Couple dubbed ‘Germany’s Fred and Rose West’ accused of luring young women to their home through lonely hearts ads before torturing and killing them

A COUPLE dubbed the 'German Fred and Rose West' face trial this week accused of luring young women to their deaths through classified ads.

Identified only as Wilfried W. and Angelika B. the duo are alleged to have turned their home into a torture chamber where police and prosecutors say at least two women were murdered and many more abused.

One victim was kidnapped, tortured, chained up, abused and finally died of her injuries inflicted by 47-year-old Wilfried and his ex-wife, aged 46.

Her death led to a raid on the Hoxter home and the discovery of at least one more victim who had apparently been killed, stuck into a deep freeze, thawed out and burned in a stove.

Her ashes were later strewn from the car window of her murderers.

The pair - married but divorced and living in the quiet community as brother and sister - preyed upon lonely hearts across the country looking for women for Wilfried to wed so they could then fleece them of their savings.

Once lured to their squalid home, the women were chained up, beaten, forced to sleep in a bathtub and turned into domestic slaves.

A 40-strong police murder squad branded the couple 'The Horrors of Höxter’.

The terrible secret of the house was revealed in April this year when Susanne F, 41, a divorced woman who answered one of their bogus adverts, died of a brain haemorrhage resulting from her ill treatment.

Police said she replied to Wilfried's small ad looking for a girlfriend and moved into the house, believing the lie that his ex-wife was his sister. Immediately she was subjected to savage and sustained abuse.

Ralf Östermann, the police chief heading up the murder squad, said: "She was abused for nothing.  If the knife was not laid on the correct side of the plate, that was a trigger for punches, stomping, kicking, abuse."

Once she was seen out shopping with her tormentors - totally bald.  "They pulled out her hair," said Östermann.

During one beating, according to Angelika B. who has turned against Wilfried since they were arrested in Maz, she fell and hit her head on a cabinet, triggering the brain blood clot which would lead to her death.

The couple, sensing that she was on the brink of death, laid her on the backseat of their car intending to drive her to her own apartment.  But the car broke down en-route. Östermann said: "The pair called an ambulance apparently because they were overwhelmed by the situation."

The woman died two hours later in the hospital on April 21. The doctors found bruises all over her body and called the police.

The dead woman, from Bad Gandersheim in the state of Lower Saxony, was found to have met her killer through a small ad.  Her tormentors were arrested and taken to separate jails where Angelike laid all the blame at the door of her partner.

He has said nothing to police since his arrest.

Police said that the pair took out so many adverts in so many publications across the whole of Germany that there were only two newspapers that they did not owe money to.

They also trawled for victims with advertisements placed in Czech newspapers.

One of the crimes they were suspected of is the murder of 21-year-old Frauke Liebs who vanished from her home 40 miles from Höxter in June 2006 and whose corpse was found in a field four months later.

"We are still examining this case to see if her death is linked to this couple," added Östermann.

He added that the duo did not act out of sexual motives, but from a need "to exercise power”.

According to his ex-wife, Bochum-born Wilfried W. was "the boss - his word was law”.

They go on trial on Wednesday at a court in the British army garrison town of Paderborn where they face charges of murder, kidnapping, abuse and holding people against their will.

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