The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around what is now Greater Manchester, England.
May 7th 1966 Daily Mirror Newspaper
The police mugshots
The victims were five children aged between 10 and 17—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans—at least four of whom were sexually assaulted. The murders are so named because two of the victims were discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, with a third grave also being discovered there in 1987, over 20 years after Brady and Hindley’s trial in 1966. The body of a fourth victim, Keith Bennett, is also suspected to be buried there, but despite repeated searches it remains undiscovered.
The police were initially aware of only three killings, those of Edward Evans, Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride. The investigation was reopened in 1985, after Brady was reported in the press as having confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. Brady and Hindley were taken separately to Saddleworth Moor to assist the police in their search for the graves, both by then having confessed to the additional murders.
Characterised by the press as “the most evil woman in Britain”, Hindley made several appeals against her life sentence, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society, but she was never released. She died in 2002, aged 60. Brady was declared criminally insane in 1985, since when he has been confined in the high-security Ashworth Hospital. He has made it clear that he never wants to be released, and has repeatedly asked that he be allowed to die.
The murders, reported in almost every English-language newspaper in the world, were the result of what Malcolm MacCulloch, professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, called a “concatenation of circumstances”, which brought together a “young woman with a tough personality, taught to hand out and receive violence from an early age” and a “sexually sadistic psychopath”
Victims
Saddleworth Moor
The full extent of Brady and Hindley’s killing spree did not come to light until their confessions in 1985, as both had until then maintained their innocence. Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade, (pic below) a neighbour of Hindley’s who disappeared on her way to a dance at the British Railways Club in Gorton on 12 July 1963.
That evening, Brady told Hindley that he wanted to “commit his perfect murder”. He told her to drive her van around the local area while he followed behind on his motorcycle; when he spotted a likely victim he would flash his headlight, and Hindley was to stop and offer that person a lift.
Driving down Gorton Lane, Brady saw a young girl walking towards them, and signalled Hindley to stop, which she did not do until she had passed the girl. Brady drew up alongside on his motorbike, demanding to know why she had not offered the girl a lift, to which Hindley replied that she recognised her as Marie Ruck, a near neighbour of her mother. Shortly after 8:00 pm, continuing down Froxmer Street, Brady spotted a girl wearing a pale blue coat and white high-heeled shoes walking away from them, and once again signalled for the van to stop. Hindley recognised the girl as Pauline Reade, a friend of her younger sister, Maureen. Reade got into the van with Hindley, who then asked if she would mind helping to search for an expensive glove she had lost on Saddleworth Moor. Reade said she was in no great hurry, and agreed. At 16, Pauline Reade was older than Marie Ruck, and Hindley realised that there would be less of a hue and cry over the disappearance of a teenager than there would over a child of seven or eight. When the van reached the moor, Hindley stopped and Brady arrived shortly afterwards on his motorcycle. She introduced him to Reade as her boyfriend, and said that he had also come to help find the missing glove. Brady took Reade onto the moor while Hindley waited in the van. After about 30 minutes Brady returned alone, and took Hindley to the spot where Reade lay dying, her throat cut. He told her to stay with Reade while he fetched a spade he had hidden nearby on a previous visit to the moor, to bury the body. Hindley noticed that “Pauline’s coat was undone and her clothes were in disarray … She had guessed from the time he had taken that Brady had sexually assaulted her.”Returning home from the moor in the van—they had loaded the motorcycle into the back—Brady and Hindley passed Reade’s mother, Joan, accompanied by her son, Paul, searching the streets for Pauline.
Accompanied by Brady, Hindley approached 12-year-old John Kilbride (pic below) in the early evening of 23 November 1963 at a market in Ashton-under-Lyne, and offered him a lift home on the pretext that his parents would be worried about him being out so late. With the added inducement of a proffered bottle of sherry, Kilbride readily agreed to get into the Ford Anglia car that Hindley had hired.
Brady told John Kilbride that the sherry was at their home, and they would have to make a detour to collect it. On the way he suggested that they take another detour, to search for a glove he said that Hindley had lost on the moor. When they reached the moor Brady took the child with him while Hindley waited in the car. Brady sexually assaulted Kilbride and attempted to slit his throat with a six-inch serrated blade before fatally strangling him with a piece of string, possibly a shoelace
Hindley posing where Brady had buried John
Doodle by Ian Brady in exercise book, which contained the name ‘John Kilbride’
Ticket for car that Myra rented at time of kidnap of Kilbride
Twelve-year-old Keith Bennett (pic below) vanished on his way to his grandmother’s house in Longsight during the early evening of 16 June 1964, four days after his birthday. Hindley lured him into her Mini pick-up—which Brady was sitting in the back of—by asking for the boy’s help in loading some boxes, after which she said she would drive him home.
She drove to a lay-by on Saddleworth Moor as she and Brady had previously arranged, and Brady went off with Bennett, supposedly looking for a lost glove. Hindley kept watch, and after about 30 minutes or so Brady reappeared, alone and carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier. When Hindley asked how he had killed Bennett, Brady said that he had sexually assaulted the boy and strangled him with a piece of string.
Brady and Hindley visited a fairground on 26 December 1964 in search of another victim, and noticed 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey (pic below) standing beside one of the rides.
When it became apparent that she was on her own, they approached her and deliberately dropped some of the shopping they were carrying close to her, before asking for the girl’s help to carry some of the packages to their car, and then to their home. Once inside the house Downey was undressed, gagged, and forced to pose for photographs before being raped and killed, perhaps strangled with a piece of string. Hindley maintained that she went to draw a bath for the child and found the girl dead (presumably killed by Brady) when she returned. In Dr. Chris Cowley’s book Face to Face with Evil: Conversations with Ian Brady, Brady states that it was Hindley who killed Lesley Ann Downey. The following morning Brady and Hindley drove with Downey’s body to Saddleworth Moor,where she was buried, naked with her clothes at her feet, in a shallow grave.
