BBC reports on death of Moors Murderer Ian Brady The serial killer - who died of lung disease aged 79 on Monday - murdered at least five children with partner in crime Hindley. [69], In the early evening of 23 November 1963, at a market in Ashton-under-Lyne, Brady and Hindley offered 12-year-old John Kilbride a lift home, saying his parents might worry that he was out so late; they also promised him a bottle of sherry. [135] Home Secretary Douglas Hurd agreed with DCS Topping that a visit would be worth risking despite security problems presented by threats against Hindley. A few months later, she asked her friend to destroy the letter. To help date the photos, detectives had a veterinary surgeon examine the dog to determine his age; the examination required a general anaesthetic from which Puppet did not recover. [26] At 17, she became engaged after a short courtship, but called it off several months later after deciding the young man was immature and unable to provide her with the life she wanted. [21] Malcolm MacCulloch, professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, has written that Hindley's "relationship with her father brutalised her She was not only used to violence in the home but rewarded for it outside. He was picked up by a police car from the phone box and taken to Hyde police station, where he told officers what he had witnessed in the night. [30] Hindley began a diary and, although she had dates with other men, some of the entries detail her fascination with Brady, to whom she eventually spoke for the first time on 27 July. Maureen managed to repair the relationship with her mother, and moved into a council property in Gorton. Police found no one 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.[49]. Once Kilbride was inside Hindley's hired Ford Anglia car, Brady said they would have to make a detour to their home for the sherry. [66], Once Reade was in the van, Hindley asked her to help in searching Saddleworth Moor for an expensive lost glove; Reade agreed and they drove there. When I ran in I just stood inside the living room and I saw a young lad. "[210][211], In 1987, Hindley admitted that the plea for parole she had submitted to the Home Secretary eight years earlier was "on the whole a pack of lies",[212] and to some reporters her co-operation in the searches on Saddleworth Moor "appeared a cynical gesture aimed at ingratiating herself to the parole authorities". [48], By June 1963, Brady had moved in with Hindley at her grandmother's house in Bannock Street, and on 12 July, the two murdered their first victim, Pauline Reade, who 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. [241][242], In 1972, Smith was acquitted of the murder of his father, who had been suffering from terminal cancer. [174] He spent nineteen years in mainstream prisons before being diagnosed as a psychopath in November 1985 and sent to the high-security Park Lane Hospital, now Ashworth Hospital, in Maghull, Merseyside;[175] he made it clear that he never wanted to be released. [219] Hindley's release seemed imminent and plans were made by supporters for her to be given a new identity. A number of authors stated that as a child he tortured animals, although Brady objected to these accusations. The BAFTA-winning actor was fresh from shooting a scene when he walked across a . Each was brought before the court separately and remanded into custody for a week. Hindley's 17-year-old brother-in-law tipped off the police about her crimes. En route he suggested another detour, this time to search for a glove Hindley had lost on the moor. She was never released and died in prison in 2002. [87], Police searching the house at Wardle Brook Avenue found an old exercise book with the name "John Kilbride", which made them suspect that Brady and Hindley had been involved in the disappearances of other young people. [261] Given Hindley's status as co-defendant in the first serial murder trial held since the abolition of the death penalty,[262] retribution was a common theme among those who sought to keep her locked away. On the afternoon of Boxing Day, 1964, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey disappeared from a local fairground. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to two days' detention. [13] He was sent to Latchmere House in London,[12] and then Hatfield borstal in the West Riding of Yorkshire. [29] She soon became infatuated with Brady, despite learning that he had a criminal record. [162] In mid-2009, the GMP said they had exhausted all avenues in the search for Bennett, that "only a major scientific breakthrough or fresh evidence would see the hunt for his body restart";[163] and that any further participation by Brady would be via a "walk through the moors virtually" using 3D modelling, rather than a visit by him to the moor. