Lesley Ann Downey

Smith agreed to return the following morning with his baby’s pram, for use in transporting Evans’s body to the car before disposing of it on the moors. He arrived home around 3  am and asked his wife to make a cup of tea, which he drank before vomiting and telling her what he had witnessed. At 6:10  am, having waited for daylight and armed himself with a screwdriver and bread knife – in case Brady was planning to intercept him – Smith called police from a phone booth on the estate. He was picked up by a police car from the booth and taken to Hyde police station, where he told officers what he had witnessed in the night.

David Smith was the chief prosecution witness. Before the trial, the News of the World offered Smith £1,000 for the rights to his story; the American People magazine made a competing offer of £6,000 (equivalent to about £20,000 and £110,000 respectively in 2019). When Smith accepted the News of the World offer—its editors had promised additional future payments for syndication and serialization—he agreed to be paid £15 weekly until the trial, and £1,000 in a lump sum if Brady and Hindley were convicted. During the trial, the judge and defence barristers repeatedly questioned Smith and his wife about the nature of the arrangement. At first, Smith refused to name the newspaper, risking contempt of court; when he eventually identified the News of the World, Jones, as Attorney-General, immediately promised an investigation. However, comparing Smith's testimony with his initial statements to police, Atkinson—though describing the paper's actions as "gross interference with the course of justice"—concluded it was not "substantially affected" by the financial incentive. Jones decided not to charge the News of the World on similar grounds.

After receiving end-of-life care, Brady died of restrictive pulmonary disease at Ashworth Hospital on 15 May 2017; the inquest found that he died of natural causes and that his hunger strike had not been a contributory factor. Brady had refused food and fluids for more than 48 hours on various occasions, causing him to be fitted with a nasogastric tube, although his inquest noted that his body mass index was not a cause for concern. He was cremated without ceremony, and his ashes disposed of at sea during the night.

At Shawlands his behaviour worsened; as a teenager he twice appeared before a juvenile court for housebreaking. He left the academy aged 15, and took a job as a tea boy at a Harland and Wolff shipyard in Govan. Nine months later, he began working as a butcher's messenger boy. He had a girlfriend, Evelyn Grant, but their relationship ended when he threatened her with a flick knife after she visited a dance with another boy. He again appeared before the court, this time with nine charges against him, and shortly before his 17th birthday he was placed on probation, on condition that he live with his mother. By then, she had moved to Manchester and married an Irish fruit merchant named Patrick Brady; Patrick Brady got Ian a job as a fruit porter at Smithfield Market, and Ian took Patrick Brady's surname.

Inside one of the cases were—among an assortment of costumes, notes, photographs and negatives—nine pornographic photographs taken of Lesley Ann Downey, naked and with a scarf tied across her mouth, and a 16-minute audiotape recording of a girl screaming and pleading for help. Downey's mother later confirmed that the recording, too, was of her daughter.

Although he refused to work with Ashworth's psychiatrists, Brady occasionally corresponded with people outside the hospital‍—‌subject to prison authorities' censorship‍—‌ including Lord Longford, writer Colin Wilson and various journalists. In one letter, written in 2005, he claimed that the murders were "merely an existential exercise of just over a year, which was concluded in December 1964". By then, he claimed, he and Hindley had turned their attention to armed robbery, for which they had begun to prepare by acquiring guns and vehicles.

Smith became "reviled by the people of Manchester" for financially profiting from the murders. During the trial, Maureen—eight months pregnant—was attacked in the lift of the building in which she and David lived. Their home was vandalised, they regularly received hate mail, and Maureen wrote that she could not let her children out of her sight when they were small. After declining to prosecute the News of the World, Jones came under political pressure to impose new regulations on the press, but was reluctant to legislate on "chequebook journalism". Instead, he accepted the offer of the Press Council to produce a "declaration of principle", which was published in November 1966 and included rules forbidding criminal witnesses being paid or interviewed—but the News of the World promptly rejected the declaration and the Council had no power to enforce its provisions.

