Casefile True Crime - Case 49: The Moors Murders (Part 3)

Episode Date: April 1, 2017

[Part 3 of 3] After Ian Brady and Myra Hindley are arrested for the string of horrific slayings dubbed ‘The Moors Murders’, the true horror of their crimes finally comes to light. As the couple are brought to trial, the nature of their twisted relationship is scrutinised by law enforcement, the justice system, and England’s media. --- Researched and written by Victoria Dieffenbacher For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-49-moors-murders-part-3

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Brady and Hindley continued their killing spree, murdering Keith Bennett on 16th June 1964, seven months after the murder of John Kilbride. Two months later, Hindley's sister Maureen married David Smith. Brady and Hindley had virtually nothing to do with David and Maureen prior to their marriage, and Hindley in particular didn't approve. But after the marriage, they became close. Brady and Hindley murdered Leslie Ann Downey on 26th December 1964. Brady tape recorded some of what happened and took photographs.

After the death of David and Maureen's child, Angela Dawn, Brady became even closer to David, slowly trying to manipulate him and bring him into his inner sanctum. He gave David the same books to read that he had given Hindley and started talking about murder and how there was nothing wrong with taking a life. Hindley became jealous of their friendship and worried that Brady was getting careless and revealing too much information to David. Brady eventually revealed to David he had killed before, but David didn't believe him. On the 6th of October 1965, Brady met Edward Evans at Manchester Central Railway Station. He invited him to his and Hindley's house at 16 Wardlebrook Avenue, Hattersley, for drinks.

When they got there, he instructed Hindley to go and get David to join them. When David got to the house, he witnessed Brady murder Edward with an axe. After months of moulding David, this was Brady's attempt to try and get him to join him in murder. David helped clean up and told Brady and Hindley what they wanted to hear, but it all blew up in Brady's face when David called the police and they found Edward's body still in the house. Brady had always planned to shoot out with police, but it was caught off guard. Brady was sitting on the sofa writing a letter to his boss when the police turned up. His and Hindley's guns were locked away upstairs.

Brady claimed he and Edward had gotten into a fight and he killed him in self-defense, even though Edward had been hit with the axe 14 times. Brady was charged with his murder and Hindley was charged with being an accessory to Edward's murder. In his interviews with police, David Smith said Brady had told him about other murders he had committed. Although David didn't believe him at the time, he said Brady specifically mentioned taking people from Manchester and burying them on the moors. He started searching through missing persons files and the cases of Pauline Reed, Keith Bennett, Leslie Ann Downey and John Kilbride jumped out at them.

Detective Joseph Mounsey noticed some odd looking photographs in the albums of Brady and Hindley. There were photos of mostly dirt he believed were taken on the moors. A search was organised and they tried to match the photos to the specific places they were taken on the moors. Not an easy task considering the moors covers an area of 400 square miles. Brady and Hindley kept their hard exteriors, showing no remorse for Edward and refusing to tell the police anything about the other cases. Brady and Hindley's 11-year-old neighbour, Patty Masterton, was able to help police narrow their search on the moors. She pointed out the spot Brady and Hindley always took her to.

Mounsey noticed that the black rocks in that area matched the rocks in some of the photos. A gut instinct led Officer Robert Spears to search up on a hill where he found the body of Leslie Ann Downey. Police had also found the suitcases Brady kept with incriminating material. They found photos of Leslie and the tape. They were getting ready to re-interview Brady and Hindley about Leslie Ann Downey. On the morning of Monday, October 18th, 1965, Brady and Hindley appeared separately at the Magistrates Court for a remand hearing in relation to the Edward Evans case. Brady appeared first wearing his suit.

He had already been charged with Edward's murder so he was remanded for another three days. As Hindley was arriving to the court, she was advised to put a scarf over her head. She didn't understand why until she exited the van and was confronted by an angry crowd yelling and screaming at her. She was formally charged with a well-knowing Brady had murdered Edward and subsequently received, comforted, harboured, assisted and maintained him. Afterwards, they met back at Hyde Police Station's canteen where they saw Brady's solicitor who discussed their defence. While they were together, Hindley reminded Brady how much she loved him and he told her he loved her too. At 2.30pm, Brady was taken to an interview room by himself.

Detective Chief Superintendent Arthur Benfield and Superintendent Robert Tyrrell stormed into the room and threw Leslie Ann Downey's socks, shoes and necklace beads on the table. Benfield said, These garments were recovered from the Moor near Greenfield late Saturday night. This clothing has been identified as Leslie Ann Downey's, whose body was recovered at the same time and place. I have reason to believe that the photographs of the naked girl, which were found in your suitcase, are of Leslie Ann Downey. Would you like to say anything about these photographs? Brady, not at present.

Benfield, I'm lucky now to listen to a tape recording. Brady, I know the tape. While it was playing, Brady bowed his head and covered his face with his hands until it finished. Once it was over, Benfield said, You say you know the tape. The voices appear to be those of yourself and Myra and of Leslie Ann Downey. Brady, she didn't say the name Downey, it was something else. Benfield and Talbot were surprised at the admission. However, it was cut short when Brady said he did photograph Leslie, but it was two other men who had brought her to the house.

When the photos were done, the two men left with Leslie and he never saw her again. The interview ended at 8.05pm and Brady refused to sign the position notes. Benfield and Talbot moved on to Hindley. Benfield threw the black wig on the table and said, What's this? Hindley remained silent. Benfield threw the photographs of Leslie on the table, followed by her socks, shoes and a necklace. Hindley bowed her head and put her hands against her face, just like Brady had. Then she covered her mouth with a handkerchief. Benfield told her they knew the photos had been taken on Boxing Day, the same day Leslie disappeared.

It hold her the version Brady gave about the two men bringing Leslie to their house. Hindley said, I'm saying nothing. Benfield played the tape and Hindley closed her eyes. She started crying while it was playing. When it finished, Benfield said, Did you hear that? Hindley, I'm ashamed. I'm saying nothing. The interview ended at 9.45pm.

They showed David Smith the photos too. David said he now understood what Brady meant by photographic proof and that just by seeing those pictures, he knew there was no way Leslie was ever returning home. They also played David the tape and he broke down crying. Although they weren't answering many questions, Hindley and Brady were still actively blaming David Smith for the murders. As a tactic to see if David was perhaps more involved than he was letting on, officers gave Maureen and David's father false stories of David confessing. These tactics left both Maureen and David's father confused and hurt.

But David Smith stuck to his story and maintained his innocence. The one detective David still felt believed him was Mounsey. After the discovery of Leslie and Downey's body, the coverage of the case exploded. The canteen in Hyde Police Station became a press room. Police gave press conferences daily. It was one of the first cases to get continuous heavy coverage on television. At times there were over 200 journalists at the Moors and the case remained in the newspaper headlines permanently. After finding Leslie's body, the search of the Moors continued under Mounsey's command.

Many people started to come forward stating they'd seen Brady and Hindley in different parts of Saddleworth Moor. Mounsey wanted to check out every single place and see if any more of them could be linked to the photographs they'd found. Mounsey had several of the photos enlarged. The enlargements were then passed on to searching officers to try and help them match the spot on the Moor. Four days after they found Leslie's body, Mounsey's boss called him to his office and said, What are you doing buggering about on the Moors? Come on, it's time you got back to work. That same day, Benfield set in a press conference. I don't believe there are any more bodies on the Moor.

Still, Mounsey persisted. The Manchester Evening News ran an article that day headlined, Hundreds Flock to Watch Moor Hunt. The article detailed how large amounts of people were visiting the Moor and watching the police search. Some stopped in for a few minutes, others came with flasks and sandwiches and settled in for a picnic. A police officer who was there called it morbid curiosity at its worst. Back at Hindley and Brady's house at 16 Waterbrook Avenue, Detective Chief Inspector John Tyrell was going through the bookshelf when he found Hindley's old prayer book herrani had given her when she was 16. When he flicked through the pages, the spine made a small noise.

He lifted it up to take a better look and saw that a slipper paper was rolled tightly and pushed into the spine. It was the receipt for the locker for Brady's two suitcases. The receipt was for the most recent deposit, October 5th 1965, the day before the murder of Edward Evans. Tyrell remembered the disposal plan written by Brady on the three sheets of paper. The disposal plan had code words such as PB and TIC, which Tyrell now knew stood for prayer book and ticket. Despite Brady's claims, the disposal plan was written after Edward's murder. This proved it was written before. The next day, Thursday, October 21st, Brady and Hindley were charged with the murder of Leslie Ann Downey at Hyde Magistrates Court.

When the charges were read out, Hindley responded, it's not true. Brady said, not guilty. Hindley was provided with legal aid and they were both taken back to Risley Remain Centre. Back at the Moor, Mounsey called Officer Mas Hedder, a crime scene officer. He told Mas Hedder to bring his camera to the Moor and to make sure the press didn't follow him. When Mas Hedder arrived, Mounsey guided him to a spot on the Moor and gave him one particular photograph that stood out. The photo with Hindley holding Puppet crouching down, looking at the ground. Mounsey told Mas Hedder to look at the spot they were standing in and compare it to the photograph. Mas Hedder believed it was the same place. To be certain, he took a new photograph and compared it.

It was identical. The two of them were joined by another detective and the Inspector who had been present when Leslie Ann Downey was found. The Inspector pushed his stick into the ground, pulled it out and smelled the end of it. It smelled of putrefaction. They started digging and only 9 inches down they found a small black shoe. Underneath the shoe they found socks and a little further down they found what appeared to be a human heel. Mounsey was at first excited but when he crouched down and started looking closer he became deeply affected by what he was seeing. He stood back up and told one of the detectives to go back to the station and let their supervisor know.

Mounsey said, tell him we found John Kilbride. Soon all of the superiors from the different police jurisdictions appeared. Pathologists were also called in. At 3.30pm pathologists G and Paulson began to excavate the body. The body was 340 meters away from where Leslie Ann Downey was found and less than 18 inches below the surface. The entire body was so severely decomposed that both pathologists were careful to dig by the sides trying to keep the remains intact. Mounsey was correct. It was the body of John Kilbride. John was clothed except for his trousers and underwear which were knotted together at his back and left the detectives in no doubt as to what had happened.

John's body was lifted into a stretcher covered in plastic sheeting and taken to Upper Mill Mortry. Paulson and G conducted the post mortem but were unable to establish a cause of death. Mounsey went to see the Kilbrides and took the shoe with him. John's brother Danny remembered his mother Sheila recognized the shoe as soon as she saw it. Danny Kilbride stated, quote, I was told that he'd been strangled but no more than that. I can't say it was a relief that he'd been found. Everybody imagines it must have been. I know it meant we were able to have a burial and had some way to lay flowers for him,

but I didn't want my brother to be found dead and on positive my mum and dad felt the same way. Relief was the last thing any of us felt. Sheila was taken to the mortuary to formally identify John and upon seeing him she said, quote, they cleaned up as best they could but I'll never forget it. I'd altered his jacket, I'd altered his underwear, his father's underwear because I wasn't rich. I couldn't always buy him new. I knew it was him, the buttons on the jacket, footballs, I'd stitched on myself. There was no doubt at all.