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. [15], In January 1959, Brady applied for, and was offered, a clerical job at Millwards, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton. [166] In 2017, the police asked a court to order that two locked briefcases owned by Brady be opened, arguing that they might contain clues to the location of Bennett's body; the application was declined on the grounds that no prosecution was likely to result. . Between 1963 and 1965, Myra Hindley and her lover Ian Brady lured four children Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, and Lesley Ann Downey into their car under the pretense of giving them a ride home. [222] Just prior to this, on 15November 2002, Hindley, aged 60 and a chain smoker, died from bronchial pneumonia at West Suffolk Hospital. Brady was in the back of the van. But that would be to underestimate the astonishing depths of depravity depicted within, acts said to have inspired the unthinkable crimes of Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. [117], Both Brady and Hindley entered pleas of not guilty;[118] Brady testified for over eight hours, Hindley for six. On the evening of 6 October 1965, Hindley drove Brady to Manchester Central railway station, where she waited outside in the car whilst he selected a victim. I'm only sorry I didn't do it decades ago, and I'm eager to leave this cesspit in a coffin. [20] He had been known as a hard man while in the army and he expected his daughter to be equally tough; he taught her to fight and insisted that she stick up for herself. Ian Brady was born in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, Scotland, as Ian Duncan Stewart on 2 January 1938 to Margaret "Peggy" Stewart, an unmarried tea room waitress. The next day, Brady suggested that the four take a day-trip to Windermere. [101], Presented with the evidence of the tape recording, Brady admitted to taking the photographs of Downey, but insisted that she had been brought to Wardle Brook Avenue by two men who had subsequently taken her away again, alive. Smith then went to the police with his story, including Brady having mentioned that more bodies were buried on Saddleworth Moor. [243] He remarried and moved to Lincolnshire with his three sons,[231][244] and was exonerated of any participation in the Moors murders by Hindley's confession in 1987. Maureen moved from Underwood Court to a single-bedroom property, and found work in a department store. In May 1966 Brady, then 28, was convicted, along with lover Myra Hindley, of murdering 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and 17-year-old Edward Evans. [254], Manchester City Council decided in 1987 to demolish the house in which Brady and Hindley had lived on Wardle Brook Avenue, and where Downey and Evans were murdered, citing "excessive media interest [in the property] creating unpleasantness for residents". Hindley did not approve of the marriage, and her mother was too embarrassed as Maureen was seven months pregnant. I hope she goes to Hell. Hindley claimed that Brady began to talk about "committing the perfect murder" in July 1963,[47] and often spoke to her about Meyer Levin's Compulsion, published as a novel in 1956 and adapted for the cinema in 1959. see those alluring lights"). Brady read books, including Teach Yourself German and Mein Kampf, as well as works on Nazi atrocities. Before the trial, the News of the World newspaper offered 1,000 to Smith for the rights to his story; the American People magazine made a competing offer of 6,000 (equivalent to about 20,000 and 120,000 respectively in 2021). After the drowning death of a close male friend when she was 15, Hindley left school and converted to Roman Catholicism. [d][182], During several years of interactions with forensic psychologist Chris Cowley, including face-to-face meetings,[183] Brady told him of an "aesthetic fascination [he had] with guns",[184] despite his never having used one to kill. [189], In 2001, Brady wrote The Gates of Janus, which was published by the US underground publisher Feral House. [144], Police visited Brady in prison again and told him of Hindley's confession, which at first he refused to believe. [165] In 2012, it was claimed that Brady may have given details of the location of Bennett's body to a visitor; a woman was subsequently arrested on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body without lawful excuse, but a few months later the Crown Prosecution Service announced that there was insufficient evidence to press charges. I deserved it. He was facing upwards. After about thirty minutes Brady returned alone, carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier, and, in response to Hindley's questions, said that he had sexually assaulted Bennett and strangled him with a piece of string. [173], Following his conviction Brady was moved to HM Prison Durham, where he asked to live in solitary confinement. [8], Brady's behaviour worsened at Shawlands; as a teenager he twice appeared before a juvenile court for housebreaking. Brady was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and locked up in a Ashworth secure mental hospital, on Merseyside. Hindley's first job was as a junior clerk at a local electrical engineering firm. [112][113], Smith was the chief prosecution witness. [30] In 2008 Hindley's solicitor, Andrew McCooey, reported that she told him: I ought to have been hanged. (1942-2002) Who Was Myra Hindley? 