Lodger says crumpled up newspaper gave clue to Fred West’s evil secret | UK | News

In January 1979, in the early hours of a morning, 17 -year -old Kathleen Richards gathered a few of his belongings in a bag, gathered his baby’s nephew, and followed his sister Deidre Deidre from the front gate of 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester. They didn’t look back.

“We had escaped – but we didn’t know what happened at that time, Kath says Kathleen at the age of 65. Towards the end of the 14 months they spent as Lodgers on Cromwell Street, the landlords tried to harass Kathleen over and over again. He started crossing the stairs, then he climbed his bed one night.

Kathleen, who uses the language of the 1970s, says he thinks it as an olmadan dirty old man ..

“Fred West was a fool, looked harmless, a little stupid, always thinking he couldn’t get rid of something, or he says in a soft voice.

“At first I loved him very much. It was friendly, beautiful. But I didn’t like him touching me, and then I avoided him, so I was very intensified to live there because I was trying to keep him away from him. I didn’t know that he did the same thing to others”.

Kathleen didn’t think he was bad.

In fact, his wife, Rosemary, found more strange with strange mood changes with a childish, childish sound rather than the usual abrasive tone.

15 years later, in August 1992, the girls could not stop the heart in the early hours of the morning. While Kathleen had dinner for two young children, John, then 11 and Stephen five years old (the smallest Hannah has not yet been born), heard that the old landlord and his wife were arrested on the radio on suspicion of more than one murder.

Kathleen collapsed on the floor of the kitchen.

“When I first heard what Wests was doing, I was shocked and I felt sick. I couldn’t believe it.” You can’t believe you really kill people, “he says today.

“The word evil did not pass my mind. Even though I touched me and hated me, I still thought it was my fault. You feel embarrassed, maybe you’re the one who does something wrong.”

O and Deidre were lodges at the current house of Wests on Cromwell Street from November 1977 to January 1979, after the need for their mother with eight children.

“Everyone in the region knew Dıy man Fred West and was popular, or he says, so accommodation at home seemed to be a good solution for the overcrowded at home. Nobody could fully explain with Cromwell Street large and old, solid walls, strange sounds and creepy sub -currents.

“Today you can hear everything in homes, but you couldn’t always say where the sounds came from, Kath Kathleen felt the couple’s“ eccentric ve when the couple came, and Fred introduced 17 and pregnant Shirley Robinson.

There were absolutely warning signs, but the gentle strange businessman always insisted on having a little fun. He said he didn’t leave because he doubted herself: she couldn’t be as bad as she looked and hoped her attention every day.

He never imagined that this man, who smells sweat and grease, and the brutal DIY projects in the basement, will be one of the most sadist serial killers of England.

“There were things that didn’t sit right, and when I went to bed with me, I remember thinking ‘that’s not right’. But at the same time, ‘I will be stupid.

Fred says he has a strange charm at first – a disturbing playful. “He could be funny. He always jokes. Even when he held me in the hallway, he made a joke about it. That was the way to brush him.”

But it wasn’t funny for Kathleen. Not then. Not now. Why didn’t he leave earlier? The answer is familiar with survivors. Kathleen grew up to believe that abuse was something that he deserves – it was his role in life.

“When you are abused by a school guard like me, and then by my own grandfather, you grow up, thinking that it is not worthy,” he says quietly.

“How do you think the world works for you. Who will I make a confusion? Just because you realize that it is not normal when you get too old.”

Kathleen and Deidre, the six small holes on the wall of the bedroom they shared, even found a way to rationalization of a mine. Every night, attempts to wear holes failed. In the morning, wrinkled newspaper balls would be pushed to the ground. Thus, he began to look for more important ways to prevent holes.

“I was going to the nearby park and breaking the branches, I was measuring them, and ‘Is that the size of the hole?’ I would think. ” He did the same thing with pebbles and evaluated them in a way to fit the holes.

“As in a big family, I thought it was mischief. I didn’t know who’s room. I never thought someone was watching us through these holes.”

