Rose West's underwear to go on public display at true crime museum as murderer's pants sell for £2,000
23 April 2025, 21:23 | Updated: 23 April 2025, 22:52
Serial killer Rose West's underwear is heading for public display as the murderer's garments fetch £2,000.
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The pants of the serial killer were found at HMP Bronzefield - Europe's largest female prison - where West was imprisoned for four years until 2008.
Lucy Letby is currently imprisoned at HMP Bronzefield.
West's undergarments will be available for the general public to see at the True Crime Museum on Hastings' seafront in celebration of the museum's tenth anniversary.
Museum curator, Joel Griggs, reportedly spent an astonishing £2,500 on the serial killer's underwear.
Read more: Unseen police videos and audio to feature in new documentary on Fred and Rose West
Joel told The Mirror: "A prison worker retrieved them from a laundry basket and later offered them to us for a ridiculous amount of money which we turned down at the time.
"Tiny squares of material from the knickers were then offered for sale on eBay but because the sale contravened eBay's rules and procedures, the items were taken down and the sale never proceeded. On the underwear we have you can see small biro marks which the seller planned to cut around to sell off bit by bit.
"When our tenth anniversary came round I thought it would be worth contacting the prison worker, now retired, again, which I did and that resulted in us buying them for £2,500."
Among the belongings of notorious serial killers housed at the museum are the bathtub used by contract killer Bruce Childs to dismember six people, and the skull of triple murderer Louis Lefevre.
The museum also holds items belonging to the infamous East End criminal duo the Kray Twins.
Joel said: "When you look at an exhibit like this, which appears banal at first, I think people then realise the connection with something."
The news comes as unseen police videos and audio are to feature in a new Netflix documentary on Fred and Rose West.
Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story will hear from the families impacted by the couple's murderous spree, and explain how Gloucestershire Constabulary uncovered their crimes.
The couple tortured, raped and murdered an unknown number of women between 1967 and 1987, mostly at their home in Cromwell Street, Gloucester.
The three-part series will begin with West being questioned over Rose's eldest daughter Heather, 16, going missing before her remains were uncovered at their home known as the "House of Horrors".
Nine sets of bones were found under the patio and cellar of the house, and West did not stand trial after taking his own life in prison in January 1995.
Rose is serving a life sentence after being convicted in 1995 of murdering 10 young girls and women, including Heather and her stepdaughter Charmaine, eight.
The second part of the show will look at Rose, and her unravelling as an accomplice and murderer, before the final instalment focuses on the trial and the search for bodies beyond Cromwell Street.
Netflix said it will have "exclusive access to previously unseen police video and unheard audio recordings" and give an "insight into the pain and torment" the victims' families "went through for decades".
The trailer for the new series showed a person talking about how West described murdering his daughter without "floods of tears", and as a "black and white set of facts".
A recording also hears a voice say: "I thought dad was a very sick man, but nobody could have known."
A voice that appears to be Rose also says: "You'll never get a confession out of me for something I haven't done."
West is also described as "a cunning man, who's living in a fantasy", and the couple being said to have the "hallmarks of the sadistic psychopath".
The documentary is directed by Dan Dewsbury, who worked on Hatton and Louis Theroux's Forbidden America, and executive produced by Dan Chambers, David Herman and Fiona Stourton.
A previous TV documentary - Fred And Rose West: Reopened - on ITV found possible evidence to suggest the body of 15-year-old schoolgirl Mary Bastholm could be buried in the cellar of the Clean Plate cafe in Gloucester.
A detective chief inspector said in 2021 that West was "always indicated" to be involved, as he was a regular at the cafe - then called the Pop-In - where Mary worked as a waitress.
The force did not find human remains during that year.
Channel 5 also had the 2001 documentary Fred and Rose - The West Murders, which prompted complaints over the broadcasting of taped interviews with the killers.
The then regulator, Broadcasting Standards Commission - which later became Ofcom, said the series was "serious, unsensationalised", and cleared the programme.
Fred & Rose West: A British Horror Story will be released on Netflix on May 14.
