Myra Hindley - The Arrest

Justice

David had to tell his story over and over to increasingly senior police. Eventually, convinced by David’s tale, the police arrived at the couple’s home. Police superintendent Bob Talbot dressed as a bakery delivery man in order to fool Hindley into opening the door. Talbot asked Hindley for the key to the room where Evan’s body was believed to be. She reluctantly gave him it.

The Perfect Murder

Inside the property of Hindley and Brady’s the police find the bloodied body of murder victim, Edward Evans and the murder weapon. They arrested Brady immediately. Hindley supported Brady’s story that that there had been an argument between Brady, Evans and David and that it had got out of hand. The 23-year-old Hindley is brought in for questioning but said she had been horrified by what had happened. With no evidence to charge her, she remained at liberty for four more days. She used the time to go to the company where they worked and dispose of incriminating evidence.

The police were dealing with a unique criminal couple. It was the first time in British history that a woman and a man had together committed serial sex murders on children. It simply didn’t occur to them to suspect her.

Killer couple caught

The investigation would probably have gone no further than the death of Evans, if David had not mentioned Brady’s claim that other bodies were buried on Saddleworth Moor. The police were all too aware of the unexplained disappearances.Then police found a document in Hindley’s car describing in detail how Brady had planned to carry out Evan’s murder. When they find a victim’s name in one of Brady’s notebooks, they become convinced David is telling the truth and arrest and charge Hindley.

Police at the time remember she was still the ‘bold and brassy blonde...hard’ and defiant. They take a black and white mugshot photo of her.It would haunt Hindley for the next five decades.

When the police searched Myra’s home, they came upon a claim check tucked into the spine of her communion prayer book. This ticket linked her to the suitcases the police had found in the left luggage in Manchester Central train station. In them were photographs of Lesley Ann, bound and gagged in Hindley’s bedroom. It also included the tape recordings of the final screams of Lesley Downey begging for her life. Also recorded were the sometimes harsh, sometimes indifferent voices of Hindley and Brady.

When police played Hindley the tape, she sobbed, but not out of remorse:

“I think she realised that it was almost the final nail in her coffin. Because there was no jury ever, ever going to find her not guilty when her voice was on that tape.” Ian Fairley, Former Detective Chief Superintendent

But Hindley wouldn’t admit it was Lesley. To be certain it was Lesley on the tape, police had to play it to her mother. Because of Hindley’s refusal to help, a mother had to listen to her daughter’s tortured last moments.Hindley still denied killing Lesley saying that she only adopted a harsh tone because she was worried the neighbours would hear and interfere. But according to Hindley, Lesley was fine when she left their home and any harm came from David, not her.

The evidence linking Brady and Hindley with John Kilbride’s murder was not as strong, but still sufficient to charge them. They were also charged with the murders of Edward Evans and Lesley Ann Downey. Having not been able to find the bodies of the other two victims, despite exhaustive searches, no charges could be brought.On the afternoon of Saturday 16 October, the police were about to give up searching for the day when a constable found a fragment of something white. He’d found a grave 150 yards from the A635 Barnsley to Manchester road. Ten months after her disappearance, the body of ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey had been found.Her parents were called to a room where all her clothes were folded up. They were taken to another room and when the white covering sheet was pulled back. They confirmed it was their daughter.

The Game is Up

The police were starting to realise the photos of the couple on the Moors may be more than just filmic memories. They were particularly interested in one with Hindley holding a dog. It was close to where Lesley had been buried. Initially it looks like Hindley is looking at the dog. She wasn’t. She was looking at a grave.So the police took in the couple’s dog, ‘Puppet’ in order to establish its age and therefore when the photo was taken. But the tests on the dog killed it. Hindley was said to have screamed ‘murderers’ on being told the news.

The police were able to match the pattern of the rocks nearby. They then dug there. The search area was enormous. It stretched for two miles.Five days after the discovery of Lesley, the police found another body. It was that of 12-year-old John Kilbride. He had been missing almost two years. It was only 400 yards from the Lesley Downey’s grave.Hindley had posed for a photo on the exact site of Kilbride’s grave.