[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. [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. Brady was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and locked up in a Ashworth secure mental hospital, on Merseyside. With his girlfriend Myra Hindley, Ian Brady kidnapped, tortured, and murdered five children one as young as 10 in a series of notorious slayings known as the Moors Murders. .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. [240] It was a threat repeated by her son Danny. 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. 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. Hindley, 60 . [51], Hindley's sister, Maureen, married David Smith on 15 August 1964. [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. Updated: Nov 9, 2021 Photo: Paul Popper/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images They approached her and deliberately dropped some shopping they were carrying, then asked her for help in taking the packages to their car, and then to Wardle Brook Avenue. [83] Talbot explained that he was investigating "an act of violence involving guns" that was reported to have taken place the previous evening. 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. Smith had told police that Brady had boasted of "photographic proof" of multiple murders, and officers, struck by Brady's decision to remove the apparently innocent landscapes from the house, appealed to locals for assistance finding locations to match the photographs. [44] Brady and Hindley's plans for robbery came to nothing, but they became interested in photography. [77] Throughout the previous year Brady had been cultivating a friendship with Smith, who had become "in awe" of Brady, something that increasingly worried Hindley as she felt it compromised their safety.[78]. [128] Jennifer Tighe, a 14-year-old girl who disappeared from an Oldham children's home in December 1964, was mentioned in the press some forty years later but was confirmed by police to be alive. When Myra was young, her father beat her up regularly, but he also trained her how to battle. [7] Brady was accepted for Shawlands Academy, a school for above-average pupils. [171] On 1 October the police reported that no further remains had been found. Despite dating other people, Brady was always the man she wanted to be with, so the fascination was incredible. [214] In 1996, the Parole Board recommended that Hindley be moved to an open prison. 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. ", "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. She divorced Smith in 1973,[235] and married a lorry driver, Bill Scott, with whom she had a daughter. [28], In January 1961, the 18-year-old Hindley joined Millwards as a typist. [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. Bennett's body is also thought to be buried there, but despite repeated searches it remains undiscovered. Keith Bennett I have always regarded myself as worse than Brady. [227] Four months later, her ashes were scattered by her ex-partner, Patricia Cairns, less than 10 miles (16km) from Saddleworth Moor in Stalybridge Country Park. [230], David Smith became "reviled by the people of Manchester"[231] for financially profiting from the murders. "Suffer Little Children" is a song by the English rock band the . 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. EXCLUSIVE: Sam Brown vividly recalls her visceral reaction to Steve Coogan. [15], In January 1959, Brady applied for, and was offered, a clerical job at Millwards, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton. [255], In November 2017 it was revealed that, without the knowledge of her family, some of the remains of Pauline Reade, including her jaw bone, had been kept at the University of Leeds by Greater Manchester Police. [266] Manchester band The Smiths' song "Suffer Little Children", from their 1984 self-titled debut album, was also inspired by the case. [190] In the book, Brady recounted his friendship in prison with the "teacup poisoner" Graham Young, who shared Brady's admiration for Nazi Germany. "[85], Though Hindley was not initially arrested, she demanded to go with Brady to the police station, taking her dog. Their next victim, John Kilbride, was killed on 23 November. They drove to Brady and Hindley's home at Wardle Brook Avenue, where they relaxed over a bottle of wine. [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. Brady took their family name and became known as Ian Sloan. [114] When Smith accepted the News of the World offerits editors had promised additional future payments for syndication and serialisationhe agreed to be paid 15 weekly until the trial, and 1,000 in a lump sum if Brady and Hindley were convicted. On 11 October, she too was arrested and taken into custody, being charged as an accessory to the murder of Evans and was remanded at HM Prison Risley. [222] Just prior to this, on 15November 2002, Hindley, aged 60 and a chain smoker, died from bronchial pneumonia at West Suffolk Hospital. [206] Hindley successfully petitioned to have her status as a Category A prisoner changed to Category B, which enabled Governor Dorothy Wing to take her on a walk round Hampstead Heath, part of her unofficial policy of reintroducing her charges to the outside world when she felt they were ready. [241][242], In 1972, Smith was acquitted of the murder of his father, who had been suffering from terminal cancer. [157], Soon after his first visit to the moor, Brady wrote a letter to a BBC reporter, giving some sketchy details of five additional deaths that he claimed to have been involved in: a man in the Piccadilly area of Manchester, another victim on Saddleworth Moor, two more in Scotland, and a woman whose body was allegedly dumped in a canal. Keith Bennett disappeared on 16 June 1964. 