**Trigger Warning-Contains graphic details of sexual assault and harm to children**
When people are asked to describe a woman the words that tend to come up all paint the same picture. Empathetic, kind, gentle, loving, nurturing, etc. They think of the image of a mother or a grandma, someone that takes care of and loves you. Sexist, yes, but that is just how we tend to be viewed. Many girls are also raised with this idea that the main goal of their life is to find their “soulmate”. What happens when a man uses these aspects of a woman to get her to commit heinous acts to prove her love to him? This week’s post is about a woman who killed to keep the love of her life with her; to prove her loyalty to him she did the unthinkable. Together Myra Hindley and Ian Brady molested, tortured, and killed five young children.
Image by Biography of Myra Hindley
This is a pair of killers; however, I want to focus solely on Myra’s role in it due to how she got involved. Brady was the typical psychopath; he showed no remorse for his killings and was quite proud of what he had done in the end. Myra on the other hand was involved due to Brady’s manipulation and her love for him. I am not painting her as the victim, she still willingly and actively participated in the horrendous acts they committed, and it does not excuse her actions. However, she was still coerced and according to a testimony before she died, was forced into the acts committed. Now, before I get into what they did I would just like make another disclaimer that this is a very sensitive topic. If at any point you feel uncomfortable you can and should stop reading, this topic is not for everyone.
Image by Crime and Capital Punishment showing Kilbride, Downey, Bennet, Reade, and Evans respectively
Their first victim was a sixteen-year-old girl named Pauline Reade. Hindley kidnapped her and brought her back to Brady so that he could rape, beat, and stab her to death. Their second victim was a twelve-year-old boy named John Kilbride who was raped and strangled to death. Keith Bennet was their third victim and was a twelve-year-old boy killed in the same way as Kilbride. Their fourth victim was a ten-year old girl named Lesley Ann Downey; she was their youngest victim. Her murder was a bit different in the sense that they recorded her pleading for her life. Their fifth and final murder was a seventeen-year-old named Edward Evans who was killed with an axe and electrical fence.
They were caught because Hindley’s brother-in-law, David Smith was there when they killed Evans. Smith was scared he would meet the same fate, so he helped them clean up the body and then went to the police and turned them in. They were both sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to only three of the five murders. Later on, Hindley would go on to admit to all five while in prison but somehow maintained her innocence in all of it. Both her and Brady died in prison. It just goes to show how far some people are willing to stray in the name of love.
I simply cannot see Hindley as a victim or have sympathy for her since she was coerced. I understand the aspect of being forced, but even if you do something like this in the “name of love”, you have to have something wrong with you mentally. No child deserves to be the victim to a twisted fantasy of adults, who are supposed to protect the young in their community. I noticed in one of the articles you linked, the pair only died recently- were these murders also recent?
The murders actually took place from 1963 to 1965. Hindley and Brady were both quite young when they committed them, so they spent most of their lives in jail. As for Hindley being victim, I do not see her in that way either. She was a clean cut psychopath; I just wanted to make sure to mention that she was coerced into the acts to help further explain her mindset. Those that are coerced are just as much of a killer as their partner; they are just in a much more fragile mental state.
Your passion blog is really interesting. Very Criminal Minds-esque. I’m wondering, will you just focus on literal psychopaths (going by the textbook definition), or others as well? I’m sure there’s no end to the number of awful people to choose from. Also, will you look into why they committed those crimes? That’s always a big question.
I am interested in really anyone who commits crimes like these, so the people I cover may end up being all over the place in that sense. I have always been fascinated as to why people commit the acts that they do, that is actually why I am getting the degree I am. So, I will always try to touch on why they do each specific act as it is interesting to me but also what makes each of them so unique.
First of all, thank you for the trigger warnings, that was incredibly thoughtful of you. I think in a sense she had to be a psychopath too. I know I have never been in the situation, but I don’t think I could love someone who rapes and murders children. I feel as if there was a satisfactory element for Hindley. No sane person would CONTINUOUSLY murder and sexually abuse children. In a sense, she was just as sick as he was. This is an incredibly interesting story! Do you think that Hindley was an equal to Brady psychotically, or do you think it is possible to love someone that much?
Evil is a scary thing to think about. The lengths people will go to “love” someone and show it is crazy. The fact that she was so invested in her “love” with this man that she raped and killed children is unfathomable. Also, since it was a partner act, they feeded off each other and the problem seemed to have only gotten worse. This made my stomach turn!