Officer Pat Clayton who worked closely with Mounsey was standing with Sheila when she identified John. She said, quote, it was her child that was being identified but there was no child to identify. Only clothing. It was horrendous that murder and particularly when you see pictures of a woman which you later learn is a picture of a woman standing over the grave of a child that's just been buried, dumped like a bag of rubbish on the moors. It's horrific. Two officers were left in the moors to guard the burial site overnight.

Since two bodies had now been found the search of the moors was allowed to continue. Benfield changed his mind. He declared he was now certain there were more bodies in the area. Brady and Hindley's landscape photographs were distributed among local cycling and hiking clubs in the hope they might be able to help point out specific spots. The search itself moved back to Woodhead again where over 100 volunteers went over the snake pass which is a spot David Smith had pointed out in the beginning. However, the weather was starting to become a problem since there were night frosts, strong winds

and thick mists during the day which made it impossible to see clearly. The police concentrated on building a strong case against Brady and Hindley and pieced together as much evidence as they could. One detective was able to match the headboard and marks on the wall in Hindley's room with the headboard and marks on the wall that appeared in the photos of Leslie confirming the photos were taken in Hindley's room. A team of experts also proved that the camera used to take the photos of Leslie was Brady's camera. The forensic team finished with the inspection at 16 Waterbrook Avenue on October 25th

after which they moved on to David Smith's former home at 13 Wile Street, Gorton where he lived with Maureen and his father, the house that was only a few doors away from Pauline Reed's house. They removed the floorboards, removed wallpaper and took samples from every surface. They found blood near a window but David explained it was his blood. He had cut himself while installing a new pane of glass. Police confirmed this story with Joan Reed, Pauline's mother who was the one who bandaged David's wrist after it happened. This occurred only two months after Pauline disappeared.

The forensic team then went to 18 Westmoreland Street, Brady's former home. Brady's mother Maggie had left and gone to Glasgow to stay with Brady's foster family, the Sloans. Maggie suffered a breakdown when she found out Brady had murdered children. The press constantly staking out their home didn't help either. Brady's stepfather Patrick went with police to his former home and assisted their search. The forensic team didn't find anything since Brady had spent most of his time at Hindley's house. There was nothing linking him to the crimes at all at Westmoreland Street. On Thursday October 28th, Brady and Hindley were driven to another remand hearing in Hyde Magistrates Court.

It was raining heavily and Hindley was surprised to see so many angry people waiting for them outside. In the public gallery people shouted shame and monsters. Among the gallery were Patrick and Terrence Downey, Leslie's father and uncle. They were planning on loosening wooden floor blocks from the court and throwing them at Brady and Hindley. However, their appearance in the courtroom was only brief and they didn't get the chance. Terrence said, I would have smashed their heads in if only I could have snatched it up in time. Terrence tried again outside when Brady and Hindley were taken away in a car. He ran towards it and tried to force open the door.

He was tackled to the ground by police but little did he know it was the wrong car. Due to the large angry mobs that were gathering and of the threats made to Hindley and Brady, the police arranged decoys. Terrence had been tricked by the decoys. Brady and Hindley were still inside waiting for the crowd to disperse. Brady and Hindley weren't the only ones targeted. David and Maureen copped it as well. After the court appearance was over, they were chased through the streets. After that court appearance, Brady and Hindley were taken to Ashton Underline police station for further questioning. Mountie and another detective questioned Brady. Mountie showed him some of the landscape photos they found and suggested to Brady they were markers for the burial sites.

Brady denied it and said he had no idea what Mountie was talking about. Mountie showed him the specific photo where they found John Kilbride's burial site and said, This photograph was taken by you showing your girlfriend crowding over John Kilbride's grave. How can you possibly say you know nothing about his death? Brady kept denying it. In another interview room, Hindley was questioned by Tyrrell and another detective. She was shown the same picture. Tyrrell said, Where was that taken?

Hindley, I don't know. Tyrrell, who took it? Hindley, probably Ayan. Tyrrell, what are you looking at in this photo? Hindley, my dog, puppet. Tyrrell, you were looking at the ground. Hindley didn't respond. Tyrrell, has anyone other than Ayan taken pictures of you at the Moor?

Hindley, David has. Tyrrell, these photos were taken to mark the graves of your victims. Hindley, no, they're just pictures. They have no significance whatsoever. Tyrrell told her Maureen had given them a statement saying Hindley had become a different person after meeting Brady. Hindley responded, I made all my own decisions. People go through several stages in their lives. After discussions, they change their minds. Ayan never maybe do anything I didn't want to do.

All that about killing is bloody rubbish. When asked about Jon Kilbride specifically, Hindley said, Ayan didn't kill Kilbride, and I didn't kill Kilbride. I never said eyes on Kilbride before. Hindley then said David Smith was the one who brought Leslie and Downey to their house at 16 Wattlebrook Avenue. He was with another man, and after Brady took the photos of Leslie, they left with her. The same story Brady had given. Hindley claimed David had fabricated a story in the hours after Edward Evans' murder and cleanup to paint himself as innocent. He then called the police to try and put the blame on her and Brady.

The detectives paused the interview, and in another attempt to break Hindley, Tyrrell prepared a special album of photographs. There were regular photos of landscapes on some pages, but on others, there were pictures of the exhumed bodies of Leslie and Jon. The photos were random, so Hindley wouldn't know what was coming. The interview started again, and Mounsey opened the album and turned the pages for Hindley to see. After Hindley saw pictures of the bodies, she looked away and said, I don't want to see anymore. But Mounsey kept on turning the pages and moved the album closer to her. Hindley ended up shouting, Take them away, I'm not looking at them. Mounsey started pacing the room and recited a line from the Bible.

Suffer little children to come and to me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. Hindley cut her head down and didn't say anything. At 8, 10pm, the interview ended. Mounsey tried the same tactic with Brady. Brady didn't say much about the photographs, but he did admit taking the photo of Hindley on Jon's grave. He also confessed to taking the photos of Leslie they found in his suitcase, and landscape photos of where she was buried. He admitted to hitting Edward Evans with an axe 14 times. He admitted to writing the disposal plan and previously telling David Smith he had killed and buried bodies on the moor.

They had more evidence on Brady than they had on Hindley. Hindley didn't say anything, so although there was a photograph of her crouching on Jon's burial site, police couldn't prove she knew there was a body underneath. They had her on tape when Leslie's photos were being taken, but the tape didn't prove she was present when Leslie was killed. And although she was present at the murder of Edward Evans and participated in the cleanup, Brady admitted to being the one who murdered him, and David Smith's statement supported Brady's claim. David Smith was still being interviewed by police constantly. They were looking for cracks in his story, trying to break him, to see if he knew more than he was letting on.

By the end of his interviews, police were convinced David Smith was telling the truth. Reporters were camped outside David's house, trying to get an interview. They offered money, but in those early days of the investigation, he refused to talk. He got so fed up with the media that he threw dog shit at the cars he knew belonged to reporters. The search of the moors continued, and Air Force jets with infrared equipment were used. The search was postponed on the 30th of October due to heavy rain and strong winds, and after that day, the search started to wind down. Police gave out a questionnaire to over 5,000 households in Hattersley, asking about suspicious activities in the area.

Police took Hindley's dog Puppet to a vet to determine his age. They wanted to compare his current age to the age he was in the photo with Hindley on John's burial site. Puppet was given an anesthetic and had his teeth x-rayed. However, when the examination was over, Puppet didn't wake up. He suffered from a previous illness that caused his heart to fail during the anesthetic. When Hindley was informed about Puppet's death, she screamed at the police that they were murderers. On November 4th, Brady and Hindley appeared for a last remand hearing. The size of the angry crowd increased with every court appearance, and more officers had to be called in to control the mob.

Soon after the last remand hearing, Hindley wrote her first letter to her mother Nellie from prison. She asked for decent heels because she felt like a tramp in her current clothes, which were actually Nellie's clothes. She also said she'd never felt so hurt in her life when she was told Puppet was dead. She ended the letter with the following line. This letter will probably be censored if you should write it all, do not mention anything regarding the cases. On Wednesday, November 10th, the Moor was searched for the last time. Benfield wanted to excavate the entire Hollenbrough Knoll area of the Moor, but to do it, they would have had to divert gas pipelines, which would have cost 10 million pounds.

So the excavation didn't take place. Mounsey's wife Margaret said this, quote, Joe didn't want the search to end. He felt sure they would find the other missing children. He never forgot. He often went up to the Moors, even many years later, just to stand at the roadside. I've been with him. We'd go and he'd say quietly, this is it.

He knew, we all knew, that there were other victims up there, unfound. On Monday, December 6th, committal proceedings against Brady and Hindley commenced at Hyde Magistrates Court. The committal would determine if there was enough evidence to send the case to trial. Reporters from all over the world attended. Hindley wore a flex suit with a yellow blouse she'd been saving especially for court. She sat next to Brady and they took notes together and joked in hushed voices. When they were travelling back to Rizley after the first day of the committal, they talked about dogs. Brady said, when you're driving, you must always run over a dog to avoid running over an individual.

Hindley replied, oh, I couldn't do that. On December 7th, the prosecution presented their case. When they were travelling back to Rizley after that court day, Brady told Hindley he was considering killing himself, but it would all depend how the trial went. Hindley believed that Brady needed her in that moment more than ever. On December 8th, the prosecution's star witness took the stand, David Smith. He was provided with immunity in relation to helping clean up after Edward Evans' murder. There was a general feeling of discontent amongst the community when they heard that decision.

David spoke in such a low voice that microphones had to be brought into the court so he could be heard. When he left the stand, he looked at Brady. He gave him a nod of acknowledgement and a smile, just like he had the day he was arrested. After David, Maureen took the stand, and Hindley commented about it in a letter to her mother, she wrote, Did you read the lies Maureen told in court about me hating babies and children? She wouldn't look at me in the doc mum, she couldn't. She kept her face turned down. The photographs found at 16 Waterbrook Avenue were presented to the court.

Hindley believed that these had been returned to her mother, and she wrote in a letter, Keep all the photos for us, for reasons. On December 13th, Hindley's solicitors applied for a hairdressing appointment on her behalf, stating, Her dark roots are becoming very obvious. This fact has been the subject of press comment, which is naturally a source of irritation to our client. The request was denied. On December 14th, Anne Downey, Leslie's mother, took the stand. As she was describing the events that took place on Boxing Day in 1964,

she suddenly grabbed the sides of the witness box and started screaming at Hindley, I'll kill you, I'll kill you, she can sit staring at me and she took a little baby's life, the beast. A detective was sitting below the witness box, and in that moment, he turned around and grabbed a water jug that was close by, which Anne was reaching for as she screamed. Anne continued yelling and calling Hindley a tramp, until her voice wavered and she started crying. Hindley stared at her and whispered to Brady, I'm not a tramp. Brady squeezed her hand affectionately and whispered back, No, I know you're not. On December 14th, the court made the public and press leave the room in order to play the tape.