On October 6, 1965, the couple claimed their fifth and final victim, 17-year-old apprentice engineer Edward Evans (pic below)
They enticed him from Manchester Central Railway Station to their house in Hattersley, where Hindley’s 18-year-old brother-in-law David Smith was visiting. Brady then crept up on Edward in the kitchen and smashed his head in with an axe. He ordered Smith to help him carry the corpse to an upstairs bedroom and tie it up ready for disposal, but Smith then ran home and contacted the police. Smith explained later that, while apparently giving assistance to cleaning up, his sole concern was to escape the house alive.
Initial report
The empty plot where 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in Hattersley, once stood. (pic above) The house was demolished in the 1980s by the local council.
The attack on Edward Evans was witnessed by Hindley’s 17-year-old brother-in-law, David Smith, the husband of her younger sister Maureen. The Hindley family had not approved of Maureen’s marriage to Smith, who had several criminal convictions, including actual bodily harm and housebreaking, the first of which, wounding with intent, occurred when he was aged eleven. Throughout the previous year Brady had been cultivating a friendship with Smith, who had become “in awe” of the older man, something that increasingly worried Hindley, as she felt it compromised their safety.
On the evening of 6 October 1965 Hindley drove Brady to Manchester Central Station, where she waited outside in the car while he selected their victim; after a few minutes Brady reappeared in the company of Edward Evans, to whom he introduced Hindley as his sister. After they had driven back home and relaxed over a bottle of wine, Brady sent Hindley to fetch her brother-in-law. When they got back to the house Hindley told Smith to wait outside for her signal, a flashing light. When the signal came Smith knocked on the door and was met by Brady, who asked if he had come for “the miniature wine bottles”. Brady led Smith into the kitchen and left him there, saying that he was going to collect the wine. A few minutes later Smith heard a scream, followed by Hindley shouting loudly for him to come and help. Smith entered the living room to find Brady repeatedly striking Evans with the flat of an axe, and watched as he then throttled Evans with a length of electrical cord. Evans’ body was too heavy for Smith to carry to the car on his own—Brady had sprained his ankle in the struggle—so they wrapped it in plastic sheeting and put it in the spare bedroom.
Hindley poses on Bradys treasured motorbike
Smith agreed to meet Brady the following evening to dispose of Evans’ body, but after returning home he woke his wife and told her what he had seen. Maureen told him that he must call the police. Three hours later the couple cautiously made their way to a public phone box in the street below their flat, Smith taking the precaution of arming himself with a screwdriver and a kitchen knife to defend them in the event that Brady suddenly appeared and confronted them. At 6:07 am Smith made an emergency services call to the police station in nearby Hyde and told his story to the officer on duty. In his statement to the police Smith claimed that:
[Brady] opened the door and he said in a very loud voice for him … “Do you want those miniatures?” I nodded my head to say yes and he led me into the kitchen … and he gave me three miniature bottles of spirits and said: “Do you want the rest?” When I first walked into the house, the door to the living room … was closed. … Ian went into the living room and I waited in the kitchen. I waited about a minute or two then suddenly I heard a hell of a scream; it sounded like a woman, really high-pitched. Then the screams carried on, one after another really loud. Then I heard Myra shout, “Dave, help him,” very loud. When I ran in I just stood inside the living room and I saw a young lad. He was lying with his head and shoulders on the couch and his legs were on the floor. He was facing upwards. Ian was standing over him, facing him, with his legs on either side of the young lad’s legs. The lad was still screaming. … Ian had a hatchet in his hand … he was holding it above his head and he hit the lad on the left side of his head with the hatchet. I heard the blow, it was a terrible hard blow, it sounded horrible.”
Arrest
Early on the morning of 7 October, shortly after Smith’s call, Superintendent Bob Talbot of the Cheshire Police arrived at the back door of 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, wearing a borrowed baker’s overall to cover his uniform. Talbot identified himself to Hindley as a police officer when she opened the door, and told her that he wanted to speak to her boyfriend. Hindley led him into the living room, where Brady was sitting up in a divan writing a note to his employer explaining that he would not be able to get into work because of his ankle injury. Talbot explained that he was investigating “an act of violence involving guns” that was reported to have taken place the previous evening. Hindley denied that there had been any violence, and allowed police to look around the house. When they came to the upstairs room in which Evans’ body was stored the police found the door locked, and asked Brady for the key. Hindley claimed that the key was at work, but after the police offered to drive her to her employer’s premises to retrieve it, Brady told her to hand the key over. When they returned to the living room the police told Brady that they had discovered a trussed up body, and that he was being arrested on suspicion of murder. As Brady was getting dressed, he said “Eddie and I had a row and the situation got out of hand.”
Hindley was not arrested with Brady, but she demanded to go with him to the police station, accompanied by her dog Puppet, to which the police agreed. Hindley was questioned about the events surrounding Evans’ death, but she refused to make any statement beyond claiming that it had been an accident. As the police had no evidence that Hindley was involved in Evans’ murder she was allowed to go home, on condition that she return the next day for further questioning. Hindley was at liberty for four days following Brady’s arrest, during which time she went to her employer’s premises and asked to be dismissed, so that she would be eligible for unemployment benefits. While in the office where Brady worked she found some papers belonging to him in an envelope that she claimed she did not open, which she burned in an ashtray. She believed that they were plans for bank robberies, nothing to do with the murders. On 11 October Hindley was charged as an accessory to the murder of Edward Evans and was remanded at Risley
The cryptic disposal plan
Initial investigation
Brady admitted under police questioning that he and Evans had fought, but insisted that he and Smith had murdered Evans between them; Hindley, he said, had “only done what she had been told”. Smith told police that Brady had asked him to return anything incriminating, such as “dodgy books”, which Brady then packed into suitcases. Smith had no idea what else the suitcases contained or where they might be, but he mentioned in passing that Brady “had a thing about railway stations”. The police consequently requested a search of all Manchester’s left-luggage offices for any suitcases belonging to Brady, and on 15 October British Transport Police found what they were looking for at Manchester Central railway station—the left-luggage ticket was found several days later in the back of Hindley’s prayer book.Inside one of the suitcases were nine pornographic photographs taken of a young girl, naked and with a scarf tied across her mouth, and a 13-minute tape recording of her screaming and pleading for help. Ann Downey, Lesley Ann Downey’s mother, later listened to the tape after police had discovered the body of her missing 10-year-old daughter, and confirmed that it was a recording of her daughter’s voice.
