It’s Boxing Day, 1964, when a 26-year-old man named Ian Brady, and a 22-year-old woman named Myra Hindley, attend a fair in Ancoats, an area in Manchester, North West England. 

The pair had met three years prior when Myra had developed an infatuation with Ian. Finally, Ian showed interest and asked her to the movies. They have been inseparable ever since, although their relationship is anything but conventional. 

While at the fair, the couple notice that a ten-year-old named Lesley Ann Downey appears to be alone. In an instant, she becomes their next target. 

The young couple approach her, purposefully dropping the shopping they’re carrying. Ian and Myra know that the presence of a woman means a child is more likely to trust them. This is part of their strategy. 

And so, they ask Lesley if she wouldn’t mind helping them carry their packages to their car, and then on to their home on Wardle Brook Avenue. 

When they arrive, Lesley Ann Downey is raped and then murdered. 

She is not Ian and Myra’s first victim. And she will not be their last. 

The following morning, as Lesley Ann’s family frantically search for their missing daughter, the pair bury her in a shallow grave at Saddleworth Moor, a wide open expanse of hills and uncultivated land. Her clothes are buried by her feet. 

The crimes committed by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady would come to be known as the Moors murder, a series of killings that targeted children, four of whom were sexually assaulted. 

Myra Hindley has long been branded the “most evil woman in Britain” - the exception to everything we think we know about female killers.

CREDITS

Guests: Dr Lizzie Seal & Dr Meghan Sacks

Host: Jessie Stephens

Producer: Gia Moylan

Audio Producer: Ian Camilleri

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