MURDER ON THE MOOR

The Ian Brady and Myra Hindley Story

Witness To Murder

Superintendent Talbot was to be leaving on a much-needed vacation on the morning that he received an unexpected call from Detective Inspector Wills. Wills had been reluctant to make the call, but this was important. Sitting in the Inquiry room at Hyde Police Station, were 17-year-old David Smith, and his young wife. They had called the police early that morning with an incredible story. Talbot assured his wife that he would soon return and they would begin their two-week vacation as planned. What Superintendent Talbot did not know then was that he was about to become involved in one of Britain's most notorious criminal cases, The Moors Murders. The date was October 7, 1965.

When Talbot arrived at Hyde Police Station, he was shown into the Inquiry room where the distressed couple sat drinking tea. David Smith, with the help of his wife Maureen, proceeded to tell his story.

The previous night his sister-in-law, Myra Hindley, had visited the home where he lived with Maureen, his bride of little more than a year, and her mother. Myra had told him that she was afraid to walk home alone in the dark so he agreed to walk with her. When they arrived at Myra's home, at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, Manchester, she asked him to come inside as her live-in boyfriend, Ian Brady, had some miniature bottles of wine for him. He agreed and after entering she left him standing in the kitchen with the wine.

As he read the label on one of the bottles, Smith heard a long, loud scream. Myra yelled to him from the living room. When he first entered the room, he saw Ian Brady holding what David initially thought was a life-size rag doll. As it fell against the couch, not more than two feet away from him, the realisation dawned upon him that it was a young man and not a doll at all. As the young man lay sprawled, face down on the floor, Ian stood over him, his legs apart, holding an axe in his right hand. The young man groaned. Ian lifted the axe into the air, and brought it down upon the man's head. There was silence for a couple of seconds, and then the man groaned again, only it was much lower this time. Lifting the axe high above his head, Ian brought it down a second time. The man stopped groaning. The only sound he made was a gurgling noise.

Ian then placed a cover over the youth's head and wrapped a piece of electric wire around his neck. As he repeatedly pulled on the wire, Ian kept saying "You fucking dirty bastard," over and over again. When the man finally stopped making any noise, Ian looked up and said to Myra, "That's it, it's the messiest yet."

As Myra made them all a cup of tea, she and Brady joked about the look on the young man's face when Brady had struck him. They laughed as they told David about another occasion when a policeman had confronted Myra while they had been burying another of their victims on Saddleworth Moor. Ian had told David that he had killed some people before but David thought it was just a sick fantasy. This was real. He was horrified and scared for his own safety. He decided that the best thing he could do was to keep calm and go along with them. He helped them to clean up the mess, tie up the body and put it in the bedroom upstairs. It was not until the early hours of the morning that he had been able to escape, promising to return in the morning to help dispose of the body. Safely back at home, he was violently sick. He told Maureen everything and together they went to a public phone box to call the police.

Immediately upon hearing this bizarre story, Superintendent Talbot and Detective Sergeant Carr went over to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue. Two-dozen additional officers were called to the area, just in case. Any concerns that there may be a confrontation were quickly put to rest. Myra reluctantly gave him a key to the upstairs bedroom, the only room in the house that was locked, where the body of a young man was found wrapped in a grey blanket. The axe described by Smith as the murder weapon was found in the same room.

Ian Brady was arrested immediately. At the police station, Brady told police that there had been an argument between himself, David Smith and the victim, 17-year-old Edward Evans. A fight had ensued which soon got out of control. Smith had hit Evans and kicked him several times. There had been a hatchet on the floor, which Brady said he had used to hit Evans. According to Brady, he and Smith alone had tied up the body. Myra had nothing to do with Evans's death.

When Myra was questioned, she supported Brady's story, describing how she had been horrified and frightened by the ordeal. She was not arrested until four days later, after police had found a three-page document in her car that described in explicit detail how she and Brady had planned to carry out the murder.

The investigation would probably have gone no further if Smith had not told police of Brady's claim that he had buried other bodies on Saddleworth Moor. Other references to the same area confirmed Smith's story. A twelve-year-old girl, Pat Hodge, told police that she had often gone with Hindley and Brady up to the moors on picnics, and numerous photos of the moors were found in their home.

