Myra Hindley and Ian Brady: A Notorious, 20th-Century Crime Partnership

Myra Hindley and Ian Brady became 20th-century icons of evil, and their names would be synonymous not just with murder, but with everything that was held to be perverted and wrong.

Hindley was born to working class parents, on July 23rd 1942, In Manchester, England. Her father being absent from the family home for three years because of the Second World War. Bob Hindley, her father, was a bully who regularly hit his wife and children and spent most of his earnings down at the local pub.

During her school years Hindley was considered to be a bright, mature girl but was often missing from class which meant that she did not get the best schooling and education. On entering her secondary modern school (she failed her entrance exams to go to a grammar school) Hindley showed an aptitude for creative writing and poetry as well as enjoying athletics and swimming. She was also very much in demand as a babysitter and showed genuine affection for children.

At the age of 15 Hindley made friends with a boy by the name of Michael Higgins and was inconsolable when he drowned in a local reservoir. She cried for weeks. Soon after her friends death Myra Hindley left school with no qualifications.

Her first job was as a junior clerk and Hindley found the work to be uninspiring, repetitive and monotonous but Hindley made up for this by dating boys, going to dances, smoking and drinking.

Hindley changed jobs four or five times before and even thought about enlisting in the armed forces when in January 1961, she would meet the man who would inspire her like no other. His name was Ian Brady.

Ian Brady worked for Millwards (an old fashioned chemical firm) in Manchester, England) and was an aloof young man who seldom smiled and kept himself to himself. He loved to read but what his tastes in reading were questionable as he was obsessed with Nazism. His library included Hitler's Mein Kampf, as well as various existentialist texts and books on sex and torture, the Marquis de Sade being one of his favorite authors.

Born in the Gorbals, one of the roughest slum areas of Glasgow, to an unmarried mother Ian Brady was adopted into the Sloane family.

The young Ian Brady was always in trouble. He was a tearaway, a tough Glasgow teenager involved in countless burglaries. At 16 he was put on probation and ordered to live with his birth Mother who had married and moved to Manchester.

With his strong Glaswegian accent Brady it found hard to fit in and the local Manchester boys made fun of him. At 17 he was in a Borstal institution for young offenders on a two-year stretch for aiding and abetting a burglary.

On his release and after polishing up his book-keeping skills Brady began work as a stock clerk at Millwards Ltd. where he was introduced to his new secretary, Myra Hindley.

These two would form one of the twentieth century's most notorious criminal partnerships.

From 1963 onwards, several children from the Manchester area began to go missing. The police, who mounted massive searches, thought that the disappearances were the work of one or two men.

Pauline Reade was the first child to disappear. This 16-year-old girl had been on her way to meet friends at a dance at the Railway Worker's Social Club. She never returned home, it was as if she had dropped of the edge of the world.

Meanwhile Brady and Hindley had put their relationship onto a more intimate footing. Hindley began to read the same books as Brady and listened attentively as he spouted out his 'philosophies.'

Brady introduced Hindley to pornography and at some point Hindley claimed that Brady drugged her as an experiment to see how long she would remain sedated. This frightened Hindley enough that she applied for and was offered a job in Germany. But her family hated the idea of her going abroad so much that she canceled her plans and continued seeing Brady.

Considering that Brady was obsessed with the books that he read, with their existentialist theories about love and life it is not surprising that he and Hindley began talking about abducting and killing a young girl.

The Murders

On the night that Pauline Reade disappeared Hindley stopped her car and asked the young girl if she would help her to look for a glove that she had dropped on the Moor earlier in the day. Pauline lived close to where Hindleys brother in law lived so Hindley knew her well enough to say, "hello."

Hindley drove Pauline up to Saddleworth Moor, a bleak place typified by its millstone-grit scenery, and Brady followed on his motorbike.

Nobody can truly say what happened there but by the end of her ordeal Pauline Reade had been raped by Ian Brady, had her throat slit and was buried in a shallow grave.

Myra Hindley and Ian Brady then went home.

Four months after Pauline's disappearance a second child disappeared. This time it was the 12-year-old John Kilbride. John was last seen standing near a market stall that sold carpets at the local market in Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester.

When John didn't arrive home for his dinner his parents became worried and called the police. Once again a massive search took place but as with Pauline it was as if he too had dropped off the edge of the earth.

John had been picked up by both Brady and Hindley and driven out to the moor. Here he was raped, strangled with a thin piece of string and buried in a shallow grave.

