The MOORS MURDERERS > TRUE STORY
Who is Ian Brady, What Were the Moors Murders, What Happened to Myra Hindley, Where is Brady Held and Will He Ever be Released?
Ian Brady, 79, has been in prison since 1966 when he was jailed for the murders of three children, years later he confessed to two more
TWISTED Moors Murderer Ian Brady – the longest serving prisoner in England and Wales – was jailed in 1966 after he was found guilty of killing children.
He committed his sick crimes with girlfriend Myra Hindley, dubbed the “most hated woman in Britain”, in a spree of murders spanning from 1963 to 1965 across the Greater Manchester area.
Ian Brady confessed to killing two more children almost 30 years ago
Myra Hindley, Brady’s twisted accomplice, died in prison, she was 61yrs old
Brady, 79, was serving three life sentences for the murders of John Kilbride, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, ten, and Edward Evans, 17, when he formally confessed to killing Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett while being held in Gartree Prison.
Assisted by Brady’s sadistic partner Myra Hindley, police searched Saddleworth Moor and discovered the body of 16-year-old Pauline, while Keith’s body has never been found.
We reveal all there is to know about the killer.
Who is Ian Brady?
Brady was born in Glasgow in 1938 and attended Shawlands Academy – a school for above-average pupils.
His violent personality was shaped by an unstable background. His mother neglected him and he was raised by foster parents in the Gorbals – Glasgow’s toughest slum.
After a spree of petty crime as a teenager the courts sent him to Manchester to live with his mum and her new husband, Patrick Brady.
Ian took his stepfather’s name, continued his criminal activities and developed into a teenage alcoholic.
He pursued new interests in a bid to “better himself” – building up a library of books on Nazi Germany, sadism and sexual perversion.
Brady first met Myra Hindley when she worked as a secretary at the same company in Manchester where he was working as a stores clerk.
It was love at first sight and Brady impressed her by reading Mein Kampf in the original German.
He has served more than 50 years in prison for his crimes.
Brady recently hinted a shotgun found near where he buried victim Keith Bennett was one of his secret arsenal.
Who Were The Victims?
As Brady and Hindley’s relationship became more twisted, between July 1963 and December 1964, 16-year-old Pauline Reade, 12-year-old John Kilbride and Keith Bennett, also 12, were reported missing, all in the Manchester area.
Another victim, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, disappeared on 26 December 1964.
Police were baffled over the disappearances because there wasn’t a single shred of evidence.
Brady and Hindley at this point became intent on corrupting Myra’s brother-in-law, David Smith, and recruiting him into their twisted circle where Brady would talk about murder.
On 6 October 1965, the killer offered a practical demonstration with Edward Evans – striking him fourteen times with a hatchet before finishing the job by strangling him.
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Brady is serving three life sentences for the Moors Murders
Brady photographed on Saddleworth Moor by Myra Hindley
Horrified, Smith phoned the police next morning and directed them to Brady’s address. He said in his statement to cops: “He was lying with his head and shoulders on the couch and his legs were on the floor. He was facing upwards.
“Ian was standing over him, facing him, with his legs on either side of the young lad’s legs. The lad was still screaming … Ian had a hatchet in his hand … he was holding it above his head and he hit the lad on the left side of his head with the hatchet.
“I heard the blow, it was a terrible hard blow, it sounded horrible.”
How Was Brady Caught and Why Did His Crimes Become Known as the Moors Murders?
On October 7, 1965, Superintendent Bob Talbot of the Cheshire Police arrived at the back door of 16 Wardle Brook Avenue and told Hindley he wanted to speak with her boyfriend.
The couple allowed the police to look around but when they reached the spare bedroom where Edward’s body was, they found it locked.
Brady told Hindley to hand over the key and the police entered the room to find Edward’s corpse wrapped in plastic sheeting.
The bloody murder weapon was also recovered, along with Brady’s collection of books on perversion and sadism.
He admitted that he had fought with Edward after he was arrested on suspicion of murder but insisted Smith had helped him.
Cops searching 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in Hattersley where Brady killed some of his victims
Four days later, another search of Brady’s flat turned up two left luggage tickets for Manchester Central Station, leading police to a pair of suitcases.
Inside one they found pictures of Lesley Ann Downey naked with a scarf tied around her mouth along with tape recordings of her final tortured moments, pleading for her life as she was brutally abused.
A series of snapshots showing random sections of Saddleworth Moor were also discovered and an exercise book with John Kilbride’s name scribbled in it led police to believe Brady and Hindley were involved in the unsolved disappearances.
A huge search operation involving 150 officers was launched and on October 16, they found an arm bone sticking out of the ground belonging to Lesley Ann.
Searchers probing the peat on Saddleworth Moor
They discovered the badly decomposed body of John Kilbride five days later.
Police announced that they were opening their files on eight missing persons, who had disappeared over the previous four years, but no new charges had been added by the time the couple went to trial.
What Happened at Ian Brady’s Trial?
On 6 May 1966, both defendants were convicted of killing Edward Evans and Lesley Ann Downey.
Brady was also convicted of murdering John Kilbride, while Myra Hindley was convicted as an accessory after the fact.
All-male jurors fell silent for 16 minutes as the tape recording of Lesley Ann Downey’s terrified last moments was played to the court.
The tape was played at full volume and the chilling sounds of children screaming echoed through the court before only the footsteps and soft voices in the background could be heard.
Harrowing passages could be heard including...