Once the area where Brady and Hindley frequented was pinpointed, the digging began. Police believed that the bodies of four children who had mysteriously disappeared over the past two years might have been buried in the moors. They were proved right on 10 October 1965 when the body of 10-year-old Lesley Anne Downey was found. Lesley had disappeared without a trace on 26 December 1964. Eleven days after the first discovery, the body of 12-year- old John Kilbride was found. John had disappeared without a trace, on November 11, 1963.

In 1965, a case such as this was unique. It was the first time in British history that a woman had been involved in a killing partnership that had involved the serial sex murders of children. The public could not comprehend how any woman could take part in such a horrific crime; her involvement made the crimes seem even more evil and unforgivable.

Myra

What had driven this young couple to such depths of depravity? While Ian Brady's childhood history reveals many indicators of the troubled young man he grew to be, in Myra's case few insights can be drawn. How did a seemingly normal child grow into an adult so perverted that she would gain pleasure from the sexual abuse and murder of children?

Born on 23 July 1942 in Gorton, an industrial district of Manchester, Myra was the first child of Nellie (Hettie) and Bob Hindley. As her father served in a parachute regiment during the first three years of her life, Myra's mother raised her alone. They lived with Hettie's mother, Ellen Maybury, who helped to look after Myra while Hettie went to work as a machinist.

When Bob returned they bought their own home just around the corner from Hettie's mother. Bob had trouble re-adjusting to civilian life and would spend most of the time he wasn't working as a labourer, in the local pub. When their second child, Maureen, was born in August 1946, Bob and Hettie, who both worked, found the workload to be too much and decided to send Myra to live with her grandmother.

While the move to her grandmother's home solved many of the family's problems -- Ellen was no longer lonely, the pressure on Bob and Hettie was relieved considerably and Myra enjoyed the devoted attention of her grandmother -- it meant that Myra and her father's relationship never fully developed. He wasn't an emotionally demonstrative man and his absence during Myra's formative years created a breach that was never filled.

Myra started school at Peacock Street Primary School at the age of five. Here she was considered a mature and sensible girl, although her attendance was poor due to her grandmother's tendency to allow her to stay home on the slightest pretence. Her many absences led to her not gaining the necessary grades to attend the local grammar school. Instead, she went to Ryder Brow Secondary Modern. Although her poor attendance record continued in high school, she was consistently in the 'A' stream in all her subjects. During this period, she exhibited some talent for creative writing and poetry. She loved sport and athletics and was a good swimmer. In appearance and personality, Myra was not considered particularly feminine and was given the nickname 'Square Arse' because of her broad hips. She was also teased about the shape of her nose.

Her reputation as being a mature and sensible girl meant that she was a popular baby-sitter during her teens. Parents and children alike were delighted if Myra was to be their baby-sitter. She was very capable and demonstrated a genuine love of children.

At the age of 15, Myra befriended Michael Higgins, a timid and fragile 13-year-old boy whom she looked after and protected as if he were her younger brother. As far as she was concerned, they would be life-long friends. She was devastated when he drowned in a reservoir, often used as a swimming hole by local children. Her grief was made all the worse by her sense of guilt because she had turned down his offer to go swimming with him that day. She believed that as she was a strong swimmer she could have saved him.

Over the next few weeks, Myra was inconsolable, fluctuating between hysteria and depression. She cried, dressed in black, went to church nightly to light a candle for Michael, and collected money from neighbours for a wreath. Her family was troubled by what they perceived as her over-reaction, telling her that she must control herself. Her grief was reflected in her conversion to Roman Catholicism, Michael's religion, and the deterioration of her schoolwork. It was not long after Michael's death that she left school, as she was not considered bright enough to stay on to complete her O-levels, despite an IQ of 107. Her first job was as a junior clerk at Lawrence Scott and Electrometers, an electrical engineering firm. During this time, Myra was much like other Gorton girls in their teens. She would go to dances and cafes, listened to rock 'n' roll, flirted with boys and had the occasional cigarette. Her appearance became more important to her, and it was at this time that she began to bleach her hair and wear dark make-up, in an attempt to appear older.