The photographs and tape recording of the torture of Downey exhibited in court, and the nonchalant responses of Brady and Hindley, helped to ensure their lasting notoriety. Brady, who said that he did not want to be released, was rarely mentioned in the news, but Hindley's insistent desire to be released made her a figure of public hate—especially as she failed to confess to involvement in the Reade and Bennett murders for 20 years. Hindley's role in the crimes also challenged gendered norms: her betrayal of maternal stereotypes fed public perceptions of her inherent evil, and made her a "poster girl" for moral panics about serial murder and paedophilia in subsequent decades. Her often reprinted photograph, taken shortly after she was arrested, is described by some commentators as similar to the mythical Medusa and, according to author Helen Birch, has become "synonymous with the idea of feminine evil". Given Hindley's status as co-defendant in the first serial-murder trial held since the abolition of the death penalty, retribution was a common theme among those who sought to keep her locked away. Even Hindley's mother insisted that she should die in prison, partly for fear for Hindley's safety. Some commentators expressed the view that of the two, Hindley was the "more evil".

Many of the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley on the moor featured Hindley's dog Puppet, sometimes as a puppy. To help date the photos, detectives had a veterinary surgeon examine the dog to determine his age; the examination required a general anaesthetic, from which Puppet did not recover. Hindley was furious, and accused the police of murdering the dog  – one of the few occasions detectives witnessed any emotional response from her. Hindley wrote to her mother:

Police visited Hindley – then being held in Cookham Wood in Kent – a few days after she received the letter, and although she refused to admit any involvement in the killings, she agreed to help by looking at photographs and maps to try to identify spots she had visited with Brady. She showed particular interest in photos of the area around Hollin Brown Knoll and Shiny Brook, but said that it was impossible to be sure of the locations without visiting the moor. Home Secretary Douglas Hurd agreed with Topping that a visit would be worth risking despite security problems presented by threats against Hindley. Writing in 1989, Topping said that he felt "quite cynical" about Hindley's motivation in helping the police. Although Winnie Johnson's letter may have played a part, he believed that Hindley, knowing of Brady's "precarious" mental state, was concerned he might co-operate with the police and reap any available public-approval benefit.

In 2012, Brady applied to be returned to prison, reiterating his desire to starve himself to death. At a mental health tribunal in June the following year, Brady claimed that he suffered not from paranoid schizophrenia, as his doctors at Ashworth maintained, but a personality disorder. His application was rejected and the judge stated that Brady "continues to suffer from a mental disorder which is of a nature and degree which makes it appropriate for him to continue to receive medical treatment".

The case has been dramatised on television twice: in See No Evil: The Moors Murders and the award-winning Longford (both 2006).

The mother of the remaining undiscovered victim, Bennett, received a letter from Brady at the end of 2005 in which, she said, he claimed that he could take police to within 20 yards (18 m) of her son's body but the authorities would not allow it. Brady did not refer directly to Keith by name and did not claim he could take investigators directly to the grave, but spoke of the "clarity" of his recollections.

In 2003, the police launched Operation Maida, and again searched the moor for Bennett's body, this time using sophisticated resources such as a US reconnaissance satellite which could detect soil disturbances. In mid-2009, the Greater Manchester Police said they had exhausted all avenues in the search for Bennett, that "only a major scientific breakthrough or fresh evidence would see the hunt for his body restart"; and that any further participation by Brady would be via a "walk through the moors virtually" using 3D modelling, rather than a visit by him to the moor. Donations from the public funded a search by volunteers from a Welsh search and rescue team in 2010. In 2012, it was claimed that Brady may have given details of the location of Bennett's body to a visitor; a woman was subsequently arrested on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body without lawful excuse, but a few months later the Crown Prosecution Service announced that there was insufficient evidence to press charges. In 2017, the police asked a court to order that two locked briefcases owned by Brady be opened, arguing that they might contain clues to the location of Bennett's body; the application was declined on the grounds that no prosecution was likely to result.

Characterised by the press as "the most evil woman in Britain", Hindley made several appeals against her life sentence, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society, but was never released. She died in 2002, aged 60. Brady was diagnosed as a psychopath in 1985 and confined in the high-security Ashworth Hospital. He made it clear that he never wished to be released, and repeatedly asked to be allowed to die. He died in 2017, at Ashworth, aged 79.

When in 2002 another life sentence prisoner challenged the Home Secretary's power to set minimum terms, Hindley and hundreds of others, whose tariffs had been increased by politicians, looked likely to be released. Hindley's release seemed imminent and plans were made by supporters for her to be given a new identity. Home Secretary David Blunkett ordered Greater Manchester Police to find new charges against her, to prevent her release from prison. The investigation was headed by Superintendent Tony Brett, and initially looked at charging Hindley with the murders of Reade and Bennett, but the advice given by government lawyers was that because of the DPP's decision taken 15 years earlier, a new trial would probably be considered an abuse of process.

