This story includes descriptions of child sexual abuse that may be distressing to some readers.
It’s not hard to see why Rose West and Myra Hindley were nicknamed the “gruesome twosome” by a prison guard at high-security correctional facility HMP Durham in England’s north.
West and her husband, Fred, carried out the rape, torture, and murder of young women – including their own daughter Heather, 16, and stepdaughter, Charmaine, 8 – in their Gloucester home between the 1960s and 1980s. They became known as the House of Horrors killers.
West was convicted of 10 murders in total, but it’s believed the pair were responsible for more.
Then there was Hindley, who was convicted of killing five children and sexually assaulting four of them during the 1960s, alongside her boyfriend, Ian Brady. Together, they were dubbed the Moors Murderers.
Watch: Insight - Women in Prison. Story continues after video.
West and Hindley were serial killers, and the first two women in the UK to be handed life sentences. And it's their horrifying commonalities that made them fall in love (and then out of it) behind bars.
The affair was revealed in ITV documentary, Rose West and Myra Hindley: Their Untold Story With Trevor McDonald, back in 2020 – and according to West’s then-lawyer, Leo Goatley, the pair hooked up shortly after she was jailed in 1995, some three decades after Hindley was locked up for life.
Goatley said West was “in awe” of Hindley because she’d studied various university courses while behind bars.
“When I went to visit Rose West, she was very impressed with Myra Hindley. She told me about how Hindley was very intelligent.
“To an extent, I think Rose West was in awe of her. Hindley was clearly someone who stood out as being special,” he suggested.
One of their fellow inmates, Linda Calvey, corroborated Goatley’s recollections.
"I remember a prison officer told me, 'I would love to know what the gruesome twosome are up to'.
"Then he said, ‘Actually, on second thoughts I wouldn’t'. They were thick as thieves."
Another inmate described Hindley as being “gaunt, menacing and creepy,” while Calvey called West a “dumpy woman with huge glasses who looked like a frumpy granny”.
West and Hindley were a prison power couple made of nightmares.
But it wasn’t long before the homicidal women called it quits, Calvey said.
"It was really weird. Something happened and then that was that, and it was like they never knew each other.
"As fast as it happened, it ended. There was talk that, because Rose was more famous than Myra it had put her nose out of joint."
Apparently Hindley had an issue with West murdering her own children, despite having killed five minors herself.
Goatley later said that West painted Hindley as “manipulative” and “dangerous” after their split, reported the Daily Mail.
“The next time I visited, a couple of months later, things had turned very sour between West and Hindley,” he explained.
“Rose said: ‘You've got to watch that one, she's very manipulative, she's dangerous that one. I want nothing to do with her, not going to let her take me for a c--- again.’
“I think clearly that demonstrated a deep sense of hurt, that somehow she'd been caught out by Myra Hindley. That somehow she'd given more than she wanted to Hindley and it had somehow cost her.”
But West had a bad reputation behind bars, too. In McDonald’s doco, another inmate detailed West’s explosive temper and how on one occasion she described the murderer as “literally foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog” after reading an unflattering newspaper report about herself.
“They were two very different people,” McDonald explained. “Hindley was intent on controlling other people and West couldn’t control her temper.”
Yet, “An essential part of the story of Myra Hindley and Rose West is that they were both attracted to sexual psychopaths.”
Another thing the women shared was their traumatic childhoods, which McDonald broke down for viewers.
Listen to No Filter. On this episode, Mia and Kerry talked about jail time. Kerry Tucker was jailed in 2004 for one of the biggest white-collar crimes committed by a female in Victoria at the time.
He claimed West’s father, Bill, was a schizophrenic who physically and psychologically abused her mother, Daisy.
Hindley’s dad, Bob, was allegedly a violent alcoholic.
Criminal psychologist David Canter gave his take on the relationship, suggesting a power struggle between the women was at play. “Early on, West would've looked to Hindley for help, so she would've used sex to get what she wanted,” he explained.
“Hindley would've been aware of that and she potentially could've used West to her own advantage.”
But West wouldn’t have to put up with her lover-turned-nemesis much longer. Hindley died in 2002, aged 60, after a bout of pneumonia.
West is still serving her life sentence.
If this brings up any issues for you, contact Bravehearts, an organisation dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse, on 1800 272 831.
Feature image: Google
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