On her seventeenth birthday, she became engaged to Ronnie Sinclair, a local boy who worked as a tea-blender at the local Co- op. Myra's apparent contentment with her ordinary life did not last for long. The prospect of her pending marriage caused her to question the lifestyle to which she was expected to conform. After marriage was the purchase of a small house, then would come the children and the years of trying to make ends meet while her husband spent all of their money at the local pub. Myra knew this was not for her and called off the engagement.

She wanted something more exciting. Her search began with an application for entrance forms to the navy and the army, but she never sent them in. She considered working as a nanny in America but never followed it through. She went off to London in search of a job, but that too bore no fruit. Two years had passed before something new and exciting finally came to her. In January 1961, she met Ian Brady for the first time.

Ian

Ian Brady was born, on 2 January 1938 in Gorbals, one of the roughest slums in Glasgow at the time. His mother, Margaret (Peggy) Stewart was a tearoom waitress in a hotel. Although she was single, she would always sign herself as Mrs. Stewart; as to be an unmarried mother at this time met with strong disapproval. Peggy never disclosed who Ian's father was, except that he was a journalist for a Glasgow newspaper who had died a few months before Ian was born.

With no husband to support her, she found it necessary to continue working as a waitress, even if only part-time. As she was often unable to afford a baby-sitter, Peggy would sometimes have to leave baby Ian at home alone. It did not take her long to realise that she could not cope with her baby alone. To solve the problem she advertised for a permanent baby-sitter to take Ian into their home, providing the care and attention she was unable to give him.

Mary and John Sloane answered the advertisement. They had four children of their own and seemed trustworthy and caring. At the age of four months, Ian was unofficially "adopted" by the couple. Peggy signed over Ian's welfare payments to them and arranged to visit every Sunday. As each Sunday came around Peggy would bring gifts for her growing son but never told him that she was his mother. Mary Sloane was always "auntie" or "ma." As time passed, Peggy's visits became less frequent and finally stopped altogether when Ian was twelve years old. Peggy had moved with her new husband, Patrick Brady, to Manchester.

The ambiguity of his relationship with his mother and the nature of the arrangements with the Sloanes meant that Ian always felt that he didn't really belong. Despite the Sloanes' attempts to provide a loving environment, Ian showed no response to their care and attention. Throughout his childhood, he was lonely, difficult, and angry. Temper tantrums were frequent and extreme, often ending with him banging his head on the floor.

At Camden Street Primary School, Brady was considered by his teachers to be a bright child, but he never tried as hard as he could have. The other children saw him as different, secretive and an outsider. He didn't play sport like the other boys and was considered a "sissy."

The Sloanes and Brady remember an incident when he was nine years old. It was to be Ian's first outing out of the Gorbals. They went to the moors of Loch Lomond, where they spent the day picnicking. After lunch, the Sloanes napped in the grass. When they awoke, Ian was gone. They saw him standing 500 yards away at the top of a steep slope. For an hour, he stood there, silhouetted against the giant sky. They called and whistled to him but could not attract his attention. When the two Sloane boys climbed the hill to fetch him he told them to go on home without him, he wanted to be alone.

On the way home on the bus he was talkative for the first time in his life. For Ian, the time spent alone on that hillside had been a profound experience, one that would influence him into adulthood. He had felt himself alone at the centre of a vast, limitless territory. It was his. It belonged to him. He was filled with a sense of power and strength. In the midst of all this emptiness, he was master and king.

At the age of eleven, Ian passed his entrance exams to Shawlands Academy, a school for pupils with above-average intelligence. His potential was never realised however as he was lazy, would not apply himself, and began to misbehave. He started smoking, virtually gave up on his schoolwork and before long was in trouble with the police. It was at this time that his fascination with the Second World War, particularly the Nazis, began to emerge. The books he read and the subject of his conversation was always related to Nazis. Even his play was influenced by his obsession, he always insisted on playing a German in war games with his friends.

Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, Brady had been charged on three counts of housebreaking and burglary. On the third occasion, the court decided not to give him a custodial sentence, on the condition that he move to Manchester to live with Peggy and her husband Patrick Brady. He had not seen Peggy for four years and had never met his stepfather.