A BBC technician from Manchester had improved the quality of it, and every sound was now very clear. The prosecution then moved on to present John Kilbride's case. The jacket he'd worn on the day of the murder was unwrapped from a plastic cover and shown to the court. The courtroom was overwhelmed by the smell. On December 16th, the weather outside was so bad, Brady and Hindley couldn't be taken back to Risley Remain Centre, so they spent the night in the cells below the court. The next morning, Hindley asked for a bag of make-up. The guard ignored her, instead handing her a cup of tea that he had poured salt into.

On Monday, December 20th, the committal proceedings ended. The judge ruled there was enough evidence for a trial in all three cases. A few days before Christmas, Brady's solicitor gave Brady and Hindley each a book of poetry. He left them alone for a few minutes, and in that time, Brady gave Hindley a notebook. While she was in her cell, she read it, and it contained coded stories of sexual cruelty towards children. The way the code worked was that Brady wrote letters to Hindley, and if the date of that letter was underlined, it meant the letter had a coded message in it. The seventh and eighth word of every line within the letter would have to be separated,

and at the end of it, putting those words together would create a short story. After reading the first story, Hindley started responding with coded letters as well. They worked as stimulation for Brady. They also planned to get married. They realised if they were married, Hindley could not be forced to testify against Brady. Hindley filled in the application forms, but permission was refused. Brady's solicitor tried getting back the photographs for them. Brady and Hindley were able to look through them and select the ones they especially wanted to keep.

Both were seen by a forensic psychiatrist. Brady spoke mostly irrelevantly, but Hindley spoke eloquently. The psychiatrist told her she was very well read, and Hindley snapped at him, saying, What for a murderess? I don't like being taken for a working class idiot. The psychiatrist asked her to have an EEG exam, which would detect any abnormalities in the brain, but Hindley refused to have it done. In March 1966, after he and Maureen had been bashed by the public repeatedly, David Smith ended up attacking a group of teenagers who called him the Third Mores Murderer

and yelled out at him, You're no bloody good without that axe, Smith. Shortly after, Anne, Leslie's mother, rang the doorbell at David and Maureen's house. She had come with Alan West and her brother. The three of them were drunk. After being let in, Anne asked David to tell the truth at the trial so that Brady and Hindley could be put away forever. David told her he would do everything he could, as he didn't want them to be let out of prison either. As she talked, Anne kept looking at Maureen, and Maureen excused herself to go and make tea for everyone. When Maureen came out of the kitchen with the tea, Anne launched at her and pushed her against the wall. Maureen immediately protected her stomach since she was pregnant, as Anne started hitting her.

It happened in a split second, and at first David didn't react, but then Hinds instinctively grabbed Anne. As he did so, Alan West went for David. David's father, who lived with them, heard the commotion and came to help. As he did so, he ended up fighting with Anne's brother. David and his father managed to get the three out of the flat. As they were leaving, they screamed, Bastards, you know different than those two, fucking bastards, you should be hung, the lot of you. When David and his father walked back into the flat, they saw Maureen crouching down on the floor, still protecting her stomach and crying. David kneeled by her side and held her. By the end of March, Hindley got her request to bleach her hair approved, and right before the trial, she wrote to her mother, saying,

I had my hair done on Saturday. It looks so nice that I'm sorry that I'm all dressed up and have nowhere to go. What was called the Trial of the Century commenced on Tuesday, April 19th, 1966. It took place in the court of Chester Osizes in the town of Chester, since it was the main town of Cheshire County. 150 reporters arrived in Chester to cover the trial. There were press rooms within the building with telephones for the reporters who couldn't get a seat inside the courtroom. 300 officers were brought in to control the angry crowds they knew would appear outside. The trial was going to be filmed and televised by the BBC, but on the second day of the hearing, it was decided that the details involving the case were too shocking and only the verdicts would be broadcast. A number of authors appeared as well, and those who wanted to enter the court had to be selected, since there were only 60 seats available inside. The jury was comprised of men only, and leading the case against Brady and Hindley was Attorney General Sir Frederick L. Wynne Jones, QC.

He'd been the prosecution counsel at the Nuremberg War Trials and only appeared in cases of national security or the most serious murder cases. Brady and Hindley's defence councils had asked for them to be tried separately, but the judge decided they should be tried together. The Attorney General opened the proceedings by outlining the crimes, their background and warning the court they'd have to hear a harrowing audio tape and examine the stressing photographs. The second day of the trial opened with evidence from the prosecution. The first witness called was Maureen. Originally, she was listed to take the stand later, but her baby was due, so they wanted to get her evidence while they could. Arrangements were made to take her to hospital urgently, if necessary. In the witness stand, she described the relationship between Brady and Hindley, the friendship between Brady and David, and confirmed that Hindley had shopped at the market in Ashton underline. When court finished for the day, Brady and Hindley were kept in cells at Hyde police station for the night. As they slept, a police ball was held on the floor above them.

On day three, Maureen was caught again, and she described the night of Edward Evans' murder. She also admitted on the stand that David was receiving a regular income from a national newspaper, and they stood to receive even more money for their story after the trial. David Smith was called to the stand after Maureen. He was asked about the payments from the newspaper. It turned out he was getting 20 pounds per week. They'd already taken a holiday in France paid by the same newspaper, and for providing his post trial story, David would receive 1,000 pounds. The background to this is that David had remained unemployed ever since the arrests. He and Maureen copped a lot of hate as well, and many saw him as the third Moore's murderer. They were pretty much outcasts. They rarely were able to get out of their own home due to being attacked both verbally and physically. David didn't have a way to provide for his family, and he didn't know when he would be able to get a job again, so he accepted the offer from the newspaper. When the information about the payment from the newspaper came out at trial, it condemned him even further in the eyes of the public.

The judge himself said the newspaper deal had given the defence a stick with which to beat him. David didn't help his cause when he said on the stand, I love having money. It's gorgeous stuff. On the fourth day of the trial, detectives spoke about the day they found Edward Evans' body. The court was adjourned for the weekend, and on Monday, April 25th, the evidence moved from Edward Evans' case to Leslie Anne Downey's case. Most of the witness statements were just read onto the record, but Paddy, Brady and Hindley's 11-year-old neighbour, who'd pointed the search in the right direction, gave her evidence and sat through cross-examination. On April 28th, the evidence moved to John Kilbride. During the trial, Hindley and Brady played games on a notebook, while passing mints to each other and sharing whispered comments. On April 29th, Brady's defence lawyer opened his case by stating, It is terribly, terribly important that you dispose from your minds all the natural revulsion one has in reading or hearing evidence connected with the death of children.

The very least or meanest person in this country is entitled to a fair and dispassionate trial and a proper assessment of the evidence for and against. Brady took the stand and elaborated further on his fight with Edward. He said he had spotted Edward at gay bars in Canal Street, and the entire purpose of David being there with him that night was because they wanted to quote, Rolla Queer, meaning Brady and David wanted to extort money from Edward in exchange for silence about his sexuality. After giving his version of Edward's murder, Brady spoke about Leslie. He testified that Leslie had come to their house on Boxing Day with two men, one of whom was David Smith. David and the other man then left with Leslie after the photos were taken. However, Brady made two slip-ups. The first one was when he was describing the moment after he took the photos.

He said he put a handkerchief on her mouth and a scarf covering the lower part of her face, just before the end. The judge heard this and asked, just before the end, what do you mean by the end? Brady then tried to correct himself and stuttering, he said, the end of, just before the, or it could be just after the tripod being opened. He was allowed to continue, and then a minute later, he made the second slip-up. This time, he said, after completion, we all got dressed and went downstairs. This slip-up was mentioned in the cross-examination by the Attorney General, but Brady denied he ever said it. His defense attorney also said he hadn't said it, but one of the jurors interrupted. He said that, sir.

Brady tried to get out of it by stating, I didn't say that, I said the girl got dressed and we all went downstairs. The girl, the girl. The Attorney General then brought up the landscape photographs and put it to Brady that he used the photos for future reconnaissance, and as morbid enjoyment of the trophies of murders. Whenever Brady could, he tried to protect Hindley. With Edward, he said she wasn't in the room during the killing, and that when he told her Edward was dead, she went hysterical. With Leslie, he said she didn't want to be in the room while she was photographed, but he'd made her stay. He also said that she asked him to destroy the tape recordings, and she was never involved in any plans of robbery.

On top of that, when describing their relationship, he made it seem like she was unimportant. He said, she was my typist in the office, I dictated to her in the office, and this tended to wrap over. The truth is that the two of them had a plan. Brady knew he was going away for a long time, and there was no getting out of it. But he was confident Hindley would receive a minimal sentence, and so he did all he could to keep her out of the crimes. Their plan was that after Hindley was released, she'd travel and share all her experiences with Brady through letters. Hindley wrote the following in a letter to her mother during the trial. He's not concerned about his future, just mine.

It's the same with me, I'm not interested in my future, just him. However, we'll have to wait and see what happens. I believe in one thing though, that no matter how black things look, someday we can begin together again. I know what we've done, and what we haven't done. You know too, no matter what happens. On May 3rd, Brady completed his testimony, and Hindley's mother, Nellie, was called to the stand. Nellie told the court that no matter what Maureen had said, Hindley did not shop at the market in Ashton Underline. After Nellie, Hindley took the stand.

Before she went to the witness box, she passed a note to her attorney that said, I told you, no cross-examination that damages Ian. Hindley was first asked if she wanted to take the oath or a firm, and she answered, I want to affirm. The judge asked her if it was because she had no religious beliefs, and she said yes. The first question the defense attorney asked her was what her feelings were for Brady, and she said, I became very fond of him, I loved him, I still love him. She was questioned during that day and the next. The attorney general asked her about Leslie.

She actually said she was ashamed about the tape and that her attitude towards Leslie had been cruel. She said she was cruel because she was worried that neighbors might hear her scream. She testified that the only reason she was in the room when the photographs were taken was to make sure Leslie would be able to leave safely afterwards. However, since she was embarrassed about being there, she kept on looking out the window and didn't actually see anything. The attorney general said, a pretty rotten witness you could have been looking out of the window. When asked who told Leslie to pose for the photographs, she said she didn't know because she couldn't hear. The attorney general said, it isn't the Albert Hall that's a small room and you were there. Hindley said the voice at the beginning of the recording who threatened Leslie to shut up wasn't hers, but Brady's.

When asked about the rest of the threats where she told Leslie she would hit her, Hindley said, I wouldn't have hit her much. I never touched her. I never harmed her. When she started crying and shouting and screaming, I just wanted her to be quiet. The attorney general responded, the screams of a little girl of 10 of your sex, madam. He added that Hindley should have treated Leslie like a woman should treat a child. Hindley said, I should have done, but I didn't. I have no defense for that. The attorney general finished with, your shame is a counterfeit shame, Miss Hindley. Hindley denied knowing she was posing for photos at burial sites.

