okay or, like... Um, I didn't find a lot about them. Um- Well, they probably try to stay out of the public eye. Yeah. And I don't blame them a bit, 'cause I'd be ashamed and horrified. Like, I wouldn't want anybody to know that those were my parents, and if somebody does find out, well, they're gonna ask you 21 questions, and you don't wanna recount that. Yeah. I'm not sure. I know that Annamarie went on to be, like, married and- Hopefully she had, like, somewhat of a normal life, as normal as you can after that. Well, your mother was murdered, your sister was murdered, your step-sister was murdered. You were abused horrifically. Mm. This was a heavy one. It's a really, really heavy one So glad to wash my hands of it now. Yeah. We c- I never, ever watch anything about Fred and Rose ever again. Well, I hope that your family and everybody across the pond enjoyed this. Yeah. They'd been waiting, I think. All right. Well, we'll move on to a lighter one next week with Lorena. Crazy that Lorena Bobbitt is considered lighter by comparison, but it is. It is. And then I, I had down that next I was gonna do, um, Aileen Wuornos. I don't know if you saw that I put it on there. She's a great one. But then I watched The Disappearance of Heather Elvis. Um, I don't know that one, I don't think. Um, it came out, I think it was on Netflix. I just stumbled across it, and I hadn't seen it before. It was released in 2025, so I guess it's fairly recent, but both of us have missed it somehow. Oh, yeah, I completely missed it. I think I might do that one next. Okay. Because we've recently done Gabby Petito and Daisy de la O where social media really helped find- Right the killers and solve the case. Mm-hmm. In The Disappearance of Heather Elvis, social media became a real problem. Mm. Okay. And I thought it would be a good one to see the other side. Right. So I might do that before, um, Aileen. Okay. Yeah, I'll have to get on that one. I haven't decided. I was thinking Summer Wells, the little four-year-old that disappeared from Tennessee. But this one was just such a heavy one with the children. I, I might pivot. We'll see But your next one will be Lorena Next one is Lorena. After that, anybody's guess. Yeah, I think I'm gonna, uh, bump, uh, Wuornos and do Heather Elvis first and then her. Okay. Aileen Wuornos is gonna be a really good one, though. Yeah. She, she's something, but it's fascinating because she's another one that she was just failed at every turn as a child. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And this is what happened. Does not excuse her behavior, does not excuse murder, but you can see the path so clearly from where she ended up. Absolutely. And one of the reasons why it came to mind was, again, I was watching, like, more and more Fred and Rose West stuff, and you know how, like, Netflix and Hulu just takes you to something similar straight after. Mm-hmm. So I'm sitting there typing my notes, my documentary's finished, and it went on to the one where she's interviewed in jail after. And her demeanor in jail is just something else. Like, she's all happy and giggly and like, "Oh, is this my best angle?" And, and, uh- Yeah like, I just, she's just fascinating in that way. She's very fascinating. And have you seen the movie- Mm-hmm with, um- Charlize Theron. Yeah. She did so good. So good, yeah. I'll have to watch that again. I am gonna re-watch the movie before doing the show. Um, but again, you don't know how much liberty's been taken. Yeah. So. There's a lot of good documentaries out there. Yeah, true, true. So. All right. I think we need to wrap it up, 'cause it was a long show as well. We sure do. Okay, until next time. Be divas. Night, darling. Bye. Bye.