The Moor Murderers’ first victim, Paulina Reade, has just been reburied to add her remains that have been kept by police for about 30 years to her grave…
Greater Manchester Police said the private reburial took place at her grave in Gorton Cemetery in Manchester. Pauline’s remains were kept without any of her family’s knowledge, she was 16-year-old at the time of her murder and only got justice when Ian Brady and Myra Hindley admitted to police in the 1980s of the killing that happened in 1963.
Greater Manchester Police apologised to the Reade family in November when it was revealed some of her remains where kept by police.
A Greater Manchester Police statement said: “Pauline and the other Moors Murders victims are ever present in our minds and Greater Manchester Police will always do everything we can to support their relatives and honour their memory.”
Who where the Moor Murders and what happened?
The Moor Murderers where Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. Their attacks took place in and around Manchester in between January 1963 to October 1965, the duo claimed five children’s lives in the two-year span of their killings.
Myra Hindley later named ‘the most evil woman in Britain’ was born into a middle-class family in 23rd July 1942 and he led a perfectly normal childhood according to the media.
Ian Brady was born into a poor family and was left to fend for himself most of his childhood. He was described as an empty child by many as he had no feeling of belonging and was emotionally distant. He has no father figure in this life, so this could be why he was so distant. At the age of 14/15, Brady had a mental break down, he explained to later in his life about this. Brady explained one day he was out on his bike cycling along and felt the need to get off to stand in a door way as something has happened to him. He said it was like a ‘stroke or whatever’ and he could not explain it but that is when he seen a green image he explained to be like a face of death. He no longer could be stable and emphasise with people this is when he recovered the Nazi’s philosophy made sense of the way his felt.
In 1961 Ian Brady and Myra Hindley met and straightway Hindley became head over heels in love with him; she started filling her diary all about him as if she was obsessed with him. After meeting Brady, Hindley started to separate from her friends and her life became evolved around him; she was madly in love with Ian. Before long Ian started to ‘control’ their lives and became the ‘driving force’, Hindley was made to be the ’front women’ this means that she would carry out all the tasks made by Brady, she would basically do all the work for his ideas. For example, if they were getting on a bus she would have to pay and if Brady wanted cigarettes she would have to buy them, and he would wait outside.
Their first victim was Pauline Reade, 16-year-old at the time of her murder. Pauline vanished on 12th July 1963 on her way to a disco near her home in Gorton, Manchester. It was discovered that Pauline was lured into the moors by Hindley who said she had lost her gloves there and needed help to find them. No one knew what had happened to Pauline for two decades when her body was found in 1987 after Brady and Hindley admitted to her murder. When Pauline’s body was found she was still wearing her pink and gold party dress and her blue coat. She was beaten by Brady in the head and cut her throat so bad that her spinal cord was detached.
Four months after Pauline vanished, Brady and Hindley claimed their second victim, 12-year-old John Kilbride. It was a day after President John F Kennedy’s assassination in the US therefore, there was little attention paid to the disappearance of John Kilbride. Just like Pauline, John was lured into the moor but this time Brady sexually assaulted and murdered the victim. John at the time was at a marketplace in Ashton-under-Lyne (a town by Manchester), Hindley had persuaded John a ride home where she took a detour to the moor; this is when Brady strangled him with a piece of sting. His decomposed body was found in October 1965.
The third victim was 12-year-old Keith Bennett, Keith disappeared on 16th June 1964 in Chorlton-on-Medlock in Manchester whilst he was on his way to his grandmother’s house. It was then where Hindley asked him for help to load boxes into her car. In 1985, Brady and Hindley confessed to police of the murder. Police started an intense search of the moors in 1986 but his remains have never been found.
10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey was the fourth victim of the Moor Murders, she was murdered on Boxing Day in 1964. Lesley was snatched from a fairground to the house of Hindley which she shared with her grandmother. Lesley’s last moments were recorded on a 16 minutes audio tape, she was heard crying for her mother which when played in court sent the jury, judge, courtroom spectators and even police officers into tears. John stalker, former deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester Police said, “Nothing in criminal behaviour before or since has penetrated my heart with quite the same paralysing intensity.”. In October 1965, Lesley Ann Downey’s body was found in Saddleworth Moor; it is unclear how she was murdered but her body was found bare and only her socks and shoes were on her.
Their last victim was 17-year-old Edward Evans, Edward met the pair in a gay bar and visited their house on 6th October 1965, this is the killing that lead to the capture. On the day of the murder, they phoned Hindley’s brother in law, David Smith, and asked him to come to the house. This is when he witnessed the murder of Edward Evans; Edward was attacked with an axe, smothered with a cushion and strangled with an electric cable. The next morning Mr Smith called the police, the police searched the house where the found the body of 17-year-old Edward Evans. This is when all the crimes surface, and the truth was unravelled to the nation.
Brady who was 28 in May 1966 when he and Hindley were convicted of murdering Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans. He was also convicted of John Kilbride of murdered and received three life sentences. This came a light when police found an exercise book which had many drawings and notes in; this included the name ‘John Kilbride’ which led police to believe they were responsible for his disappearance. In 1987 Brady confessed to Pauline Reade and Keith Bennetts murders.
Myra Hindley was also sentenced to the murders and set to jail where she died in 2002 (aged 60).
Ian Brady died in May 2017 (aged 79).