It was the end of 1954 when Brady moved to Moss Side to start again. Living with strangers and having a strong Scottish accent that branded him as different in the community meant that Brady became even more socially withdrawn than ever before. He attempted to gain a sense of belonging to his new family by changing his name from Stewart to Brady, and, although he did not get on particularly well with his stepfather, he took the job that Patrick found for him as a porter at the local market. The sense that he didn't belong persisted, however, and he searched for direction through his reading. Within books such as Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, the works of Marquis de Sade, and sadistic titles such as Justine, The Kiss of the Whip, and The Torture Chamber, Brady discovered something he could relate to, something exciting.

A little over a year after he moved to Moss Side, Brady had returned to a life of crime. He had left his job at the market and was working in a brewery when he was arrested for aiding and abetting. His employers had discovered that he had been stealing lead seals. The courts were not so lenient this time and he was sentenced to two years in a borstal, an institution for young offenders. There were no places available for three months, so he was sent to Strangeways Prison in Manchester, where at the age of seventeen, he learned quickly to toughen up.

He was moved to Hatfield borstal in Yorkshire where the regime was much lighter. Brady, taking advantage of the reduction in security began brewing and drinking his own alcohol and running gambling books. A drunken scuffle with a warder landed him in a much harder borstal in Hull Prison. Here he actively set out to learn more of the criminal way of life, from which he intended to make a great deal of money. His expectations were so high that he even took courses in bookkeeping.

When he was released in November 1957, his family noticed that he was even more silent and brooding than before. He was unemployed for several months before he obtained work as a labourer for six months. While he continued in his attempts to find a criminal scheme that would make him rich, he decided to put his bookkeeping skills to legitimate use. In 1959, he began work as a stock clerk with Millwards Merchandising. A little more than a year later, a new secretary arrived.

Birds of A Feather

For Myra, their first meeting was the beginning of an "immediate and fatal attraction." While others described Brady as morose and sullen, Hindley saw him as silent and aloof, characteristics that she thought were "enigmatic, worldly and a sign of intelligence." He was different from any of the boys she had known. Compared to Brady, the likes of Ronnie Sinclair were dull, naive, and unambitious. Every night, she would write in her diary of her intense longing for Brady, a longing that would remain unfulfilled for some time. As she fluctuated from "loving him to hating him," Brady remained steadfastly disinterested for a year.

At the office Christmas party, Brady, relaxed by a few drinks, asked Hindley for their first date. It was to be the beginning of her initiation into his secret world. That first night he took her to see The Nuremberg Trials. As the weeks went by, he played her records of Hitler's marching songs and encouraged her to read some of his favourite books Mein Kampf, and Crime and Punishment, and de Sade's works. Hindley happily complied. She had waited for so long for something different and now here it was. Her inexperience and hunger left her incapable of distinguishing which of her new experiences were healthy and those that were dangerous.

Brady became her first lover and she was soon totally besotted with him, soaking up all of his distorted philosophical theories. Her greatest desire was to please him. She even changed the way she dressed for him, in Germanic style, with long boots and mini skirts, and bleached hair. She allowed him to take pornographic photographs of her, and the two of them having sex. With such a devoted audience, Brady's ideas became increasingly paranoid and outrageous, but Hindley was without discernment. When he told her there was no God, she stopped going to church, and when he told her that rape and murder were not wrong, that in fact murder was the "supreme pleasure," she did not question it. Her personality had become totally fused with his.

Family, friends and colleagues quickly noticed the changes in her. At work she became surly, overbearing, and aggressive, and began to wear "kinky" clothes. Her sister Maureen testified in court that, after meeting Brady, Myra no longer lived a normal life with dances and girlfriends, instead she became secretive and claimed she hated babies, children and people.

Early in 1963, Brady put Hindley's blind acceptance of his ideas to the test. He began planning a bank robbery and needed her to be his get-away driver. Immediately, Hindley began driving lessons, joined the Cheadle Rifle club and purchased two guns. The robbery was never carried out, but Brady's purpose had been fulfilled. Myra had shown herself willing. Brady knew she was ready to cement their relationship.

In Brady's mind he was like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, he had "reached the stage where, whatever came to mind, get out and do it I led the life that other people could only think about." Dostoyevsky's novel had become for Brady, not an exploration of the destructiveness of unrestrained ego, but a justification for, and ennobling of his own degraded fantasies.