On 25 November 2002, the Law Lords agreed that judges, not politicians, should decide how long a criminal spends behind bars, and stripped the Home Secretary of the power to set minimum sentences. On 15 November 2002, aged 60, Hindley died from bronchial pneumonia at West Suffolk Hospital. She was a 40-a-day smoker who in 1999 had been diagnosed with angina and hospitalised after suffering a brain aneurysm. Camera crews "stood rank and file behind steel barriers" outside, but none of Hindley's relatives were among the small congregation of eight to ten people who attended a short service at Cambridge crematorium. Such was the strength of feeling more than 35 years after the murders that a reported 20 local undertakers refused to handle her cremation. Four months later, her ashes were scattered by her ex-partner, Patricia Cairns, less than 10 miles (16 km) from Saddleworth Moor in Stalybridge Country Park. Fears were expressed that the news might result in visitors choosing to avoid the park, a local beauty spot, or even that the park might be vandalised.

While at Ashworth, in 2001 Brady wrote The Gates of Janus, which was published by Feral House, an underground US publisher. The book, Brady's analysis of serial murder and specific serial killers, sparked outrage when announced in Britain. According to Chris Cowley, Brady regretted Hindley's imprisonment and the consequences of their actions, but not necessarily the crimes themselves. He saw no point in making any kind of public apology; instead, he "expresse[d] remorse through actions". Twenty years of transcribing classical texts into Braille came to an end when the authorities confiscated his translation machine, for fear it might be used as a weapon. He once offered to donate one of his kidneys to "someone, anyone who needed one", but was blocked from doing so. According to Colin Wilson, "it was because these attempts to express remorse were thrown back at him that he began to contemplate suicide". In 2006 officials intercepted 50 paracetamol pills hidden inside a hollowed-out crime novel sent to him by a female friend.

During several years of interactions with forensic psychologist Chris Cowley, including face-to-face meetings, Brady told him of an "aesthetic fascination [he had] with guns", despite his never having used one to kill. He complained bitterly about conditions at Ashworth, which he hated. In 1999, his right wrist was broken in what he claimed was an "hour-long, unprovoked attack" by staff. Brady subsequently went on hunger strike, but while English law allows patients to refuse treatment, those being treated for mental disorders under the Mental Health Act 1983 have no such right if the treatment is for their mental disorder. He was therefore force-fed and transferred to another hospital for tests, after he fell ill. He recovered, and in March 2000 asked for a judicial review of the legality of the decision to force-feed him, but was refused permission.

During the 1990s, Hindley claimed that she took part in the killings only because Brady had drugged her, was blackmailing her with pornographic pictures he had taken of her, and had threatened to kill her younger sister, Maureen. In 2008 Hindley's solicitor, Andrew McCooey, reported that she told him:

On 19 December, David Smith, then 38, spent about four hours on the moor helping police identify additional areas to be searched. Topping continued to visit Hindley in prison, along with her solicitor Michael Fisher and her spiritual counsellor, Peter Timms, who had been a prison governor before becoming a Methodist minister. On 10 February 1987 she formally confessed to involvement in all five murders, but this was not made public for more than a month. The tape recording of her statement was over 17 hours long; Topping described it as a "very well worked out performance in which, I believe, she told me just as much as she wanted me to know, and no more". He added that he "was struck by the fact that [in Hindley's telling] she was never there when the killings took place. She was in the car, over the brow of the hill, in the bathroom and even, in the case of the Evans murder, in the kitchen"; he felt he "had witnessed a great performance rather than a genuine confession".

At about the same time, Winnie Johnson sent Hindley another letter, again pleading with her to assist the police in finding the body of her son Keith. In the letter, Johnson was sympathetic to Hindley over the criticism surrounding her first visit. Hindley, who had not replied to the first letter, responded by thanking Johnson for both letters, explaining that her decision not to reply to the first resulted from the negative publicity that surrounded it. She claimed that, had Johnson written to her 14 years earlier, she would have confessed and helped the police. She also paid tribute to Topping, and thanked Johnson for her sincerity. Hindley made her second visit to the moor in March 1987. This time, the level of security surrounding her visit was considerably higher. She stayed overnight in Manchester, at the flat of the police chief in charge of GMP training at Sedgley Park, Prestwich, and visited the moor twice. She confirmed to police that the two areas in which they were concentrating their search—Hollin Brown Knoll and Hoe Grain—were correct, although she was unable to locate either of the graves. She did, though, later remember that as Pauline Reade was being buried she had been sitting next to her on a patch of grass and could see the rocks of Hollin Brown Knoll silhouetted against the night sky.