Then there was a situation with Shirley, who retreated his heavy pregnant colleagues, which Fred introduced six months ago in the presence of his stony -faced wife.

Kathleen worked at the Walls’s ice cream factory, and on Fridays, Shirley would bring a box of ice Lollies from the factory shop. “He loved them,” he remembers. “I can imagine that you still eat, laugh.”

Then one day, Shirley just disappeared. Fred told Fred Kathleen that he flew to Germany, but Shirley had left behind a small, clean baby clothes.

“” How could he go to the plane? ” I was thinking about him.

When Shirley and his unborn baby were buried in the Wests Garden in 1994, the full horror of Fred’s constant DIY in the basement of 25 Cromwell Street became clear.

Kat Kathleen, “When Shirley was killed, he has long been sick, headache and sleeping,” he says. “If I was at home when he died, I continued to exercise. We were both 17 years old. ‘Should I have done something? Can I help?’

After the comprehensive investigations by the police, Fred West would have at least 12 murders, with the help of his wife. The former builder died in prison in January 1995 at the age of 53. Now his 71 -year -old wife is behind the railings.

The police still believes that the couple who practice being friends with ‘lost’ young girls can be responsible for other unresolved murders.

Perhaps the crime of the survivors in a non -surprising way has now followed Kathleen, who has been living in South Gloucestershire, Beşe for decades. While others called him lucky, he could barely look in the mirror.

“Getting rid of the West’s house was not about relief, or he says.

“I threw myself to help others as a protective parent. It was easier than thinking about what I was. I didn’t want to look back. I locked them all.”

He was finally his 28 -year -old daughter Hannah, who encouraged her story.

“He said, ‘Mother, you lived in that house. You have a story that can help others.’ I didn’t want to, but I thought it wasn’t hope for a long time – and I wanted people to know that they were there.

Kathleen attempted suicide and fought with feelings of worthlessness, fear and shame. However, he says that writing his memories is transformation.

“It was painful. Things that I haven’t thought of for years appeared. But talking really helps. In front of the people I trust, especially my daughter, was emancipated. The weight you carry for a long time … It begins to get up.”

Today, he is also happy with Mike, a 65 -year -old gardener. “He’s not an emotional man, but he’s very patient. He’s just talking and listening to me. We’ve left for a while – we’re busy with work and children.

Although the couple no longer encouraged, the care instinct never left him. Some of the children he helped the contest still call him “nanny kat”. According to his grandson, he’s just “nan”.

“I think the kids I care about I knew I understood them. I was there, or he says. “A child did not speak and he was not harmed by himself. ‘You won’t understand.’ And I said, ‘Oh, but I.’ Of course I didn’t give details – but I just didn’t read a book.

When we look back, Kathleen loans his mother because he keeps him safe – even if they don’t notice.

“In the past, he used to explode with bread or milk by Cromwell Street. Or he would send his sister or brother round, there were practical ways to show love. At that time we were almost uncomfortable. ‘Oh, they came again, why they can’t let us be independent.’

“But when we found out what Wests was doing, we were very pleased that Wests came to Wests because someone told us that someone would miss us.”

When the truth appeared, his mother told Kathleen that he was lucky.

“He asked me, I said anything to me and I said no. I was embarrassed, but I didn’t tell him any details because I wanted to protect him.

Kathleen says he will be proud of his late sister Deidre, who is standing in the way of everything. “” Well done. You finally said. “He would say.”

25 The legacy of Cromwell Street is one of an unbearable fear. But Kathleen’s story is also silent flexibility, love and hope.

“I didn’t relax when I found out what Fred was doing. I was destroyed. I continued to think about it.

But when I suggested that Kathleen had a gift to Shirley in the last months – a gentle friend who brings him the ice lolli, makes him laugh and offers a human connection in a monster house – Kathleen drowned in tears.

Do you really think like that? Whisper “I never thought about it. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Kathleen Richards wasn’t just the girl who escaped. He was the remaining girl – and in the last months he made someone feel less lonely.