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". [228][229] The Manchester Evening News reported on possible fears that this would result in visitors choosing to avoid or vandalise the park. Photo: Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images, Idaho Murders: What Led Police to Bryan Kohberger, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Myra Hindley, Birth Year: 1942, Birth date: July 23, 1942, Birth City: Manchester, Birth Country: England. Myra is a large painting which is a reproduction of the mugshot of Myra Hindley shortly after she was arrested for her participation in the Moors murders and was created by Marcus Harvey in 1995. She worked as a clerk at an . [249] Five years after their son was murdered, Sheila and Patrick Kilbride divorced. [159][160] Hindley told Topping that she knew nothing of these killings. The marriage was hastily arranged and performed at a register office. At various times Hindley gave conflicting statements about the extent to which she, versus Brady, was responsible for Reade being selected as their first victim,[65] but said she felt that there would be less attention given to the disappearance of a teenager than of an 8-year-old. The pair took photographs of each other that, for the time, would have been considered explicit. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}Idaho Murders: What Led Police to Bryan Kohberger, Adnan Syed: A Complete Timeline of His Trial, Appeal and Killing of Hae Min Lee. He complained bitterly about conditions at Ashworth, which he hated. I have always regarded myself as worse than Brady. [129] This followed claims in 2004 that Hindley had told another inmate that she and Brady had murdered a sixth victim, a teenage girl. [177] Hindley was not informed of the decision until 1994, when a Law Lords ruling obliged the Prison Service to inform all life sentence prisoners of the minimum period they must serve in prison before being considered for parole. She took up a collection for a wreath; his funeral was held at St Francis's Monastery in Gorton Lane. [220] Home Secretary David Blunkett ordered the GMP to find new charges against Hindley to prevent her release from prison. Their next victim, John Kilbride, was killed on 23 November. [138] Police closed all roads onto the moor, which was patrolled by 200 officers, some armed. The victims were five childrenPauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward Evansaged between 10 and 17, at least four of whom were sexually assaulted. The murders of Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade were not attributed to Myra Hindley and Ian Brady until 1985, after "Suffer Little Children" had already been released. The newlyweds moved into Smith's father's house. Nine months later, he began working as a butcher's messenger boy. [213][260] At the 1997 Sensation art exhibition, a reproduction composed of children's handprints caused controversy. They were both jailed for life. The excursion caused a furore in the national press and earned Wing an official rebuke from the then-Home Secretary Robert Carr. Myra Hindley and Rose West became two of the most despised and feared women in Britain when their secret lives as serial killers were exposed. Hindley had been charged with the murders of Downey and Evans, and being an accessory to the murder of Kilbride. Brady gave Smith books to read, and the two discussed robbery and murder. [14], In 2003, the police launched Operation Maida, and again searched the moor for Bennett's body,[161] this time using sophisticated resources such as a US reconnaissance satellite which could detect soil disturbances. Smith had witnessed Brady killing 17-year-old Edward Evans with an axe, concealing his horror for fear of meeting a similar fate. She ran errands, typed, made tea, and was well liked enough that when she lost her first week's wage packet, the other girls took up a collection to replace it. [76] Hindley's 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 11. [52], In 1964, Hindley, her grandmother, and Brady were rehoused as part of the post-war slum clearances in Manchester, to 16Wardle Brook Avenue in the new overspill estate of Hattersley, Cheshire. [230], David Smith became "reviled by the people of Manchester"[231] for financially profiting from the murders. [231] That same year his children were taken into the care of the local authority. [176], The trial judge recommended that Brady's life sentence should mean life, and successive Home Secretaries agreed with that decision. The following day, Hindley brought her grandmother back home. 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 Kilbride. He once offered to donate one of his kidneys to "someone, anyone who needed one",[193] but was blocked from doing so. Myra Hindley was born in Crumpsall on 23 July 1942 [17] [18] to parents Nellie and Bob Hindley and raised in Gorton, then a working-class area of Manchester dominated by Victorian slum housing. The two couples began to see each other more regularly, but usually only on Brady's terms.