Moors murders

The Moors murders were committed in the Manchester area, England, from 1963 to 1965 by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. The Moors murders are named as such because four of the victims were buried along the Saddleworth Moor.

Brady and Hindley's Relationship

Brady and Hindley began their relationship in 1961 while working at Millwards, a chemical factory in Manchester. By virtually all accounts, Hindley was an eager participant in Brady's nefarious activities. She changed her look to match that of his ideal woman: high boots and mini skirts. She bleached her hair and the whole ensemble was created so that she would appear more German. He urged Hindley to join a shooting club and get a gun license so they could rob banks.

Victims

Pauline Reade

Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade, a neighbor of Hindley's, who disappeared on her way to a social club in the Crumpsall district on July 12, 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 Pauline to help her find a missing glove. They were busy "searching" the moors when Brady pounced upon Pauline and smashed her skull with a shovel. He then subjected her to a savage rape before slitting her throat with a knife, her spinal cord was severed and she was almost decapitated. Brady then buried her body, and it would not be discovered for more than 20 years.

John Kilbride

On November 23, 1963, Brady and Hindley struck again. This time the victim was 12-year-old John Kilbride. Like most children, he had been warned not to go away with strange men but not about strange women. When he was approached by Hindley at a market in Ashton under Lyne, the youngster agreed to go with her to help carry some boxes.

Brady was sitting in the back of the car. When they reached the moors, he took Kilbride with him while Hindley waited in the car. On the moor, Brady subjected John Kilbride to a sexual assault and attempted to strangle him with a length of string, but it didn't work, so Brady stabbed him to death and buried his body in a shallow grave.

Keith Bennett

The third victim was 12-year-old Keith Bennett who vanished on his way to his grandmother's house in Gorton on June 16, 1964. He accepted a lift from Hindley, and she drove to the Moors and asked him to help search for a lost glove. Brady then lured Keith into a ravine and strangled him to death before burying his body. Hindley stood above the ravine and watched the murder. Keith's body has never been found.

Lesley Ann Downey

The fourth victim was 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey who vanished from an Ancoats fairground on Boxing Day 1964. She had been lured back to Brady and Hindley's house on the Hattersley estate to help them carry boxes. Brady and Hindley enticed Downey into a bedroom and subjected her to sexual abuse and torture. They tape recorded Lesley's screams for mercy and took pornographic photographs of her. She was eventually strangled to death by one of the two; Lesley's mother always insisted that Hindley was the killer. Brady and Hindley then dumped Lesley's naked body in a shallow grave on Saddleworth Moor.

Edward Evans

The fifth and final victim was 17-year-old Edward Evans, on October 6, 1965, who was lured to Brady and Hindley's house and hacked to death with an axe by Brady. But the crime was witnessed by Hindley's 18-year-old brother-in-law David Smith, who had been invited to get involved in the murder but refused and ran to the police.

Arrest and imprisonment

Brady was immediately arrested and charged with the murder of Edward Evans. Hindley was only arrested several days later, when police found the pair's suitcase full of evidence in a locker at Manchester Central Station. Apart from the photographs and tape recording of Lesley's torture, there was also a notebook in which John Kilbride's name was found. Both bodies were soon discovered, and Brady and Hindley were faced with three charges of murder.

Verdict

On May 6, 1966, at Chester Crown Court, Brady was found guilty of murdering John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward Evans. Brady received three concurrent terms of life imprisonment (the death penalty had been abolished a year earlier). Hindley was found guilty of murdering Lesley and Edward and given two life sentences, plus seven years for being an accessory to Brady in the murder of John.

Brady's imprisonment

Ian Brady spent nineteen years in a mainstream prison before he was declared insane in 1985 and sent to a mental hospital. He confessed to two more murders in 1987 and has since made it clear that he never wants to be released from prison. The trial judge had recommended that his life sentence should mean life, and successive Home Secretaries have agreed with that decision. The only person to make a different judgment was Lord Chief Justice Lane who set a 40-year minimum term in 1982. A House of Lords ruling which stripped the Home Secretary of his power to set tariffs on life sentences could lead to Brady being released in 2006, but Brady insists he never wants to be freed. While incarcerated since 1985 in the high-security Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital, Brady began a hunger strike in 1999 and was subsequently force fed. Brady took ill and was transported to another hospital for tests. He eventually recovered and was considering suing the hospitals for force-feeding him.

Hindley's imprisonment

At her trial, Hindley was told that she should spend at least 25 years behind bars. The Lord Chief Justice agreed with that recommendation in 1982, meaning that Hindley could be considered for parole beginning in 1991. However, after she and Brady admitted in 1986 to additional murders (Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett), Home Secretary Leon Britton increased her tariff to 30 years. By that time, Hindley claimed to be a reformed Catholic woman. 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 threatening to kill her family if she did not.

The majority of the British public was strongly opposed to Hindley being released, and relatives of the victims vowed to kill her if she was ever let out. In 1990, Home Secretary David Waddington agreed with public opinion, imposing a whole life tariff on Hindley, which meant she would never be released. 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.

In 1997, the Parole Board had ruled that Hindley was low risk and should be moved to an open prison. She had rejected the idea and had moved to a medium security prison instead, but the House of Lords ruling seemed to give her a good chance of freedom.

In December 1997, November 1998, and March 2000, Hindley made appeals against the whole life tariff, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger, but the High Court rejected each one. Hindley's best chance of parole came in May 2002, The House of Lords stripped the Home Secretary of his powers to overrule the Parole Board's recommendations that a life sentence prisoner should be released. Then, another life sentence prisoner challenged the Home Secretary's power to set minimum terms. Hindley, and 70 other life sentence prisoners whose tariffs had been increased by politicians, looked certain to be released from prison if the ruling was made. Hindley's release seemed imminent. Plans were already underway for her to be given a new identity.

On November 26, 2002, the Law Lords and European Court of Human Rights agreed that judges, not politicians, should decide how long a criminal spends behind bars. The ruling arrived too late for Hindley. On November 15, 2002, Myra Hindley died in West Suffolk Hospital from a heart attack. She was just 60 years old. Just eleven days later, the Home Secretary was officially stripped of the power to set minimum sentences.

Other media

The Moors murders served partly as the inspiration for Edward Gorey's short story The Loathsome Couple.

The Moors Murders are also the subject of the song "Suffer Little Children" by The Smiths, written by Morrissey and Johnny Marr.

The Moors Murders also figure in the Throbbing Gristle song "Very Friendly."