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. [251][252][253] She died in August 2012. [150] Brady had been co-operating with the police for some time, and when this news reached him he made a formal confession to DCS Topping,[151] and in a statement to the press said that he too would help police in their search. Moors Murder victims John Kilbride, 12, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey Edward Evans, 17, Pauline Reade, 16, and 12-year-old Keith Bennett ( Image: PA) Don't Miss On July 12, 1963, twisted. 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. [84] Hindley denied there had been any violence, and allowed police to look around the house. [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. [117], Both Brady and Hindley entered pleas of not guilty;[118] Brady testified for over eight hours, Hindley for six. [131] 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. [239] Shortly before her death at the age of 70, Sheila said: "If she [Hindley] ever comes out of jail I'll kill her". "Rape is not a crime, it's a state of mind, murder is a hobby and a supreme pleasure," these are the words by Marquis de Sade that inspired the Moors Murders. Speaking in 2012, Mr West said Mr Brady's death would help him. [135] Home Secretary Douglas Hurd agreed with DCS Topping that a visit would be worth risking despite security problems presented by threats against Hindley. [28], In January 1961, the 18-year-old Hindley joined Millwards as a typist. Lesley Ann Downey's and John Kilbride's bodies were buried on Saddleworth Moor outside of Manchester. [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. Brady gave Smith books to read, and the two discussed robbery and murder. Lesley Ann Downey, who was lured away from an Ancoats funfair near her home and killed at Hindley's home in Wardle Brook Avenue, Hattersley, on December 26, 1964. When police returned to the living room they arrested Brady on suspicion of murder. (sound of door banging) (crackling noise) (footsteps-heavy) (steps across the room and then a recording noise followed by blowing sound into the microphone) [36] In her 30,000-word plea for parole, written in 1978 and 1979 and submitted to Home Secretary Merlyn Rees, Hindley said:.mw-parser-output .templatequote{overflow:hidden;margin:1em 0;padding:0 40px}.mw-parser-output .templatequote .templatequotecite{line-height:1.5em;text-align:left;padding-left:1.6em;margin-top:0}, 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. [143] He added that he "was struck by the fact that [in Hindley's telling] she was never there when the killings took place. The only consolation is that some moron might have got hold of Puppet and hurt him. Keith Bennett disappeared on 16 June 1964. The horror came just after the body of Myra Hindley and Ian . This time, the level of security surrounding her visit was considerably higher. [37], Hindley began to change her appearance further, wearing clothing considered risqu such as high boots, short skirts and leather jackets, and the two became less sociable to their colleagues. [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. Moors Murderers' Torture Audio (Recorded in 1964) Redirect page. [145], At about the same time, Johnson sent Hindley another letter, again pleading with her to assist the police in finding the body of her son Keith. [95], Officers making inquiries at neighbouring houses spoke to 12-year-old Patricia Hodges, who had on several occasions been taken to Saddleworth Moor by Brady and Hindley, and was able to point out their favourite sites along the A635 road. Amidst strong media interest Lord Longford pleaded for her release, writing that continuing her detention to satisfy "mob emotion" was not right. [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. The newlyweds moved into Smith's father's house. Lesley Ann Downey was Brady and Hindley's youngest victim when she was murdered on 26 December, 1964. In the heartbreaking case of Lesley, the killers made an infamous recording in which it appears . What they were doing was out of the scope of most people's understanding, beyond the comprehension of the workaday neighbours who were more interested in how they were going to pay the gas bill or what might happen in the next episode of Coronation Street or Doctor Who. John Kilbride (12), Pauline Reade (16), Lesly Ann Downey (10), Edward . His stepfather, Jimmy Johnson, became a suspect; in the two years following Bennett's disappearance, Johnson was taken for questioning on four occasions. [97], Also among the photographs in the suitcase were a number of scenes of the moors. Hindley later claimed that she waited in the van while Brady took Reade onto the moor. The investigation was reopened in 1985 after Brady was reported as having confessed to the murders of Reade and Bennett. [116] Comparing Smith's testimony with his initial statements to police, Atkinsonthough describing the paper's actions as "gross interference with the course of justice"concluded it was not "substantially affected" by the financial incentive. [266] Manchester band The Smiths' song "Suffer Little Children", from their 1984 self-titled debut album, was also inspired by the case. [15], In January 1959, Brady applied for, and was offered, a clerical job at Millwards, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton. She claimed that, had Johnson written to her fourteen years earlier, she would have confessed and helped the police. Four months after killing Lesley Ann, Brady took Hindley's 17-year-old brother-in-law David Smith on to the moors. [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. [226] Such was the strength of feeling more than thirty-five years after the murders that a reported twenty local undertakers refused to handle her cremation. On May 6, 1966, Hindley and Brady were found guilty of the murder of Edward and Lesley Ann. 26 Smith and Hindley's sister Maureen were still grieving the death of their . Brady read books, including Teach Yourself German and Mein Kampf, as well as works on Nazi atrocities. [121], In his closing remarks, Atkinson described the murders as "truly horrible" and the accused as "two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity";[3] he recommended they spend "a very long time" in prison before being considered for parole, but did not stipulate a tariff. 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. This chapter provides a brief history of the Moors Murders case. 3 Evil: Moors Murderer Ian Brady . 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 Downey was being strangled she "was running a bath". 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. [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. I deserved it. Ann Downey, mother of Lesley Ann Downey, pictured at a fairground on July 17, 1965, searching for clues to her daughter's disappearance. Both Hindley and Brady pleaded not guilty at their trial in Chester in April 1966. Please join us in visiting the famous grave of Lesley Ann Downey.Respect and Recog. [35][40][a] Although Hindley was not a qualified driver (she passed her test on 7 November 1963 after failing three times),[43] she often hired a van, in which the couple planned bank robberies. [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. He once offered to donate one of his kidneys to "someone, anyone who needed one",[193] but was blocked from doing so. [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. The notorious twins, who had shared a jail wing with Moors murderer . 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. [56] Despite a huge search, she was not found. Then the screams carried on, one after another really loud. "[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". [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. 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". [223] She had been diagnosed with angina in 1999 and hospitalised after suffering a brain aneurysm. [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. Then I heard Myra shout, "Dave, help him," very loud. [139] On 10 February 1987 Hindley formally confessed to involvement in all five murders,[141] but this was not made public for more than a month. She took up a collection for a wreath; his funeral was held at St Francis's Monastery in Gorton Lane. [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. [164] Donations from the public funded a search by volunteers from a Welsh search and rescue team in 2010. At the house Downey was undressed, gagged, and forcibly posed for photographs before being raped and killed, perhaps strangled with a piece of string. He did not refer directly to Bennett by name and did not claim he could take investigators directly to the grave, but spoke of the "clarity" of his recollections. When Brady arrived on his motorcycle, Hindley told Reade he would be helping in the search. [68] When Hindley asked Brady whether he had raped Reade, Brady replied, "Of course I did." The Moors Murders case in pictures . [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. Inside the house, they undressed Downey, gagged her, and tied her up. 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. 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