[59][60]. [217][218], When in 2002 another life sentence prisoner challenged the Home Secretary's power to set minimum terms, Hindley and hundreds of others, whose tariffs had been increased by politicians, looked likely to be released. [109] Onlookers some travelling for hours would stand outside Chester Assizes every day during the trial. [258] Hindley's role in the crimes also violated gender norms: her betrayal of the maternal role fed public perceptions of her "inherent evil", and made her a "poster girl" for moral panics about serial murder and paedophilia in subsequent decades. The Lord Chief Justice agreed with that recommendation in 1982, but in January 1985 Home Secretary Leon Brittan increased her tariff to thirty years. The victims were children between the ages of 10 and 17, boys and girls. Hindley and her solicitor left Cookham Wood at 4:30am, flew to the moor by helicopter from an airfield near Maidstone, and then were driven, and walked, around the area until 3:00pm. Child killer Myra Hindley accused fellow Moors Murderer Ian Brady of drugging, raping and beating her. [246][247], In 1977, a BBC television debate discussed arguments for and against Hindley's release, with Lord Longford, a Catholic convert, on the side who argued that she should be released, and Downey's mother arguing against her release and threatening to kill her were the release to occur. [115] During the trial, the judge and defence barristers repeatedly questioned Smith and his wife about the nature of the arrangement. Once presented with some of the details that Hindley had provided of 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 with which it was impossible for the authorities to comply. [53] The couple never harmed Hodges, since she lived only a few doors away, which would have made it easy for police to solve any disappearance. He called Brady "wicked beyond belief" and said he saw no reasonable possibility of reform for him, though he did not think the same necessarily true of Hindley once "removed from [Brady's] influence". How many children did Ian Brady and Myra Hindley kill? She did, though, later remember that as 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. She burst into tears and ran to her father, who threatened to "leather" her if she did not retaliate; Hindley found the boy and knocked him down with a series of punches. 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. [259] Her often reprinted photograph, taken shortly after she was arrested, is described by some commentators as similar to the mythical Medusa and, according to author Helen Birch, has become "synonymous with the idea of feminine evil". She was known for being a Criminal. Various authors have stated that he tortured animals, although Brady objected to such accusations. [5] Aged 9, he 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. When Hindley was aged about eight, a local boy scratched her cheeks, drawing blood. Although Winnie Johnson's letter may have played a part, he believed that Hindley, knowing of Brady's "precarious" mental state, was concerned he might co-operate with the police and reap any available public-approval benefit. Some individuals with deceased relatives have continued to search for their physical remains after the deaths of the murderers. [195], The mother of the remaining undiscovered victim, 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 (18m) of her son's body but the authorities would not allow it. Myra Hindley, who became one of Britain's most hated women because of her involvement in a string of child killings in the 1960's, died today, the Prison Service said. [4] The identity of Brady's father has never been reliably ascertained, although his mother said he was a reporter working for a Glasgow newspaper who died three months before Brady was born. After work he instructed her to drive a borrowed van around while he followed on his motorcycle; when he spotted a likely victim he would flash his headlight. Clitheroe, although puzzled by her interest, arranged for her to buy a .22 rifle from a gun merchant in Manchester. Downey's mother was at the centre of a campaign to ensure that Hindley was never released from prison, and until her death in February 1999, she regularly gave television and newspaper interviews whenever Hindley's release was rumoured. The investigation was reopened in 1985 after Brady was reported as having confessed to the murders of Reade and Bennett. [35] Brady was defended by Emlyn Hooson QC, the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP),[111] and Hindley was defended by Godfrey Heilpern QC, recorder of Salford from 1964; both were experienced Queen's Counsel. Hindley stayed with Reade while Brady retrieved a spade he had hidden nearby on a previous visit, then returned to the van while Brady buried Reade. [58] 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. While her older sister, Myra, moved next door with their grandma, Ellen Maybury. Fisher persuaded Hindley to release a public statement, which touched on her reasons for denying her guilt previously, her religious experiences in prison, and the letter from Johnson. Hindley admitted that her attitude towards Downey was "brusque and cruel", but claimed that was only because she was afraid that someone might hear Downey screaming. Best Known For: Myra Hindley was a serial killer of small children, murders she committed in partnership with boyfriend Ian Brady. Subjected to whispering campaigns and petitions to remove her from the estate where she lived, Maureen received no support from her familyher mother had supported Myra during the trial. [177] The November 2007 death 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. