Has this Fred West victim been found 50 years later? Unearth the evidence
Christmas came early for true crime fans today, when headlines lit up regarding new evidence possibly linking legendary serial killer Fred West to yet another victim. CNN, The Guardian, and the BCC are just a few publications among the full spread covering the story today.
Fred West died over two & a half decades ago in 1995, but his name remains on the lips of the living today due to a recent investigation hoping to uncover one of the serial killer’s undiscovered victims. If found, the victim would join a list of at least twelve other young women who met their ends at the hands of Fred West.
Fred & Rose
Fred West, born Frederick Walter Stephen West in 1941, was a serial killer known to have at least a dozen victims between 1967 & 1987 in the Gloucestershire county section of Southwest England.
He reportedly committed the majority of the murders with his wife Rosemary West, who remains incarcerated in HM Prison New Hall in Flockton, West Yorkshire, England at the age of sixty-seven.
Rosemary only joined Fred West in killing in 1973, but tortured & murdered at least nine young women between 1973 & 1987, including her stepdaughter Charmaine in 1971. The two typically dismembered their victims’ bodies after torture, sometimes rape & bondage, and buried them at their Gloucester home. The bodies were either buried in the Wests’ garden or cellar.
Rose West was apprehended in 1994, and Fred West killed himself by asphyxiation in his jail cell in 1995, but the couple made headlines today because another possible archaeologist is trying to find another victim in Gloucester. The woman they’re looking for was named Mary Bastholm.
Mary Bastholm
BBC reported today that Fred West reportedly told his son he had killed Mary Bastholm, but never confessed the murder to police. Reports show there was an unknown number of victims who fell at the Wests’ hands, and Bastholm was last seen in 1968 waiting to catch a bus on Bristol Road, a year after Fred West began killing.
Furthermore, CNN reported today that Rose & Fred West frequented the café Bastholm worked at, called the Clean Plate café in Gloucester. Archeologists are now uncovering the over half-a-century-old café looking for any clues or evidence of then fifteen year-old Miss Bastholm.
Sky News reported today that Bastholm was last seen wearing a blue coat and carrying a blue bag with her when she went missing over fifty years ago. Reports show what could have been blue material has already been spotted upon the initial investigation of the café.
Dental or DNA
Reports appear to imply suspicions Fred West, alone or with his wife, killed Bastholm and buried her in the very café she worked at in the sixties. Nothing concrete seems to have been found yet, leading true crime fans to wonder how experts might link any remains to Bastholm if bones are found.
Gloucestershire Constabulary’s crime scene coordinator Martin Cuffe told Sky News if the investigators happen to find anything, perhaps their best bet was to try to match Bastholm’s dental records with any found remains, after identifying them as human. If any DNA is found, experts will have to compare samples with Bastholm’s relatives, as no pure sample from Mary exists.
Investigators say the exploration of the café is and will continue to be a delicate process, with radar equipment being used to excavate the old bistro’s many nooks & crannies. Only time will tell if Bastholm’s remains will be uncovered.
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Do you think experts will find the remains of yet another victim fallen at the hands of Fred West? Let us know in the comments below!