Police searching the house at Wardle Brook Avenue also found an old exercise book in which the name “John Kilbride” had been scribbled, which made them suspicious that Brady and Hindley might have been involved in the unsolved disappearances of other youngsters. A large collection of photographs was discovered in the house, many of which seemed to have been taken on Saddleworth Moor. One hundred and fifty officers were drafted to search the moor, looking for locations that matched the photographs. Initially the search was concentrated along the A628 road near Woodhead, but a close neighbour, 11-year-old Pat Hodges, had on several occasions been taken to the moor by Brady and Hindley and she was able to point out their favourite sites along the A635 road.On 16 October police found an arm bone sticking out of the peat; officers presumed that they’d found the body of John Kilbride, but soon discovered that the body was that of Lesley Ann Downey. Her mother (later Ann West after her marriage to Alan West) had been on the moor watching as the police conducted their search, but was not present when the body was found. She was shown clothing recovered from the grave, and identified it as belonging to her missing daughter.
A photograph taken by Ian Brady of Myra Hindley with her dog, Puppet, crouching over John Kilbride’s grave on Saddleworth Moor in November 1963.
Detectives were able to locate another site on the opposite side of the A635 from where Downey’s body was discovered, and five days later they found the “badly decomposed” body of John Kilbride, whom they identified by his clothing. That same day, already being held for the murder of Evans, Brady and Hindley appeared at Hyde Magistrate’s Court charged with Lesley Ann Downey’s murder. Each was brought before the court separately and remanded into custody for a week.They made a two-minute appearance on 28 October, and were again remanded into custody.
Brady poses for a photo
The search for bodies continued, but with winter setting in it was called off in November.
Presented with the evidence of the tape recording Brady admitted to taking the photographs of Lesley Ann Downey, but insisted that she had been brought to Wardle Brook Avenue by two men who had subsequently taken her away again, alive. Brady was further charged with the murder of John Kilbride, and Hindley with the murder of Edward Evans, on 2 December. At the committal hearing on 6 December Brady was charged with the murders of Edward Evans, John Kilbride, and Lesley Ann Downey, and Hindley with the murders of Edward Evans and Lesley Ann Downey, as well as with harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had killed John Kilbride.
The prosecution’s opening statement was held in camera, and the defence asked for a similar stipulation, but was refused. The proceedings continued in front of three magistrates in Hyde over an 11-day period during December, at the end of which the pair were committed for trial at Chester Assizes.
Many of the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley on the moor featured Hindley’s dog Puppet, sometimes as a puppy. Detectives arranged for the animal to be examined by a veterinary surgeon to determine its age, from which they could date when the pictures were taken. The examination involved an analysis of the dog’s teeth, which required a general anaesthetic from which Puppet did not recover, as he suffered from an undiagnosed kidney complaint. On hearing the news of her dog’s death Hindley became furious, and accused the police of murdering Puppet, one of the few occasions detectives witnessed any emotional response from her. In a letter to her mother shortly afterwards Hindley wrote:
I feel as though my heart’s been torn to pieces. I don’t think anything could hurt me more than this has. The only consolation is that some moron might have got hold of Puppet and hurt him
Trial
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley stand trial for the Moors Murders
The trial was held over 14 days beginning on 19 April 1966, in front of Mr Justice Fenton Atkinson. Such was the public interest that the courtroom was fitted with security screens to protect Brady and Hindley. The pair were each charged with three murders, those of Evans, Downey, and Kilbride, as it was considered that there was by then sufficient evidence to implicate Hindley in Kilbride’s death. The prosecution was led by the Attorney General, Frederick Elwyn Jones.Brady was defended by the Liberal Member of Parliament Emlyn Hooson, and Hindley was defended by Godfrey Heilpern, recorder of Salford from 1964—both experienced QCs. David Smith was the chief prosecution witness, but during the trial it was revealed that he had entered into an agreement with a newspaper that he initially refused to name—even under intense questioning—guaranteeing him £1,000 (equivalent to about £10,000 as of 2012) for the syndication rights to his story if Brady and Hindley were convicted, something the trial judge described as a “gross interference with the course of justice”. Smith finally admitted in court that the newspaper was the News of the World, which had already paid for a holiday in France for him and his wife and was paying him a regular income of £20 per week, as well as accommodating him in a five-star hotel for the duration of the trial.
Brady and Hindley pleaded not guilty to the charges against them; both were called to give evidence, Brady for over eight hours and Hindley for six. Although Brady admitted to hitting Evans with an axe, he did not admit to killing him, arguing that the pathologist in his report had stated that Evans’ death was “accelerated by strangulation”. Under cross-examination by the prosecuting counsel, all Brady would admit was that “I hit Evans with the axe. If he died from axe blows, I killed him.” Hindley denied any knowledge that the photographs of Saddleworth Moor found by police had been taken near the graves of their victims.
The tape recording of Lesley Anne Downey, on which the voices of Brady and Hindley were clearly audible, was played in open court. Hindley admitted that her attitude towards the child was “brusque and cruel”, but claimed that was only because she was afraid that someone might hear Downey screaming. Hindley claimed that when Downey was being undressed she herself was “downstairs”; when the pornographic photographs were taken she was “looking out the window”; and that when the child was being strangled she “was running a bath”.
This is the full Lesley Ann Downey tape transcript taken by Leonard Milner, a shorthand typist of the Supreme court in 1966 – Please note it does contain distressing dialogue
The tape was found within a brown suitcase, recovered from lost property at a train station, along with many other incriminating items such as photographs. The ticket to claim the suitcase was found in the spine of Myra Hindley’s prayer book, which was what ‘PB’ stood for on the disposal plan below.
