From Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic novel The Hound of the Baskervilles to the landmark horror comedy film An American Werewolf in London, the English moors have been home to some of the most infamous horror fiction in modern history. But in the early 1960s, they were also the scene of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley’s gruesome serial murders, some of the most notorious British killings since Jack the Ripper.
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, also known as the Moors Murderers, were a young killer couple who went on a very real 28-month killing spree. Their crimes were so heinous that the BBC would later describe them as the “benchmark by which other acts of evil are measured.”
Ian Brady’s Childhood Was Littered with Warning Signs
Ian Brady was born Ian Stewart on January 2, 1938, to Margaret “Peggy” Stewart in Glasgow, Scotland. The man rumored to be his father, a local reporter, had died just three months before. This left Peggy to support herself and her son on her meager wages as a hotel waitress.
Although Brady’s mother was initially determined to care for Ian, she struggled to keep up with costs. Only four months later, Peggy handed her son over to Mary and John Sloan, a local couple with four other children, as the Glasgow Times explains.
On the surface, Ian thrived under the care of the Sloans. He saw Mary and John as his parents. Their children treated him as a sibling, and he even adopted their last name. Ian also did very well in school, eventually attending a school for gifted children.
Ian Brady Committed Terrible Acts Against Animals
But even at an early age, Ian showed patterns of deranged and unpredictable behavior. He began to see himself as an outcast among his classmates. And he was prone to lashing out in rage and self-harming if he didn’t get his way.
Brady later claimed to have thrown a cat from a Glasgow high-rise — he was only ten. This was the first incident in a series of animal killings that The Independent says included burning, stoning, and decapitation.
Ian Brady’s Life of Crime Began at 13 Years Old
By age 11, Ian began to smoke, his grades slipped, and he developed an obsession with Nazism and Hitler. By 13, he was committing low-level crimes like petty theft and break-ins.
In November 1954, after a third arrest for burglary and housebreaking, the courts sent 16-year-old Ian Sloan (Brady) to live with Peggy and her new husband, Patrick Brady. The young criminal was now in the northwest English city of Manchester. From here, Ian would take his stepfather’s last name and become Ian Brady proper.
Several more arrests landed Brady in both juvenile detention and local prison, depending on the charge. When he was released, Brady took a job as a clerk at Millwards Merchandise, a chemical manufacturer. This is where Ian Brady would meet Myra Hindley, his future wife and partner in the Moors Murders.
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Ian Brady and Myra Hindley First Met at a Manchester Chemical Factory
While Myra Hindley grew up under comparatively ordinary circumstances, her childhood had its share of pain and tragedy. To begin with, her father was an abusive alcoholic whom she “disliked … intensely for his violence, drunkenness, and the tyrannical way he dominated the household.” (via Hindley’s letter to The Guardian) Hindley’s close friend Michael Higgins also drowned in 1957, an accident for which she partially blamed herself, according to Myra Hindley’s obituary.
Regardless of the tragedies Hindley faced, most accounts considered her a normal working-class girl before she met Ian Brady.
Hindley would meet Brady after taking a job as a typist at Millwards in January 1961, as The Oldham Times explains. Brady had already been working there for nearly two years. Although she was almost immediately interested in Brady, he didn’t reciprocate her feelings until nearly a year later.
Brady’s fascination with nihilism, sadism, and other dark ideologies soon bled into the pair’s sexual repertoire. And it threatened to push them into a joint life of crime. They made preparations for robberies, but these plans ultimately gave way to darker fantasies.
John Kilbride: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley’s First Recorded Victim
The arrests of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in late 1965 led to a wide-reaching investigation. The preliminary tally was three murder victims, but this number would grow.
The Moor Murderers’ first victim was John Kilbride. He was a 12-year-old market hand, and the killer couple abducted him on November 23, 1963.
The young boy had agreed to help Hindley load boxes into her car. Hindley then offered to drive Kilbride home. When he accepted, she lured him onto Saddleworth Moor, claiming that she needed help finding a missing glove. Instead of finding a glove, John Kilbride found Ian Brady. The twisted man then raped, strangled, and buried Kilbride in a shallow grave.
Two years later, police found Kilbride’s body using a photograph that Brady took of the crime scene. It depicts Hindley crouched at the edge of Kilbride’s grave, holding her dog.
Lesley Ann Downey: The Moors Murders Second Recorded Victim
Ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey visited a holiday fairground on December 26, 1964, known as “Boxing Day” in the United Kingdom. This is where Ian Brady and Myra Hindley lured her away from the festivities to Hindley’s home. They proceeded to sexually assault, torture, and kill her. As you’ll see, this was their M.O.
During the assault, Brady took a series of nude photographs of Downey, gagged and posed in Hindley’s bedroom. As if that wasn’t sick enough, the serial killers took an audio recording of her final moments.
On the tape, you can hear Downey pleading to God for help, begging for her mother, and screaming that she can’t breathe. Meanwhile, Brady and Hindley shush and threaten her. The Telegraph reported that for the 16 harrowing minutes that the tape played in court, “the room sat still and silent.”
Police found the recording and photographs after they searched Hindley’s home. Among the evidence, they found a luggage ticket corresponding to a locker at Manchester Central Station. Furthermore, they found two suitcases filled with hundreds of sadistic photographs inside the locker. This included the photos of Downey and the accompanying audio tape.
Like Kilbride, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley also dumped Downey’s body on Saddleworth Moor.