“Don’t undress me, will you?” and “I want to see mummy”.
The haunting sound of the 12-year-old’s throat being slit was also played to the court.
*** It took Jurors and Police Officers years to recover what they had heard on the tapes.....and the trial had to be stopped many times as jury members and police broke down in tears ***
In his closing remarks Mr Justice Atkinson described the murders as a “truly horrible case” and condemned the accused as “two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity”.
He stated that Brady was “wicked beyond belief”.
Brady was sentenced to concurrent life terms on each count, while Hindley received two life terms plus seven years in the Kilbride case.
When Did Brady Confess to the Other Two murders?
Nineteen years later, in November 1985, Brady was transferred from prison to maximum-security mental hospital Ashworth.
There, he confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, whose remains had still not been found, in an interview with reporters.
Searchers comb Saddleworth Moor after Brady confessed to the two other murders
A search was carried out on the moors a year later, with Hindley joining officers in 1986 and Brady in 1987.
On June 30, 1987, after more than 100 days of searching, the body of Pauline Reade was found buried 3 feet below the ground.
It took pathologists a month to decide that the girl had been sexually assaulted and her throat slashed from behind.
Keith is the only one of their victims never to have been found despite tireless campaigning by his mum Winnie, who died in 2012.
How Did Brady Kill His Victims?
On July 12, 1963, Brady told Hindley he wanted to “commit his perfect murder”.
He told her to drive a van around the local area while he followed on his motorbike. After spotting Pauline, the couple stopped and Hindley asked her if she would help her locate an expensive glove she had lost on the Moor.
Pauline Reade was the first victim of Hindley and Brady Hindley claimed Brady then took Pauline on to the Moor, where he slashed her throat twice and sexually assaulted her. Brady claims that Hindley helped.
On November 23, 1963, Hindley approached John Kilbride in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs, and offered him a lift home.
Brady told the 12-year-old he would give him some sherry, but they would have to make a detour on the Moor first.
John Kilbride was lured to the Moor by Hindley and Brady, who sexually assaulted him before strangling him
Keith Bennett’s body has never been found
He sexually assaulted the youngster and attempted to slit his throat with a six-inch serrated blade before fatally strangling him with a piece of string.
Keith Bennett was on his way to his grandmother’s house on June 16, 1964, when Hindley lured him into her van.
She drove to a lay-by on the Moor and Brady took the boy while Hindley kept watch. Brady reappeared 30 minutes later having sexually assaulted and strangled Keith.
In search of another victim, the couple visited a fairground on Boxing Day, 1964, and came across Lesley Ann Downey.
They approached the ten-year-old and lured her back to their house, where she was undressed, gagged and forced to pose for photographs before being raped and killed.
The following morning Brady and Hindley drove with Downey’s body to Saddleworth Moor, where she was buried, naked with her clothes at her feet, in a shallow grave.
On 6 October 1965 Brady met 17-year-old apprentice engineer Edward Evans at Manchester Central railway station and invited him to his home where Brady beat him to death with an axe.
Lesley Ann Downey was raped and forced to pose naked for photos before being murdered
Edward Evans was murdered by Brady and police found his body the next day
Where is Brady Now?
Brady is now Britain’s longest-serving offender and for the past 31 years has lived at secure Ashworth Mental Hospital, where he is on permanent suicide watch.
Moors Murderer Brady to stay in secure hospital He was declared criminally insane in 1985 and moved to the high-security hospital in Merseyside.
Brady has been on hunger strike since 1999 and is kept alive by being force-fed a liquid nutrition mix.
But he has claimed he used method acting to pretend to be psychotic claiming life in the mental hospital is cushier than being in jail.
A psychologist told a tribunal the manipulative murderer read up on the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia and copied them.
It was also claimed that the vicious killer actually scoffs down three meals a day inside prison and is a big fan of cheese on toast.
This year he revealed he was dying of a terminal lung and chest condition and had been bedridden for two years.
What Happened to Myra Hindley?
Hindley was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of Evans and Downey and sent to Holloway Prison.
In 1987 she and Brady finally admitted murdering Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade, and following a return to the moors Pauline’s remains were discovered.
Hindley waged a long campaign to be released, but in 1998 the Appeal Court backed the decision by former Home Secretary Jack Straw that she should stay in prison until she died.
She became a devout Roman Catholic in prison and gained a degree in humanities.
But the other women inmates did not believe she had changed and had only pretended to seek religion to protect herself from the other inmates and gain an early release.
Hindley had numerous requests for release rejected by the High Court
Hindley died in jail in November 2002, aged 61, after suffering respiratory failure following a heart attack.
She was a 40-a-day smoker who in 1999 had been diagnosed with angina and hospitalised after suffering a brain aneurysm.
She was cremated following a private funeral conducted by Father Michael Teader, a Roman Catholic priest at Highpoint Prison, Suffolk, where Hindley spent her final years in jail.
A member of the public left a banner at the entrance to the crematorium which read;
“Burn in hell”
Getty
. Moors murderer: Ian Brady as a young killer and later in life
Ghoulish: Myra Hindley smiles on Saddleworth Moor over what was believed to be the grave of Keith Bennett, 12, who was snatched off the street and killed in 1964. The picture was taken by her accomplice Ian Brady
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WARNING- This VIDEO is VERY Graphic and Upsetting!
See No Evil - The Moors Murders -FULL MOVIE (In 2 Parts)
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