It’s worth pointing out that they are urging her to put a scarf gag in her mouth, nothing sexual as many assume. The tape didn’t indicate that they cut her fingers off either as is commonly said.
The witness being that of a senior police officer said that having spoken to Brady and Hindley on many occasions he was able to identify the voices of the man and woman on the tape as those of the accused.
Transcript;
Man – This is track four.
Man – Get out of the fucking road.
Man – Get in the fucking basket.
(sound of door banging)
(crackling noise)
(footsteps-heavy)
(steps across the room and then a recording noise followed by blowing sound into the microphone)
(Footsteps)
Woman – (Voice quiet, unreadable)
(footsteps, light, walking across room; whispered conversation at the same time)
(footsteps)
(speech, distant, containing word ‘upstairs’; then two footsteps)
Child – (screaming) Don’t. Mum–Ah.
Woman – (whispering) Come on.
(footsteps)
Woman – (whispering) Shut up.
Child – (pleading) Oh, please.
Child – Oh. (then faintly:) Help – oh.
Child – Help. (followed by gurgling noise)
Woman – Sh. Sh.
Woman – Shut up. Shut UP.
(Screams and gurgles)
Child – Oh. Oh. Oh. (child crying)
Woman – (whispering) Keep – and you’ll be all right.
Woman – (whispering) Go on.
(Quick footsteps mounting stairs, then entering room)
(Child crying, muffled)
Man – (whispering) Here.
Woman – Hush, hush. Go on.
(woman speaking, unreadable)
(Child crying)
Woman – You are all right. Hush, hush. Put it in your mouth – hush and shift that hand.
(child crying)
Woman- Put it in your mouth and keep it in and you’ll be all right.
Woman – Put it in, stop it.
Woman- If you don’t–shh.
(child crying)
Woman – In your mouth. Hush, hush. Shut up or I’ll forget myself and hit you one. Keep it in.
(Child whimpering)
Man – Put it in.
Woman- (Spoken quickly) Put it in.
Man – (speaks, but words unreadable except for the word ‘hand’)
(footsteps)
Man – Put it in. Keep it in. Stop it now. Stop it now.
Woman – I’m only doing this and you’ll be all right.
Woman – Put it in your mouth. Put it in–in.
(further words spoken by the woman which are unreadable except for ‘put it in’)
Woman – Will you stop it, stop it.
(womans voice unreadable)
(Child whimpering)
Woman – Shut–
Man – Quick. Put it in now.
(Child whimpering)
(retching noise)
Man – Just put it in now, love. Put it in now.
(retching noise)
Child – (muffled) What’s this in for?
Man – Put it in.
Child – Can I just tell you summat? I must tell you summat. Please, take your hands off me a minute, please, please– Mummy–please.
Child- I can’t tell you.
(Grunting)
Child – (in quick sequence) I can’t tell you, I can’t breathe. Oh.
Child – I can’t–Dad-Will you take your hands off me?
(man whispering)
Man – No. Tell me.
Child – Please God.
Man – Tell me.
Child – I can’t while you’ve got your hands on me.
(mumbling sound)
Man – Why don’t you keep it in?
Child – Why? What are you going to do with me?
Man – I want some photographs, that’s all.
Man – Put it in.
Child – Don’t undress me, will you?
Woman – That’s right, don’t —
Child – It hurts me. I want to see Mummy, honest to God.
Man – Put it in.
Child – I’ll swear on the Bible.
Man – Put it in, and hurry up now. The quicker you do this, the quicker you’ll get home.
Child – I’ve got to go, because I’m going out with my Mamma. Leave me, please. Help me, will you?
Man – Put it in your mouth and you’ll be all right.
Child – Will you let me go when this is out?
Man – Yes. the longer it takes you to do this, the longer it takes you to get home.
Child – What are you going to do with me first?
Man – I’m going to take some photographs. Put it in your mouth.
Child – What for?
Man – Put it in your mouth. (pause) Right in.
Child – I’m not going to do owt.
Man – Put it in. If you don’t keep that hand down, I’ll slit your neck. (pause) Put it in.
Child – Won’t you let me go? Please.
Man – No, no. Put it in, stop talking.
Man – What’s your name?
Child – Lesley.
Man – Lesley what?
Child – Ann.
Man – What’s your second name?
Child – Westford. Westford.
Man – Westford?
Child – I have to get home before 8 o’clock. I got to get –(pause) Or I’ll get killed if I don’t. Honest to God.
Man – Yes.
(Quick footsteps of woman leaving room and going downstairs; then a click; then woman’s footsteps coming upstairs; then eight longer strides)
Man – What is it?
Woman – I’ve left the light on.
Man – You ‘ave?
Woman – So that — (remainder of sentence unreadable)
(Child starts crying)
Child – It hurts me neck.
Man – Hush, put it in your mouth and you’ll be all right.
Woman – Now listen, shurrup crying.
Child – (crying) It hurts on me —
Woman – (interrupting) Hush! Shut up. Now, put it in. Pull that hand away and don’t dally and just keep your mouth shut, please.
Woman – Wait a bit, I’ll put this on again. D’you get me?
Child – (whining) No, I — (remainder of sentence unreadable)
Woman – Sh. Hush. Put that in your mouth. And again, packed more solid.
(whispered sentences, unreadable)
Child – I want to go home. Honest to god. I’ll (further speech muffled but uninterrupted) — before eight o’clock.
Woman – No, it’s all right.
Man – Eh!
(Music commences, country-style tune followed by ‘Jolly St Nicholas’, during which various non-vocal noises can be heard; then tune ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ during which a voice speaks -unreadable)
(Three loud cracks, systematic, even-timed)
(Music- ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ — goes fainter)
(Footsteps)
(Sounds on tape cease)
On 6 May, after having deliberated for a little over two hours, the jury found Brady guilty of all three murders and Hindley guilty of the murders of Downey and Evans. The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act had come into force during the time that Brady and Hindley were held in prison, abolishing the death penalty for murder, and therefore the judge passed the only sentence that the law allowed: life imprisonment. Brady was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences and Hindley was given two, plus a concurrent seven-year term for harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had murdered John Kilbride. Brady was taken to Durham Prison and Hindley was sent to Holloway Prison.