Ian Brady Murdered Edward Evans in Front of Myra Hindley’s Brother-in-Law
On October 6, 1965, Ian Brady recognized 17-year-old Edward Evans at Manchester Central Station. Brady had previously seen Evans at the Rembrandt, a now-longstanding Canal Street gay bar. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley invited Evans home for a drink, and Evans accepted.
Once the trio arrived at the killer couple’s home, Brady called Hindley’s brother-in-law, 17-year-old David Smith. Brady had formed a close friendship with Smith and saw him as a potential apprentice in crime. As a result, the meeting with Evans presented a perfect opportunity to involve Smith in the couple’s depravity.
A few minutes after he arrived, Smith watched in horror as Brady hacked Evans nearly to death with an axe. In response, Evans screamed in agony. Brady then used a couch cushion and some electrical wire to suffocate and strangle Evans, according to the BBC.
Smith later admitted that he and Brady had spoken about committing murders and robberies before. However, he claimed “[t]here was no indication whatsoever” that these conversations were anything more than drunken jokes. Until that night, Brady was simply a “slightly eccentric friend” to Smith.
The Moors Murderers later disputed these claims. Consequently, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley repeatedly attempted to pin their murders on Smith. (Though they were unsuccessful.)
David Smith Put an End to Myra Hindley and Ian Brady’s Killing Spree
After witnessing Ian Brady gruesomely murder Edward Evans, David feared for his life. As such, he initially played along as a co-conspirator. He even helped the murderous couple tidy up the bloodied living room and relocate Evans’ body upstairs. He then shared tea with Brady and Hindley. Afterward, when he finally decided it was safe to leave, Smith ran home and called the police.
According to Detective Ian Fairley, police arrived at the crime scene the next morning and found Evans in a plastic bag. They also found evidence that would lead them to John Kilbride and Leslie Ann Downey’s remains.
The trial of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley began on April 19, 1966. The case garnered such widespread attention that officers installed screens in the courtroom to keep citizens from attacking the couple.
On May 6, the courts found Brady guilty of killing John Kilbride, Leslie Ann Downey, and Edward Evans. They later found Hindley guilty of murdering Downey and Evans. She wasn’t entirely off the hook for Kilbride’s murder though. Instead of murder, the courts convicted Hindley of harboring Brady after that first killing.
Before the verdict, Justice Fenton Atkinson said that if the Moors Murderers were truly guilty, they were “two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity.”
The government had abolished the death penalty in the United Kingdom only months before the trial. Due to this, Atkinson sentenced the pair to life imprisonment. Atkinson would’ve likely sentenced Brady and Hindley to death otherwise.
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley Later Admitted to Two More Killings
During the court proceedings, David Smith served as the prosecution’s primary witness. In his testimony, he said that Brady had drunkenly admitted to killing three or four children before killing Evans. Originally, the number was two.
It wasn’t until 1987, however, that Brady and Hindley owned up to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. Both of whom had been missing since the mid-1960s.
Sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade disappeared on July 12, 1963, making her the couple’s first victim. Reade was an acquaintance of Hindley, and she managed to lure the girl into a minivan. Meanwhile, Brady trailed them on his motorcycle.
Hindley then employed the same missing glove trick she would later use to bring John Kilbride onto the moors. Brady beat Reade, sexually assaulted her, then slit her throat down to the bone.
Brady and Hindley abducted 12-year-old Keith Bennett on June 16, 1964, while he was heading to his grandmother’s house. Although the Moors Killers claimed that they buried Bennett on the moor, the authorities haven’t located his remains. They even pulled Hindley and Brady from prison twice to assist in their search.
An independent investigator unearthed what he thought was Bennett’s remains in 2022. The evidence, however, wasn’t sufficient enough to convince the Greater Manchester Police.
Reade and Bennett bring the Moors Murderers’ total victims to five. However, a letter from Brady to BBC reporter Peter Gould in 1987 suggests that the number might be higher. Possibly adding four more to the tally. Though nobody has been able to verify these claims
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley After Sentencing
Beginning in the mid-1990s, Myra Hindley spent nearly two decades lobbying for an early release from prison. She claimed that she was remorseful for her crimes and that she had paid her debt to society.
Many of her supporters and legal representatives also argued that without Brady, Hindley wouldn’t have been a killer. Thus they claimed that the government held Hindley in prison to appease the public. Rather than to serve justice.
Former Observer editor David Astor said in 1997 that “[Hindley] had shown no criminal tendencies until her involvement with Brady, and she has shown none since.”
Judge Atkinson expressed a similar sentiment during her trial in 1966: “Though I believe Brady is wicked beyond belief without hope of redemption, I cannot feel that the same is necessarily true of Hindley, once she is removed from his influence.”
Experts have also speculated that Brady may have groomed and abused Hindley. In a letter to The Guardian in 1995, Hindley claimed she had been “totally besotted” with Brady. As such, she painted a twisted picture of their relationship in which she both feared him and hung on his every word.
To counter this, Hindley also denied ever being completely under Brady’s spell. She then accepted responsibility for her part in the killings.
Both Killers Behind the Moors Murders Died in Prison
Myra Hindley died of respiratory failure on November 15, 2002. The courts never granted her request for release.
Brady lived out his sentence between prisons and mental institutions. During his time behind bars, he regularly attempted to manipulate staff, other prisoners, and patients. He used everything from hunger strikes to verbal abuse and outright violence. For example, he nearly strangled another psychiatric patient to death in 1997 after an argument in the institution’s kitchen.
Ian Brady died on May 15, 2017. His ashes were driven to the Irish Sea in an unmarked car, transferred to an unmarked boat, and dumped in the ocean. A place where Brady could never cause harm again.
