CESSPIT MURDER ACCUSED BLAMED FRED WEST
Monster ‘may have killed my wife’
A PIG farmer accused of murdering his wife and dumping her body in a septic tank claimed serial killer Fred West could have been responsible, a court has been told.
David Venables, 89, allegedly killed his wife Brenda in May 1982 because he wanted to rekindle an affair with his secret mistress.
After dumping her body in the septic tank of their farmhouse, he walked into a police station and reported her missing, it is claimed.
He “got away with murder” for nearly 40 years until her skull was found in the cesspit when it was being emptied in 2019, jurors were told.
When Venables was arrested two weeks after the discovery he had already written a statement for police.
He suggested notorious serial killer Fred West, from neighbouring Gloucestershire, who died in 1995, could have been behind his wife’s death. Venables claimed Brenda just disappeared one morning after they had spent the previous night watching the Falklands War unfold on TV.
The jury heard in his prepared statement he had written: “We went to bed at 10.30pm and about 6.30am I woke up and she wasn’t there.
“I’d assumed she’d gone downstairs to make some tea. After a short while she didn’t appear. At the same time as Brenda’s disappearance, Fred West, of Gloucester was picking up women.
“In fact, after Brenda went missing, I had a phone call from a lady to say that she had been picked up by West and had escaped. Since then, I have often thought that this is what could have happened to Brenda. When the time came when he wanted to get rid of her, being a builder, he would have no doubt found out where she lived.
“He’d have thought a septic tank was an easy place to dispose of her body.
“There was a public footpath three to four metres from the tank, it would have been very easy to gain knowledge of the tank without suspicion. If there was no crop on the adjacent field, a vehicle could have easily driven right to the tank. This is purely a possibility.”
Venables lived at the farm in Kempsey, Worcs, for 32 years while keeping up the pretence his 48-year-old wife had left him, said prosecutors.
He had a 15-year “onand-off” fling with Lorraine Styles, his mum’s care assistant, before the killing, the court heard. He told his lover in late 1981 he “wanted to settle down with her” and spoke about divorcing Brenda, it is claimed. Kevin Gwillam, who began working at the Venables’ farm as an apprentice, said: “I very rarely saw Brenda. But she would always ask how you were. It was always like she was lonely. She’d ask how’s the family. She would make nice conversation.”
Prosecutor Michael Burrows QC said Venables dumped his wife in the septic tank because “it was for him almost the perfect hiding place”. He added: “And for nearly 40 years, it was the perfect place and he got away with murder.”
Venables, who still lives in Kempsey, is on bail and denies murder. The trial at Worcester crown court continues.