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. [38] The couple were regulars at the library, borrowing books on philosophy, as well as crime and torture. [10] By then, Brady's mother had moved to Manchester and married an Irish fruit merchant named Patrick Brady; Patrick got Ian a job as a fruit porter at Smithfield Market, and Ian took Patrick's surname. Brady was found guilty of the murders of Downey, Kilbride and Evans, while Hindley was found guilty of the murders of Downey and Evans, and for harboring Brady, in the knowledge that he had killed Kilbride. View this post on Instagram A post shared by I Could Murder A Podcast (@couldmurderapod) [228][229] The Manchester Evening News reported on possible fears that this would result in visitors choosing to avoid or vandalise the park. She was 60. The two talked about society, the distribution of wealth, and the possibility of robbing a bank. [35], In 1985, Brady allegedly told Fred Harrison, a journalist working for The Sunday People, that he had killed Reade and Bennett,[126] something the police already suspected as both lived near Brady and Hindley and had disappeared at about the same time as Kilbride and Downey. When she denied that she had a husband or that a man was in the house, Talbot identified himself. 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. [16], 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. [249] Five years after their son was murdered, Sheila and Patrick Kilbride divorced. [82], Superintendent Bob Talbot of the Stalybridge police division went to Wardle Brook Avenue, accompanied by a detective sergeant. Moors Murderer Ian Brady refused to say what . [257], The photographs and tape recording of the torture of Downey exhibited in court, and the nonchalant responses of Brady and Hindley, helped to ensure their lasting notoriety. Myra Hindley was born on the 23rd of July, 1942. Hindley was furious, and accused the police of murdering the dog one of the few occasions detectives witnessed any emotional response from her. [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. 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]. On 21 October they found the "badly decomposed" body of Kilbride, which had to be identified by clothing. [62] Driving down Gorton Lane, Brady saw a young girl and signalled Hindley, who did not stop because she recognised the girl as an 8-year-old neighbour of her mother. [138] Police closed all roads onto the moor, which was patrolled by 200 officers, some armed. British criminal and perpetrator of the infamous "Moors murders". [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. The following day, Hindley brought her grandmother back home. The murders were the result of what Malcolm MacCulloch, professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, described as a "concatenation of circumstances". [148], In April 1987, news of Hindley's confession became public. [213][260] At the 1997 Sensation art exhibition, a reproduction composed of children's handprints caused controversy. [196], In 2012, Brady applied to be returned to prison, reiterating his desire to starve himself to death. The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Manchester, England. [54], 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. [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. Smith later told the police: I waited about a minute or two then suddenly I heard a hell of a scream; it sounded like a woman, really high-pitched. [134] She showed particular interest in photos 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. Testing her blind allegiance, Brady hatched plans of rape and murder. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) reopened the investigation, now to be headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping, head of GMP's Criminal Investigation Department (CID). [208], Hindley was told that she should spend twenty-five years in prison before being considered for parole. He was taken to the moor on 3 July but seemed to lose his bearings, blaming changes in the intervening years; 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. When police returned to the living room they arrested Brady on suspicion of murder. The newlyweds moved into Smith's father's house. The child had been earning some pocket money in the market, and was offered a lift home by Hindley. [11], 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. [29] She soon became infatuated with Brady, despite learning that he had a criminal record. [186] Brady subsequently went on hunger strike, but while English law allows patients to refuse treatment, those being treated for mental disorders under the Mental Health Act 1983 have no such right if the treatment is for their mental disorder. [91] Inside one of the cases wereamong an assortment of costumes, notes, photographs and negativesnine pornographic photographs taken of Downey, naked and with a scarf tied across her mouth, and a sixteen-minute audiotape recording of a girl identifying herself as "Lesley Ann Weston"[b] screaming, crying, and pleading to be allowed to return home to her mother. [137], On 16 December 1986, Hindley made the first of two visits to assist the police search of the moor. [237] Sheila and Patrick Kilbride, who were by then divorced,[238] attended Maureen's funeral thinking that Hindley might be there; Patrick mistook Bill Scott's daughter from a previous relationship for Hindley and tried to attack her. [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. