Politics
Cops find NO human remains after searching cafe for feared Fred West victim after Mary Mastholm, 15, vanished 50 yrs ago
POLICE searching for missing Mary Bastholm amid fears she was murdered by Fred West have found no body.
Police scoured the Clean Plate cafe in Gloucester where 15-year-old Mary worked as a waitress since May 11.
The schoolgirl was last seen on 6 January 1968 waiting for a bus to go and see her boyfriend.
She is believed to have been murdered by depraved Fred West, who was a regular at the cafe.
Gloucester Police began searching for Mary under the concrete floor of toilet cubicles where the serial killer carried out renovations after “anomalies” were found last Wednesday.
But they confirmed today no remains have been found.
They said: “Excavation work at the Clean Plate café has now been completed and we can confirm no human remains or items of significance to the investigation have been found.
“The anomalies were identified by a team of expert forensic archaeologists and anthropologists ahead of the excavation work, with the experts able to determine that the remaining areas of the cellar had been undisturbed since prior to 1968, when Mary Bastholm disappeared.
“Each area was carefully examined by the forensics team with support from officers from the Constabulary.
“The team worked each day, everything that was dug up was analysed on site and all activity was meticulously logged and photographed.
“Mary’s family have been updated and is continuing to receive support from family liaison officers.
“The café will be handed back to its owners once reparation work is completed.”
The cellar where possible remains have been found[/caption]
Police are digging in the area after ‘anomalies’ were found[/caption]
It comes after police last week discovered six “anomalies”at the cafe.
The team used a ground penetrating radar and found a void in the basement of the cafe within the toilet area.
They drilled the area, allowing holes for ventilation so that police dogs could get an indication of human remains, and found “suspected bones”.
The insertion of an endoscope in one of the holes also identified a grainy image of a “blue looking material within the gap”.
Mary was last seen wearing a blue coat and blue and white dress when she vanished from a bus stop.
Her heartbroken family had previously urged Rose West to tell them what happened to the missing teen.
And the serial killer’s own lawyer suggested in 2019 she could have been an accomplice in Mary’s disappearance.
A silver locket on a chain, which the family believes belonged to Mary, was also found by police at the West’s home, 25 Cromwell Street.
The home – dubbed the ‘House of Horrors’ – is half a mile from the cafe on Southgate Street.
West’s son Stephen revealed his evil dad had confessed to murdering Mary and 30 others before he hanged himself in prison in 1995 while awaiting trial.
He also claimed West told him the bodies of other women were buried in a well opposite a nuclear power station.
The major breakthrough comes days after a 39-strong police team led by three archaeologists began analysing the basement of the cafe.
Gloucestershire Police had received possible evidence from a TV production company to suggest the body of the missing teenager could be buried at the location.
LIVES LOST: The victims of Fred and Rose West
Anna McFall
The nanny of Fred and Rena West’s children, McFall was believed to have been murdered in 1967.
She was pregnant when she died, with West believed to have been the father. Her body was found in June 1994 in a shallow grave.
Fred West denied murdering McFall but he is said to have confided to a visitor after his arrest that he stabbed her following an argument.
This happened before Rosemary West met him.
Charmaine West
With Fred in prison for the theft of car tyres and a vehicle tax disc, Rosemary was left to look after eight-year-old Charmaine.
A neighbour is said to have found Charmaine tied to a wooden chair with her hands behind her back with Rosemary standing with a large wooden spoon.
Rosemary claimed she’d been taken by her mother Rena but her skeleton was found at the Midland Road property, hidden and missing bones.
Rena West
Rena is believed to have been murdered by strangulation to avoid an investigation into Charmaine’s whereabouts.
Rosemary was not charged for this murder.
Lynda Gough
Lynda Gough, 21, was the first sexually motivated killing conducted by the Wests.
She moved into Cromwell Street in April 1973, having had affairs with several lodgers. The Wests later claimed she’d been asked to leave after hitting one of their children.
Strangulation and suffocation were the likely causes of death.
Carol Ann Cooper
Cooper was murdered in November 1973 aged just 15.
She was allowed to spend the night at her grandmother’s house before a doctor’s appointment the next morning.
But she somehow ending up on Cromwell Street and was killed by the couple.
Her body was found more than twenty years later.
Lucy Partington
A 21-year-old medieval English student at Exeter University, she returned home for Christmas in December 1973.
She left a friend’s house in a rush to get the last bus from Cheltenham to Gretton on 27 December, and was abducted.
She was found more twenty years later, her dismembered body in the cellar of Cromwell Street.
Therese Siegenthaler
A 21-year-old Swiss sociology student at Woolwich Polytechnic.
She had planned to hitch-hike to Ireland in Easter 1974. Her family reported her missing having not heard from her for some time.
Prosecution believe she was abducted before being killed, with Fred West later building a fake chimney over her grave.
Shirley Hubbard
Just 15 at the time of her death, Hubbard is believed to have been abducted by the Wests.
Her body was found following an excavation in the concrete and plastic membrane of the cellar floor.
Juanita Mott
In the summer of 1974, Mott, 19, moved into 25 Cromwell Street but later went missing when she was living in Newent.
Her body was found in March 1994, 19 years later, with West having concreted over the floor of the cellar.
Shirley Robinson
The first victim buried outside the house, Robinson had an affair with Fred West, and by autumn 1977, she was pregnant with his child.
It was initially claimed the 18-year-old had moved to Scotland but her body was later found.
When questioned, Rosemary West, herself pregnant with her daughter Tara at the time of the murder, claimed she did not remember her, which was described as “ludicrous” by the prosecution.
Alison Chambers
The last murder with a sexual motive established. She disappeared just before her 17th birthday, having been seen at 25 Cromwell Street throughout the summer.
Her body was buried underneath the patio.
Heather West
The first child born to Fred and Rosemary West, there is no evidence the 16-year-old was aware of the killings.
Sexually abused by her parents and having told friends, she suddenly went missing in 1987, with Rosemary 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 patio like Heather” if they misbehaved.
This – and Fred’s abuse of his other daughter – led to the search warrants for the property, and subsequently to their arrests.
Fred and wife Rose West embarked on a 17-year killing spree – abducting young girls from bus stops and raping and torturing them.
They murdered at least ten girls and buried them at Cromwell Street.
Their mutilated bodies were discovered 20 years later buried under the patio and in the cellar of the home.
None of the nine skeletons dug up was complete.
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Three other bodies were uncovered at Fred’s previous home in Midland Road and two fields in Much Marcle.
West killed himself aged 53 in 1995 while awaiting trial for 12 murders — but admitted he killed 20 more.
Rose was convicted of 10 murders, and sentenced to 10 life jail terms in November 1995.
Excavation work is continuing at the cafe[/caption]
Police and archaeologists are specifically analysing an area to the side of the basement which builder West converted into toilets[/caption]