In April 1987, news of Hindley's confession became public. Amidst strong media interest Lord Longford pleaded for her release, writing that continuing her detention to satisfy "mob emotion" was not right. Fisher persuaded Hindley to release a public statement, which touched on her reasons for denying her guilt previously, her religious experiences in prison, and the letter from Johnson. She said that she saw no possibility of release, and also exonerated David Smith from any part in the murders other than that of Evans.

In 1987, Hindley admitted that the plea for parole she had submitted to the Home Secretary eight years earlier was "on the whole ... a pack of lies", and to some reporters her co-operation in the searches on Saddleworth Moor "appeared a cynical gesture aimed at ingratiating herself to the parole authorities". Then Home Secretary David Waddington imposed a whole life tariff on Hindley in July 1990, after she confessed to having been more involved in the murders than she had admitted. Hindley was not informed of the decision until 1994, when a Law Lords ruling obliged the Prison Service to inform all life sentence prisoners of the minimum period they must serve in prison before being considered for parole. In 1996, the Parole Board recommended that Hindley be moved to an open prison. She rejected the idea and in early 1998 was moved to the medium-security Highpoint Prison; the House of Lords ruling left open the possibility of later freedom. Between December 1997 and March 2000, Hindley made three separate appeals against her life tariff, claiming she was a reformed woman and no longer a danger to society, but each was rejected by the courts.

Reade's mother was admitted to Springfield Mental Hospital in Manchester. She was present, under heavy sedation, at the funeral of her daughter on 7 August 1987. Five years after their son was murdered, Sheila and Patrick Kilbride divorced. Downey's mother died in 1999 from cancer of the liver. Since her daughter's death, she had campaigned to ensure that Hindley remained in prison, and doctors said that the stress had contributed to the severity of her illness. Bennett's mother continued to visit Saddleworth Moor, where it is believed that Bennett is buried. She died in August 2012.

Manchester City Council decided in 1987 to demolish the house in which Brady and Hindley had lived on Wardle Brook Avenue, and where Downey and Evans were murdered, citing "excessive media interest [in the property] creating unpleasantness for residents".

On 16 December 1986, Hindley made the first of two visits to assist the police search of the moor. Police closed all roads onto the moor, which was patrolled by 200 officers‍—‌some armed. Hindley and her solicitor left Cookham Wood at 4:30 am, flew to the moor by helicopter from an airfield near Maidstone, and then were driven, and walked, around the area until 3:00 pm. She had difficulty connecting what she saw to her memories, and was apparently nervous of the helicopters flying overhead. The press described the visit as a "fiasco", a "publicity stunt", and a "mindless waste of money" but Topping defended it, saying "we needed a thorough systematic search of the moor ... It would never have been possible to carry out such a search in private."

The pair were charged only in the deaths of Kilbride, Downey and Evans, and received life sentences. The investigation was reopened in 1985, after Brady was reported as having confessed to the murders of Reade and Bennett. After confessing to these additional murders, Brady and Hindley were taken separately to Saddleworth Moor to assist in the search for the graves.

In 1985, Brady allegedly told Fred Harrison, a journalist working for The Sunday People, that he had killed Reade and Bennett, something the police already suspected as both lived near Brady and Hindley and had disappeared at about the same time as Kilbride and Downey. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) reopened the investigation, now to be headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping, head of GMP's Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

On 3 July 1985, DCS Topping visited Brady, then being held at Gartree Prison, Leicestershire, but found him "scornful of any suggestion that he had confessed to more murders". Police nevertheless decided to resume their search of Saddleworth Moor, once more using the photographs taken by Brady and Hindley to help them identify possible burial sites. In November 1986, Bennett's mother wrote to Hindley begging to know what had happened to her son, a letter that Hindley seemed to be "genuinely moved" by. It ended:

Following his conviction Brady was moved to Durham Prison, where he asked to live in solitary confinement. He spent 19 years in mainstream prisons before being diagnosed as a psychopath in November 1985 and sent to the high-security Park Lane Hospital, now Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital, in Sefton; he made it clear that he never wanted to be released.