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. 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. [73], Brady and Hindley visited a funfair in Ancoats on 26 December 1964 and noticed that 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey was apparently alone. [200] Brady had refused food and fluids for more than forty-eight hours on various occasions, causing him to be fitted with a nasogastric tube, although his inquest noted that his body mass index was not a cause for concern. [251][252][253] She died in August 2012. [87] Over the next four days Hindley visited her employer and asked to be dismissed so that she would be eligible for unemployment benefits. Hindley led him into the living room, where Brady was lying on a divan, writing to his employer about his ankle injury. Between December 1997 and March 2000, Hindley made three separate appeals against her life tariff, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society, but each was rejected by the courts. 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. So you see my death strike is rational and pragmatic. [219] Hindley's release seemed imminent and plans were made by supporters for her to be given a new identity. [112][113], Smith was the chief prosecution witness. Brady and Hindley became friendly with Patricia Hodges, an 11-year-old girl who lived at 12Wardle Brook Avenue. 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. [221], On 25 November 2002, the Law Lords agreed that judges, not politicians, should decide how long a criminal spends behind bars, and stripped the Home Secretary of the power to set minimum sentences. In 2011, he co-authored the book Witness with biographer Carol Ann Lee. [102] At the committal hearing on 6 December, Brady was charged with the murders of Evans, Kilbride, and Downey, and Hindley with the murders of Evans and Downey, as well as with harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had killed Kilbride. 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. [30] In 2008 Hindley's solicitor, Andrew McCooey, reported that she told him: I ought to have been hanged. Brady made more than one copy of the tape recording; a reproduction composed of children's handprints, "Beware the cat killers: A revolution in tackling domestic violence has begun", "Death at 60 for the woman who came to personify evil", "Coroner commends police after Moors verdict", "Stepfather of Moors Murder Victim Lesley Ann Downey Dies", "Two women at "bodies on moors" trial cover their ears", "Prosecution tells how a youth of 17 died", "How The Chester Chronicle covered the infamous Moors Murders trial", "How Chester was the focus of the nation during Moors Murderers trial Pt1", "How The Chester Chronicle covered the infamous Moors Murders trial Pt2", "Boy tricked into seeing murder, moors trial Q.C. [6] It was reported, for example, that Brady boasted of killing his first cat when he was aged just 10, and then went on to burn another cat alive, stone dogs and cut off rabbits' heads. Almost 20 years after being sent to prison, he confessed to killing two more. At first, Smith refused to name the newspaper, risking contempt of court; when he eventually identified the News of the World, Jones, as Attorney General, immediately promised an investigation. On 1 July, after more than 100days of searching, they found Reade's body 3 feet (0.9m) below the surface, 100 yards (90m) from where Downey's had been found. I want nothing, my objective is to die and release myself from this once and for all. The excursion caused a furore in the national press and earned Wing an official rebuke from the then-Home Secretary Robert Carr. 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. By then, he claimed, he and Hindley had turned their attention to armed robbery, for which they had begun to prepare by acquiring guns and vehicles. [180] In one letter, written in 2005, Brady claimed that the murders were "merely an existential exercise of just over a year, which was concluded in December 1964". [136] Writing in 1989, Topping said that he felt "quite cynical" about Hindley's motivation in helping the police. [178], Although Brady refused to work with Ashworth's psychiatrists, he occasionally corresponded with people outside the hospitalsubject to prison authorities' censorship[179] including Lord Longford, writer Colin Wilson, and various journalists. Even on her death bed, Hindley refused to give . [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. Deciding to "better himself", he 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 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. Their living situation deteriorated further when Hindley's sister, Maureen, was born in August 1946, and the following year five-year-old Myra was sent to live nearby with her grandmother. [70] When they reached the moor Brady took Kilbride with him while Hindley waited in the car; Brady sexually assaulted Kilbride and tried to slit his throat with a six-inch serrated blade before strangling him with a shoelace or string. She worked as a clerk at an . Bookmark. Brady read books, including Teach Yourself German and Mein Kampf, as well as works on Nazi atrocities. [209] In February 1985, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Brittan that his proposed minimum sentences of thirty years for Hindley and forty years for Brady were too short, saying, "I do not think that either of these prisoners should ever be released from custody. Finally, in October 1965, police were alerted to the duo by Hindley's 17-year-old brother-in-law, David Smith. 