Another day, another addition to the shock value school of true crime documentaries; one that adds nothing to our understanding of a terrible crime or those who committed it, nothing to our safety as individuals or as a society, nothing but our appetite for voyeurism and its normalization. Most true crime documentaries belong to this school. Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story is no exception. Perhaps the sordid, exploitative aspects of the genre are felt more keenly here precisely because this is one of our own stories, and one that many of us remember reading in the newspapers and seeing on the news when the horrific discoveries were made.
We usually watch these films with a certain distance. At least we can feel like we're learning about how terrible America can be, or that an otherwise forgotten victim among the mass of victims that evil people create has been commemorated. Here, we're confronted more fiercely by our complicity and the weakness of the arguments for watching them. The best that can be said of the latest three-part account of human depravity is that it's superficial.
Stars: Dezra Chambers, Leo Goatley, Paul Britton
It doesn't delve into the only aspect of the 1994 case that might be edifying: the killers' backgrounds, the psychology of their relationship, and whether the world would have been different if they hadn't met. It also quickly glosses over the failure of the justice system to prosecute Fred West for rape early in his criminal career, but it also doesn't dwell on the most basic details of the case—those I suspect the officers and family members interviewed here have in mind when they express how haunted they are by this experience.
The first episode, titled simply "Fred," deals with the discovery of the bodies of, ultimately, nine young women buried beneath the courtyard and in the cellar of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, home to Fred, Rose, and the remaining ten children who had not yet been taken into care. The program gives the impression that the children's references to their sister Heather, missing and buried under the patio, had become too frequent for the authorities to ignore. In fact, suspicion arose from one of the girls' rape report, leading most of them to be placed in a shelter, where numerous signs of physical and sexual abuse were found.
We hear Fred's voice on police interview tapes as he is questioned about why he and Rose never filed a missing person report for Heather, who has not been seen since June 1987, and we see him in the tapes taken by the police during his various visits to Cromwell Street to guide them. He doesn't remember the names of all the girls and women he (not Rose, as he vehemently and repeatedly claims) tied up, tortured, raped, killed, and dismembered, but he marks the location of their bodies as best he can with spray paint. At least one, Shirley Robinson, was pregnant by him.
The second episode, "Rose," focuses on the police's efforts to find evidence linking her to the murders. They felt it was impossible for her not to have known about the murders Fred had admitted to committing. The question was how involved she was and what they could prove. The shelter where she and the older children had been housed was bugged, but she could only be heard loudly proclaiming her innocence.
The final episode describes the trial. Fred committed suicide before his own murder could take place, but Rose was charged with 10 counts of murder. Caroline Roberts, the Wests' former nanny, testified at the trial about Rose's involvement in Caroline's kidnapping and the subsequent experience. It was also shown that Fred was in prison when Charmaine West, his stepdaughter by his first wife (Rena, whom he killed), was murdered.
Ultimately, Rose was unanimously found guilty of all 10 murders and sentenced to life in prison, with the judge emphasizing that she should never be considered for parole. And what do we do with this information? What's the point of a show that's little more than a bare-bones recap of a bleak and terrible story? This happened, then that happened, then this, then that. So what? What's the point? If they don't even draw attention to the countless times authorities had concerns and could have intervened before nine people (at least, Fred suggested there were many more) died horribly, what are they doing? Reminding us that evil can exist? Also pointless. If it brought some peace to the victims' families interviewed by remembering them in public, I'm glad. But beyond that, it's just a ratings grab, and it's a disaster.
Comments
Post a Comment