When was myra hindley caught

His grave was unearthed in ; Brady had taken a photograph of Hindley standing on the edge of his grave which aided in the search. There was a short respite until June of when the sadistic couple took year-old Keith Bennett as their third victim. He was abducted as he left his home in Chorlton-on-Medlock.

The youngest victim was year-old Lesley Ann Downey. She was abducted from a fairground on Boxing Day of and forced to pose for explicit photographs before being strangled.

Bradley and Hindley had audio recorded her final moments on earth and during their murder trial, the grim tape reduced even the most seasoned police officers to tears. The final victim was year-old Edward Evans.

He was forced to watch as Brady attacked Edward with an axe, smothered him with a cushion and then strangled him with an electrical cable. Following the murder, Brady quipped that it was the 'messiest yet. The final murder would crack the case wide open. David had been the victim of a troubled upbringing and his life had been marred by violence.

His teenage mother vanished when he was less than a year old and his father handed him over to his own parents to look after. When he was just years-old, he appeared in court after wounding another boy with a knife during a fight. Shortly thereafter, he was expelled from school for punching the headmaster. He was then taken to Rose Hill remand school. Growing up, he modelled himself on James Dean and had been charged with several petty crimes. Brady and Hindley had anticipated that David could become an accomplice in their grisly crimes.

Over the years, Brady had attempted to deprave the teenager and had been trying to groom him as a partner-in-crime. They had taken him on wine-fuelled expeditions to Saddleworth Moor and spoken about torture and Nazism. In fact, in October of , a drunk Brady had bragged to David that he had committed several murders but according to David, he believed that the conversations were nothing more than drunken rambles.

The lad was still screaming. I heard the blow, it was a terrible hard blow, it sounded horrible. Early on the morning of 7 October, shortly after Smith's call, Superintendent Bob Talbot of the Cheshire Police arrived at the back door of 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, wearing a borrowed baker's overall to cover his uniform.

Talbot identified himself to Hindley as a police officer when she opened the door, and told her that he wanted to speak to her boyfriend. Hindley led him into the living room, where Brady was sitting up in a divan writing a note to his employer explaining that he would not be able to get into work because of his ankle injury. Talbot explained that he was investigating "an act of violence involving guns" that was reported to have taken place the previous evening.

Hindley denied that there had been any violence, and allowed police to look around the house. When they came to the upstairs room in which Evans' body was stored the police found the door locked, and asked Brady for the key.

Hindley claimed that the key was at work, but after the police offered to drive her to her employer's premises to retrieve it, Brady told her to hand the key over. When they returned to the living room the police told Brady that they had discovered a trussed up body, and that he was being arrested on suspicion of murder.

As Brady was getting dressed, he said "Eddie and I had a row and the situation got out of hand. Hindley was not arrested with Brady, but she demanded to go with him to the police station, accompanied by her dog Puppet, to which the police agreed. Hindley was questioned about the events surrounding Evans' death, but she refused to make any statement beyond claiming that it had been an accident.

As the police had no evidence that Hindley was involved in Evans' murder she was allowed to go home, on condition that she return the next day for further questioning. Hindley was at liberty for four days following Brady's arrest, during which time she went to her employer's premises and asked to be dismissed, so that she would be eligible for unemployment benefits.

While in the office where Brady worked she found some papers belonging to him in an envelope that she claimed she did not open, which she burned in an ashtray. She believed that they were plans for bank robberies, nothing to do with the murders. On 11 October Hindley was charged as an accessory to the murder of Edward Evans and was remanded at Risley.

Brady admitted under police questioning that he and Evans had fought, but insisted that he and Smith had murdered Evans between them; Hindley, he said, had "only done what she had been told". Smith told police that Brady and Hindley had hidden evidence in two suitcases stored in a left-luggage office somewhere in Manchester.

British Transport Police were asked to search all of Manchester's stations, and on 15 October found what they were looking for—police later found the left-luggage ticket in the back of Hindley's prayer book. Inside one of the cases were nine pornographic photographs taken of a young girl, naked and with a scarf tied across her mouth, and a minute tape recording of her screaming and pleading for help.