She said she just went along with whatever Brady told her to do. She was in the witness box for a total of six hours. Brady had been in the box for nine. In his closing speech, the attorney general said that although David was no angel, he told his story frankly and exactly. As for Brady and Hindley, he said, they formed an evil partnership together and co-operated together in all they did. My submission is that the same pairs of hands killed all three of these victims, Evans, Downey and Kilbride. And these are the pairs of hands of the two accused in the dock. In his closing speech, Hindley's defense attorney described the relationship as one of master and servant. In his summary to the jury, the judge said,

From first to last, there has not been the smallest suggestion that either of these two was in any way mentally abnormal or not fully responsible for his or her actions. That leads on to this, that if the prosecution is right, you are dealing here with two killers of the utmost depravity. They are entitled to the unusual incredulity which such terrible offenses must raise in the mind of any normal person. Could anybody be as wicked as that? The jury was dismissed at 2.40pm on Friday, May 6th, 1966. They returned with a verdict two and a half hours later, 5.10pm. Brady was found guilty of all three murders. Hindley was found guilty of the murders of Edward Evans and Leslie and Downey, but not guilty of the murder of John Kilbride.

However, she was found guilty of knowing Brady had murdered John, that she had received, comforted, harboured, assisted and maintained Brady, an accessory after the fact. After the verdicts were read, the judge said, Ian Brady, those were three calculated, cruel, cold-blooded murders. In your case, I passed the only sentence the law now allows, which is three concurrent sentences of life imprisonment. In your case, Myra Hindley, you have been found guilty of two equally horrible murders, and in the third, as an accessory after the fact. On the two murders, the sentence is two concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, and on the charge of being an accessory after the fact to the death of John Kilbride, a concurrent sentence of seven years imprisonment. In the corridor below the courtroom, Brady and Hindley saw each other with their attorneys, and Hindley asked him to please not kill himself.

They returned to Risley in separate compartments of the same van, and after spending one last night there, they were each sent to different prisons. Hindley was sent to Holloway Prison in London, over 320km from Manchester. She was first kept in the hospital wing until it was deemed safe for her to be put in general population. She was accommodated in the D-Wing. It wasn't long before the attack started. She was first hit by a fellow prisoner with a broom. Then she was invited to join a card game with ten other prisoners. When she accepted, they all beat her and threw her against a wired fence.

Hindley never fought back and didn't name her attackers. She asked instead to be placed in solitary confinement. A doctor and the governor at the prison advised her that since she had such a long sentence ahead of her, she should endure the abuse, because she couldn't be placed in solitary confinement permanently. Instead, she was assigned a prison guard to walk with her everywhere she went. One week after her sentence, she appealed against her conviction on the grounds that it had been detrimental to be tried with Brady. Her appeal was denied. She was told that all her faculties were shown correctly during the trial, and Brady tried to exonerate her at all times,

so the fact that they were tried together was actually beneficial for her. Hindley remained in close contact with Brady through letters. Brady was sent to Durham Prison, 205km from Manchester. Shortly after Brady got to prison, he was scolded by an inmate and placed in solitary confinement indefinitely. He never left his cell. He ate his meals alone, spent his time reading, and had a mouse inside the cell that he fed. Whenever he took walks in the prison yard, he had to be escorted by three guards, and the rest of the prisoners had to remain inside their cells.

Brady and Hindley requested visits with one another, but their requests were refused time and time again. Maureen read about one of the attacks on her sister in prison and gathered up the courage to send her a letter to ask how she was doing. She never received a reply. In a letter Hindley wrote to Brady, she said, Smith must die, Maureen too. Maureen and David's second child, Paul Anthony Smith, was born on May 9th, 1966, three days after the trial ended. David got the £1,000 from his deal with the News of the World, but no money from syndication rights as promised. Every day, a council representative would appear at their flat to erase graffiti that was left outside their door,

saying things like, child killers live here, and murdering bastards. They were still hardly able to leave their flat, so David started taking walks in the middle of the night, because it was the only time the streets were free of people, and he could go unharmed. Maureen only left the flat to go shopping for the baby, and when she did, she got spat on and called various names. She would return crying every time she stepped out of the house. At one point, David was able to find a job. He and Maureen were excited that they might be able to live somewhat normally again. Maureen prepared him lunch to take on his first day. But when David showed up, he was met by union workers at the front gate who told him to fuck off, because there was no place for him.

David ran away, fearful he was about to get bashed. Soon after this, he received a Social Security letter informing him that due to exceptional circumstances, he was no longer required to seek employment. His probation officer, who was in close contact with him, offered to move them up north, where they'd get new names and become anonymous. David refused. He didn't want to run away like a criminal, as he said he had done nothing wrong. Plus, he didn't believe it would work anyway. The entire country knew who they were. During the summer, David and Maureen were visited by Emlyn Williams, a renowned actor and writer who was researching a book on the murders. He asked David if he believed Brady was a quote, queer. David's answer was quote, Ian's Queerer Than Queer. This line became the title to the last chapter of the book Williams wrote called Beyond Belief, which became a bestseller that was a semi-fictionalised account of the murders.

While researching the book, Williams had access to Hindley's diary. Hindley was furious. She wrote to Benfield asking how Williams had gotten access when her diaries were part of the police evidence. The book was going to be turned into a film. Hindley received a contract to sign her consent, but she refused to do so, since she considered the book a pack of lies. The victims' families also protested the film, and it was never made. On January 27, 1967, detectives visited Hindley at Holloway Prison to see if she would talk, but she refused and told them she couldn't help with the inquiries on Pauline or Keith, or any other victims for that matter. She told them to question David. In February 1968, Hindley was granted a special privilege and got transferred to Risley for one week, so that her grand could visit, since she was dying. The press reported the transfer, and it led to public outrage.

In June 1968, Hindley learnt tapestry, and with two other inmates, they made a carpet, which was for a commission from the Polish Embassy. Knowing the carpet was leaving the prison, Hindley placed a piece of paper in the hem of the carpet that read, Myra Hindley made this carpet. During the same month, David was sent to prison. He and Maureen had two more children, one in April 1967 and the other in December 1968. David and Maureen were both abusing alcohol and pills. They were moved from Underwood Court to Slade Away in Hattersley. However, the confrontations with the public continued. David had enough and stabbed the man who started to attack him.

As soon as he did it, he realised the enormity of what he'd done, so he went to the police station and turned himself in. He told the officer on the desk, You might be looking for me, my name is David Smith. There was a trial which took place in Hyde Magistrates Court, where Brady and Hindley's remand hearings and committal proceedings were helped. David was sentenced to three years in prison. He was sent to Walton Jail in Liverpool, 66 kilometres away from Manchester. In August 1968, Brady's solicitor got hold of the photographs, negatives, slides and the tartan album that belonged to Brady and Hindley. They'd been asking for them back ever since the investigation.

The solicitor gave everything to Hindley's mother and Hindley asked her to send three specific slides to Brady. Nelly didn't send them. Hindley wrote to her. He keeps asking why he hasn't received them yet. In his last letter, he said he'll have to send someone round for them. By 1970, after being separated in prison for over three and a half years, Hindley fell out of love with Brady. Their relationship through letters wasn't enough for either of them and in prison, Hindley changed her view about what their relationship was. Ever since she entered prison, Hindley had different affairs with women and that year she'd met a new lover, Trisha Cairns. Trisha was a prison officer, who was a foreman nun.

Hindley wrote a letter to Trisha, telling her she couldn't stop thinking about her and her days were brighter when she was around. After that, they started spending time together in Hindley's cell. Carol, a friend of Hindley's, kept watch and sang a song if anyone approached. It was around this time Hindley didn't feel like answering Brady's letters anymore, so she got her friend Carol to do it for her. In 1971, Carol left prison and Hindley reluctantly started answering Brady's letters again. The one person Hindley enjoyed sending letters to was Trisha. Firstly, she sent them through her cousin and later through Carol. Trisha would go to Carol's flat and read the letters, which were coded.

Hindley would also bribe other inmates with cigarettes to have messages delivered to Trisha. During this time, Hindley lost a great deal of weight. The weight loss was due to smoking and to a lack of eating. She often didn't eat her food because other inmates urinated in it. At one point, Brady sent a coded message to Hindley asking her if she wanted to end their relationship and told her he'd be waiting for her reply to see where his fate lied. Hindley was convinced that if she left him, he'd commit suicide and so she kept on corresponding, but sent him a poem about the outgrowth of love by Wordsworth, so he would understand where she was at. Brady continued writing every week.

First from Durham, then from Albany's prison, and lastly from Parkhurst prison, situated on Isle of Wight. There, he learnt Braille and started transcribing books for the blonde. By 1972, Hindley changed her mind about corresponding with Brady and said she didn't want to talk to him anymore. She told him not to bother writing to her again because she would directly pass the letters to the prison governor. As a final gesture, Brady sent her back a bookmark she'd sent him the previous Christmas. In March 72, Hindley sent a letter to Frank Pachnam, commonly known as Lord Longford, who was a politician as well as a social reformer and a very active Catholic. He was well known for visiting and forming friendships with prisoners.

He became friends with Hindley. She told him she never thought she would be ending her relationship with Brady, but because she reconciled with God, she was convinced it was the right thing to do. In a different letter to Lord Longford, she wrote, I wish to put him out of my life as totally as I do all the unhappy, destructive and godless aspects of my past life with him. And I must admit that I rarely ever think of him now. Had it not been for him, I would never have been involved in any of the things that brought me to prison. Hindley's mother, Nelly, sent five of Brady's photographs to him as soon as the relationship ended.

When David began his sentence at Walton in 1969, he was placed in solitary confinement for his own protection. The other prisoners would throw shit and piss at him. Maureen visited him a couple of times, but then she stopped showing up. At one of the visits from his father, David asked him what was happening. His father told him Maureen was seeing another man, and she had actually cheated on David with this same man before. David believed this was related to the impersonal visits in prison. The visiting room for solitary confinement inmates had thick glass. He asked to be let out of solitary confinement so he could have more personalised visits with Maureen.

In order for this to happen, he would have to become a regular inmate. The governor said his safety could not be guaranteed, but David insisted. He was transferred to Lancaster Prison, 87km from Manchester, a lot further away than Walton. When he got there, he received a letter from Maureen saying they were over. She told him not to write to her again or send her visiting requests. After reading it, David slit his wrists. He was transferred back to Walton and put on psychiatric watch. A special visit was arranged and Maureen went to see him after his suicide attempt.

They made plans to have a future together. 15 days later, he sent Maureen a new visiting request, along with a letter, but it was marked Return to Sender. At home, Maureen was neglecting their three children. She got drunk and high with the new man she was seeing, and she often disappeared for the entire day. David's father, who still lived with them, grew tired of the situation and moved out. The children were still very young. The eldest was Paul, who was six, but they were underweight, had lice and slept on sheets that hadn't been changed in months. The welfare department found out and contacted Maureen.

