WikiPortallus: Moors Murders.html

The Moors murders are so named because four of the victims were buried to the north of the A635, Greenfield Road, over Saddleworth Moor between Oldham, then in Lancashire, and the Wessenden Road junction to Meltham, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Their five victims were children aged between 10 and 17 years.

Victims

Pauline Reade

Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade (born 18 February 1947), a neighbour of Hindley's, who disappeared on her way to a dance in Crumpsall on 12 July 1963. She got into a car with Hindley while Brady secretly followed behind on his motorbike. When the van reached Saddleworth Moor, Hindley stopped the van and got out before asking Reade to help her find a missing glove in exchange for some records. They were busy "searching" the moors when Brady pounced on Reade and fractured her skull with a shovel. He then raped her before slitting her throat with a knife; her spinal cord was severed and she was almost decapitated. Brady then buried her body in a grave only three feet deep. It was not discovered until 1 July 1987, shortly before the 24th anniversary of her death.

John Kilbride

Brady and Hindley's second victim was 12-year-old John Kilbride (born 15 May 1951). On 23 November 1963, Hindley approached Kilbride at a market in Ashton-under-Lyne, to help her carry some boxes. Brady was sitting in the back of a Ford Anglia car that Hindley had hired. When they reached the moors, Brady took the child with him while Hindley waited in the car. On the moor, Brady subjected Kilbride to a sexual assault and attempted to slit his throat with a six-inch serrated blade, but failed; Brady strangled him with a piece of string (possibly a shoelace) and buried his body in a shallow grave. His body was found there nearly two years later, on 21 October 1965. The body was clothed but the jeans and underpants that he had been wearing were pulled down to mid-thigh and the underpants appeared to be knotted at the back. Kilbride's body was by then severely decomposed and he was identified by his clothing.¹

Keith Bennett

The third victim was 12-year-old Keith Bennett (born 12 June 1952) who vanished on his way to his grandmother's house in Gorton on 16 June 1964 – four days after his 12th birthday. Bennett accepted a lift from Hindley near Stockport Road in Longsight. She drove to Saddleworth Moor and asked him to help search for a lost glove. Brady then lured Bennett into a ravine, where he strangled him with a piece of string before burying his body. Hindley stood above the ravine and watched the murder. Hindley later confessed that she had destroyed the photographs taken at the site of this particular murder, that had been kept at Brady's workplace at Millwards. Hindley had access to these photographs during the four days between Brady's arrest and her own in October 1965.

On 18 November 1986, Brady and Hindley confessed to Bennett's murder and that of Pauline Reade. A renewed search effort in 1987 saw both Brady and Hindley visit the Moors under police guard in effort to locate his grave, but the search was unsuccessful and his body has never been found. Ian Brady has said that if he is allowed to die he will point out where the boy is buried.

Lesley Ann Downey

The fourth victim, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey (born 21 August 1954), was lured from a fairground in Ancoats on 26 December 1964, and taken back to Hindley's home at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, on an overspill housing estate in Hattersley near Hyde. Hindley and her grandmother had moved there from Myra's childhood home in Gorton only three months earlier. There the girl was undressed and forced to pose for pornographic photographs with a gag in her mouth, and in the last four of them with her hands bound – the last kneeling in an attitude of prayer. Brady took the nine obscene photographs of the girl, and either he or Hindley recorded the scene on a reel-to-reel audio tape. The sixteen-minute tape contains the voices of Brady and Hindley relentlessly cajoling and threatening the child as they try to photograph her. Downey is heard crying, retching, screaming, and begging to be allowed to return home safely to her mother.

Downey was raped and then fatally strangled with a piece of string at some point thereafter. Hindley maintained that she went to draw a bath for the child, and found the girl dead (presumably killed by Brady) when she returned to the room. However, during their trial more than a year later, Brady made a telling slip of the tongue while being cross-examined, telling the prosecutor that "we all got dressed" after the tape had been made, which suggests that Hindley was also actively involved in the sexual molestation of the child, and perhaps the physical killing as well. The following morning, Brady and Hindley drove Downey's body to Saddleworth Moor where she was buried in a shallow grave. When it was found on 16 October 1965, the body was still identifiable and Lesley's mother Ann West later made the official identification in a mortuary, although she also had to listen to the audio recording of her daughter's voice to confirm her identity.²

Edward Evans

The fifth and final victim was 17-year-old Edward Evans (born 1948). Brady met Evans at Manchester Central Railway Station on 6 October 1965. Brady invited Evans to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue with promises of sexual activity. Brady then hacked him to death with an axe. Brady claimed that Evans was a homosexual (although his family denied these allegations). It remains uncertain whether Evans was actually a homosexual or if Brady was merely attempting to impune the young man's character (homosexuality was still illegal in Britain at the time). The crime was witnessed by Hindley's brother-in-law David Smith, who had married Myra's younger sister Maureen in August 1964. Brady and Hindley had apparently staged the murder as part of Smith's initiation into their killing confederacy. The Hindley family had not approved of Maureen's marriage to Smith, since he was known to many in Gorton as a thug and had already acquired several convictions in the juvenile courts for violent offences.