Ann Downey, Lesley Ann Downey's mother, later listened to the tape after police had discovered the body of her missing year-old daughter, and confirmed that it was a recording of her daughter's voice. Police searching the house at Wardle Brook Avenue also found an old exercise book in which the name "John Kilbride" had been scribbled, which made them suspicious that Brady and Hindley may have been involved in the unsolved disappearances of other youngsters.

A large collection of photographs was discovered in the house, many of which seemed to have been taken on Saddleworth Moor. One hundred and fifty officers were drafted to search the moor, looking for locations that matched the photographs. Initially the search was concentrated along the A road near Woodhead, but a close neighbour, year-old Pat Hodges, had on several occasions been taken to the moor by Brady and Hindley and she was able to point out their favourite sites along the A road.

On 16 October police found an arm bone sticking out of the peat; officers presumed that they'd found the body of John Kilbride, but soon discovered that the body was that of Lesley Ann Downey.

Ann Downey—later Ann West after her marriage to Alan West—had been on the moor watching as the police conducted their search, but was not present when the body was found. She was shown clothing recovered from the grave, and identified it as belonging to her missing daughter. Detectives were able to locate another site on the opposite side of the A road from where Downey's body was discovered, and five days later they found the "badly decomposed" body of John Kilbride, whom they identified by his clothing.

Each was brought before the court separately and remanded into custody for a week. They made a two-minute appearance on 28 October, and were again remanded into custody. The search for bodies continued, but with winter setting in it was called off in November. Presented with the evidence of the tape recording Brady admitted to taking the photographs of Lesley Ann Downey, but insisted that she had been brought to Wardle Brook Avenue by two men who had subsequently taken her away again, alive.

Brady was further charged with the murder of John Kilbride, and Hindley with the murder of Edward Evans, on 2 December. The prosecution's opening statement was held in camera , and the defence asked for a similar stipulation, but was refused. The proceedings continued in front of three magistrates in Hyde over an day period during December, at the end of which the pair were committed for trial at Chester Assizes.

Many of the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley on the moor featured Hindley's dog Puppet, sometimes as a puppy. Detectives arranged for the animal to be examined by a veterinary surgeon to determine its age, from which they could date when the pictures were taken. The examination involved an analysis of the dog's teeth, which required a general anaesthetic from which Puppet did not recover, as he suffered from an undiagnosed kidney complaint.

On hearing the news of her dog's death Hindley became furious, and accused the police of murdering Puppet, one of the few occasions detectives witnessed any emotional response from her. In a letter to her mother shortly afterwards Hindley wrote:. I feel as though my heart's been torn to pieces. I don't think anything could hurt me more than this has. The only consolation is that some moron might have got hold of Puppet and hurt him.

Such was the public interest that the courtroom was fitted with security screens to protect Brady and Hindley. The pair were each charged with three murders, those of Evans, Downey, and Kilbride, as it was considered that there was by then sufficient evidence to implicate Hindley in Kilbride's death.

Brady and Hindley pleaded not guilty to the charges against them; both were called to give evidence, Brady for over eight hours and Hindley for six. Although Brady admitted to hitting Evans with an axe, he did not admit to killing him, arguing that the pathologist in his report had stated that Evans' death was "accelerated by strangulation".

Under cross-examination by the prosecuting counsel, all Brady would admit was that "I hit Evans with the axe. If he died from axe blows, I killed him.

The tape recording of Lesley Anne Downey, on which the voices of Brady and Hindley were clearly audible, was played in open court. Hindley admitted that her attitude towards the child was "brusque and cruel", but claimed that was only because she was afraid that someone might hear Downey screaming.

Hindley claimed that when Downey was being undressed she herself was "downstairs"; when the pornographic photographs were taken she was "looking out the window"; and that when the child was being strangled she "was running a bath". On 6 May, after having deliberated for a little over two hours, the jury found Brady guilty of all three murders and Hindley guilty of the murders of Downey and Evans. The Murder Abolition of Death Penalty Act had come into force during the time that Brady and Hindley were held in prison, abolishing the death penalty for murder, and therefore the judge passed the only sentence that the law allowed: life imprisonment.

Brady was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences and Hindley was given two, plus a concurrent seven-year term for harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had murdered John Kilbride.

