Wife questioned in Gloucester killings
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Your support makes all the difference.ROSEMARY West, wife of the man charged in connection with the bodies found at Cromwell Street, Gloucester, was arrested twice in connection with the murder inquiry but released both times because detectives did could not find sufficient evidence to charge her, it emerged yesterday.
In a statement released through her solicitor, Mrs West, 40, said she knew nothing about the killings and that she had found the matters revealed to her by police 'deeply shocking and upsetting'.
Mrs West and her husband, Frederick, 52, a builder, were arrested at their home on 25 February on suspicion of murder, after the remains of their daughter Heather, 16, were found in their back garden.
The couple who had been married for 22 years were taken to separate police stations. Mrs West was interviewed and released later that day on police bail.
But her solicitor, Leo Goatley, revealed yesterday that she was arrested again the next day in connection with the murders of Shirley Robinson, 18, a pregnant former lodger at their home, and a woman in her twenties. Both sets of remains were dug up from the garden of the house. The bodies of nine women have been found at Cromwell Street.
Mrs West was released again on police bail the day after her second arrest because, after extensive interviews, detectives were satisfied that there was insufficient evidence to charge her with any offence.
Mr Goatley added that she had asked him to make the statement to the media in view of the 'horrendous and extensive speculation about her'.
'I am concerned about speculation on what Mrs West must have known about and that I find unacceptable. I am also concerned about assumptions that have been drawn from the discovery of the remains,' he said. 'As is abundantly clear, the police are conducting an extremely thorough investigation. It is further abundantly clear therefore that the speculation in the press is wildly inappropriate. It is deprecated by all concerned in this distressing inquiry.'
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