Their third victim was another 12-year old, Keith Bennett. Keith was abducted on his way to visit his Grandmother. As with John, Keith was raped, strangled and buried out on the moor. Unlike the other victims Keith's body has never been found.

It was 26^th December 1964 that the fourth killing took place. This particular killing has remained the most repellent.....The victim was 10-year old Lesley AnnDowney who lived in Ancoates another district of Manchester.

Lesley Ann had been at a fun fair with two of her brothers and some friends but she became separated from the group and was later abducted. Hindley and Brady took the child back to Hindley's grandmother's house (the grandmother was away at the time) and told her to take off her clothes except her shoes and socks. This evil couple then made her pose for pornographic photographs, which Brady later hoped to sell on the black market. The photographs showed her with her hands tied and at one point her mouth was gagged with a black scarf.

Brady then switched on a tape recorder and the first thing to be heard when the seventeen minute tape was later played back in court was a child's scream, after which Lesley Ann can be heard crying, 'Don't...Please God, help me.' The next voice to be heard is that of Brady's ordering her to be quiet and do as she was told. Lesley Ann then says that she has to get home; her mother will be expecting her, after which Hindley's voice is heard saying, 'Don't dally.' A bit later, after Lesley Ann has begged Hindley to help her, Hindley tells her to shut up or she'll hit her.

After the trial Hindley was to say that she was out of the room when Brady killed Lesley Ann, but on the tape Brady threatened to cut Lesley Ann's throat and Hindley was definitely heard in the background, so there is no doubt that she knew the child was about to be murdered.

The last victim of Brady and Hindley was a 17-year old by the name of Edward Evans. Edward has met Brady at the central station buffet where he was buying beer. Brady invited him back for a drink at his house and Edward accepted the invitation.

Back at the house Hindley on the pretext of visiting her mother went round to the home of her brother-in-law David Smith who, like Hindley before, had become totally immersed in the types of books that Brady read. At approximately 11.40 pm Hindley asked Smith to accompany her back to her won house where she invited him in for a drink.

Hindley left Smith in the kitchen and leaving the door slightly ajar went into the living room. At this point Smith had no idea that anyone else was in the house. Suddenly there was a terrifying scream and Hindley shouting to Smith for help. According to his last testimony, Smith thought that someone had broken into the house and was attacking Brady. He rushed into the room only to find Brady smashing an axe down on the head of what looked like a shop dummy. The 'dummy' fell to the floor with Brady hitting it repeatedly with the blunt end of the axe while all the time shouting obscenities. Smith then saw blood seeping all over the rug and much to his horror realized that the dummy was a person.

Edward Evans died from fourteen axe blows to the skull.

Hindley and Brady told Smith that he was now implicated in the murder and must help them clean up. They finally wrapped Edward's body in polythene and bundled round with sheets and blankets he was dumped in a cupboard under the stairs.

Their Luck Runs Out

David Smith was sickened and numb from the experience and on arriving home blurted the whole story out to his wife, Hindley's sister. They then called the police and told them they thought the body would still be in the house.

The police found the body and Ian Brady was arrested on 7^th October 1965. But at this point the police had no idea of the significance of the arrest. They eventually discovered a wallet that contained several bits of paper with instructions for the disposal of a body.

They also found photograph albums with shots of Brady and Hindley posing out on Saddleworth Moor. But the most crucial piece of evidence was found during a second search of Hindley's grandmothers house. The police found a left-luggage ticket no. 74843 which led the police to Manchester Central Station and then to two suitcases. Among the contents they discovered the pornographic photographs of Lesley Ann Downey, as well as the tape of her being tortured.

Almost at the same time that this was happening a policeman had stumbled across something that resembled a bone sticking out of the ground. At first it was thought that it was the body of John Kilbride, but in fact these were the remains of Lesley Ann Downey.

Brady and Hindley were charged with the murders of Edward Evans and Lesley Ann Downey on 21^st October 1965.

The police then turned their attention to finding John Killbride's body and after a painstaking study of Brady's photographs their hard work paid off and John Killbride's murder was added to Brady and Hindley's growing list of crimes.

Their trial opened on 19^th April at Chester Assize Court and on May 6^th 1966 the pair were found guilty. They both received life sentences and only narrowly missed the death sentence as The Murder act 1965 had abolished the death penalty.

Both died in prison.

Source The Most Evil Women in History by Shelley Klein