Background to the Devil S Wife

Background to The Devil’s Wife

Friday, 15 November, 2002, 17:24 GMT Obituary: Myra Hindley

Myra Hindley: The woman Britain never forgave Moors murderer Myra Hindley has died in hospital following a chest infection, at the age of 60.

For many years, Myra Hindley was depicted by the tabloid press as "the most hated woman in Britain".

The crimes committed by Hindley and her lover, Ian Brady, shocked the nation and became the benchmark by which other acts of evil came to be measured.

On 6 May 1966, at Chester Assizes, Hindley and Brady were jailed for life after a 15-day trial.

They were convicted of the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, aged 10, in 1964, and Edward Evans, aged 17, in 1965. Brady was also convicted of the murder of 12-year-old John Kilbride, and Hindley was found guilty of being an accessory.

Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride were both strangled. Edward Evans was attacked with a hatchet and strangled.

The case was made even more notorious by the tape- recording played to the trial of Lesley Ann Downey pleading for her life.

The killings soon became known as the "Moors murders" because the bodies had been buried on Saddleworth Moor, A 60s snapshot helped police locate the graves near Manchester.

In 1987, Brady and Hindley confessed to two further murders - those of Pauline Reade, aged 16, and 12-year-old Keith Bennett.

Father's violence

Searches conducted on Saddleworth Moor led to the discovery of Pauline Reade's body, but Keith Bennett's body was never found.

The director of public prosecutions decided a prosecution of the two cases would not be in the public interest.

Hindley was born in Crumpsall, a Manchester suburb, in 1942.

Years later she spoke of the tyrannical violence of her Ian Brady: Will never seek father, Bob, a building labourer. parole

She left school at 15, learned how to type and within three years went to work at a small chemical firm.

There she met Brady, who was working as a stock clerk.

He had a minor criminal record with stretches in borstals and Strangeways Prison in Manchester.

While inside, he began his fixation with Hitler and the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

Infatuation

Until then, Hindley had been, by all accounts, a perfectly normal girl, with strong religious feelings. She loved children and animals, and was much in demand as a babysitter. She was, like most teenage girls, highly romantic, and became infatuated with Brady.

She wrote in her diary: "I hope he loves me, and will marry me some day."

The body of Keith Bennett When they became lovers, Hindley was prepared to do was never found anything Brady asked.

So in July 1963, he persuaded her to lure 16-year-old Pauline Reade up to the moors.

Pauline was killed, and Hindley helped Brady to bury her body.

Campaign for parole

In October 1963, the couple drove to the market at Ashton-under-Lyne, where 12-year-old John Kilbride did odd jobs for stallholders.

As it became dark and foggy, Hindley asked him if he wanted a lift. It was the last time he was seen alive.

Brady and Hindley tried to involve other people in their activities, but one of these, Myra's brother-in-law David Smith, eventually caused their capture.

He called the police after he witnessed the murder of In 1987, Brady and Hindley Edward Evans. helped police search the moors Ian Brady, now 64, was moved from prison to a high security hospital in 1985.

He has recently called for a public hearing to determine whether he should still be detained in a mental institution.

But he has repeatedly told the BBC he has no desire to be freed, and will never seek parole.

Hindley, however, pursued a long campaign for parole, with the support of the late Lord Longford, who visited her frequently in prison.

'A good woman'

In 1998, Appeal Court judges upheld the decision by the former Home Secretary Jack Straw that Hindley should stay in prison until she died, unless there were "exceptional" reasons to review the tariff.

They dismissed arguments by her lawyers that Mr Straw and his predecessors had acted unlawfully when they imposed a "full life tariff".

Hindley lost her battle for parole At the Appeal Court, Lord Justice Judge said Hindley's 1987 confession had revealed a "much greater level of involvement" with Brady than she had previously admitted.

Hindley's supporters argued that she had shown remorse since going to prison, where she became a devout Roman Catholic.

She had obtained an Open University degree in humanities and had become a "good woman", they said.

Hindley took her case to the House of Lords in 2000, but again failed, when five law lords ruled unanimously that Mr Straw's decision had been lawful and justified.

'Wicked and evil'

Just two days after the original trial, the judge who sentenced Hindley said: "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."

But in 1994, Hindley wrote that she was "wicked and evil" and had behaved "monstrously".

She said: "Without me, those crimes could probably not have been committed." Hindley gained an Open University degree Much of the debate about the fate of Myra Hindley focused on her relationship with Brady.

At her trial, evidence was produced that she had been subjected to threats, violence and intimidation by him.

Though Brady and Hindley exchanged love letters in their first years in custody, later he said she was a manipulative liar who was as committed to murder as he had been.

Birds of A Feather

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

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

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

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

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

In Brady's mind he was like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, he had "reached the stage where, whatever came to mind, get out and do it…I led the life that other people could only think about." Dostoyevsky's novel had become for Brady, not an exploration of the destructiveness of unrestrained ego, but a justification for, and ennobling of his own degraded fantasies. On the night of 12 July 1963, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley took their first victim, sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade …

The rest of this article is at: http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/predators/moors/feather_4.html

Myra Hindley and a young lad walking across moor. "It’s scary this is," said young lad. "Tell me about it" says Myra I’ve gotta walk back on my own!