She admitted she was unable to take care of them. A caseworker appeared at the house to check on them. Maureen was nowhere to be found. The caseworker found the door open and the children alone inside. She took them to Acorns, a care home in the neighbourhood of Followfield, eight kilometres from Manchester. The children became the favourites of one of the nurses, and their health significantly improved. At Walton, David received a visit from his probation officer who explained the situation with the children, but told him they were doing well at the moment. To reassure him, the probation officer showed him up-to-date pitches and a special visit was arranged.

David started receiving monthly visits from his sons until he left prison in the summer of 1971. He got a house and did everything he could to rebuild a life with the boys with the help of his father. One day, they went to visit a friend of David's father, and there, David met his father's friend's daughter, Mary Flaherty. Mary had seen David before, back on December 6th, 1965, when the committal proceedings started in Hyde, and David and Maureen entered the court. Mary was only nine years old then, and went to primary school at Greenfield Street Primary, which was directly opposite the court. The moment when David and Maureen left their car to enter the court, Mary was having a break at school, and she saw the commotion of cameras, as well as the couple entering. She didn't know who the two people being photographed were, since she hadn't been told of the case. It was years later that she found out. When they formally met each other in 1971, Mary was caught to him and didn't judge.

He ended up telling her exactly who he was one day, sharing his entire story, and Mary listened. They became close after that, sharing walks together and talking every day, until Mary's 15th birthday, when David kissed her for the first time. Afterwards, they began dating. In 1972, David's father had advanced stage cancer. One day, he was completely unable to move and was in severe pain. When David got home and saw him in that state, he gave him a full bottle of sleeping pills. David called the doctor and his father was taken to hospital. He called the police and told him what he'd done. He was then charged for murder. In November, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was given just two days of imprisonment. While he was in remand awaiting court, his boys were left with Mary at her father's house, and Maureen reappeared twice.

Twice she took her sons back, twice she abandoned them again. After the second time, she didn't reappear, and the boys stayed with Mary. In September 1972, Hindley was lowered from a Category A prisoner to a Category B. Category A is for the most dangerous inmates, so being lowered to a B gave her more freedom within the prison and also outside. If the governor of the prison wanted, she could even escort Hindley outside for a short period of time. In Hindley's case, she had developed a good relationship with the governor. So the governor decided to take Hindley out and they went to Hampstead Heath, which is a park five kilometers away from the prison. They went with a friend of the governor and her dog. Hindley described the outing with the words, It was as though I had never been inside. Everything came back to me. It was the smell of grass and trees and throwing a ball for the governor's dog.

There were children playing. When they returned to prison, they were spotted and the media went haywire. There were television and radio debates and questions were even asked in Parliament. The Home Office ended up releasing a statement that said the outing was not an attempt to prepare Hindley for release, and the Home Secretary, Robert Carr, considered it an error of judgment not to be repeated. There was an internal inquiry conducted at the prison and the governor released the statement. She said, I took Myra out because I thought it would do her some good to see some grass and trees and have a breath of fresh air. Bless her heart. She enjoyed it very much. She said,

Doesn't the grass smell beautiful? I now realize that it was an error of judgment because Mr Carr has said that it was. It was later revealed that that trip to the park wasn't Hindley's first day out from prison. She'd previously been taken to an exhibition at the British Museum, and when a member of the public recognized Hindley, she thought she'd escaped from prison, so the police were called. The governor resolved this incident by saying that the outing was under strict supervision of prison staff, and that it was designed to start Hindley's rehabilitation program. After this, Hindley started planning a prison escape and turned to her prison guard lover, Trisha Cairns, to help organize it. Hindley went to Maxine Croft, an inmate from her wing that was a green-band prisoner,

meaning she was among the most trusted and had access to the officer's room for cleaning. The plan was for her to take keys from the officer's room and make copies. Maxine took the keys and made impressions with modelling plaster. She also took pictures of Hindley in order to make a new passport. She sent it all to a friend of hers who ended up dobbing them in. Hindley and Trisha were questioned and they denied it all. Officers looked for evidence and found a driver's license in the name of Myros Spencer. In April 1974, the case was heard at the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court of England.

Hindley, Trisha and Maxine were all charged. They all pleaded guilty, and Maxine's attorney said she was a naive younger woman, intimidated by two older women. Trisha's attorney said the relationship she shared with Hindley was platonic, and when Trisha herself took the stand, she said Hindley was sorry for her crimes and had been purified in the crucible of suffering. Maxine was sentenced to 18 months in prison, Hindley to 12 further months, and Trisha to six years. Plus, she had her prison service pension frozen until the age of 60. While in prison, Trisha told Hindley she didn't want any more to do with her,

and if she wrote her letters, she would hand them straight to the governor. Hindley kept trying to send her letters, and Trisha handed them to the governor as she said she would. When Trisha was released, she stayed with family in Manchester and found a job as a bus driver. One day, Danny Kilbride, John's brother, got on her bus and recognised her. He announced to the whole bus who she was, and the passengers started abusing her. Hindley was transferred to another wing, where she was allowed a small black and white television, along with books, records and photographs of family and friends. She started writing in her letters that she wanted to be a mother, and in 1975,

the prison staff wondered if she was planning a new escape. She was known to be able to imitate their voices and could perhaps open the electronic doors. She was given an official warning for it. In the same year, she reconciled with Maureen. Maureen and David divorced in 1973 on the grounds of unreasonable conduct. Maureen was given access to her sons. For the first three months, she would show up at times, but also missed a lot of visits. After three months, she didn't show up at all.

Then, Maureen met a truck driver called Bill Scott. Bill asked her out a couple of times, but Maureen said no, until one day she accepted. When they were on their first date, Bill asked why she said no so many times. She simply stated, on myra Hindley's sister. Bill told her he cared about her and not her family, and they started dating. Bill divorced his wife and moved in with Maureen. They lived in Manchester and both suffered harassment from the public. To get away from it, Maureen started travelling in the truck with Bill.

While on the road, she felt pregnant and they had a girl, Sharon. David's new relationship with Mary blossomed, and on February 16, 1975, in Flowery Field Church at Hyde, they married. When Maureen's daughter Sharon was six weeks old, she took her with Bill to meet Hindley. Maureen was nervous about seeing her sister again, but when she got there, Hindley hugged her fiercely and they both cried. They started talking about old times, and Hindley pampered Sharon, calling her a queen, and my little ray of sunshine.

She got her gifts, cards, and decorated her cell with pictures of the little baby. She also told Maureen to ask David for pictures of her three sons. David found out about the meetings between Maureen and Hindley, and was not happy. During their meetings, Maureen asked Hindley twice about other missing children, and particularly about Pauline Reed. Hindley told her both times she didn't know anything. On Sunday, September 26, 1976, the Sun posted a 10-year anniversary feature about the murders, and officers at the prison showed the newspaper to an inmate.

She was so horrified by what she read that she went after Hindley and hid her so hard that she broke her nose, loosened her teeth, left her eyes blackened, split one ear and lip, and damaged the cartilage in one of her knees. For six weeks, Hindley had to be given liquid food through a straw. She said the inmate was a pawn, and that the officers in the prison were to blame. In January 1977, Hindley was transferred to Durham Prison, 423 kilometres north. On July 6, the same year, a program called Brastalk from the BBC dedicated an episode to Hindley's bid for parole.

Hindley was given a life sentence, which was 21 years. However, after one-third of the sentence had passed, the inmate could apply for parole. In Hindley's case, that was in 1973. And ever since that time, Lord Longford had been campaigning on her behalf to get her released. However, his speeches didn't play well with the public, and they caused enragement rather than understanding. Hindley herself asked Longford and his friends to stop the campaign because it wasn't beneficial to her at all. The aim of this program was to sense the public's reaction to the possibility of seeing Hindley released. Representing her were Longford, Maureen, and the two other supporters.

Against her was Anne West, Leslie's mother, and three others. When one of Hindley's supporters was asked her impression of her, she said, Yes, my impression of Myra Hindley, eh? When I first went in, I didn't know what to expect because all I'd read was inflammatory reports in the newspapers. When I met her, she was very different. She's tall, slim, attractive, quietly spoken, sensitive person, reads a lot, and you know I don't like this expression, an angel. Because I mean she's a very nice person at the moment, and I'm certain if she's let out there's absolutely no risk at all

that she'd ever, you know, molest a child, in any sense at all. Anne West in response. I had to hear the tapes of my daughter and never heard A.M. Brady. It was Myra Hindley on that tape with my daughter, not A.M. Brady. I had to listen to that and identify the body. When does my parole begin? I'm serving a life sentence because of that monster. I had to listen to those tapes of my daughter begging for mercy.

If Myra Hindley comes out, I'll be up for murder. I've said this to Lord Longford once and I'll say it again. She will be one dead woman. I want justice. Patrick Kilbride, John's father, called the studio and supported Anne by saying, I'll wait outside the jail for her. The BBC got hundreds of calls and everyone stood by the victims' families. An opinion poll taken showed that 84% of the people believed Hindley should never be freed.

Lord Longford made a statement for Hindley afterwards and said, No one who knows her seriously supposes that she would be a public menace if she were released. Her state of remorse is such that she will be haunted by it all her life. In January 1978, Brady sent a letter to the Daily Mirror where he said he didn't want to visit from Lord Longford because of the Free Myra campaign and the fact that it didn't represent his views on parole. To Brady, what they'd done justified permanent imprisonment. Hindley had been working on her parole plea ever since she got to Durham

and she wrote 36 pages that she sent to the Home Secretary. In them, she described the crimes as something she knew nothing about and something she did because she had Brady on a pedestal. Her plea was rejected and she was told it wouldn't be considered again for another three years. Lord Longford did visit Brady at Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London where he was at the time. Longford went to confirm the account Brady had given at the trial of Hindley's role in the crimes or her lack of a role. Brady refused to help.

In January 1980, Hindley received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities becoming one of the first prisoners to study for an open university degree. She was excited, felt proud and wanted to continue but in July that year, she received some bad news about Maureen. Maureen had been on a night out with Bill when she felt a strong headache and they headed home. The next day she was vomiting and Bill rushed her to the hospital. They told her she had a brain hemorrhage and after an emergency operation, she seemed to get better. Hindley sent her a Get Well card along with money for her mother to travel back and forth to the hospital

but Maureen suffered a relapse and fell into a coma. Bill called David who visited with his older son. They both talked to Maureen while she was in a coma to see if she would wake up. Hindley was hysterical and the Home Office granted permission for her to go to the hospital. She did but when she arrived, Maureen had already been unplugged from life support. Maureen was 34 years old when she died. Hindley went to see Maureen in her coffin at the hospital chapel. She told a reporter who was there that it was the first time she had seen a dead person.