Throughout the previous year, Brady had been cultivating a friendship with Smith who copied a quotation from the Marquis de Sade into his diary: "Rape is not a crime, it is a state of mind. Murder is a hobby and a supreme pleasure".

Hindley had invited Smith to the house on the evening of 6 October 1965 on the pretext that Brady had wanted to give him some miniature wine bottles. Smith was waiting in the kitchen when he suddenly heard a loud scream from the adjacent living room as Hindley shouted for him to go and "help Ian". Smith entered the room to find Brady in a murderous frenzy, repeatedly striking Evans with the flat of an axe before throttling him with a length of electrical cord. Smith was then asked to help clean up the blood and bits of bone and brain in the living room, and help carry the body to the spare room upstairs and wrap it in a polythene bag trussed up with rope. Fearing for his own life, Smith complied. In the months before this murder, Smith had refused to believe Brady's claims of carrying out several murders and disposing of the bodies on the moors, and had conveyed his skepticism to Brady.

Arrest

Brady had sprained his ankle in the struggle with Evans, so Smith agreed to meet Brady the following afternoon to dispose of Evans's corpse. Smith then promptly left the house, frantically ran home and vomited in the toilet. He woke his sleeping wife and told her of the brutal murder he had just witnessed. Maureen burst into tears and eventually told him that the only thing to do was to call the police. Three hours later, David and Maureen carefully made their way to a public phone box on the street below. Before leaving their flat, David armed himself with a screwdriver and a kitchen knife in order to defend the two of them in the event that Brady might suddenly appear and confront them. Smith made an emergency services call to the police station in nearby Hyde and related his story to the officer on duty.

Superintendent Bob Talbot arrived at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue wearing an inconspicuous breadman's coat over his police uniform. Talbot was met by Hindley, who answered the door, and found Brady inside, lying naked on a divan and writing a note to his employer claiming he had suffered an ankle injury. Talbot explained that he was investigating an act of violence that was reported to have taken place the previous night and proceeded to search the house. When he came to the spare room upstairs, Talbot found the door locked. He demanded the key to the room and after arguing with Hindley for several minutes, Brady eventually told her to comply with the policeman's request.

Talbot entered the bedroom and found Evans's body in the polythene bag. Talbot arrested Brady on suspicion of murder. During questioning, Brady immediately admitted to murdering Evans. However, he insisted that Smith had also participated in the killing, and that Hindley had been in no way involved and was unaware of the event. Officers thoroughly searched the house, and found a ticket in her prayer book, which led them to a locker at Manchester Central Railway Station where they found two suitcases packed with incriminating evidence. Hindley was arrested and taken in for questioning. As well as the photographs and tape recording of Downey's torture, there was also a notebook in which Kilbride's name was found as well as a photograph of Hindley with her dog, Puppet, staring down at what appeared to be a grave on Saddleworth Moor. This photograph convinced the police that at least one of the missing children's bodies was buried on Saddleworth Moor, and within two weeks they had found the bodies of both Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride.

Trial

The trial of Brady and Hindley was held during two weeks in April 1966 at Chester Assize Crown Court. Both Brady and Hindley denied some of the murders and tried to blame Smith for them. A police cordon had to hold back crowds from attacking the police cars carrying Brady and Hindley. Jeers rang out when these cars appeared. On 6 May 1966, Brady was found guilty of the murders of John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward Evans, and was sentenced to three concurrent terms of life imprisonment since the death penalty had been abolished just 5 months earlier. Hindley was found guilty of the murders of Downey and Evans and given two concurrent life sentences, plus seven years for harbouring Brady knowing that he had murdered John Kilbride.

The presiding judge was Mr. Justice Fenton Atkinson, who called the Moors trial "a truly horrible case" and condemned the accused as "two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity".³ 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 also stated his opinion that Brady was "wicked beyond belief" and there was no reasonable possibility of him ever reforming. However, he did not think that the same was necessarily true of Hindley "once she is removed from [Brady's] influence".⁴

Brady

Brady spent nineteen years in mainstream prisons before he was declared criminally insane in November 1985 and sent to Ashworth.⁵ He subsequently confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett in 1986 and has since made it clear that he never wants to be released from prison.⁶ The trial judge had recommended that his life sentence should mean life, and successive Home Secretaries have agreed with that decision, and in 1982 Lord Chief Justice 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".⁷

Brady is now incarcerated in the high-security Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital, and after he began a hunger strike in 1999 he was subsequently force fed. Brady fell ill and was transported to another hospital for tests. He eventually recovered and was considering suing the hospitals for force-feeding him. In early 2006, prison authorities intercepted a package, addressed to Brady from a female friend, containing 50 paracetamol pills hidden within a hollowed out crime novel.⁸

Brady has written a controversial book on serial killing titled The Gates of Janus.⁹ He also apparently has an agreement that will see his memoirs published as an autobiography after his death.¹⁰

Hindley

Hindley was told that she should spend 25 years incarcerated before being considered for parole. The Lord Chief Justice agreed with that recommendation in 1982, meaning that Hindley could be considered for parole beginning in October 1990. However in January 1985 Home Secretary Leon Brittan increased her tariff to 30 years, ruling out parole until at least October 1995.⁷ By that time, Hindley claimed to be a reformed Roman Catholic. She explained that she had acted under the influence of Brady and that she had only carried out murder because Brady had abused her and threatened to kill her and her family if she did not.