In his closing remarks Mr Justice Atkinson described the murders as a "truly horrible case" and condemned the accused as "two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity". He recommended that both Brady and Hindley spend "a very long time" in prison before being considered for parole but did not stipulate a tariff. He stated that Brady was "wicked beyond belief" and that he saw no reasonable possibility of reform.

He did not consider that the same was necessarily true of Hindley, "once she is removed from [Brady's] influence". Throughout the trial Brady and Hindley "stuck rigidly to their strategy of lying", and Hindley was later described as "a quiet, controlled, impassive witness who lied remorselessly. In Brady allegedly confessed to Fred Harrison, a journalist working for The Sunday People , that he had also been responsible for the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, something that the police already suspected, as both children lived in the same area as Brady and Hindley and had disappeared at about the same time as their other victims.

On 3 July Topping visited Brady, then being held at Gartree Prison, but found him "scornful of any suggestion that he had confessed to more murders". Police nevertheless decided to resume their search of Saddleworth Moor, once more using the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley to help them identify possible burial sites.

Meanwhile, in November Winnie Johnson, Keith Bennett's mother, wrote a letter to Hindley begging to know what had happened to her son, a letter that Hindley seemed to be "genuinely moved" by. It ended:. I am a simple woman, I work in the kitchens of Christie's Hospital. It has taken me five weeks labour to write this letter because it is so important to me that it is understood by you for what it is, a plea for help. Please, Miss Hindley, help me. Police visited Hindley, then being held in Cookham Wood, a few days after she had received the letter, and although she refused to admit any involvement in the killings, she agreed to help by looking at photographs and maps to try to identify spots that she had visited with Brady.

She showed particular interest in photographs of the area around Hollin Brown Knoll and Shiny Brook, but said that it was impossible to be sure of the locations without visiting the moor. The security considerations for such a visit were significant; there were threats made against her should she visit the moors, but Home Secretary Douglas Hurd agreed with Topping that it would be worth the risk. Writing in , Topping said that he felt "quite cynical" about Hindley's motivation in helping the police.

Although the letter from Winnie Johnson may have played a part, he believed that Hindley's real concern was that, knowing of Brady's "precarious" mental state, she was afraid that he might decide to co-operate with the police, and wanted to make certain that she, and not Brady, was the one to gain whatever benefit there may have been in terms of public approval. Hindley made the first of two visits to assist the police search of Saddleworth Moor on 16 December Four police cars left Cookham Wood at 4.

At about the same time, police closed all roads onto the moor, which was patrolled by officers, 40 of them armed. Hindley and her solicitor arrived by helicopter from an airfield near Maidstone, touching down at 8. Wearing a donkey jacket and balaclava, she was driven, and walked around the area. It was difficult for Hindley to make a connection between her memories of the area and what she saw on the day, and she was apparently nervous of the helicopters flying overhead.

At pm she was returned to the helicopter, and taken back to Cookham Wood. Topping was criticised by the press, who described the visit as a "fiasco", a "publicity stunt", and a "mindless waste of money".

He was forced to defend the visit, pointing out its benefits:. We had taken the view that we needed a thorough systematic search of the moor [ Topping continued to visit Hindley in prison, along with her solicitor Michael Fisher and her spiritual counsellor, the Reverend Peter Timms, who had been a prison governor before resigning to become a minister in the Methodist Church.

She made a formal confession to police on 10 February , admitting her involvement in all five murders, but news of her confession was not made public for more than a month. The tape recording of her statement was over 17 hours long; Topping described it as a "very well worked out performance in which, I believe, she told me just as much as she wanted me to know, and no more".

He also commented that he "was struck by the fact that she was never there when the killings took place. She was in the car, over the brow of the hill, in the bathroom and even, in the case of the Evans murder, in the kitchen.

Police visited Brady in prison again and told him of Hindley's confession, which at first he refused to believe. Once presented with some of the details that Hindley had provided of Pauline Reade's abduction, Brady decided that he too was prepared to confess, but on one condition: that immediately afterwards he be given the means to commit suicide, a request that was impossible for the authorities to comply with.

At about the same time, Winnie Johnson sent Hindley another letter, again pleading with her to assist the police in finding the body of her son Keith. In the letter, Johnson was sympathetic to Hindley over the criticism surrounding her first visit. Hindley, who had not replied to the first letter, responded by thanking Johnson for both letters, explaining that her decision not to reply to the first resulted from the negative publicity that surrounded it.

