STANDING in the kitchen of her smart home, no one – not even her own son – could have imagined the horrors of Mae West’s childhood.
The teenage mum-of-two has been keeping possibly the darkest secret imaginable – the fact that her parents are Britain’s most notorious serial killers Fred and Rose West.
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Mae grew up at 25 Cromwell Street with Fred and Rose West as her parents
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Her sister Heather was killed and buried in the garden
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The evil couple killed 12 women and girls
Mae grew up in a house of horrors at 25 Cromwell Street where her mom and dad subjected her to nasty sexual abuse.
But what was even more terrible, she was forced to sleep on rotting bodies that were buried in the basement.
Her own sister Heather was killed and dumped in the back garden – one of the couple’s 12 known victims.
Mae, now 52, somehow managed to avoid a similar fate and now spends every day trying to fight the demons that threaten to overwhelm her.
Read more about Fred & Rose West
Speaking on the 30th anniversary of her parents’ arrest, she told The Sun Online: “I’m just trying to live a normal, everyday life – well, as normal and everyday as possible.
“My life now is to protect my children, especially the younger ones. He knows nothing about my past. He has no idea.
“He’s at an age now where he’s starting to ask questions. All I’ve told him is that my dad is dead and I don’t speak to my mum.
“As far as I’m concerned, they never will. At least not from me.”
Mae spent her childhood as a victim of violent beatings by her parents, who assaulted and sexually abused their eight children.
They never read her a bedtime story or snuggled up to her – treats instead meant wearing the clothes of Fred and Rose’s victims or managing to escape their father’s twisted sexual fantasies.
Fred and Rose West: The Search for the Victims deals with the tragic girls who were killed by a sick couple
Instead of a Saturday job at the local coffee shop or grocery store, Mae is forced to work as her prostitute mom’s secretary.
By the time she was even born in 1972, Fred and Rose had already killed two people – her half-sister Charmaine and her father’s previous wife Catherine “Rena” West.
Despite the horror that surrounds her, she has now managed to create a normal life for herself with her husband and two children.
But the ghosts of her growing up can never truly go away – no matter how deep Mae tries to bury them.
She said: “Now I feel like another life that wasn’t mine. Age has helped. It’s true what they say, time heals.
“Sometimes it seems as if you have read the story and not participated in it. Other times you’ll be reminded of something from back then and you’ll know you’re about to have a bad day.
“I’m not talking about that. No one in my current life, except my husband, knows who I am in terms of my relationship with Fred and Rose. I guess I’m wearing a mask now.”
It’s best I leave you to it.
Rose West in a letter to Mae from prison
As the couple’s bloodlust grew, Fred and Rose expanded their victim base by luring tenants to stay in their house of horrors.
They also lured young women into their car with Rose’s presence in the front seat to make them feel safe.
When they entered the house, they were bound, gagged, sexually assaulted and killed.
Fred and Rose’s murderous spree finally came to an end on February 25, 1994, when the police began excavating the house.
An apparent joke Fred made to his children about being “buried under the patio” like Heather if they spoke out was revealed to be a real threat when the police discovered a leg bone in the garden.
Further excavation work led police to nine more bodies in the house – with three more victims found buried elsewhere.
With a chilling pile of evidence against them, the couple was charged on June 30, 1994.
Fred took his own life in prison the following year, while Rose received a life sentence for ten murders.
While serving her sentence, Mae received a message from her mom cutting off all ties.
Having the parents I had made me who I am. My challenge is dealing with the effect they had on me, not who they are.
Mae West
She said: “Me and my mother stopped talking 16 years ago. We had a fight. It was her choice.
“She wrote me a letter in which she basically said, ‘It’s best if I leave you alone.’ In other words, she didn’t want to see me or communicate with me anymore.
“It made me question a lot of things at the time, like whether I was with her or not. It’s strange that someone is your parent and alive, but you don’t see them anymore.”
Mae has spent the last 30 years building a new life for herself away from the horrific shackles of her childhood.
While she used to talk about her hell, now she tells people she’s “fine” and moves on.
Mae believes she’s coped with throwing herself into family life – but there’s still one part of her previous story she can’t rewrite.
Mom was always close to sister Heather, who was murdered and dismembered after being subjected to years of nasty abuse and torture.