On the night of 12 July 1963, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley took their first victim, sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade.

Without A Trace

Pauline Reade was on her way to a dance at the Railway Workers' Social Club on the night she disappeared. Originally, she had planned to go with her three girlfriends, Linda, Barbara, and Pat, but at the last minute, when their parents learned that there would be alcohol available, they pulled out. Determined not to miss out on the dance, Pauline decided to go alone.

At eight o'clock Pauline, dressed in her prettiest pink party dress, left home. What Pauline didn't know was that her girlfriend, Pat, and another friend Dorothy had seen her leave. Curious to see whether she would really have the nerve to go to the dance alone, Pat and Dorothy followed her. When they were almost at the Club, the two girls decided to take a short cut so they could arrive at the club before Pauline. They waited for her but she never arrived.

When Pauline had still not arrived home at midnight, her parents, Joan and Amos went out to look for her. They called the police the next morning when the nightlong search had failed to find any trace of their daughter. A police search proved to be just as fruitless. It seemed that Pauline had simply disappeared.

The second child disappeared on 11 November 1963. Twelve-year- old John Kilbride and his friend John Ryan had gone to the local cinema for the afternoon. When the film finished at 5 o'clock, they went to the market in Ashton-Under-Lyne to see if they could earn some pocket money helping the stallholders to pack up. John Ryan left John Kilbride standing beside a salvage bin near the carpet dealer's stall to go and catch his bus home. It was the last time that anyone saw John Kilbride.

When John did not return home for dinner, his parents Sheila and Patrick called the police. For the second time, a major search was conducted, with police and thousands of volunteers combing the surrounding area for any clue as to John's disappearance. No sign was found. All his parent's knew was that John didn't come home.

Six months later, another child went missing. 16 June 1964 was a Tuesday, and every Tuesday evening twelve-year-old Keith Bennett would go to his grandmother's home to spend the night. This Tuesday was no different. As his grandmother's house was only a mile away, he walked by himself. His mother watched him over the crossing and onto Stockport Road, then left him to go to bingo in the opposite direction.

When Keith didn't arrive at his grandmother Winnie's house, she assumed that his mother had decided not to send him. Keith's disappearance was not discovered until the next morning when Winnie arrived at her daughter's home without Keith. Again the police were called, and again a search was conducted, and again it seemed that a child had disappeared without a trace.

A further six months had passed before the fourth child, ten-year- old Lesley Ann Downey, disappeared. It was on the afternoon of 26 December 1964. Lesley had gone with her two brothers and some of their friends to the local fair, in Hulme Hall Lane, only ten minutes away. They had not been there too long before all of their pocket money was spent and they were bored. All but Lesley Ann left for home. A classmate last saw her, at just after half- past five, standing alone next to one of the rides.

When Lesley Ann still had not returned home at dinnertime her mother, Ann, and her fiancée Alan began to search for her. They called the police when they could find no sign of her. The countryside was searched, thousands of people were questioned and missing posters were displayed but no new leads were discovered. No one could tell Lesley Ann's parents what had happened to their little girl.

It would be another 10 months before the gruesome truth would be uncovered.

Damning Evidence

When Lesley Ann's naked body was found in a shallow grave, with her clothing at her feet, the police had nothing but hearsay and circumstantial evidence to connect Brady and Hindley to her death. They needed much more. A more thorough search of the house at Wardle Brook Avenue on 15 October gave them the evidence they needed.

A left-luggage ticket, found tucked into a prayer book, led police to a locker at Manchester Central station. Inside were two suitcases filled with pornographic and sadistic paraphernalia. In amongst these were nine semi-pornographic photographs of Lesley Ann Downey, showing her, naked, bound and gagged, in a variety of poses in Myra Hindley's bedroom. A tape recording was also found. The voice of a girl could be heard screaming, crying, and begging for her life. Two other voices, one male and one female, could be heard threatening the child. Police were able to identify the adult voices as belonging to Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, but they needed Ann Downey's assistance to identify the child's voice. She listened in horror to her daughter at the last moments of her life.