She claimed that, had Johnson written to her 14 years earlier, she would have confessed and helped the police. She also paid tribute to Topping, and thanked Johnson for her sincerity. Hindley made her second visit to the moor in March This time, the level of security surrounding her visit was considerably higher. She stayed overnight in Manchester, at the flat of the police chief in charge of GMP training at Sedgley Park, and visited the moor twice.

She confirmed to police that the two areas in which they were concentrating their search—Hollin Brown Knoll and Hoe Grain—were correct, although she was unable to locate either of the graves.

She did later remember, though, that as Pauline Reade was being buried she had been sitting next to her on a patch of grass and could see the rocks of Hollin Brown Knoll silhouetted against the night sky. In April news of Hindley's confession became public. Amidst strong media interest Lord Longford pleaded for her release, writing that her continuing detention to satisfy "mob emotion" was not right.

Fisher persuaded Hindley to release a public statement, in which she explained her reasons for denying her complicity in the murders, her religious experiences in prison, the letter from Johnson, and that she saw no possibility of release.

She also exonerated David Smith from any part in the murders, except that of Edward Evans. Over the next few months interest in the search waned, but Hindley's clue had directed the police to focus their efforts on a specific area.

On the afternoon of 1 July , after more than days of searching, they found a body lying in a shallow grave 3 feet 0.

Brady had been co-operating with the police for some time, and when news reached him that Reade's body had been discovered he made a formal confession to Topping. He also issued a statement to the press, through his solicitor, saying that he too was prepared to help the police in their search.

Brady was taken to the moor on 3 July, but he seemed to lose his bearings, blaming changes that had taken place in the intervening years, and the search was called off at pm, by which time a large crowd of press and television reporters had gathered on the moor.

Topping refused to allow Brady a second visit to the moors, and a few days after his visit Brady wrote a letter to BBC television reporter Peter Gould, giving some sketchy details of five additional murders that he claimed to have carried out.

Brady refused to identify his alleged victims, and the police failed to discover any unsolved crimes matching the few details that he supplied. Hindley told Topping that she knew nothing of these killings. On 24 August police called off their search of Saddleworth Moor, despite not having found Keith Bennett's body. Brady was taken to the moor for a second time on 1 December, but he was once again unable to locate the burial site.

Keith Bennett's body remains undiscovered as of , although his family continues to search the moor, over 40 years after his disappearance. Although Brady and Hindley had confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, the Department of Public Prosecutions DPP decided that nothing would be gained by a further trial; as both were already serving life sentences no further punishment could be inflicted, and a second trial might even have helped Hindley's case for parole by giving her a platform from which to make a public confession.

In the police launched Operation Maida, and again searched the moor for the body of Keith Bennett. They read statements from Brady and Hindley, and also studied photographs taken by the pair. Their search was aided by the use of sophisticated modern equipment, including a US satellite used to look for evidence of soil movement. The BBC reported on 1 July that Greater Manchester Police had officially given up the search for Keith Bennett, saying that "only a major scientific breakthrough or fresh evidence would see the hunt for his body restart".

Detectives were also reported as saying that they would never again give Brady the attention or the thrill of leading another fruitless search on the moor where they believe Keith Bennett's remains are buried. Donations from members of the public funded a search of the moor for Bennett's body by volunteers from a Welsh search and rescue team that began in March On 30 July police received information that Brady may have given details of the location of Keith Bennett's body to one of his visitors.

On 16 August a year-old woman was arrested on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body without lawful excuse. Police said that investigations are ongoing. Perpetrators' backgrounds. The identity of Brady's father has never been reliably ascertained, although his mother claimed he was a reporter working for a Glasgow newspaper, who died three months before Brady was born. Stewart had little support, and after a few months was forced to give her son into the care of Mary and John Sloan, a local couple with four children of their own.

Brady took their name, and became known as Ian Sloan. His mother continued to visit him throughout his childhood. As a young child he took pleasure in torturing animals; he broke the hind legs of one dog, set fire to another, and decapitated a cat.

Aged nine, Brady visited Loch Lomond with his family, where he reportedly discovered an affinity for the outdoors, and a few months later the family moved to a new council house on an overspill estate at Pollok.