Later she wrote to her mother Nellie and told her that as painful as it was for her she knew it must be worse for a parent to lose a child. The day after she asked other inmates to do a rosary for Maureen and they did. Two days later she wrote to the authorities and told them that although she wanted to attend the funeral she wouldn't be putting in a request because she knew the press would be there and she wanted to preserve the family and her sister's dignity. The press wasn't the funeral anyway and so were Ann West and Patrick Kilbride. Patrick confused one of the women for Hindley and launched after her.

He was tackled and taken away by the police. Ann waited for everyone to leave and went to a flower arrangement Hindley had sent with a card that said there are no words to express how I miss you, I love you, Myra. Ann ripped it apart. Four months later Hindley's father Bob died. He was told of Maureen's death and he didn't take the news well. He suffered a heart attack. Those that knew him thought it might have been for the best anyway as his life had been hell as well.

He had bricks thrown through his windows constantly, got sent hate letters and was also abused and threatened when he left the house. Hindley again wrote to the authorities and informed them she didn't want to attend the funeral. This time she said it was because she never had a good relationship with her father. After that Hindley fell into a depression. In 1982 two influential men started campaigning for her release. Peter Timbs and David Aster. Timbs had been a prison officer and a governor and Aster an editor at the Observer.

They were friends of Lord Longford and he asked them to intervene because he wasn't getting anywhere. Timbs went as far as trying to arrange for the Pope to visit Hindley in prison when he visited the UK, but the Archbishop said no. Aster started corresponding with Hindley and she got a new solicitor. Together they tried to change the public's view about her and Hindley gave an interview with two journalists from the Sunday Times. In the interview she said again that Brady had influenced her. The article ran with a headline, The Woman Who Cannot Face the Truth.

Around the same time Hindley heard Brady had requested to see the police. It was true, but when the police saw him, Brady just sat there and didn't say anything. Hindley was transferred to Cookham Wood Prison which had far better living conditions and West, Leslie's mother, was photographed at the gates protesting against the move. Anne had been battling throughout these years. She had twice taken an overdose of tranquilizers and she voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital. In February 1984 Hindley got a letter from Leslie's uncle that included the line, I would still be prepared to kill you and stand trial for my crime.

Hindley didn't respond and he sent her another letter. He also contacted the press. Hindley asked the prison governor to intervene saying that she had always felt threatened by the Downey family and was worried about the hate campaign they were creating against her. She didn't receive any more letters after that. A few weeks later an inmate entered her cell in the middle of the night, threw her out of bed and hit her in the head with the shoe. She had a slow recovery after this attack.

On July 23rd she was transferred to the prison hospital and remained for two months mainly due to depression. When she was sent back to her wing she changed jobs and started working in the library as well as knitting for other prisoners children and their families and friends. She said it was too late for her to be a mother but she'd always wanted to be one. In 1985 a prison review committee recommended Hindley for parole. When the press reported it Danny Kilbride told the Sun he'd kill Hindley if she was released. Hindley got him arrested through her solicitor and the police wanted him to retract his statement. Danny didn't.

He explained it had been too hard for him and his family after John. In May the home secretary announced the parole board had analysed Hindley's case and determined she should stay in prison for at least five more years before being considered for release. Hindley sent a letter to him and called him a mental executioner as well as saying that her religious beliefs were the only thing that kept her from taking her own life at that moment. Then in June 1985 there was breaking news. Fred Harrison, a reporter, broke the story that Ian Brady had confessed to the murders of Pauline Reed and Keith Bennett. Brady was now in Gartree prison located in Market Harbour, Leicestershire.

In his cell he only had a bed, a table, a chair and a bucket and during the night he would sleep on the chair and guards would hear him scream or cursing. He said he was hearing voices and would often require sedation. Since 1983 Brady had been corresponding with Harrison and by the end of 84 he allowed him to visit. When talking about the crimes Brady declared them the acts of a madman. He said he didn't deserve sympathy and didn't seek it, that he wanted to spend the rest of his life in prison. When Hindley heard the news Brady had confessed to Pauline and Keith's murders she was so affected that she ended up in prison hospital taking tranquilizers and rejecting any food.

Another person who heard the news was the head of the Greater Manchester Criminal Investigation Division, Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping. Along with two other detectives he went to see Brady but Brady was in no state to speak. He was diagnosed with acute paranoia and schizophrenia and moved to a higher security psychiatric unit, Park Lane in Liverpool. When the news came out and West, Leslie's mother threatened to go and dig up the moor herself. In early 1986 she announced that she had written to Brady asking him to meet with her. She wanted to convince him to tell the truth and reveal the remaining burial sites but the authorities didn't believe it was a good idea. Brady didn't like the idea either, Anne wasn't the only person who had written to him, Keith's mother Winnie Johnson had as well.

Brady admitted he'd gotten both letters but that he was afraid of reading them and that he couldn't imagine how a meeting would go. In April he did end up writing back to Anne and to short her he would never seek parole and that he felt remorse. In addition he let her know that for the past 18 years he'd been doing work with Braille and that even though he couldn't balance the past he was at least doing something positive and useful. He never wrote back to Winnie Johnson. Winnie tried writing to Hindley as well. She said, please I beg of you tell me what happened to Keith. My heart tells me you know and I am on bended knees begging you to end this torture and finally put my mind at rest. Please Miss Hindley, help me.

When reading the letter Hindley cried and was unable to speak for a while. When she got her voice back she said, I wish I did know something. I could at least then put the poor woman out of her misery. On November 3rd she wrote to Timbs and told him that she didn't have any guilty secrets so she wondered if she should reply to Winnie. Hindley said, for the sake of this poor demented woman the awful tragedy is that I cannot help her in any way. If I could I would, I swear this as God is my judge. I'd even be willing to contact the police and ask them to take me to those awful moors but those moors are so vast I wouldn't know where to start or even what I was looking for. Timbs told her not to reply and when Winnie insisted for a meeting he advised Hindley not to meet her.

On November 17th Timbs visited Hindley and while they were discussing the letter Peter Topping appeared. He asked her to talk and Hindley agreed but on the condition that Timbs would be present. Topping asked her if she'd be willing to look at maps and photographs. Hindley agreed. On November 18th Topping returned and as he studied Hindley he realised she gave special attention to the photographs that were believed to be taken at Holland Brown Knoll and Shawnee Brook, the stream at Wessenden Head. The two places were already marked and were being searched. Topping hadn't revealed it to anyone but he was already searching them all. The search consisted of one man and his dog going over two selected spots. One was Holland Brown Knoll since it was the logical place to start given two bodies had already been found there. And the other was Ho Grain located three kilometres away in Wessenden Head. Ho Grain went as a vertical stream into Shawnee Brook. After looking at the pictures and maps Hindley issued a statement through her solicitor saying she helped Manchester police with their new search on the moor and pointed out places that were of particular interest to Brady.

On November 20th 1986 a full team started searching the moor. The team was led by Topping. Asta wrote to Hindley and told her that with Timbs and Lord Longford they'd discussed her case and they all agreed that her problems were with public opinion and not with the law. He recommended setting Timbs as her spokesperson. Topping tried talking to Brady again. Brady was doing better but he refused to help. The home secretary granted permission to take Hindley to the moor if necessary and the media had already started speculating about a visit. There was rumoured that a clear photo of her at the moor might be worth as much as 20,000 pounds. On the morning of December 16th 1986 Hindley was awoken in her cell and driven to Kent police headquarters in Maidstone. From there she boarded a helicopter with her solicitor and two police officers and at 8.30am they arrived at the moor. She was handed a jacket, sandwiches and a hot drink and then she was driven to Shawnee Brook.

However a member of parliament had leaked news of the visit and in order to escape the press Topping took Hindley on an alternate route that she'd never seen because it was built after her arrest. She told Topping she was finding it hard to get her bearings and at midday she suggested entering from a spot she was more familiar with. As they got there media helicopters started circling and Hindley broke down in tears. She pointed out some spots and spoke about a hill but couldn't give any clear details. They then drove to Holland Brown Knoll. They took Hindley to the area where John and Leslie's burial sites were found. But as they stood there Hindley said she didn't know where the previous burial sites were and for that reason she couldn't know where any other burial sites could be. At 3pm she was put back on the helicopter and taken back to prison. David Smith was also approached by Topping and taken to the moor.

He wasn't able to say much other than he remembered parking the car with Brady and Hindley at Hough Grain. The press covered the search and criticised how it was being handled and how there was still no results. Topping ignored them. On January 27th 1987 he went back to see Hindley. Sitting with her solicitor Hindley told them that David Smith was not involved in Pauline's murder. That none of the murders happened in the house at Banoch Street and that the search should focus on Shawnee Brook and Holland Brown Knoll. Afterwards her solicitor along with Tims, Aster and another attorney held an emergency meeting to discuss if Hindley should make a full confession to the police. She'd already made one to Tims.

Tims was qualified as a Methodist minister as well as already being a therapist and he held sessions once a week with Hindley for months. The four men decided it was in Hindley's best interest to make a full confession. The meeting leaked to the press and Aster and Tims believed it had been Hindley's solicitor who told them so they convinced her to get rid of him. Hindley reluctantly did so and the last thing he said as her representative was, the heroine in this story is my client. She's been very, very brave. On February 5th Hindley sent a cryptic letter to Aster where she seemed to imply there was information she wasn't revealing. Aster in turn wrote to Tims and asked him the meaning behind her words. On February 19th 1987 Hindley had a meeting with Topping and with Tims by her side she told the detective she helped Brady kill Pauline Reed and Keith Bennett.

The confession wasn't cautioned or recorded. While she spoke she cried and afterwards she spent the weekend sedated. On Monday and Tuesday she retook the confession and told them her entire life story and everything she knew about the murders. She found it particularly hard to talk about Pauline and Leslie and she was given several tranquilizers as she did so. The detective working with Topping ended feeling terrible for her. Hindley had again given a version where Brady controlled her and the detective believed she had been so absolutely besotted by him that she'd do all sorts of things for the love and respect of her partner. He stated, had she not met Ian Brady and fallen in love with him she would have fallen in love and gotten married and had a family and been like any other member of the public. Topping didn't agree with his fellow detective.

He realized that many points Hindley had quoted parts from a speech the Attorney General gave at the 1966 trial where he told the court Hindley had been an ordinary girl before meeting Brady and he made her fall through the path where they ended. Topping stated her reference to this document made me realize that her confession was being carefully controlled. She also spoke in a very almost too organized way when describing the killings. After she described how Pauline died she used the phrase, well that as far as I remember concludes the first murder which was Pauline Reads. Topping asked her like other detectives had before if the photographs were markers for the burial sites. Her answer was no. She denied knowing about any other murders and at the end Topping had mixed feelings. He felt what he'd seen and heard was a great performance rather than a genuine confession.