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. [86] She refused to make any statement about Evans's death beyond claiming it had been an accident, and was allowed to go home on the condition that she return the next day. Ian was standing over him, facing him, with his legs on either side of the young lad's legs. Myra Hindley died in 2002. In 2011, he co-authored the book Witness with biographer Carol Ann Lee. ", "Book by Moors Murder witness David Smith recalls horror", "Man who helped jail Moors murderers dies of cancer", "Moors Murder mother Winnie Johnson in DVD appeal to Brady", "Winnie Johnson, mother of Moors Murders victim Keith Bennett, dies", "Moors Murder victim Keith Bennett's mother dies", "Police kept body parts of Moors murders victim without family's knowledge", "Moors Murders: Pauline Reade's remains reburied", "Lord Longford: Aristocratic moral crusader", "Goreytelling Episode 5: The Loathsome Couple", "From Myra Hindley to Three Girls: Maxine Peake's life and career", "Rose West's life behind bars to feature in ITV documentary", The official Keith Bennett website (archived version), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moors_murders&oldid=1141405323, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 24 February 2023, at 22:27. When police returned to the living room they arrested Brady on suspicion of murder. [234], After stabbing another man during a fight, in an attack he claimed was triggered by the abuse he had suffered since the trial, Smith was sentenced to three years in prison in 1969. She claimed that, had Johnson written to her fourteen years earlier, she would have confessed and helped the police. Her subsequent applications for parole were denied. He was regarded by his colleagues as a quiet, punctual, but short-tempered young man. The child had been earning some pocket money in the market, and was offered a lift home by Hindley. The trip to the Lake District was the first of many outings. [35] The dock was fitted with bullet proof glass to protect Brady and Hindley because it was feared that someone might try and kill them. Myra Hindley did not have a child at the time. The book, Brady's analysis of serial murder and specific serial killers, sparked outrage when announced in the UK. I wanted her to suffer like I have. Since her daughter's death, she had campaigned to ensure that Hindley remained in prison, and doctors said that the stress had contributed to the severity of her illness. [39] They also read works by the Marquis de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche[39] and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. 1 Comments. GMP apologised to the Reade family. She was found guilty of three murders and was jailed for life. [14] 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. At some point Brady sent Hindley to fetch Smith, her brother-in-law. It was displayed at the Sensation exhibition of Young British Artists at the Royal Academy of Art in London from 8 September to 28 December 1997. Few outside the art world remember the name Marcus Harvey, but many recall his portrait of serial child killer Myra Hindley composed of children's handprints. "[139], On 19 December, David Smith, then 38, spent about four hours on the moor helping police identify additional areas to be searched. Then I heard Myra shout, "Dave, help him," very loud. [99] They made a two-minute appearance on 28 October, and were again remanded into custody. Hindley, along with her boyfriend Ian Brady . says", "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)", "Ian Brady resumes search for boy's grave", "1987: Moors murderer claims more killings", "Police call off search for Moors murder victim", "Spy satellite used in fresh bid to reveal Moors Murderers final secret", "Moors Murders: Donations fund search for Keith Bennett", "Ian Brady's mental health advocate will not face charges", "Moors Murders: 'Unlock Ian Brady's briefcases' plea", "Police to begin dig for Moors murder victim 58 years after he went missing", "Moors Murders: Search for Keith Bennett's body restarts", "Police dig for Moors victim Keith Bennett after skull reportedly found", "Moors Murders: No remains yet found in search for Keith Bennett", "Search ends for Moors murder victim Keith Bennett after no remains found", "UK's longest-serving prisoner, Straffen, dies", "Force feeding of Ian Brady declared lawful", "Ian Brady will not necessarily kill himself if moved to jail, tribunal hears", "Ian Brady should stay in psychiatric hospital, tribunal rules", "Ian Brady's ashes "not to be scattered at Saddleworth Moor", "Ian Brady: Moors Murderer "would remove feeding tube", "Moors Murderer Ian Brady died of natural causes, coroner confirms", "Moors Murders: Judge rules on Ian Brady body disposal", "Moors Murders: Ian Brady's ashes disposed of at sea", "Thatcher overruled minister to keep Moors murderers locked up for life", "Ian Brady: How the Moors Murderer came to symbolise pure evil", "Howard considers moving Hindley to open prison", "Regina v. Secretary of State For The Home Department, Ex Parte Hindley", "Myra Hindley, the Moors monster, dies after 36 years in jail", "I have no compassion for her.