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. The pair took photographs of each other that, for the time, would have been considered explicit. There were always suspicions there may have been more. After being discovered drunk on alcohol he had brewed, he was moved to the much tougher unit in Hull. The story is somewhat similar to the case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, but unlike Karla, Myra wasn't able to get away with murder and rape. Their home was vandalised, they regularly received hate mail, and Maureen wrote that she could not let her children out of her sight when they were small. 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. [13] He was sent to Latchmere House in London,[12] and then Hatfield borstal in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Hindley's 17-year-old. I deserved it. [121], On 6 May, after having deliberated for a little over two hours,[123] the jury found Brady guilty of all three murders, and Hindley guilty of the murders of Downey and Evans. 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",[76] and left him in the kitchen saying that he was going to collect the wine. Brady met Myra in the mid-1960s, and she immediately developed passionate feelings for him. The two couples began to see each other more regularly, but usually only on Brady's terms.[59][60]. 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 & Wesson .38 from other members of the club. A search of left-luggage offices turned up the suitcases at Manchester Central railway station on 15 October;[90] the claim ticket was later found in Hindley's prayer book. [100], The investigating officers suspected Brady and Hindley of murdering other missing children and teenagers who had disappeared from areas in and around Manchester over the previous few years, and the search for bodies continued after the discovery of Kilbride's body, but with winter setting in it was called off in November. [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. In Brady's account, Hindley was not only present for the attack, but participated in the sexual assault. [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. Nine months later, he began working as a butcher's messenger boy. Brady's application was rejected and the judge stated that he "continues to suffer from a mental disorder which is of a nature and degree which makes it appropriate for him to continue to receive medical treatment". She dies on 15 th. The four victims had . [19], Hindley's father had served with the Parachute Regiment and was stationed in North Africa, Cyprus and Italy during the Second World War. The following morning Brady and Hindley drove Downey's body to Saddleworth Moor,[74] and buried hernaked with her clothes at her feetin a shallow grave.[75]. 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. She was never released and died in prison in 2002. Smith had witnessed Brady killing 17-year-old Edward Evans with an axe, concealing his horror for fear of meeting a similar fate. At 6:10a.m., having waited for daylight and armed himself with a screwdriver and bread knife in case Brady was planning to intercept him Smith called police from a phone box on the estate. Hindley had been charged with the murders of Downey and Evans, and being an accessory to the murder of Kilbride. [146] Hindley made her second visit to the moor in March 1987. Characterised by the press as "the most evil woman in Britain",[1] Hindley made several appeals against her life sentence, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society, but was never released. [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. [238] Downey's mother died in 1999 from cancer of the liver. She became a long-running source of material for the press, which printed embellished tales of her "cushy" life at the "5-star" Cookham Wood Prison and her liaisons with prison staff and other inmates. . Brady was an amazing individual with a lawbreaker background, which she knew. In the letter, Johnson was sympathetic to Hindley over the criticism surrounding her first visit. [144], Police visited Brady in prison again and told him of Hindley's confession, which at first he refused to believe. Brady, who said that he did not want to be released, was rarely mentioned in the news, but Hindley's insistent desire to be released made her a figure of public hateespecially as she failed to confess to involvement in the Reade and Bennett murders for twenty years. The monastery where, as an infant in 1942, Hindley had been baptised a Catholic, had a lasting effect on her. 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. [35] Brady was taken to HM Prison Durham and Hindley was sent to HM Prison Holloway. [34] Brady then gave her reading material and the pair spent their work lunch breaks reading aloud to one another from accounts of Nazi atrocities. [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. His mother continued to visit him throughout his childhood. see those alluring lights"). I have had enough. [207] With help from Cairns, and the outside contacts of another prisoner, Maxine Croft, Hindley planned a prison escape, but it was thwarted when impressions of the prison keys were intercepted by an off-duty policeman. 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. Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are known to have killed at least five child victims.
Who Is Karen Wheaton Husband,
Which Member Of The Group Silk Died,
How To Activate Kiddions Mod Menu,
Articles D