When they finished Hindley returned to her cell and a moment later called Timbs to tell him she was ready to go on the record. He begged her not to but Hindley responded, no I should have done this 20 years ago. Timbs then called Topping and for two days Hindley went over her confession again this time it was cautioned and recorded. As a result of her confession the home office cancelled her cancelling sessions with Timbs. Hindley sent a letter where she said she was burdened with the aftermath and at one point she wrote, I believe suicide to be a mortal sin and one that cannot be forgiven unlike the mortal sins I recently confessed to and received absolution from. Topping went to see Brady and told him that Hindley had made a full and complete confession. Brady said he would do the same if he was given the means to commit suicide afterwards.

On March 23rd Hindley was taken from prison in an unmarked car during the evening and spent the night at Greater Manchester's police training school. In the early hours of the following morning Topping took her back to the moor. They first went to Ho Grain and after lunch they travelled three kilometres to Holland Brown Knoll. Hindley showed excitement and told Topping he was looking in all the right places. At Holland Brown Knoll she said her and Brady had hidden a metal box but she wasn't able to point at any specific place. She also didn't say what the box contained. On April 15th she wrote to the authorities and told them she didn't want to be considered for parole in 1990 and that she was concentrating on writing her autobiography. She'd started writing it at the end of 1985 after Timbs suggested the idea.

In November that year they approached an author to co-write the book with Hindley but Hindley decided she wanted to do it on her own. After that they contacted an agent and a deal was made. They agreed on a sum of £100,000, 70% of which would go to charity while the other 30% would go to her mother Nellie. For charity Hindley wanted the funds to go to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children but her advisors told her it wouldn't be the best idea so she decided to choose the National Council for Civil Liberties instead. The Home Office approved the deal and she began working delivering the book and instalments to Asta. About her book Hindley stated, I hope that in some way what I am able to relate will enable a wiser understanding of the awful complexities surrounding the abuse of children.

In April the news about her confession came out and it caused media discussions all over again. Keith Bennett's mum Winnie Johnson wrote to her and this time Hindley responded thanking her for the previous letters and telling her that if she'd only written to her 14 years before she would have been able to help because 14 years prior is when Hindley was still talking to Brady. Pauline and Keith's families wanted a new trial as Hindley and Brady had only been convicted of Edward, Leslie and John's murders. Hindley said she'd be happy for a new trial but topping shot down the idea stating it wouldn't be necessary. Several supporters of Hindley felt betrayed by her confession to Pauline and Keith's murder since several had spoken on her behalf and defended her openly in public.

Her mother Nellie had to resign from her job and stay at home because the harassment from the public ramped up again. Bill, Nellie's husband, Hindley's stepfather didn't want any more to do with Hindley. The house Hindley and Brady shared at 16 Waterbrook Avenue was constantly damaged and the council decided to demolish it. Hindley took another step when she wrote an open letter to the BBC where she asked Brady to cooperate and give a full confession to the police just like she had. In prison she was analysed by psychiatrists and was found to be of sound mind. Hindley herself said confessing everything had unleashed a thousand demons that hadn't left her since the murders. She also felt haunted by not talking earlier. The psychiatrists believed what Hindley was looking for with the confession had more to do with her remaining in the public eye than anything else.

Brady did cooperate with the police. He didn't give a full confession but he spoke and in return he asked for what he called a human week which meant being able to eat and drink whatever he wanted as well as being able to watch old films such as Gone with the Wind. One point he insisted on was the fact that Hindley knew very well where the burial sites were and she was purposefully choosing not to tell them. During May there were torrential rains at the moor and the excavated areas at Hough Grain were flooded. The search moved to the higher areas of Holland Brown Knoll and stayed close to Leslie's grave but far from the road since Hindley had described Pauline's body as lying on the grass and that seemed to suggest the place had to be deeper into the moor. On June 17th Topping called Hindley and pressured her to try and remember more details about Pauline's burial site. Hindley told him that she now remembered Pauline wasn't so close to the gas pipeline and was further back from Leslie.

She added that when she stood next to her she was able to see the rocks at Holland Brown Knoll outlined in the sky. On July 1st 1987 towards the end of the day the team of searchers were walking through the grass when they noticed a change in vegetation. They started carefully digging and after a few minutes they found a white shoe. The team left everything as it was and called Topping to come to the moor. They continued digging and found the remains of Pauline Reed almost perfectly preserved. Like Leslie she was lying on her side and her knees were bent up towards her chest with her left arm crossing at front and her right arm resting by her side. The foot that was missing a shoe was better preserved than the covered one. Her clothes were opened and dishevelled and once more the detectives had no doubt as to what had happened to her.

Topping went to see Amos Reed and gave him the news. He didn't say much other than he was sorry that his wife Joan was in psychiatric care. Topping called Winnie Johnson and told her a body had been found but it wasn't Keith's. She started crying on the phone and Topping told her he would continue searching. Hindley read the news the next day and Brady was visited by Topping. Brady told him it was funny how long the police had been close to Pauline's burial site without knowing. On July 3rd Topping took Brady to the moor. They went to Houghgrain first just like they had with Hindley.

Brady started walking on and off through different places not really stopping anywhere. When he got to the meeting point between Houghgrain and Shiny Brook Brady finally pointed at a slope and said he'd hidden a spade in that particular spot. The police dug and found nothing. Then Brady climbed onto a higher rock. Topping went after him believing Brady wanted to throw himself off. However Brady told him he just wanted to enjoy the view. When they returned Topping came to the conclusion that the visit only benefited Brady.

Not long after Brady sent a letter to the BBC claiming he'd killed five more people. The police investigated but it led nowhere. Topping still visited Brady often trying to get information out of him. Brady told him he was ashamed of what he'd done and he didn't want to discuss how he killed the children. He had blocks in his mind and he didn't want to remove them because he was afraid of what might happen if he did so. Topping tried speaking with Maggie Brady's mother to see if perhaps she knew something but she didn't. She struggled every day to understand what had gone wrong with her son. On August 4th Topping went to see Hindley again.

He hadn't communicated with her since they found Pauline and Hindley felt offended. She also complained at how long it took to find Pauline which he felt she'd given very clear directions. On August 7th 1987 Pauline was buried in Gorton Cemetery. Her mother Joan was heavily sedated at the psychiatric hospital where she was still under care and was escorted to the burial with two nurses. Hundreds were there to pay their respects and among them were Leslie's mother and West along with most of the Kilbride family. On August 24th the search of them all was cancelled. Topping promised Winnie Johnson that if significant information arose they would resume the search for Keith.

Topping stayed in close contact with Brady and Hindley and in December he took Brady to the Moor for a second time. Once again it led nowhere. Brady suggested that he should meet with Hindley to discuss where Keith could be. Topping told him that wouldn't be happening. Topping concluded Brady and Hindley still had a very strong connection, he said. Despite the fact that he was at times very critical of her and despite the fact that she had not hesitated to outline his crimes I felt they both still had a lingering regard for each other. Neither seemed to want to hurt the other.

Hindley continued to try and change the public's view of her and she wrote a letter to Anne West. It ended in a shambles when at one point she said Then Hindley wanted to meet with a journalist who had written several articles on miscarriages of justice. It didn't end well. The first question the journalist asked her was how she could take a 10 year old off the streets referring to Leslie. Hindley's answer was, she shouldn't have been out so late at night. The journalist described her as being a bit of a nuisance. Hindley's answer was, she shouldn't have been out so late at night.

She shouldn't have been out so late at night. The journalist described Hindley as a narcissist psychopath with grandiose ideas of herself who would rather be remembered as Myra Hindley child murderer than not to be remembered at all. The journalist believed it was rubbish that she was under the spell of Brady and determined Hindley played a much larger role in the crimes than she was letting on. In September 1989 Hindley was told her autobiography wouldn't get published. Asta had found the writings awful and so did the publisher. Hindley decided to do a rewrite.

Hindley said she felt troubled because she wanted to help but she couldn't since she didn't know where Keith Bennett's burial site was. In January 1990 which was the year Hindley could be considered for parole again, Brady sent an open letter to the press where he said Hindley enjoyed the murders and he could prove it with all the letters they exchanged in their first years of prison. He wrote, I have the written words of Myra herself in the shape of six and a half years of her letters written to me after our imprisonment.

In there she writes nostalgically and lyrically of the murders which she regarded as a substitute marriage ritual but which I saw as products of an existentialist philosophy in tandem with the spiritualism of the death itself. I have only given you a brief glimpse of what occurred 25 years ago. Those letters were never released. Shortly afterwards Brady was taken to a psychiatric ward after he made threats of suicide. Brady began a protest in the form of a hunger strike.

He was force fed and closely supervised. Hindley tried to work on her parole again. What she didn't know was that the home office had already made the recommendation that she should never be released. However this wasn't going to be announced until 1994 so Hindley prepared herself for a parole bid. Tim's anaster got her a therapist. The therapist stated just like Topping had

that Hindley showed most emotion when talking about Pauline and Leslie whereas when she spoke about John, Keith or Edward she'd do it like she was reading it from a book. When the therapist wrote his final report on Hindley they argued over a particular word she used to describe the crimes. Excitement. Hindley wanted the word to be removed since it would put her in a bad light

but her therapist insisted it was important and accurate so it would stay. Hindley planned a life outside. Trisha Keans entered her life again in 1989 and at one point she quit her job in Manchester to move to London where she lived in a house owned by Aster who fully supported their relationship. Trisha went as far as taking catalogues of furniture to choose with Hindley

for the life they would share when she was released. Although Hindley was having a relationship with another woman at the same time for a while, a Dutch criminology student who was at Cookham Wood Prison as part of a placement scheme she found Hindley to be smart, sensitive and good company. The both of them also banked on Hindley leaving prison and sharing a life together. Hindley went as far as making an official application to live in Amsterdam

however she was informed she'd have to demonstrate her ability to adjust to a British community first. Brady continued his campaign to make sure Hindley would never be released. He wrote to the Sunday Mirror and told them there were more murders they had committed. Hindley responded to that letter. On my mother's life, which I hold the dearest, there are no others not to my knowledge and certainly none that I have taken part in but that's not to say there aren't any.

In December 1994, Hindley was informed by the Home Office that her campaign for parole had been in vain. Hindley had been marked never to be released. Hindley took the news so badly that she was put on suicide watch. She remained on permanent observation for some time afterwards. Hindley's therapist said this about the news. She hoped that somewhere, some time, there would be a Home Secretary robust enough to put her out there secretly, if not openly.

She firmly believed that she could be given a new identity. She referred to the boys who killed James Bolger and very often to Mary Bell. She felt strongly that what was good enough for Mary Bell was good enough for her. On February 1st 1995, Hindley wrote to the Home Office and informed them that due to her treatment in prison she no longer felt physically or mentally capable of undergoing hypnosis. The idea of hypnosis is something that had been proposed by Topping to try and help find Keith Bennett's burial site.

