This day in history the Moors Murders began their killing spree in the North of England. The Moors Murders so called because they buried their victims on Mors are perhaps the UK’s most notorious serial killers. The Moors Murderers were Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.
The pair had become lovers and Brady had persuaded Hindley to embark on a murder spree with him. Brady was a psychopath and a Nazi sympathizer. Hindley fell completely under his spell and helped him to kidnap and kill children and teenagers.
On this day the pair kidnapped a 16-year-old girl. She was on her way home from a dance and Brady and Hindley abducted her. They assaulted the girl and Brady later cut her throat. The girl’s body was not found until 1987.
After the killing of the 16-year-old girl, they kidnapped a 12-year-old boy in November and another boy also aged 12, the following year. The boys were both tortured and killed. The day after Christmas in 1964, Leslie Ann Downey, a ten-year-old girl, was kidnapped.
In 1965, the couple killed a 17-year-old boy with a hatchet in front of a witness. He was related to Hindley and it has been speculated that the couple did so in a bid to recruit him and to persuade him to become their accomplice. He at first went along and then he went to the police and told them what he had seen.
Inside Brady’s apartment, police found a wealth of material linking the couple to their crimes. There was photographic evidence of the torture and murder of the 10-year-old girl. The couple had also taped the girl crying and pleading for her life. Other photos depicted Hindley and Brady on a heath near Manchester known as Saddleworth Moor. There, police found the body of another victim of the killers.
The Moors Murderers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1966. The couple were sentenced to life in prison and they were never released. Hindley had an affair with one of the female prison wardens in her jail. Brady was confined to a mental hospital and he would frequently confess to other murders. No evidence has been found to support these confessions.
The couple continued to fascinate the British public for many years. Myra Hindley campaigned for her release and claimed that Brady had forced her to be his accomplice. The judges at the Court of Appeal refused to accept her pleas and she was to die in prison. The most hated woman in Britain.
Ian Brady is still alive and is the longest serving prisoner in the UK. He wrote and had a book published on serial killers in 2004. He refuses to receive any treatment from psychiatrists and he claims that he is mentally competent. Brady has never sought his freedom.