The trial judge recommended that his life sentence should mean life, and successive Home Secretaries agreed with that decision. In 1982, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Lane said of Brady: "this is the case if ever there is to be one when a man should stay in prison till he dies". The death, in November 2007, of John Straffen, who had spent 55 years in prison for murdering three children meant that Brady became the longest-serving prisoner in England and Wales.

Hindley was told that she should spend 25 years in prison before being considered for parole. The Lord Chief Justice agreed with that recommendation in 1982, but in January 1985 Home Secretary Leon Brittan increased her tariff to 30 years. By that time Hindley claimed to be a reformed Catholic. Downey's mother was at the centre of a campaign to ensure that Hindley was never released from prison, and until her death in February 1999, she regularly gave television and newspaper interviews whenever Hindley's release was rumoured. In February 1985, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher told Brittan that his proposed minimum sentences of 30 years for Hindley and 40 years for Brady were too short, saying "I do not think that either of these prisoners should ever be released from custody. Their crime was the most hideous and cruel in modern times."

Maureen and her immediate family made regular visits to see Hindley, who reportedly adored her niece. In 1980, Maureen suffered a brain haemorrhage; Hindley was allowed to visit her in hospital, but arrived an hour after her death. Sheila and Patrick Kilbride, who were by then divorced, attended Maureen's funeral thinking that Hindley might be there; Patrick mistook Bill Scott's daughter from a previous relationship for Hindley and tried to attack her. Shortly before her death at the age of 70, Sheila said: "If she [Hindley] ever comes out of jail I'll kill her". It was a threat repeated by her son Danny, and Ann West.

In 1977, a BBC television debate discussed arguments for and against Myra Hindley's release, with Lord Longford, a Roman Catholic convert, on the side who argued that Hindley should be released, and Downey's mother arguing against Hindley being released, and threatening to kill her were the release to occur.

The book The Loathsome Couple by Edward Gorey (Mead, 1977) was inspired by the Moors murders.

In 1972, Smith was acquitted of the murder of his father, who had been suffering from terminal cancer. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to two days' detention. He remarried and moved to Lincolnshire with his three sons, and was exonerated of any participation in the Moors murders by Hindley's confession in 1987. In 2011, he co-authored the book Witness with biographer Carol Ann Lee. He died in Ireland in 2012.

Hindley lodged an unsuccessful appeal against her conviction immediately after the trial. Brady and Hindley corresponded by letter until 1971, when she ended their relationship. The two remained in sporadic contact for several months, but Hindley had fallen in love with one of her prison warders, Patricia Cairns. A former assistant governor claimed that such relationships were not unusual in Holloway at that time, as "many of the officers were gay, and involved in relationships either with one another or with inmates". Hindley successfully petitioned to have her status as a category A prisoner changed to category B, which enabled Governor Dorothy Wing to take her on a walk round Hampstead Heath, part of her unofficial policy of reintroducing her charges to the outside world when she felt they were ready. The excursion caused a furore in the national press and earned Wing an official rebuke from the then Home Secretary Robert Carr. With help from Cairns, and the outside contacts of another prisoner, Maxine Croft, Hindley planned a prison escape, but it was thwarted when impressions of the prison keys were intercepted by an off-duty policeman. Cairns was sentenced to six years in jail for her part in the plot.

After stabbing another man during a fight, in an attack he claimed was triggered by the abuse he had suffered since the trial, Smith was sentenced to three years in prison in 1969. That same year his children were taken into the care of the local authority. Maureen moved from Underwood Court to a single-bedroom property, and found work in a department store. Subjected to whispering campaigns and petitions to remove her from the estate where she lived, she received no support from her family—her mother had supported Myra during the trial. On his release from prison, Smith moved in with a 15-year-old girl who became his second wife and won custody of his three sons. Maureen managed to repair the relationship with her mother, and moved into a council property in Gorton. She divorced Smith in 1973, and married a lorry driver, Bill Scott, with whom she had a daughter.

The fourteen-day trial, before Mr Justice Fenton Atkinson, began on 19 April 1966. The courtroom was fitted with security screens to protect Brady and Hindley, who were charged with murdering Evans, Downey and Kilbride. The Attorney General, Sir Elwyn Jones, led the prosecution, assisted by William Mars-Jones. Brady was defended by the Liberal Member of Parliament Emlyn Hooson QC, and Hindley was defended by Godfrey Heilpern QC recorder of Salford from 1964; both were experienced Queen's Counsel.