Even with damning evidence mounted against them, Brady and Hindley denied murdering Lesley Ann. As in the case of Edward Evans, they attempted to implicate David Smith. They claimed that Smith had brought the girl to the house so Brady could photograph her. The tape recording was of their voices as they attempted to subdue the girl so they could take the pictures.

Hindley protested that she had only used a harsh tone with the girl because she had been concerned that neighbours would hear her. As far as they were concerned, Lesley Ann had left their house, unharmed, with Smith. Smith must have murdered her later.

The evidence, which linked Brady and Hindley to the murder of John Kilbride, while not as overwhelming, was sufficient to charge them. They found the name "John Kilbride" written, in Brady's handwriting, in his notebook and a photograph of Hindley on John's grave at the moors. It was also found that Hindley had hired a car on the day of John's disappearance and returned it in a muddy state and, according to Hindley's sister, Brady and Hindley shopped at Ashton market every week.

Despite all of their efforts, the police were unable to find the bodies of the two other missing children or any evidence to link Brady and Hindley to their disappearance. They had to content themselves with prosecuting the pair only for the murders of Edward Evans, Lesley Ann Downey, and John Kilbride.

On 27 April 1966, Hindley and Brady were brought to trial at Chester Assizes where they pleaded "not guilty" to all charges. Throughout the trial, they continued their attempts to blame David Smith for the murders, a cowardly stance that only served to deepen public hatred of them. At no time during the trial did they show any remorse for their crimes or any sorrow toward the families of their victims. To those who were present at the trial, both Brady and Hindley appeared cold and heartless.

Despite protestations of their innocence, Ian Brady was found guilty of the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, John Kilbride, and Edward Evans. Myra Hindley was found guilty of the murders of Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans and for harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had killed John Kilbride. They escaped the death penalty by only a couple of months as "The Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965" had come into effect just four weeks before their arrest.

Never To Be Released

Brady's hold over Myra continued for the first few years of their imprisonment; they constantly wrote to each other and even requested permission to marry. The rift that developed between them was gradual, stemming mainly from their differing responses to their incarceration. Brady quickly accepted his sentence, and thereby his guilt, and soon settled into prison life. Whereas Hindley continued to assert her innocence, continuing her claim that Brady and Smith were responsible for the murders. Immediately after her sentencing, she began the appeal process, enlisting the assistance of Lord Longford. She was denied the right of appeal when the court of appeal declared its satisfaction that no miscarriage of justice had occurred. In 1970, Hindley broke off all contact with Brady, his hold on her being completely broken by the realisation that she would never see him again.

Seven years later, more than ten years after her imprisonment Hindley began a campaign to win her freedom, one that still continues today. Over the next two years, she compiled a 20,000- word document in which she portrayed herself as the innocent victim of Brady's manipulative personality. She continued to uphold her original story that Brady was the guilty party, with Smith as his accomplice.

The document was submitted to the Home Office in order to gain permission to make application for parole. The then Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees established a committee comprised of Home Office and parole board officials who determined that it would be another three years before Hindley's application for parole could be heard.

Prior to the completion of this document, in 1978, Brady made his first public statement. He declared that he did not intend to apply for parole as he " accepted the weight of the crimes both Myra and I were convicted of justifies permanent imprisonment, regardless of expressed personal remorse and verifiable change."

He was soon to virtually disappear from public view as his mental state began to deteriorate. He suffered from visual and auditory hallucinations and believed that the Home Office was trying to kill him.

Hindley's application for parole was delayed a further three years in 1982 by the next Home Secretary, William Whitelaw. When her application was finally heard in 1985, twenty years since her imprisonment began, it was rejected. Home Secretary Leon Brittan announced that Hindley's case would not be heard again for at least five years. His personal opinion, expressed only in private, was that Hindley should serve at least another fifteen years.

The European Court of Human Rights' rejection of Hindley's case as "inadmissible" in 1986 was probably the final confirmation to Hindley that her claim of non-involvement in the murders was totally implausible. At the end of 1986, a letter written by Keith Bennett's mother, begging Hindley to reveal what had happened to her son, provided Hindley with the inspiration for a new set of tactics. Early in 1987, Hindley was again making front-page news with the public release of her full confession. She now admitted both the knowledge of, and involvement in all five murders, including those of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, although she continued to insist that she hadn't actually committed murder. Brady's confession followed shortly after, but he declined to offer any public statements of remorse.