In his closing remarks Mr Justice Atkinson described the murders as a “truly horrible case” and condemned the accused as “two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity”. He recommended that both Brady and Hindley spend “a very long time” in prison before being considered for parole but did not stipulate a tariff. He stated that Brady was “wicked beyond belief” and that he saw no reasonable possibility of reform. He did not consider that the same was necessarily true of Hindley, “once she is removed from [Brady’s] influence”. Throughout the trial Brady and Hindley “stuck rigidly to their strategy of lying”, and Hindley was later described as “a quiet, controlled, impassive witness who lied remorselessly”
Later investigation
Keith Bennett
In 1985 Brady allegedly confessed to Fred Harrison, a journalist working for The Sunday People, that he had also been responsible for the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, something that the police already suspected, as both children lived in the same area as Brady and Hindley and had disappeared at about the same time as their other victims. The subsequent newspaper reports prompted the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to reopen the case, in an investigation headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping, who had been appointed Head of GMP’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) the previous year.
On 3 July 1985 Topping visited Brady, then being held at Gartree Prison, but found him “scornful of any suggestion that he had confessed to more murders”. Police nevertheless decided to resume their search of Saddleworth Moor, once more using the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley to help them identify possible burial sites. Meanwhile, in November 1986 Winnie Johnson, Keith Bennett’s mother, wrote a letter to Hindley begging to know what had happened to her son, a letter that Hindley seemed to be “genuinely moved” by.It ended:
I am a simple woman, I work in the kitchens of Christie’s Hospital. It has taken me five weeks labour to write this letter because it is so important to me that it is understood by you for what it is, a plea for help. Please, Miss Hindley, help me.
Police visited Hindley, then being held in Cookham Wood, a few days after she had received the letter, and although she refused to admit any involvement in the killings, she agreed to help by looking at photographs and maps to try to identify spots that she had visited with Brady. She showed particular interest in photographs of the area around Hollin Brown Knoll and Shiny Brook, but said that it was impossible to be sure of the locations without visiting the moor. The security considerations for such a visit were significant; there were threats made against her should she visit the moors, but Home Secretary Douglas Hurd agreed with Topping that it would be worth the risk.Writing in 1989, Topping said that he felt “quite cynical” about Hindley’s motivation in helping the police. Although the letter from Winnie Johnson may have played a part, he believed that Hindley’s real concern was that, knowing of Brady’s “precarious” mental state, she was afraid that he might decide to co-operate with the police, and wanted to make certain that she, and not Brady, was the one to gain whatever benefit there may have been in terms of public approval.
Hindley made the first of two visits to assist the police search of Saddleworth Moor on 16 December 1986. Four police cars left Cookham Wood at 4.30 am. At about the same time, police closed all roads onto the moor, which was patrolled by 200 officers, 40 of them armed. Hindley and her solicitor arrived by helicopter from an airfield near Maidstone, touching down at 8:30 am. Wearing a donkey jacket and balaclava, she was driven, and walked around the area. It was difficult for Hindley to make a connection between her memories of the area and what she saw on the day, and she was apparently nervous of the helicopters flying overhead. At 3:00 pm she was returned to the helicopter, and taken back to Cookham Wood. Topping was criticised by the press, who described the visit as a “fiasco”, a “publicity stunt”, and a “mindless waste of money”. He was forced to defend the visit, pointing out its benefits:
We had taken the view that we needed a thorough systematic search of the moor […] It would never have been possible to carry out such a search in private.
Topping continued to visit Hindley in prison, along with her solicitor Michael Fisher and her spiritual counsellor, the Reverend Peter Timms, who had been a prison governor before resigning to become a minister in the Methodist Church. She made a formal confession to police on 10 February 1987, admitting her involvement in all five murders, but news of her confession was not made public for more than a month. The tape recording of her statement was over 17 hours long; Topping described it as a “very well worked out performance in which, I believe, she told me just as much as she wanted me to know, and no more”. He also commented that he “was struck by the fact that she was never there when the killings took place. She was in the car, over the brow of the hill, in the bathroom and even, in the case of the Evans murder, in the kitchen.” Topping concluded that he felt he “had witnessed a great performance rather than a genuine confession”.
During the 1987 search for Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, Hindley recalled that she had seen the rocks of Hollin Brown Knoll silhouetted against the night sky.
Police visited Brady in prison again and told him of Hindley’s confession, which at first he refused to believe. Once presented with some of the details that Hindley had provided of Pauline Reade’s abduction, Brady decided that he too was prepared to confess, but on one condition: that immediately afterwards he be given the means to commit suicide, a request that was impossible for the authorities to comply with.
At about the same time, Winnie Johnson sent Hindley another letter, again pleading with her to assist the police in finding the body of her son Keith. In the letter, Johnson was sympathetic to Hindley over the criticism surrounding her first visit. Hindley, who had not replied to the first letter, responded by thanking Johnson for both letters, explaining that her decision not to reply to the first resulted from the negative publicity that surrounded it. She claimed that, had Johnson written to her 14 years earlier, she would have confessed and helped the police. She also paid tribute to Topping, and thanked Johnson for her sincerity.Hindley made her second visit to the moor in March 1987. This time, the level of security surrounding her visit was considerably higher. She stayed overnight in Manchester, at the flat of the police chief in charge of GMP training at Sedgley Park, and visited the moor twice. She confirmed to police that the two areas in which they were concentrating their search—Hollin Brown Knoll and Hoe Grain—were correct, although she was unable to locate either of the graves. She did later remember, though, that as Pauline Reade was being buried she had been sitting next to her on a patch of grass and could see the rocks of Hollin Brown Knoll silhouetted against the night sky.