Killed by depravity – famous victims of Fred and Rose West
Anna McFall
McFall, the nanny of Fred and Rene West’s children, is believed to have been murdered in 1967.
She was pregnant when she died, and West was believed to be the father. Her body was found in June 1994 in a shallow grave.
Fred West denied killing McFall, but reportedly confided in a female visitor after his arrest that he stabbed her after an argument.
This happened before Rose West met him.
Charmaine West
With Fred in jail for stealing car tires and a vehicle tax disc, Rose was left to watch over Charmaine and Anne Marie.
The former was only eight years old, she was the stepdaughter of Fred West from his previous marriage.
Rumor has it that neighbor Tracey found Charmaine tied to a wooden chair with her hands behind her back while Rose stood with a large wooden spoon.
Rose claimed her mother had taken her, but her skeleton was found on the Midland Road property, hidden and boneless.
Rena West
Fred’s first wife Rena is believed to have been strangled.
Rose has not been charged with this murder.
Lynda Gough
Lynda Gough was the first sexually motivated murder by the West.
She moved to Cromwell Street in April 1973 after having affairs with several tenants. The Wests later claimed she was asked to leave after hitting one of their children.
The probable causes of death were strangulation and suffocation.
Carol Ann Cooper
Cooper was killed in November 1973, aged just 15.
On the night of November 9, she was allowed to spend the night at her grandmother’s house before coming to the doctor’s appointment the next morning.
She attended an appointment and then met her boyfriend, before somehow ending up on Cromwell Street.
Her body was found more than twenty years later.
Lucy Partington
Lucy, a 21-year-old medieval English student at Exeter University, returned home for Christmas in December 1973.
She left a friend’s house in a rush to catch the last bus from Cheltenham to Gretton on December 27, and was believed to have been abducted from this bus stop.
She was found more than twenty years later, her dismembered body in a Cromwell Street basement.
Therese Siegenthaler
A 21-year-old Swiss sociology student at Woolwich Polytechnic.
She planned to hitchhike to Ireland for Easter 1974. Her family reported her missing after not hearing from her for a while.
Prosecutors believe she was kidnapped before she was killed, and Fred West later built a fake chimney over her grave.
Shirley Hubbard
It is believed that Hubbard was only 15 years old at the time of her death and was kidnapped by the West.
Her body was found after excavating the concrete and plastic membrane of the basement floor.
Juanita Mott
In the summer of 1974 Mott moved to 25 Cromwell Street but later disappeared while living in Newent.
Her body was found in March 1994, 19 years later, while West was pouring concrete into the basement floor.
Shirley Robinson
The first victim to be buried outside the home, Robinson had an affair with Fred West, and by the fall of 1977 was pregnant with his child.
At first it was claimed that she had moved to Scotland, but her body was later found.
When questioned, Rose West, who was herself pregnant with daughter Tara at the time of the murder, claimed she had no memory of it, which the prosecution described as “ridiculous”.
Alison Chambers
The last murder with a sexual motive has been established. She disappeared just before her 17th birthday, and was seen at 25 Cromwell Street all summer.
Her body was buried under the terrace.
Heather West
The first child of Fred and Rose West, there is no evidence that she knew about the murders.
Sexually abused by her parents and after telling friends, she suddenly disappeared in 1987, her mother claiming she had gone to Wales to be with a lesbian partner.
The couple would joke to their other children that they would “end up under the terrace like Heather” if they misbehaved. That, as well as their changing stories, led to search warrants and then their arrests.
Mae said: “It makes me so sad when I think about Heather, how old she would be now, what kind of life she would have. I love her so much.”
But she continued: “Having the parents I had made me who I am. My challenge is dealing with the effect they had on me, not who they are.
“I’m 52 now, just a year younger than my dad was when he died. That’s why I’ve been thinking about things a lot lately. I would never kill myself, but as an age it has meaning for me, it makes me think about my own mortality, I guess.
“But you continue. There’s nothing else you can do, right?
“I rarely think about dad. I trained myself not to think about him.
“As far as Rose is concerned, I can’t go back to those times. It’s nothing you can change.”
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Rose was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of ten girls
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House of Horrors at 25 Cromwell Street
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Police are digging up the garden after finding Heather’s bones
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Five bodies were also found in the couple’s basement
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Source: HIS Education