He was accepted for Shawlands Academy, a school for above average pupils. As he grew older Brady's "brutality escalated", and soon he was hurting children smaller than himself. At Shawlands his behaviour worsened; as a teenager he twice appeared before a juvenile court for housebreaking.

He left the academy aged 15, and took a job as a tea boy at a Harland and Wolff shipyard in Govan. Nine months later he began working as a butcher's messenger boy. He had a girlfriend, Evelyn Grant, but their relationship ended when he threatened her with a flick knife after she visited a dance with another boy. He again appeared before the court, this time with nine charges against him, and shortly before his 17th birthday a court put him on probation on the condition that he went to live with his mother, who had by then moved to Manchester and married an Irish fruit merchant named Pat Brady, who got him a job as a fruit porter at Smithfield Market.

Within a year of moving to Manchester, Brady was caught with a sack full of lead seals he had stolen and was trying to smuggle out of the market. Because he was still under 18, he was sentenced to two years in borstal for "training". He was initially sent to Hatfield but after being discovered drunk on alcohol he had brewed he was moved to the much tougher unit at Hull. Released on 14 November Brady returned to Manchester, where he took a labouring job, which he hated, and was dismissed from another job in a brewery.

Deciding to "better himself", Brady obtained a set of instruction manuals on book-keeping from a local public library, with which he "astonished" his parents by studying alone in his room for hours. In early , just three months after being released from borstal, Brady applied for and was offered a clerical job at Millwards Merchandising, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton.

He was regarded by his work colleagues as a quiet, punctual, but short-tempered young man. He rode a Tiger Cub motorcycle, which he used to visit the Pennines. Myra Hindley born 23 July was brought up in Gorton, then a working class area of Manchester, the daughter of Nellie and Bob Hindley. Her mother and alcoholic father beat her regularly as a young child. The small house the family lived in was in such poor condition that Hindley and her parents had to sleep in the only available bedroom, she in a single bed next to her parents' double.

The family's living conditions deteriorated further when Hindley's sister, Maureen, was born in Shortly after the birth, Hindley, then aged five, was sent by her parents to live with her grandmother, who lived nearby. He had been known in the army as a "hard man" and he expected his daughter to be equally tough; he taught her how to fight, and insisted that she "stick up for herself".

When Hindley was aged 8, a local boy approached her in the street and scratched both of her cheeks with his fingernails, drawing blood. She burst into tears and ran into her parents' house, to be met by her father, who demanded that she "Go and punch him [the boy], because if you don't I'll leather you! As she wrote later, "at eight years old I'd scored my first victory". Malcolm MacCulloch, professor of forensic psychiatry at Cardiff University, has suggested that the fight, and the part that Hindley's father played in it, may be "key pieces of evidence" in trying to understand Hindley's role in the Moors murders:.

The relationship with her father brutalised her [ When this happens at a young age it can distort a person's reaction to such situations for life. One of her closest friends was year-old Michael Higgins, who lived in a nearby street. In June he invited her to go swimming with friends at a local disused reservoir. A good swimmer, Hindley chose not to go and instead went out with a friend, Pat Jepson. Higgins drowned in the reservoir, and upon learning of his fate Hindley was deeply upset, and blamed herself for his death.

She collected for a funeral wreath, and his funeral at St Francis's Monastery in Gorton Lane—the church where Hindley had been baptised a Catholic on 16 August —had a lasting effect on her. Hindley's mother had only agreed to her father's insistence that she be baptised a Catholic on the condition that she was not sent to a Catholic school, as her mother believed that "all the monks taught was the catechism".

Hindley was increasingly drawn to the Catholic Church after she started at Ryder Brow Secondary Modern, and began taking instruction for formal reception into the Church soon after Higgins's funeral. She took the confirmation name of Veronica, and received her first communion in November She also became a Godparent to Michael's nephew, Anthony John.

It was also at about this time that Hindley first began bleaching her hair. Hindley's first job was as a junior clerk at a local electrical engineering firm. She ran errands, made tea, and typed. She was well liked at the firm, enough so that when she lost her first week's wage packet, the other girls had a collection to replace it.