On the evening of 6 October 1965, Hindley drove Brady to Manchester Central railway station, where she waited outside in the car whilst he selected a victim. After a few minutes Brady reappeared in the company of 17-year-old Edward Evans, an apprentice engineer who lived in Ardwick, to whom he introduced Hindley as his sister. They drove to Brady and Hindley's home at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, Hattersley, Cheshire, where they relaxed over a bottle of wine.

Presented with the evidence of the tape recording, Brady admitted to taking the photographs of Downey, but insisted that she had been brought to Wardle Brook Avenue by two men who had subsequently taken her away again, alive. By 2 December 1965, Brady had been charged with the murders of Kilbride, Downey and Evans. Hindley had been charged with the murders of Downey and Evans, and being an accessory to the murder of Kilbride. At the committal hearing on 6 December, Brady was charged with the murders of Evans, Kilbride, and Downey, and Hindley with the murders of Evans and Downey, as well as with harbouring Brady in the knowledge that he had killed Kilbride. The prosecution's opening statement was held in camera rather than in open court, and the defence asked for a similar stipulation but was refused. The proceedings continued before three magistrates in Hyde over an 11-day period during December, at the end of which the pair were committed for trial at Chester Assizes.

Early in the evening of 16 June 1964, Hindley asked twelve-year-old Keith Bennett, who was on his way to his grandmother's house in Longsight, Manchester, for help in loading some boxes into her Mini Pick-up, after which she said she would drive him home. Brady was in the back of the van. She drove to a lay-by on Saddleworth Moor and Brady went off with Bennett, supposedly looking for a lost glove. After about 30 minutes Brady returned alone, carrying a spade that he had hidden there earlier, and, in response to Hindley's questions, said that he had sexually assaulted Bennett and strangled him with a piece of string.

Brady and Hindley visited a fairground on 26 December 1964 and noticed that 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey was apparently alone. They approached her and deliberately dropped some shopping they were carrying, then asked her help in taking the packages to their car, and then to their home. At the house Downey was undressed, gagged, and forced to pose for photographs before being raped and killed, perhaps strangled with a piece of string. Hindley later maintained that she went to fill a bath for Downey and found her dead when she returned; Brady claimed that Hindley killed Downey. The following morning Brady and Hindley drove Downey's body to Saddleworth Moor, and buried her‍—‌naked with her clothes at her feet‍—‌in a shallow grave.

Maureen Hindley married David Smith on 15 August 1964. The marriage was hastily arranged and performed at a register office. None of Hindley's relatives attended; Myra did not approve of the marriage, and her mother was too embarrassed—Maureen was seven months pregnant. The newlyweds moved into Smith's father's house. The next day, Brady suggested that the four take a day-trip to Windermere. This was the first time Brady and Smith had met properly, and Brady was apparently impressed by Smith's demeanour. The two talked about society, the distribution of wealth, and the possibility of robbing a bank. The young Smith was similarly impressed by Brady, who throughout the day had paid for his food and wine. The trip to the Lake District was the first of many outings. Hindley was apparently jealous of their relationship, but became closer to her sister.

In 1964, Hindley, her grandmother, and Brady were rehoused as part of the post-war slum clearances in Manchester, to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in the new overspill estate of Hattersley. Brady and Hindley became friendly with Patricia Hodges, an 11-year-old girl who lived at 12 Wardle Brook Avenue. Hodges accompanied the two on their trips to Saddleworth Moor to collect peat, something that many householders on the new estate did to improve the soil in their gardens, which were full of clay and builder's rubble. She remained unharmed; living only a few doors away, her disappearance would have been easily solved.

Early on Boxing Day 1964, Hindley left her grandmother at a relative's house and refused to allow her back to Wardle Brook Avenue that night. On the same day, Downey disappeared from a funfair in Ancoats. Despite a huge search, she was not found. The following day, Hindley brought her grandmother back home. By February 1965, Patricia Hodges had stopped visiting 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, but David Smith was still a regular visitor. Brady gave Smith books to read, and the two discussed robbery and murder. On Hindley's 23rd birthday, her sister and brother-in-law, who had until then been living with relatives, were rehoused in Underwood Court, a block of flats not far from Wardle Brook Avenue. The two couples began to see each other more regularly, but usually only on Brady's terms.

