Myra Hindley’s chilling rationalization for first Moors Murder with killer Ian Brady

The infamous child killer Ian Brady delivered a bone-chilling two-word justification for perpetrating the horrific Moors Murders, which he executed alongside accomplice Myra Hindley, shocking the entire country.

Hindley and Brady, who were romantically involved, murdered their initial victim, 16 year old Pauline Reade, 63 years ago today, in 1963.

Both sexually abused her, before Hindley struck her face, causing a bloodied nose. Brady, disturbingly, began his murderous rampage driven by a longstanding obsession to execute the “perfect murder”.

Hindley provided a horrifying justification for their killings while imprisoned, reports the Express.

She received a life sentence in 1966 for murdering 12-year-old John Kilbride and 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, plus serving as an accomplice in slaying 17 year old Edward Evans.

Brady was handed life imprisonment for all three murders. In 1986, both admitted to killing 10-year-old Keith Bennett and 16-year-old Pauline Reade.

Hindley died behind bars in 2002. Her initial confession to police came in 1986 – subsequently she chose to reveal more of her warped psychology.

She told the Guardian two years before her death: “I understand that it can’t be a film for me. I know that what you do has to be balanced. I just feel it’s right after all this time to explain what happened. Then people can decide what they think.”

Hindley allegedly delivered a frenzied, disjointed recollection of the events that preceded the killings, followed by Brady’s spine-chilling rationale for his reign of terror. His goal was to execute the “perfect murder”.

Professor Malcolm MacCulloch, a forensic psychiatrist, questioned Brady across multiple years.

He maintained that incidents occurring before atrocities such as the Moors Murders help understand them. Commenting on Hindley’s subsequent explanations, he said: “One has to look at what is there and what is missing.”

Describing her father, Hindley said: “I detested him because of the way he beat my mother, which was often – as soon as we heard the first raised voice and the inevitable sound of fighting, we used to rush in and my gran would hit him with a rolled-up newspaper and I’d cling on to his legs and try to get him off my mother. This always resulted in my being kicked out of the way or slapped and even punched.”

Professor MacCulloch suggested these incidents demonstrate her capacity to handle violent situations with composure. He explained: “I think there are clues here in that she describes her father as being tough and abusive towards her mother. She withstood what might be construed as abuse. I think on balance the evidence is that she is a tough-minded and independent minded woman, who later came not to be revolted by some of the things she was engaged in.”

Hindley became romantically involved with her boyfriend before Brady, became engaged to him and worked as a secretary. Detective Chief Superintendent Geoff Knupfer, the former head of Greater Manchester CID who took her confession in 1986, had known her longer than any other police officer.

He said that Brady was the sole instigator of her crimes. Knupfer said: “I think she was a perfectly normal girl prior to meeting Brady. Had she not met Ian Brady and fallen in love with him, she would have fallen in love and got married and had a family and been like any other member of the general public.”

Hindley first met Brady at Millward’s Merchandise. She said: “I’d always been a romantic dreamer falling in love with film stars – I was crazy about James Dean and Elvis – and had read and heard the phrase ‘falling head over heels in love’ but never thought it would happen to me. But as soon as Ian Brady looked at me and smiled shyly, that’s exactly what happened.”

At 21, Brady had already served time in borstal and Strangeways prison. Hindley admitted she was instantly attracted to him but found him difficult to understand.

She explained: “That first year of working in the same office as Ian was mental torture. Sometimes he would speak to me normally, other times he ignored me completely. I was far too proud to let him see the way I felt about him, and never showed how hurt I was when he’d been nasty to me.”

Myra documented all her feelings in her diary and confessed that at times she despised him and would plead with God for Brady to reciprocate her love.. Her destiny shifted at the Christmas office party.

She said: “Someone put the record player on. I was too drunk to remember what was playing, but to my utter amazement Ian suddenly pulled me up off my chair and began staggering around dancing with me.

“I thought I would die from being held in his arms; even though he was a lousy dancer and trampled all over my feet.”.

She claimed Brady started brainwashing her, spreading hatred about Black people and the Jewish community. He also targeted her faith.

She revealed: “He scorned me for believing all the crap in the Bible, for going to church, Mass, with its mumbo jumbo and incense and confession.”

Hindley described their initial sexual encounter as brutal. This brutality escalated and Hindley maintains that Brady was consistently raping, battering and sexually degrading her.

She claimed Brady introduced her to the concept of murder, handing her a book called Compulsion where a 12-year-old child is kidnapped and killed. Disturbingly, it features a character named Myra.. “I told him it was a very disturbing book, but why exactly had he wanted me to read it? One night he asked me if I wanted to see anyone I didn’t like dead. I said no, don’t be silly.”

She continued: “Then one evening – and he hadn’t been drinking – he told me he wanted to do a perfect murder and I was going to help him.”

Professor MacCulloch noted her account of sexual violence was more severe than the confession she provided to police. “The letters contain some interesting points of inconsistency in that they seem to be verbatim the accounts she gave to the police, but embellished to develop the theme of Brady terrorising and demeaning her,” MacCulloch said.

Hindley alleged that Brady drugged her and threatened to murder both her and her grandmother. When she tried to escape by joining the Naafi, he assaulted and violated her.

She says she refused to find children for him to murder, claiming: “I just couldn’t do what he wanted me to do.”

However, she claimed she was worn down, so on 12 July 1963, she left from her home in the Gorton area of Manchester in her van with Brady trailing on his motorbike.

“I saw a young girl walking down the street on her own with nobody else in sight. He flashed his light and I slowly drew up just behind the girl, opened the passenger door and called to her to ask if she could spare a minute. She turned round and to my horror it was Pauline Reade.”

Pauline attended the same church she used to attend and was a friend of her sister. Hindley lured Pauline to search for a glove she claimed to have lost on Saddleworth Moor, 20 miles away.

Upon arrival, Hindley alleges that Brady led Pauline away, violated her and slit her throat.

She revealed: “He led me to her body, which I tried not to look at. I didn’t know at the time he was testing me and there was no need for me to be there. He told me to look at her. I’ll never be able to forget what I saw. I moved as far away from her as possible… I stood and looked at the dark outline of the rocks against the horizon of the dark sky and three people died that night: Pauline, my soul and God.

“She was there in the immediate aftermath and that is one of the most distressing things that can happen to anybody. People of a more nervous disposition become completely disintegrated; they deteriorate in terms of depression. They develop post traumatic stress disorder. There is no sign of any of this in these letters.

“I don’t think that squares with somebody who is intimidated, and the earlier accounts of the relationship with her father suggest that she is not intimidated.”

Knupfer said: “Clearly, she was absolutely besotted by this man. I guess like many other women I’ve met in the course of my career, they do all sorts of things for the love and respect of their partner.”

Hindley added: “I knew then and still know that there must be a callous streak in my nature, a cruel streak even; there must have been… And I still don’t know what it was rooted in, or where it came from. Sometimes I’ve thought I’d drive myself insane trying to discover what.”

In relation to the murder of 10 year old Lesley Ann Downey, Brady recorded her pleas before sexually assaulting and strangling her, also implicating Hindley in the brutality. She commented on this: “I’m having a great deal of difficulty with the Lesley Ann Downey thing. I think I’ll just have to keep it brief. I just find it hard to believe that I could have been such a cruel, cruel bastard.”