The confessions confirmed police suspicions that the remains of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett had been buried somewhere on the moors. Neither Hindley or Brady was able to pinpoint the exact locations, but Pauline's body was finally located on 1 July 1987, identified by her pink party dress.

While Hindley and Brady's accounts of the events leading up to Pauline's murder correspond, their descriptions of Myra's role in her death do not. According to Hindley's account, Myra had tricked Pauline into coming with her to Saddleworth Moor by offering her some records if she would help Myra to find a lost glove. Once on the moors, Brady arrived on his motorbike and went with Pauline to look for the glove while Myra waited at the car. While he was gone, Brady had raped Pauline and cut her throat before returning to the car to get Myra to help him bury the body. Her role, according to Brady, was much more active, in which she physically and sexually assaulted the girl with him.

Keith Bennett's body was never found but Hindley's confession has given his family some indication of how he died. Hindley had lured him into the car with a request for assistance in loading some boxes. Once at Saddleworth Moor, Brady had taken Keith down the gully to a stream where he raped and then strangled him, burying him somewhere nearby.

In her description of Lesley Ann Downey's murder, Hindley again places herself away from the scene at the moment of death, claiming that she had been in the bathroom when Brady raped, then strangled her. Brady claims that in this instance Hindley had in fact performed the strangulation with her bare hands. This version most closely corresponds with the audio tape recording of the events in which both Brady and Hindley's voices can be clearly heard.

At the time of her confession, Hindley's solicitor expressed his belief that her chances of parole were greatly enhanced by her display of remorse, and he expected that she might succeed in gaining her release in another ten years. With this in mind, despite her 1987 declaration that she would not continue her fight for freedom, Hindley again applied for parole in 1986. Bowing to the weight of public opinion and the fierce campaigning of the victims' families, Home Secretary Michael Howard declared that Hindley would never be released, along with twenty-three other prisoners, including Ian Brady, Peter Sutcliffe and Dennis Nilsen.

In 1997, Hindley was allowed to challenge the former Home Secretary Howard's decision in a judicial review by the High Court. Both Lord Longford and Lord Astor, former editor of the Observer, supported her attempt, claiming that her continued incarceration was a denial of British justice. He stated that in no other case had a prisoner's sentence been increased from the original term, in this case thirty years. In January 1988, Hindley's council, Mr. Edward Fitzgerald QC, reiterated Astor and Longford's sentiments in the High Court. According to Fitzgerald, Hindley's was the only case in which a "secondary party" to murder was given natural life. He also stated that Home Secretary Jack Straw, while publicly maintaining that Hindley's case was open to review, had privately said "I will not be the Home Secretary who sets her free." Fitzgerald believed that such statements made it impossible for any future Home Secretary to do so.

Hindley's challenge was unsuccessful.

Epilogue

In 1998, while Brady languished in jail, the British public was no more ready to forgive Myra Hindley than they had been back in 1965. It is difficult to imagine that any future Home Secretary will be willing to risk his career to release her. Perhaps if Hindley had been more patient in her attempt to gain her freedom and waited until the original thirty year period had come to an end before applying for parole, the public emotion toward her may have had a chance to cool. As it was, the public was constantly reminded of its initial reaction to the murders by Myra's regular coverage in the media. That first image of a peroxide, glowering and dark-eyed Hindley, left an indelible impression on the minds of the British public who saw her as the personification of evil, an image that they are obviously unwilling to forget.

In the last days of 1999, Myra, age 57, was briefly released from Highpoint Prison in Suffolk to West Suffolk Hospital to undergo tests after she collapsed. Prison officials were concerned that she may have suffered a stroke. However, hospital spokesman said, "Hospital doctors have decided that the patient is fit enough to be discharged into the care of the Prison Service." Myra smokes heavily and suffers from angina and high blood pressure.

On January 1, 2000, it was announced that Hindley was going to take her life imprisonment battle to the House of Lords. At this time, Myra had served more than 33 years in jail. Ian Brady, age 61, had gone on a 3-month hunger strike, hoping to kill himself rather than die in prison.