The Moors murders were carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965, in and around Manchester, England. The victims were five children—Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans—aged between 10 and 17, at least four of whom were sexually assaulted. Two of the victims were discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor; a third grave was discovered there in 1987, more than twenty years after Brady and Hindley's trial. Bennett's body is also thought to be buried there, but despite repeated searches it remains undiscovered.

On 12 July 1963, Brady told Hindley that he wanted to commit the "perfect murder". After work he instructed her to drive a borrowed van around while he followed on his motorcycle; when he spotted a likely victim he would flash his headlight.

In the early evening of 23 November 1963, at a market in Ashton-under-Lyne, Brady and Hindley offered 12-year-old John Kilbride a lift home, saying his parents might worry that he was out so late; they also promised him a bottle of sherry. Once Kilbride was inside Hindley's hired Ford Anglia car, Brady said they would have to make a detour to their home for the sherry. En route he suggested another detour, this time to search for a glove Hindley had lost on the moor. When they reached the moor Brady took Kilbride with him while Hindley waited in the car; Brady sexually assaulted Kilbride and tried to slit his throat with a six-inch serrated blade before strangling him with a shoelace or string.

Hindley began to change her appearance further, wearing clothing considered risqué such as high boots, short skirts and leather jackets, and the two became less sociable to their colleagues. The couple were regulars at the library, borrowing books on philosophy, as well as crime and torture. They also read works by the Marquis de Sade, Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Although Hindley was not a qualified driver (she passed her test on 7 November 1963 after failing three times), she often hired a van, in which the couple planned bank robberies. Hindley befriended George Clitheroe, the President of the Cheadle Rifle Club, and on several occasions visited two local shooting ranges. Clitheroe, although puzzled by her interest, arranged for her to buy a .22 rifle from a gun merchant in Manchester. She also asked to join a pistol club, but she was a poor shot and allegedly often bad-tempered, so Clitheroe told her that she was unsuitable; she did though manage to purchase a Webley .45 and a Smith & Wesson .38 from other members of the club. Brady and Hindley's plans for robbery came to nothing, but they became interested in photography. Brady already owned a Box Brownie, which he used to take photographs of Hindley and her dog, Puppet, but he upgraded to a more sophisticated model, and also purchased lights and darkroom equipment. The pair took photographs of each other that, for the time, would have been considered explicit. For Hindley, this demonstrated a marked change from her earlier, more shy and prudish nature.

Hindley claimed that Brady began to talk about "committing the perfect murder" in July 1963, and often spoke to her about Meyer Levin's Compulsion, published as a novel in 1956 and adapted for the cinema in 1959. The story tells a fictionalised account of the Leopold and Loeb case, two young men from well-to-do families who attempt to commit the perfect murder of a 12-year-old boy, and escape the death penalty because of their age.

By June 1963, Brady had moved in with Hindley at her grandmother's house in Bannock Street, and on 12 July 1963, the two murdered their first victim, Reade, who had attended school with Hindley's younger sister, Maureen, and had also been in a short relationship with David Smith, a local boy with three criminal convictions for minor crimes. Police found no one who had seen Reade before her disappearance, and although the 15-year-old Smith was questioned by police, he was cleared of any involvement in her death. Their next victim, Kilbride, was killed on 23 November 1963. A huge search was undertaken, with over 700 statements taken, and 500 "missing" posters printed. Eight days after he failed to return home, 2,000 volunteers scoured waste ground and derelict buildings.

Hindley hired a vehicle a week after Kilbride went missing, and again on 21 December 1963, apparently to make sure the burial sites had not been disturbed. In February 1964, she bought a second-hand Austin Traveller, but soon after traded it for a Mini van. Bennett disappeared on 16 June 1964. His stepfather, Jimmy Johnson, became a suspect; in the two years following Bennett's disappearance, Johnson was taken for questioning on four occasions. Detectives searched under the floorboards of the Johnsons' house, and on discovering that the houses in the row were connected, extended the search to the entire street.

Since Brady and Hindley's arrests, newspapers had been keen to connect them to other missing children and teenagers from the area. One such victim was Stephen Jennings, a three-year-old West Yorkshire boy who was last seen alive in December 1962; his body was found buried in a field in 1988, but the following year his father William Jennings was found guilty of his murder. Jennifer Tighe, a 14-year-old girl who disappeared from an Oldham children's home in December 1964, was mentioned in the press some 40 years later but was confirmed by police to be alive. This followed claims in 2004 that Hindley had told another inmate that she and Brady had murdered a sixth victim, a teenage girl.