In April 1987 news of Hindley’s confession became public. Amidst strong media interest Lord Longford pleaded for her release, writing that her continuing detention to satisfy “mob emotion” was not right. Fisher persuaded Hindley to release a public statement, in which she explained her reasons for denying her complicity in the murders, her religious experiences in prison, the letter from Johnson, and that she saw no possibility of release. She also exonerated David Smith from any part in the murders, except that of Edward Evans.
A map of Saddleworth Moor, showing the areas in which the bodies of three of the children were found, and the general area in which police searched for the body of Keith Bennett
Over the next few months interest in the search waned, but Hindley’s clue had directed the police to focus their efforts on a specific area. On the afternoon of 1 July 1987, after more than 100 days of searching, they found a body lying in a shallow grave 3 feet (0.9 m) below the surface, only 100 yards (90 m) from the place where Lesley Ann Downey had been found. Brady had been co-operating with the police for some time, and when news reached him that Reade’s body had been discovered he made a formal confession to Topping. He also issued a statement to the press, through his solicitor, saying that he too was prepared to help the police in their search. Brady was taken to the moor on 3 July, but he seemed to lose his bearings, blaming changes that had taken place in the intervening years, and the search was called off at 3:00 pm, by which time a large crowd of press and television reporters had gathered on the moor.
Topping refused to allow Brady a second visit to the moors, and a few days after his visit Brady wrote a letter to BBC television reporter Peter Gould, giving some sketchy details of five additional murders that he claimed to have carried out. Brady refused to identify his alleged victims, and the police failed to discover any unsolved crimes matching the few details that he supplied.Hindley told Topping that she knew nothing of these killings.
Hoe Grain leading to Shiny Brook, the area in which police believe Bennett’s undiscovered body is buried
On 24 August 1987 police called off their search of Saddleworth Moor, despite not having found Keith Bennett’s body.Brady was taken to the moor for a second time on 1 December, but he was once again unable to locate the burial site. Keith Bennett’s body remains undiscovered as of 2012, although his family continues to search the moor, over 40 years after his disappearance.
Although Brady and Hindley had confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided that nothing would be gained by a further trial; as both were already serving life sentences no further punishment could be inflicted, and a second trial might even have helped Hindley’s case for parole by giving her a platform from which to make a public confession.
In 2003 the police launched Operation Maida, and again searched the moor for the body of Keith Bennett. They read statements from Brady and Hindley, and also studied photographs taken by the pair. Their search was aided by the use of sophisticated modern equipment, including a US satellite used to look for evidence of soil movement. The BBC reported on 1 July 2009 that Greater Manchester Police had officially given up the search for Keith Bennett, saying that “only a major scientific breakthrough or fresh evidence would see the hunt for his body restart”. Detectives were also reported as saying that they would never again give Brady the attention or the thrill of leading another fruitless search on the moor where they believe Keith Bennett’s remains are buried. Donations from members of the public funded a search of the moor for Bennett’s body by volunteers from a Welsh search and rescue team that began in March 2010.
Perpetrators’ backgrounds
Ian Brady
Ian Brady was born in Glasgow as Ian Duncan Stewart on 2 January 1938 to Maggie Stewart, an unmarried 28-year-old tea room waitress. The identity of Brady’s father has never been reliably ascertained, although his mother claimed he was a reporter working for a Glasgow newspaper, who died three months before Brady was born. Stewart had little support, and after a few months was forced to give her son into the care of Mary and John Sloan, a local couple with four children of their own. Brady took their name, and became known as Ian Sloan. His mother continued to visit him throughout his childhood. As a young child he took pleasure in torturing animals; he broke the hind legs of one dog, set fire to another, and decapitated a cat. Aged nine, Brady visited Loch Lomond with his family, where he reportedly discovered an affinity for the outdoors, and a few months later the family moved to a new council house on an overspill estate at Pollok.
He was accepted for Shawlands Academy, a school for above average pupils. As he grew older Brady’s “brutality escalated”, and soon he was hurting children smaller than himself. At Shawlands his behaviour worsened; as a teenager he twice appeared before a juvenile court for housebreaking. He left the academy aged 15, and took a job as a tea boy at a Harland and Wolff shipyard in Govan. Nine months later he began working as a butcher’s messenger boy. He had a girlfriend, Evelyn Grant, but their relationship ended when he threatened her with a flick knife after she visited a dance with another boy. He again appeared before the court, this time with nine charges against him, and shortly before his 17th birthday a court put him on probation on the condition that he went to live with his mother, who had by then moved to Manchester and married an Irish fruit merchant named Patrick Brady, who got him a job as a fruit porter at Smithfield Market.
Within a year of moving to Manchester, Brady was caught with a sack full of lead seals he had stolen and was trying to smuggle out of the market. Because he was still under 18, he was sentenced to two years in borstal for “training”. He was initially sent to Hatfield but after being discovered drunk on alcohol he had brewed he was moved to the much tougher unit at Hull. Released on 14 November 1957 Brady returned to Manchester, where he took a labouring job, which he hated, and was dismissed from another job in a brewery. Deciding to “better himself”, Brady obtained a set of instruction manuals on book-keeping from a local public library, with which he “astonished” his parents by studying alone in his room for hours. In January 1959, Brady applied for and was offered a clerical job at Millwards Merchandising, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton. He was regarded by his work colleagues as a quiet, punctual, but short-tempered young man. He read books such as Teach Yourself German, and Mein Kampf, as well as works on Nazi atrocities. He rode a Tiger Cub motorcycle, which he used to visit the Pennines
Myra Hindley
Myra Hindley was born on 23 July 1942 and raised in Gorton, then a working class area of Manchester. Her parents, Nellie and Bob Hindley (the latter an alcoholic), beat her regularly as a young child. The small house the family lived in was in such poor condition that Hindley and her parents had to sleep in the only available bedroom, she in a single bed next to her parents’ double. The family’s living conditions deteriorated further when Hindley’s sister, Maureen, was born in 1946. Shortly after the birth, Hindley, then aged five, was sent by her parents to live with her grandmother, who lived nearby.
