"Fiona Steel - murder_on_the_moors_ian_brady_&_myra_hindley_story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steel Fiona)
Damning Evidence
When Lesley Ann's naked body was found in a shallow grave, with her clothing at her feet, the police had nothing but hearsay and circumstantial evidence to connect Brady and Hindley to her death. They needed much more. A more thorough search of the house at Wardle Brook Avenue on 15 October gave them the evidence they needed.
A left-luggage ticket, found tucked into a prayer book, led police to a locker at Manchester Central station. Inside were two suitcases filled with pornographic and sadistic paraphernalia. In amongst these were nine semi-pornographic photographs of Lesley Ann Downey, showing her, naked, bound and gagged, in a variety of poses in Myra Hindley's bedroom. A tape recording was also found. The voice of a girl could be heard screaming, crying, and begging for her life. Two other voices, one male and one female, could be heard threatening the child. Police were able to identify the adult voices as belonging to Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, but they needed Ann Downey's assistance to identify the child's voice. She listened in horror to her daughter at the last moments of her life.
Even with damning evidence mounted against them, Brady and Hindley denied murdering Lesley Ann. As in the case of Edward Evans, they attempted to implicate David Smith. They claimed that Smith had brought the girl to the house so Brady could photograph her. The tape recording was of their voices as they attempted to subdue the girl so they could take the pictures. Hindley protested that she had only used a harsh tone with the girl because she had been concerned that neighbours would hear her. As far as they were concerned, Lesley Ann had left their house, unharmed, with Smith. Smith must have murdered her later.
The evidence, which linked Brady and Hindley to the murder of John Kilbride, while not as overwhelming, was sufficient to charge them. They found the name "John Kilbride" written, in Brady's handwriting, in his notebook and a photograph of Hindley on John's grave at the moors. It was also found that Hindley had hired a car on the day of John's disappearance and returned it in a muddy state and, according to Hindley's sister, Brady and Hindley shopped at Ashton market every week.
Despite all of their efforts, the police were unable to find the bodies of the two other missing children or any evidence to link Brady and Hindley to their disappearance. They had to content themselves with prosecuting the pair only for the murders of Edward Evans, Lesley Ann Downey, and John Kilbride.
On 27 April 1966, Hindley and Brady were brought to trial at Chester Assizes where they pleaded "not guilty" to all charges. Throughout the trial, they continued their attempts to blame David Smith for the murders, a cowardly stance that only served to deepen public hatred of them. At no time during the trial did they show any remorse for their crimes or any sorrow toward the families of their victims. To those who were present at the trial, both Brady and Hindley appeared cold and heartless.
Despite protestations of their innocence, Ian Brady was found guilty of the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, John Kilbride, and Edward Evans. Myra Hindley was found guilty of the murders of Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans and for harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had killed John Kilbride. They escaped the death penalty by only a couple of months as "The Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965" had come into effect just four weeks before their arrest.
Never To Be Released
Seven years later, more than ten years after her imprisonment Hindley began a campaign to win her freedom, one that still continues today. Over the next two years, she compiled a 20,000-word document in which she portrayed herself as the innocent victim of Brady's manipulative personality. She continued to uphold her original story that Brady was the guilty party, with Smith as his accomplice.
The document was submitted to the Home Office in order to gain permission to make application for parole. The then Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees established a committee comprised of Home Office and parole board officials who determined that it would be another three years before Hindley's application for parole could be heard.
Prior to the completion of this document, in 1978, Brady made his first public statement. He declared that he did not intend to apply for parole as he
"Еaccepted the weight of the crimes both Myra and I were convicted of justifies permanent imprisonment, regardless of expressed personal remorse and verifiable change."
He was soon to virtually disappear from public view as his mental state began to deteriorate. He suffered from visual and auditory hallucinations and believed that the Home Office was trying to kill him.
Hindley's application for parole was delayed a further three years in 1982 by the next Home Secretary, William Whitelaw. When her application was finally heard in 1985, twenty years since her imprisonment began, it was rejected. Home Secretary Leon Brittan announced that Hindley's case would not be heard again for at least five years. His personal opinion, expressed only in private, was that Hindley should serve at least another fifteen years.
The European Court of Human Rights' rejection of Hindley's case as "inadmissible" in 1986 was probably the final confirmation to Hindley that her claim of non-involvement in the murders was totally implausible. At the end of 1986, a letter written by Keith Bennett's mother, begging Hindley to reveal what had happened to her son, provided Hindley with the inspiration for a new set of tactics. Early in 1987, Hindley was again making front-page news with the public release of her full confession. She now admitted both the knowledge of, and involvement in all five murders, including those of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, although she continued to insist that she hadn't actually committed murder. Brady's confession followed shortly after, but he declined to offer any public statements of remorse.
The confessions confirmed police suspicions that the remains of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett had been buried somewhere on the moors. Neither Hindley or Brady was able to pinpoint the exact locations, but Pauline's body was finally located on 1 July 1987, identified by her pink party dress.
While Hindley and Brady's accounts of the events leading up to Pauline's murder correspond, their descriptions of Myra's role in her death do not. According to Hindley's account, Myra had tricked Pauline into coming with her to Saddleworth Moor by offering her some records if she would help Myra to find a lost glove. Once on the moors, Brady arrived on his motorbike and went with Pauline to look for the glove while Myra waited at the car. While he was gone, Brady had raped Pauline and cut her throat before returning to the car to get Myra to help him bury the body. Her role, according to Brady, was much more active, in which she physically and sexually assaulted the girl with him.
Keith Bennett's body was never found but Hindley's confession has given his family some indication of how he died. Hindley had lured him into the car with a request for assistance in loading some boxes. Once at Saddleworth Moor, Brady had taken Keith down the gully to a stream where he raped and then strangled him, burying him somewhere nearby.
In her description of Lesley Ann Downey's murder, Hindley again places herself away from the scene at the moment of death, claiming that she had been in the bathroom when Brady raped, then strangled her. Brady claims that in this instance Hindley had in fact performed the strangulation with her bare hands. This version most closely corresponds with the audio tape recording of the events in which both Brady and Hindley's voices can be clearly heard.
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