Twisted Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley had disturbing ties to the occult and satanic practices, an expert has claimed. The sick pair abducted at least five children in and around Manchester in the 1960s, in a string of killings that shocked the nation.
Neither of them revealed the resting place of their final victim Keith Bennett, triggering a search that has lasted decades. Erica Gregory, an expert on the Moors Murders who spent years studying Brady’s literature and letters, believes the evil couple were fascinated with the occult and astrology.
She has previously claimed they had links with “High Priest” Alex Sanders, who practised witchcraft in the 1960s. At one point, he vowed to raise a man from the dead at a “magical” site in Alderley Edge, Cheshire.
Erica said she reckons the coupl;e “sought out” Sanders while he was working at the John Rylands Library in Manchester. Her team of researchers found knotted ropes, hare, and sheep bones at the site of the murders, which supposedly point to evidence of satanic practices.
And she believes Hindley “was given a high status” by Brady in order to manipulate her. Brady himself asked to be cremated to a symphony that charts a murderer’s descent into hell. Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, deemed one of the darkest pieces of music ever written, is about a killer who is haunted by the spirit of his victims in hell.
Erica has said he may have wanted a sea burial off the west coast due to his supposed obsession with the occult and astrology. The child killer’s ashes were driven to Liverpool Marina and dumped after a cremation in Southport in November 2017. The remains were placed in a weighted salt urn that disintegrated 10 minutes after being dumped in the sea.
Erica claims he would not have been bothered by the lack of ceremony. She previously told the Daily Star: “Salt is pretty significant in Wicca, and you will see it quite frequently. It is an essential item for a ritual altar. Mixed with water, it is used for purification and on its own, it is used to represent the element of earth.”
The murderous pair were arrested in 1966 and sentenced to life in prison. Hindley died from respiratory failure in 2002 while serving her sentence at Highpoint Prison in Suffolk. Her body was taken to a crematorium in Cambridge, 30 miles away, after 20 undertakers refused to handle her remains.
Brady died at Ashworth secure hospital in Liverpool in May 2017, where he had lived since 1985 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.