Hindley was initially open to the idea until she found out she was never getting released. In March 1995, Hindley wrote another letter, this time stating she may be open to hypnosis if she was transferred back to Durham Prison. In the months that followed, Keith's mother, Winnie Johnson, spoke negatively to the press about Hindley and her unwillingness to help. Hindley told her solicitor the following, She's become as bad as Mrs West. If she's so constantly disgusted with or about me,

why doesn't she ask Ian Brady to jeopardise his mental health with hypnosis? Please express my disgust with her in a discreet way as possible. As the year continued, the Home Office dropped the hypnosis idea altogether since they felt Hindley would only participate if she was given parole. On November 14th 1995, Hindley drafted a new appeal petition and wrote, All my years in prison have reinforced my belief that crimes of any kind are totally destructive, not least for the victims, but also for the perpetrators. All I would want to do is lead a quiet life, keep out of the public eye,

perhaps if possible do something quietly useful, and end my days in relative obscurity. Hindley's possibility to lead that quiet life came in 1997 when she was appointed a high-profile barrister. There was no coincidence the barrister was married to one of Lord Longford's granddaughters. He applied for a judicial review in Hindley's case. The media was all over the story. Danny Kilbride, John's brother, quit his job to petition against Hindley and managed to collect 40,000 signatures in Ashton underline alone from people who believed Hindley should die in prison.

On December 18th 1997, the divisional court dismissed the appeal. In early 1998 Hindley was transferred to High Point, a medium security prison in Suffolk. That same year she wrote an open letter to the press where she gave a whole new version about the crimes and her relationship with Brady. She stated her relationship with Brady was an abusive one, where Brady would threaten, rape and hit her. She said she was always covered in bruises and bite marks. As an explanation as to why she held Brady with the crimes, she said Brady drugged her and took pornographic pictures of her, which he threatened to show everyone she knew if she didn't help him.

The pictures did exist, they'd been found during the police investigation. They showed Hindley in crotchless black pants and her and Brady having sex with white hoods that covered their faces. They also showed Hindley with whip marks. Brady explained that the idea was to sell them and the whip marks weren't real, they were drawn with lipstick. He said the photos were taken consensually. Hindley said that Brady had also drugged her grand on one occasion and threatened that the next time it would be her sister, then her mother and so on, unless she helped. Hindley said she applied for a job in the Navy in Germany to escape Brady,

but in the end she stayed, since she felt she had no choice. She named many other instances of physical and verbal abuse and concluded the following about Pauline Reed. I knew I had a choice, I could either just wave at Pauline and drive past her, in which case she would have lived and I would have had to endure the consequences of Brady's rage. This all happened in split seconds. I looked at Pauline and saw my sister there and my grand and my mum. I made the choice of having to sacrifice Pauline so that my own family would be safe. I felt sick with fear and self-loathing as I asked her if she wanted a lift.

She readily accepted and I opened the passenger door to the car for her to get in. She claimed that after the killing of Pauline, Brady told Hindley she would end up in the grave with her if she tried to back out. When they cleaned up at the house, Brady took out a bottle of Drambewee to celebrate and told her that he'd done it, the perfect murder. He asked Hindley how she felt about it and she told him she never imagined something like that happening and began to cry. Brady held her and told her he'd try and control his temper and Hindley promised she'd try not to provoke him. Then he stroked her hair and Hindley said this new tenderness touched the core of her heart and she suddenly felt all the love for him she felt in the beginning. And it was this tenderness and love that took place in between the murders that made her help once again. Before John's murder, when Brady told her that he wanted to do another one but he wanted someone smaller, Hindley was reluctant to help so he strangled her until she agreed.

Hindley felt as if the pattern of her life had been mapped out but she couldn't stop loving him nonetheless. Brady is adamant that these claims by Hindley are a load of bullshit and Hindley was just as willing as he was in all the murders. He responded with an open letter of his own stating that everything Hindley said was a lie. Hindley's therapist also commented and said it was about time that Hindley took responsibility for her crimes instead of trying to make excuses. Hindley and her supporters continued fighting for her release until the very end. Lord Longford and Aster both remained vocal until their deaths in 2001. In 2002, the House of Lords ruled that the Home Secretary should not have the power to increase prison terms and the possibility of Hindley being released became a very real one. So the Home Secretary ordered Greater Manchester Police to come up with new charges to keep her in prison.

Hindley gave an interview soon after this news and said that her only wish was to not die in prison. She didn't get her wish. On November 15, 2002, at 4.55pm, Hindley died in hospital of bronchial pneumonia. A radio station offered 500 pounds to listeners if they could guess the time of her death. Hindley died at West Suffolk Hospital. She was transferred there from prison when her health deteriorated. The hospital burnt every single item Hindley came into contact with and had nothing to do with the disease. A spokesperson from the hospital said they were being quote, sensitive to future patients. Hindley's funeral was funded with her estate and what was left afterwards reportedly went to charities.

There were rumors some went to the National Society for the prevention of cruelty to children, just like Hindley had wanted the funds from her autobiography to go to. But the society said they had never received any funds from Hindley and even if they had, they would have immediately returned them. Hindley had requested the presence of 12 close family and friends. Among the ones who didn't attend were Maureen's widow Bill, their daughter Sharon and Hindley's mother Nellie because she was too frail to make the trip. At the funeral, which took place on November 20th, the priest used the story of the prodigal son from the Bible because he felt she was the prodigal daughter. According to him, she'd gone away from the decency of humanity and from God, but somewhere she made the decision to return to us and to the church. God forgave her and she became a different person. Hindley's ashes were given to Trisha Cairns, her former partner, who scattered them at the foot of Saddleworth Mall.

Both of Pauline Reed's parents died before Hindley, Amos in 1996 and Joan in 2001. In one of the last statements Joan gave, she talked about Pauline and said, She's not suffering now. No one can hurt her now. I feel her that close, you see. That seems to buck me up a lot. I feel her so close to me. I miss her so much. I still do. She's my little girl. Sheila Kilbride died before Hindley as well. When Joan was killed, she cried for two years straight until his body was found. She also continued setting a plate for him at the table for a very long time. When John's brother Danny heard of Hindley's death, he couldn't believe it and he phoned the authorities to see if he could attend the funeral. He was told he would be arrested on the spot if he turned up.

In the end, Danny was just glad Hindley would no longer be pestering for parole. Leslie's mother Anne West died in 1999. In one of her last interviews she described how Leslie's grave had been vandalised several times. On one occasion someone wrote, Let Myra go on her headstone. Anne ended up moving Leslie to a secret spot. She also went to see Robert Spears who'd found Leslie and gave him a plaque as a thank you for bringing her daughter back to her. Before passing away, she gave the following message to a journalist for Hindley. If there is such a thing as haunting and ghosts, I'll be on her shoulder morning, noon and night. She'll not get rid of me. Edward Evans' family stayed away from the press ever since the trial back in 1966. Winnie Johnson cried when Hindley died and said,

At every opportunity I begged Hindley to tell me exactly where Keith's grave was. But in my heart, I knew she was a wicked sadist who would never tell and would take a terrible secret to the grave. David Smith moved to Ireland with Mary in 1994 to start a new life. They continued to face the wrath of the public and press over the years. David said this wrath is what led to the destruction of him and Maureen, but with Mary it made them stronger. When he found out Hindley died, he felt relief. Mary on the other hand cried because she believed the entire media and public outcry would start all over again. Brady saw the news from Ashworth Hospital where he was being kept in the psychiatric ward. When he heard, he remained sitting still instead at the television with an expressionless face.

In 2013, Brady was denied a transfer to a prison. He's been trying for years to be moved to a prison in Scotland because he wouldn't get force fed there. His wish is to die of starvation. In 2003, the search for Keith in the Moors resumed under the name Operation Maeda. Detectives visited Brady, but like before, it led nowhere. They searched mostly at Shiny Brook using the information from the previous searches and Brady's photographs. After a few years, the operation came to an end. In 2012, a broken spade was found, believed to be related to the burial of Keith.

And recently, a double-barreled shotgun was found with gun cartridges, lengths of rope, plastic sheeting, a motorcycle glove and a hunting knife under rocks in Saddleworth Moor. David Smith died in 2012, aged 64. He was vilified throughout his entire life, but as one detective put it, he was a bit of a rum customer, but if it hadn't been for Smith, more children would have been killed. Evans would have ended up on the Moor, and we would never have been any wiser. One of the last statements David Smith gave was at Saddleworth Moor, and it was directed at Brady. He said, No one should lie in an unmarked grave. Do you understand what I'm saying?

No child should be without a headstone when they die. The very least you can give them is that, somewhere for their family to visit. A stretch of Blake Field with no one knowing they're there. It isn't right. I think you understand. I hope you do. Keith's mother, Winnie Johnson, died in 2012. After her death, Keith's brother Alan wrote the following on his website, searching for Keith.com. As far as I'm concerned, until Keith is found, then he is still in the possession of Brady and Hindley. Our fear as a family is that now my mother is no longer with us. This may be seen by the police and the media as some sort of closure to the case.

This must not be allowed to happen, both out of respect for Keith and my mother's memory, and for those who love them both. Police are still hopeful they will find Keith. Over the years, some detectives have described Brady's attention to detail and cleaning up forensic evidence, put him as much as 20 years ahead of his time. For many years, the name Myra was banned in the UK. Not officially, of course, but mothers refused to name their daughters Myra because of the public outrage Hindley caused. In 2001, Brady published The Gates of Janus, a book about the psychology behind serial killers. In order to illustrate how a person feels about the crime they committed, he quoted a poem by W.H. Orden called The Two. Many believe Brady used this poem to describe himself and Hindley. The Two by W.H. Orden

You are the town and we are the clock, we are the guardians of the gate in the rock, the two. On your left and on your right, in the day and in the night, we are watching you. Wiser done to ask just what has occurred to them who disobeyed our word. To those we were the whirlpool, we were the reef, we were the formal nightmare, grief and the unlucky rose. Climb up the crane, learn the sailors' words, when the ships from the islands laden with birds come in. Tell your stories of fishing and other men's wives, the expansive moments of constricted lives in the lighted inn. But do not imagine we do not know, nor that what you hide with such care won't show at a glance. Nothing is done, nothing is said, but don't make the mistake of believing us dead. I shouldn't dance. We're afraid in that case you'll have a fall, we've been watching you over the garden wall for hours.

The sky is darkening like a stain, something is going to fall like rain, and it won't be flawless. When the greenfield comes off like a lid, revealing what was much better hid, unpleasant, and look behind you without a sound, the woods have come up and are standing round, in deadly crescent. The bolt is sliding in its groove, outside the window is the black removers bin, and now with sudden swift emergence, come the women in dark glasses and humpback surgeons, and the scissors man. This might happen any day, so be careful what you say or do. Be clean, be tidy, oil the lock, trim the garden, wind the clock. Remember the two. Brady's former psychiatrist, Professor Malcolm McCulloch, has suggested that when Brady was taken to the Moors in 1987, in an attempt to find Keith's body, it could have been nothing more than an attempt by Brady to exercise further control over his victims' families, and that it's more than possible Brady checked on the gravesite while he was there, but didn't point it out.

McCulloch said, quote, Final control is possession of the body. I know, you don't know, you want to know, and I'm not going to tell you. you