Hindley’s father had fought in North Africa, Cyprus, and Italy during the Second World War, and had served with the Parachute Regiment. He had been known in the army as a “hard man” and he expected his daughter to be equally tough; he taught her how to fight, and insisted that she “stick up for herself”. When Hindley was aged 8, a local boy approached her in the street and scratched both of her cheeks with his fingernails, drawing blood. She burst into tears and ran into her parents’ house, to be met by her father, who demanded that she “Go and punch him [the boy], because if you don’t I’ll leather you!” Hindley found the boy and succeeded in knocking him down with a sequence of punches, as her father had taught her. As she wrote later, “at eight years old I’d scored my first victory”.
Malcolm MacCulloch, professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, has suggested that the fight, and the part that Hindley’s father played in it, may be “key pieces of evidence” in trying to understand Hindley’s role in the Moors murders:
The relationship with her father brutalised her […] She was not only used to violence in the home but rewarded for it outside. When this happens at a young age it can distort a person’s reaction to such situations for life.
One of her closest friends was 13-year-old Michael Higgins, who lived in a nearby street. In June 1957 he invited her to go swimming with friends at a local disused reservoir. A good swimmer, Hindley chose not to go and instead went out with a friend, Pat Jepson. Higgins drowned in the reservoir, and upon learning of his fate Hindley was deeply upset, and blamed herself for his death. She collected for a funeral wreath, and his funeral at St Francis’s Monastery in Gorton Lane—the church where Hindley had been baptised a Catholic on 16 August 1942—had a lasting effect on her. Hindley’s mother had only agreed to her father’s insistence that she be baptised a Catholic on the condition that she was not sent to a Catholic school, as her mother believed that “all the monks taught was the catechism“. Hindley was increasingly drawn to the Catholic Church after she started at Ryder Brow Secondary Modern, and began taking instruction for formal reception into the Church soon after Higgins’s funeral. She took the confirmation name of Veronica, and received her first communion in November 1958. She also became a godparent to Michael’s nephew, Anthony John. It was also at about this time that Hindley first began bleaching her hair.
Hindley’s first job was as a junior clerk at a local electrical engineering firm. She ran errands, made tea, and typed. She was well liked at the firm, enough so that when she lost her first week’s wage packet, the other girls had a collection to replace it. She had a short relationship with Ronnie Sinclair from Christmas 1958, and became engaged aged 17. The engagement was called off several months later; Hindley apparently thought Sinclair immature, and unable to provide her with the life she envisaged for herself.
Shortly after her 17th birthday she changed her hair colour, with a pink rinse. She took judo lessons once a week at a local school, but found partners reluctant to train with her, as she was often slow to release her grip. She took a job at Bratby and Hinchliffe, an engineering company in Gorton, but was dismissed for absenteeism after six months.
As a couple
In 1961, the 18-year-old Myra Hindley joined Millwards as a typist. She soon became infatuated with Brady, despite learning that he had a criminal record.She began a diary and, although she had dates with other men, some of the entries detail her fascination with Brady, whom she eventually spoke to for the first time on 27 July 1961.Over the next few months she continued to make entries, and grew increasingly disillusioned with him, until 22 December when Brady asked her on a date to the cinema,where they watched the biblical epic King of Kings. Their dates together followed a regular pattern; a trip to the cinema, usually to watch an X-rated film, and then back to Hindley’s house to drink German wine. Brady then gave her reading material, and the pair spent their work lunch breaks reading aloud to one another from accounts of Nazi atrocities. Hindley began to emulate an ideal of Aryan perfection, bleaching her hair blonde and applying thick crimson lipstick. She expressed concern at some aspects of Brady’s character; in a letter to a childhood friend, she mentioned an incident where she had been drugged by Brady, but also wrote of her obsession with him. A few months later she asked her friend to destroy the letter. In her 30,000-word plea for parole, written in 1978 and 1979 and submitted to Home Secretary Merlyn Rees, Hindley said:
Within months he [Brady] had convinced me that there was no God at all: he could have told me that the earth was flat, the moon was made of green cheese and the sun rose in the west, I would have believed him, such was his power of persuasion.
Hindley began to change her appearance further, wearing clothing considered risqué such as high boots, short skirts, and leather jackets, and the two became less sociable to their work colleagues. The couple were regulars at the library, borrowing books on philosophy, as well as crime and torture. They also read works by the Marquis de Sade, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky‘s Crime and Punishment. Although she was not a qualified driver (she passed her test on the third attempt, late in 1963), Hindley often hired a van, in which the two planned bank robberies. Hindley befriended George Clitheroe, the President of the Cheadle Rifle Club, and on several occasions visited two local shooting ranges. Clitheroe, although puzzled by her interest, arranged for her to buy a .22 rifle from a gun merchant in Manchester. She also asked to join a pistol club, but she was a poor shot and allegedly often bad-tempered, so Clitheroe told her that she was unsuitable; she did, though, manage to purchase a Webley .45 and a Smith and Wesson .38 from other members of the club. Brady and Hindley’s plans for robbery came to nothing, but they became interested in photography. Brady already owned a Box Brownie, which he used to take photographs of Hindley and her dog, Puppet, but he upgraded to a more sophisticated model, and also purchased lights and darkroom equipment. The pair took photographs of each other that, for the time, would have been considered explicit. For Hindley, this demonstrated a marked change from her earlier, more shy and prudish nature.
As murderers
Hindley claimed that Brady began to talk about “committing the perfect murder” in July 1963, and often spoke to her about Meyer Levin‘s Compulsion, published as a novel in 1956 and adapted for the cinema in 1959. The story tells a fictionalised account of the Leopold and Loeb case, two young men from well-to-do families who attempt to commit the perfect murder of a 12-year-old boy, and escape the death penalty because of their age.