She had a short relationship with Ronnie Sinclair from Christmas , and became engaged aged The engagement was called off several months later; Hindley apparently thought Sinclair immature, and unable to provide her with the life she envisaged for herself. Shortly after her 17th birthday she changed her hair colour, with a pink rinse. She took judo lessons once a week at a local school, but found partners reluctant to train with her, as she was often slow to release her grip.

She took a job at Bratby and Hinchliffe, an engineering company in Gorton, but was sacked for absenteeism after six months. In , the year-old Myra Hindley joined Millwards as a typist.

She soon became infatuated with Brady, despite learning that he had a criminal record. She began a diary and, although she had dates with other men, some of the entries detail her fascination with Brady, whom she eventually spoke to for the first time on 27 July Over the next few months she continued to make entries, and grew increasingly disillusioned with him, until 22 December when Brady asked her on a date to the cinema, where they watched a film about the Nuremberg Trials.

Their dates together followed a regular pattern; a trip to the cinema, usually to watch an X-rated film, and then back to Hindley's house to drink German wine. Brady then gave her reading material, and the pair spent their work lunch breaks reading aloud to one another from accounts of Nazi atrocities. Hindley began to emulate an ideal of Aryan perfection, bleaching her hair blonde and applying thick crimson lipstick.

She expressed concern at some aspects of Brady's character; in a letter to a childhood friend, she mentioned an incident where she had been drugged by Brady, but also wrote of her obsession with him. A few months later she asked her friend to destroy the letter. In her 30,word plea for parole, written in and and submitted to Home Secretary Merlyn Rees, Hindley said:. Within months he [Brady] had convinced me that there was no God at all: he could have told me that the earth was flat, the moon was made of green cheese and the sun rose in the west, I would have believed him, such was his power of persuasion.

The couple were regulars at the library, borrowing books on philosophy, as well as crime and torture. Although she was not a qualified driver she passed her test on the third attempt, late in , Hindley often hired a van, in which the two planned bank robberies.

Hindley befriended George Clitheroe, the President of the Cheadle Rifle Club, and on several occasions visited two local shooting ranges. Clitheroe, although puzzled by her interest, arranged for her to buy a. She also asked to join a pistol club, but she was a poor shot and allegedly often bad-tempered, so Clitheroe told her that she was unsuitable; she did, though, manage to purchase a Webley. Brady and Hindley's plans for robbery came to nothing, but they became interested in photography.

Brady already owned a Box Brownie, which he used to take photographs of Hindley and her dog, Puppet, but he upgraded to a more sophisticated model, and also purchased lights and darkroom equipment. The pair took photographs of each other that, for the time, would have been considered explicit. For Hindley, this demonstrated a marked change from her earlier, more shy nature. Hindley claimed that Brady began to talk about "committing the perfect murder" in July , and often spoke to her about Meyer Levin's Compulsion , published in The novel, a fictionalised account of the Leopold and Loeb case, tells the story of two young men from well-to-do families, who attempt to carry out the perfect murder of a year-old boy, and who escape the death penalty because of their age.

By June , Brady had moved in with Hindley at her grandmother's house in Bannock Street, and on 12 July the two murdered their first victim, year-old Pauline Reade. Reade had attended school with Hindley's younger sister, Maureen, and had also been in a short relationship with David Smith, a local boy with three criminal convictions for minor crimes.

Police could find nobody who had seen Reade before her disappearance, and although the year-old Smith was questioned by police he was cleared of any involvement in her death. Their next victim, John Kilbride, was killed on 23 November A huge search was undertaken, with over statements taken, and "missing" posters printed.

Eight days after he failed to return home, 2, volunteers scoured waste ground and derelict buildings. Hindley hired a vehicle a week after Kilbride went missing, and again on 21 December , apparently to make sure the burial sites had not been disturbed.

In February , she bought a second-hand Austin Traveller, but soon after traded it for a Mini van. On 16 June , year-old Keith Bennett disappeared. His stepfather, Jimmy Johnson, became a suspect; in the two years following Bennett's disappearance, Johnson was taken for questioning on four occasions. Detectives searched under the floorboards of the Johnsons' house, and on discovering that the houses in the row were connected, extended the search to the entire street.

Maureen Hindley married David Smith on 15 August The marriage was hastily arranged and performed at a register office. None of Hindley's relatives attended; Myra did not approve of the marriage, and her mother was too embarrassed—Maureen was seven months pregnant.