Ann West, the mother of Lesley Ann Downey, was at the centre of a campaign to ensure that Hindley was never released from prison, and gave regular television and newspaper interviews whenever Hindley's release was rumoured.¹¹ She died in February 1999. [1]

In 1990, then Home Secretary David Waddington imposed a whole life tariff on Hindley, after she confessed to having a greater involvement in the murders than she had previously admitted.⁷ 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.¹² In 1997 the Parole Board ruled that Hindley was low risk and should be moved to an open prison.⁷ She rejected the idea and was moved to a medium security prison, however the House of Lords ruling left open the possibility of later freedom. Between December 1997 and March 2000 Hindley made three separate appeals against the life tariff, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society. However each was rejected by the courts.¹³¹⁴

Jock Carr, one of the police officers who brought Hindley to justice, has said that if Hindley were ever released the probability was that she would be murdered. Carr further feared that Hindley could become a television celebrity who would profit from her notoriety, something he felt was "very wrong". When another life sentence prisoner challenged the Home Secretary's power to set minimum terms, Hindley and hundreds of other life sentence prisoners whose tariffs had been increased by politicians, looked likely to be released from prison.¹⁵ Hindley's release seemed imminent and plans were made by her supporters for her to be given a new identity.¹⁶ Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, more commonly referred to as Lord Longford and a devout Roman Catholic, campaigned heavily to secure the release of "celebrated" criminals, in particular Myra Hindley, causing him constant derision by the public and in the press. He described Hindley as a "delightful" person and said "you could loathe what people did but should not loathe what they were because human personality was sacred even though human behaviour was very often appalling".¹⁷

On 15 November 2002, Myra Hindley died in hospital following a heart attack, at the age of 60.⁴ Less than two weeks later, on 25 November 2002, the Law Lords agreed that judges, not politicians, should decide how long a criminal spends behind bars, and thus stripped the Home Secretary of the power to set minimum sentences.¹⁸

Impact

As it was the first widely reported case of serial child abduction and murder in UK history, some have described it as an "end of innocence"; the close of an era in which Britons did not worry about allowing young children out on their own. It was also the first high-profile case of a woman being involved in serial child sex murders. Hindley's part in the killings was considered especially egregious and inexplicable, and her attempts to secure her own release in the later years of her life were met with widespread opposition, particularly in the tabloid press.

The efforts of the police in linking Brady and Hindley to the murders and in locating the corpses on the moors (long before the advent of sophisticated forensics) are often regarded as an example of very fine, painstaking detective work.

Brady and Hindley's home on Wardle Brook Avenue was demolished by the local council who were unable to find new tenants, although tours continue to frequent the location.

Commemoration

The Moors Murders story was the major theme of a song called "Suffer Little Children" (released in 1984), written and recorded by The Smiths. The lead singer and the song author, Morrissey, grew up in Manchester at the time of killings.

The murder of Edward Evans is the topic of a Throbbing Gristle track titled "Very Friendly", included on their 2001 album The First Annual Report. The 18-minute long track features vocalist Genesis P-Orridge reciting an account of the last murder and subsequent apprehension of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

References

^ http://www.murderuk.com/serial_myra_hindley_ian_brady.html
^ http://www.murderuk.com/serial_myra_hindley_ian_brady.html
^ Carmichael, Kay. "Sin and Forgiveness: New Responses in a Changing World". Ashgate Publishing, November 2003. p. 2. ISBN 0-7546-3406-X
^ ^a ^b "Obituary: Myra Hindley". BBC News (15 November 2002). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Ian Brady: A fight to die". BBC News (10 March 2000). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Ian Brady seeks public hearing". BBC News (7 October 2002). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "What will Hindley's lawyers argue?". BBC News (7 December 1997). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Brady drugs smuggling bid foiled". BBC News (28 January 2006). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "US publisher defends Brady book". BBC News (18 October 2001). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Brady's book deal sparks fury". BBC News (18 August 2001). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/277440.stm
^ "Timetable of Moors murders case". The Guardian (15 November 2002). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Regina v. Secretary of State For The Home Department, Ex Parte Hindley". House of Lords (30 March 2000). Retrieved on 2007-03-16.
^ "1966: Moors murderers jailed for life". BBC News. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Killer challenges 'whole life' tariff". BBC News (21 October 2002). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Hindley could be freed 'in months'", Evening Standard (10 September 2002).
^ "Lord Longford: Aristocratic moral crusader". BBC News (3 August 2001). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
^ "Raising killers' hopes of freedom". BBC News (25 November 2002). Retrieved on 2007-06-12.

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