By June 1963, Brady had moved in with Hindley at her grandmother’s house in Bannock Street, and on 12 July 1963 the two murdered their first victim, 16-year-old Pauline Reade. Reade had attended school with Hindley’s younger sister, Maureen, and had also been in a short relationship with David Smith, a local boy with three criminal convictions for minor crimes. Police could find nobody who had seen Reade before her disappearance, and although the 15-year-old Smith was questioned by police he was cleared of any involvement in her death. Their next victim, John Kilbride, was killed on 23 November 1963. A huge search was undertaken, with over 700 statements taken, and 500 “missing” posters printed. Eight days after he failed to return home, 2,000 volunteers scoured waste ground and derelict buildings.
Hindley hired a vehicle a week after Kilbride went missing, and again on 21 December 1963, apparently to make sure the burial sites had not been disturbed. In February 1964, she bought a second-hand Austin Traveller, but soon after traded it for a Mini van. On 16 June 1964, 12-year-old Keith Bennett disappeared. His stepfather, Jimmy Johnson, became a suspect; in the two years following Bennett’s disappearance, Johnson was taken for questioning on four occasions. Detectives searched under the floorboards of the Johnsons’ house, and on discovering that the houses in the row were connected, extended the search to the entire street.
David and Maureen Smith, pictured around the time of the murders. David Smith’s statement to the police led to Brady’s arrest.
Maureen Hindley married David Smith on 15 August 1964. The marriage was hastily arranged and performed at a register office. None of Hindley’s relatives attended; Myra did not approve of the marriage, and her mother was too embarrassed—Maureen was seven months pregnant. The newlyweds moved into Smith’s father’s house. The next day, Brady suggested that the four take a day-trip to Windermere. This was the first time Brady and Smith had met properly, and Brady was apparently impressed by Smith’s demeanour. The two talked about society, the distribution of wealth, and the possibility of robbing a bank. The young Smith was similarly impressed by Brady, who throughout the day had paid for his food and wine. The trip to the Lake District was the first of many outings. Hindley was apparently jealous of their relationship, but became closer to her sister.
In 1964 Hindley, her grandmother, and Brady were rehoused as part of the post-war slum clearances in Manchester, to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in the new overspill estate of Hattersley. Brady and Hindley became friendly with Patricia Hodges, an 11-year-old girl who lived at 12 Wardle Brook Avenue. Hodges accompanied the two on their trips to Saddleworth Moor to collect peat, something that many householders on the new estate did to improve the soil in their gardens, which was full of clay and builder’s rubble. She remained unharmed; living only a few doors away, her disappearance would have been easily solved.
Early on Boxing Day 1964, Hindley left her grandmother at a relative’s house and refused to allow her back to Wardle Brook Avenue that night. On the same day, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey disappeared from a funfair in Ancoats.Despite a huge search she was not found. The following day Hindley brought her grandmother back home. By February 1965 Patricia Hodges had stopped visiting 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, but David Smith was still a regular visitor. Brady gave Smith books to read, and the two discussed robbery and murder.On Hindley’s 23rd birthday, her sister and brother-in-law, who had until then been living with relatives, were rehoused in Underwood Court, a block of flats not far from Wardle Brook Avenue. The two couples began to see each other more regularly, but usually only on Brady’s terms.
During the 1990s, Hindley claimed that she took part in the killings only because Brady had drugged her, was blackmailing her with pornographic pictures he had taken of her, and had threatened to kill her younger sister, Maureen.In a 2008 television documentary series on female serial killers broadcast on ITV3, Hindley’s solicitor, Andrew McCooey, reported that she had said to him:
I ought to have been hanged. I deserved it. My crime was worse than Brady’s because I enticed the children and they would never have entered the car without my role … I have always regarded myself as worse than Brady.
Incarceration
Brady
Ashworth Hospital, where Ian Brady is incarcerated as of 2012
Following his conviction, Brady was moved to Durham prison, where he asked to live in solitary confinement. He spent 19 years in mainstream prisons before he was declaredcriminally insane in November 1985 and sent to the high-security Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital; he has since made it clear that he never wants to be released. The trial judge had recommended that his life sentence should mean life, and successive Home Secretaries have agreed with that decision. In 1982, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Lane said of Brady: “this is the case if ever there is to be one when a man should stay in prison till he dies”.
Moors murderer Ian Brady urges Muslims to carry out terror attacks in the UK
In contrast to the common belief that serial killers often continue with their crimes until they are caught, Brady claimed in 2005 that the Moors murders were “merely an existential exercise of just over a year, which was concluded in December 1964″. By then, he went on to claim, he and Hindley had turned their attention to armed robbery, for which they had begun to prepare by acquiring guns and vehicles. In 2001 Brady wrote The Gates of Janus, which was published by Feral House, an underground US publisher. The book, Brady’s analysis of serial murder and specific serial killers, sparked outrage when announced in Britain.
Winnie Johnson, the mother of undiscovered victim, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, received a letter from Brady at the end of 2005 in which, she said, he claimed that he could take police to within 20 yards (18 m) of her son’s body but the authorities would not allow it. Brady did not refer directly to Keith by name and did not claim he could take investigators directly to the grave, but spoke of the “clarity” of his recollections.
Letter that made Myra Hindley cry – Winnie Johnson, the mother of undiscovered victim, 12-year-old Keith Bennett
In early 2006, prison authorities intercepted a package addressed to Brady from a female friend, containing 50 paracetamol pills, a potentially lethal dose, hidden inside a hollowed-out crime novel.
The death, in November 2007, of John Straffen, who had spent 55 years in prison for murdering three children meant that Brady became the longest serving prisoner in England and Wales.As of 2012, he remains incarcerated in Ashworth. After Brady began a hunger strike in 1999 he was force-fed, fell ill, and was transferred to another hospital for tests.He recovered, and in March 2000 asked for a judicial review of the decision to force-feed him, but was refused permission.
Myra gets the potentially fatal brain condition, whilst I have to fight simply to die. I have had enough. I want nothing, my objective is to die and release myself from this once and for all. So you see my death strike is rational and pragmatic. I’m only sorry I didn’t do it decades ago, and I’m eager to leave this cesspit in a coffin.
You must be logged in to post a comment.