The newlyweds moved into Smith's father's house. The next day, Brady suggested that the four take a day-trip to Lake Windermere. This was the first time Brady and Smith had met properly, and Brady was apparently impressed by Smith's demeanour. The two talked about society, the distribution of wealth, and the possibility of robbing a bank.

The young Smith was similarly impressed by Brady, who throughout the day had paid for his food and wine. The trip to the Lake District was the first of many outings. Hindley was apparently jealous of their relationship, but became closer to her sister. In Hindley, her grandmother, and Brady were rehoused as part of the post-war slum clearances in Manchester, to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in the new overspill estate of Hattersley.

Hodges accompanied the two on their trips to Saddleworth Moor to collect peat, something that many householders on the new estate did to improve the soil in their gardens, which was full of clay and builder's rubble. She remained unharmed; living only a few doors away, her disappearance would have been easily solved. Early on Boxing Day , Hindley left her grandmother at a relative's house and refused to allow her back to Wardle Brook Avenue that night.

On the same day, year-old Lesley Ann Downey disappeared from a funfair in Ancoats. Despite a huge search she was not found. The following day Hindley brought her grandmother back home.

Brady gave Smith books to read, and the two discussed robbery and murder. On Hindley's 23rd birthday, her sister and brother-in-law, who had until then been living with relatives, were rehoused in Underwood Court, a block of flats not far from Wardle Brook Avenue.

The two couples began to see each other more regularly, but usually only on Brady's terms. During the s, Hindley claimed that she took part in the killings only because Brady had drugged her, was blackmailing her with pornographic pictures he had taken of her, and had threatened to kill her younger sister, Maureen.

In a television documentary series on female serial killers broadcast on ITV3, Hindley's solicitor, Andrew McCooey, reported that she had said to him:. I ought to have been hanged. I deserved it. My crime was worse than Brady's because I enticed the children and they would never have entered the car without my role I have always regarded myself as worse than Brady.

Following his conviction Brady was moved to Durham prison, where he asked to live in solitary confinement. He spent 19 years in mainstream prisons before being diagnosed as a psychopath in November and sent to the high-security Park Lane Hospital, now Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital, in Sefton; he has since made it clear that he never wants to be released.

The trial judge had recommended that his life sentence should mean life, and successive Home Secretaries have agreed with that decision. In the Lord Chief Justice Lord Lane said of Brady: "this is the case if ever there is to be one when a man should stay in prison till he dies".

The death, in November , of John Straffen, who had spent 55 years in prison for murdering three children meant that Brady became the longest serving prisoner in England and Wales.

Although he refuses to work with Ashworth's psychiatrists, Brady occasionally corresponds with people outside the hospital, including the late Lord Longford, criminologist Colin Wilson and various journalists. In one letter, written in , he claimed that the murders were "merely an existential exercise of just over a year, which was concluded in December ". By then, he went on to claim, he and Hindley had turned their attention to armed robbery, for which they had begun to prepare by acquiring guns and vehicles.

During several years of interactions with forensic psychologist Chris Cowley, including face-to-face meetings, Brady told him of an "aesthetic fascination [he had] with guns", despite his never having used one to kill. He complained bitterly about conditions at Ashworth, which he hates.

In his wrist was broken in what he claimed was an "hour-long, unprovoked attack" by staff. Brady subsequently went on hunger strike, but as he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act, he no longer has the right to starve himself.

He was therefore force-fed and transferred to another hospital for tests, after he fell ill. He recovered and in March asked for a judicial review of the decision to force-feed him, but was refused permission. Myra gets the potentially fatal brain condition, whilst I have to fight simply to die.

I have had enough. I want nothing, my objective is to die and release myself from this once and for all. So you see my death strike is rational and pragmatic.

I'm only sorry I didn't do it decades ago, and I'm eager to leave this cesspit in a coffin. According to Chris Cowley, Brady regrets Hindley's imprisonment and the consequences of their actions, but not necessarily the crimes themselves.

He sees no point in making any kind of public apology; instead, he "expresses remorse through actions". Twenty years of transcribing classical texts into Braille came to an end when the authorities confiscated his translation machine, for fear it might be used as a weapon. He once offered to donate one of his kidneys to "someone, anyone who needed one", but was blocked from doing so.