In January 1961, the 18-year-old Hindley joined Millwards as a typist. She soon became infatuated with Brady, despite learning that he had a criminal record. She began a diary and, although she had dates with other men, some of the entries detail her fascination with Brady, to whom she eventually spoke for the first time on 27 July. Over the next few months she continued to make entries, but grew increasingly disillusioned with him, until 22 December when Brady asked her on a date to the cinema. (Many sources state that the film was Judgment at Nuremberg but Hindley recalled it as King of Kings) Their dates followed a regular pattern: a trip to the cinema, usually to watch an X-rated film, then back to Hindley's house to drink German wine. Brady then gave her reading material, and the pair spent their work lunch breaks reading aloud to one another from accounts of Nazi atrocities. Hindley began to emulate an ideal of Aryan perfection, bleaching her hair blonde and applying thick crimson lipstick. She expressed concern at some aspects of Brady's character; in a letter to a childhood friend, she mentioned an incident where she had been drugged by Brady, but also wrote of her obsession with him. A few months later, she asked her friend to destroy the letter. In her 30,000-word plea for parole, written in 1978 and 1979 and submitted to Home Secretary Merlyn Rees, Hindley said:

In January 1959, Brady applied for and was offered a clerical job at Millwards, a wholesale chemical distribution company based in Gorton. He was regarded by his colleagues as a quiet, punctual, but short-tempered young man. He read books including Teach Yourself German and Mein Kampf, as well as works on Nazi atrocities. He rode a Tiger Cub motorcycle, which he used to visit the Pennines.

Within a year of moving to Manchester, Brady was caught with a sack full of lead seals he had stolen and was trying to smuggle out of the market. He was sent to Strangeways for three months. As he was still under 18, he was sentenced to two years in a borstal for "training". He was sent to Latchmere House in London, and then Hatfield borstal in the West Riding of Yorkshire. After being discovered drunk on alcohol he had brewed he was moved to the much tougher unit in Hull. Released on 14 November 1957, Brady returned to Manchester, where he took a labouring job, which he hated, and was dismissed from another job in a brewery. Deciding to "better himself", he obtained a set of instruction manuals on book-keeping from a local public library, with which he "astonished" his parents by studying alone in his room for hours.

One of Hindley's closest friends was 13-year-old Michael Higgins, who lived nearby. In 1957, he invited her to go swimming with friends at a local disused reservoir, but Hindley instead went out with another friend; Higgins drowned in the reservoir. Hindley‍—‌a good swimmer‍—‌was deeply upset and blamed herself. She collected for a wreath, and his funeral at St Francis's Monastery in Gorton Lane—where Hindley had been baptised a Catholic in 1942—had a lasting effect on her. Hindley's mother had agreed to her father's insistence that Hindley be baptised a Catholic, but only on the condition that she not be sent to a Catholic school; her mother believed that "all the monks taught was the catechism". Hindley was increasingly drawn to the Catholic Church after she started at Ryder Brow Secondary Modern, and began taking instruction for formal reception into the Church soon after Higgins's funeral. She took the confirmation name of Veronica, and received her first communion in November 1958.

Hindley was born in Crumpsall on 23 July 1942 and raised in Gorton, then a working-class area of Manchester. Her parents, Nellie and Bob Hindley (the latter an alcoholic), beat her regularly when she was a young child. The family house was in a poor condition and Hindley was forced to sleep in a single bed next to her parents' double. Their living situation deteriorated further when Hindley's sister, Maureen, was born in August 1946, and about a year later Hindley, then 5, was sent to live with a grandmother nearby.

Brady was born in Glasgow, Scotland as Ian Duncan Stewart on 2 January 1938 to Margaret "Peggy" Stewart, an unmarried tea room waitress. The identity of Brady's father has never been reliably ascertained, although his mother said he was a reporter working for a Glasgow newspaper, who died three months before Brady was born. Stewart had little support, and after a few months was forced to give her son into the care of Mary and John Sloan, a local couple with four children of their own. Brady took their name, and became known as Ian Sloan. His mother continued to visit him throughout his childhood. Various authors have stated that he tortured animals, although Brady objected to such accusations. Aged nine, he visited Loch Lomond with his family, where he reportedly discovered an affinity for the outdoors, and a few months later the family moved to a new council house on an overspill estate at Pollok. He was accepted for Shawlands Academy, a school for above-average pupils.