According to Colin Wilson, "it was because these attempts to express remorse were thrown back at him that he began to contemplate suicide. The potentially lethal dose of tablets was intercepted. Winnie Johnson, the mother of undiscovered victim, year-old Keith Bennett, received a letter from Brady at the end of in which, she said, he claimed that he could take police to within 20 yards 18 m of her son's body but the authorities would not allow it.

Brady did not refer directly to Keith by name and did not claim he could take investigators directly to the grave, but spoke of the "clarity" of his recollections. The book, Brady's analysis of serial murder and specific serial killers, sparked outrage when announced in Britain. Immediately following the trial, Hindley lodged an unsuccessful appeal against her conviction. Brady and Hindley corresponded by letter until , when she ended their relationship.

The two remained in sporadic contact for several months, but Hindley had met and fallen in love with one of her prison officers, Patricia Cairns. A former assistant governor claimed that such relationships were not unusual in Holloway at that time, as "many of the officers were gay, and involved in relationships either with one another or with inmates". Hindley successfully petitioned to have her status as a category A prisoner changed to category B, which enabled Governor Dorothy Wing to take her on a walk round Hampstead Heath, part of her unofficial policy of reintroducing her charges to the outside world when she felt they were ready.

The excursion caused a furore in the national press and earned Wing an official rebuke from the then Home Secretary Robert Carr. With Cairns' assistance and the outside contacts of another prisoner, Maxine Croft, Hindley planned a prison escape, but it was thwarted when impressions of the prison keys were intercepted by an off-duty policeman.

Cairns was sentenced to six years in jail for her part in the plot. While in prison, Hindley wrote her autobiography, which remains unpublished. Hindley was told that she should spend 25 years in prison before being considered for parole.

He said he lied to cover for his former lover for "20 years" before she began to "fabricate" stories about the way he treated her. Brady was also convicted of the murder of John Kilbride with Hindley found guilty of acting as an accessory.

In Brady and Hindley confessed to two further murders - those of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett whose remains have never been found. At least four of the children were sexually assaulted. Two of the victims were discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor - and a third grave was discovered there in The body of fourth victim, Keith Bennett, is also thought to be buried there but remains undiscovered.

A never-before-seen autobiography chapter by Hindley is included in the documents, as is her will and a letter from missing victim Keith Bennett's brother, Alan, dated January - 34 years after the youngster's death. There is also a letter from Hindley's lesbian lover, Dutch criminologist Nina Wilde, who met the killer at Cookham Wood prison, Kent in In her autobiographical notes, Hindley writes: "When I grew older and used to babysit for neighbours, I often taught babies to walk with the aid of a kitchen chair turned upside down.

My mother told me I learned to read and write from an early age, and could read and count and tell the time. She writes articulately, focusing on her early life growing up, even comparing William Blake's "dark satanic mills" to her gran's work in the cotton mills.

Hindley was raised between her mum and gran's house - and she describes a strained relationship with her father whose return from war brought an "unhappy upheaval" to her life. She wrote: "Although I left the family home and moved to Gran's, I never felt rejected or 'farmed out', or unwanted.

On the contrary, I had the best of both worlds. I used to go home to mam's for the midday meal where I had to be bribed, cajoled and sometimes threatened by my father to eat the stews and hotpots which I hated. The account is dated May 7, - and Hindley links her early years to those spent in jail. On one occasion, she described stealing condensed milk as a child - with reference to prison milk.

She wrote: "That condensed milk which we used while sugar was rationed got me more good hidings got me more good hidings than most other things, because I loved to stick my finger in the tin or eat it by the spoonful. I bought two tins, one for 'emergencies' and one to eat, and I managed to get through the whole thing without feeling sick. The letter from Alan Bennett to Hindley includes well wishes for the woman who murdered his brother, aged 12, with accomplice Brady.

Keith's remains have never been found and Brady, who died of lung disease in , took the knowledge of his last resting place to the grave. Alan Bennett writes to Hindley: "I do not seek revenge for Keith In a second letter, dated October , Mr Bennett writes to Hindley: "It is up to you now that the objections and excuses given to us in the past have been pushed aside.