SERIAL KILLER COUPLES
Bonded by Sexual Depravity, Abduction, and Murder
By R. Barri Flowers
Copyright 2012 by R. Barri Flowers at Smashwords. All rights reserved.
Cover Image Copyright 2012 by Eky Studio
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Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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ALSO BY R. BARRI FLOWERS
TRUE CRIME
The Sex Slave Murders: The True Story of Serial Killers Gerald & Charlene Gallego
Mass Murder in the Sky: The Bombing of Flight 629 (historical short)
Murders in the United States: Crimes, Killers, and Victims of the 20th Century
NOVELS
State's Evidence (A Beverly Mendoza Legal Thriller)
Persuasive Evidence (A Jordan La Fontaine Legal Thriller)
Justice Served (A Barkley and Parker Mystery)
Murder in Maui (A Leila Kahana Mystery)
Dark Streets of Whitechapel (A Jack the Ripper Mystery)
Dead in the Rose City (A Dean Drake Mystery)
Killer in The Woods (A Psychological Thriller)
Ghost Girl in Shadow Bay (A Young Adult Haunted House Mystery)
Danger in Time (A Young Adult Time Travel Mystery)
SHORT STORY COLLECTION
Edge of Suspense: Thrilling Tales of Mystery & Murder
* * *
PRAISE FOR R. BARRI FLOWERS
"THE SEX SLAVE MURDERS is a gripping account of the murders committed by husband-and-wife serial killers Gerald and Charlene Gallego. Top true crime author and criminologist R. Barri Flowers provides his keen insight and expertise into what made these killing partners tick. Flowers knows his stuff. Compelling reading." — Gary C. King, author of Blood Lust
"R. Barri Flowers always relates an engrossing story in a hard-hitting and fast-paced manner." — Robert Scott, author of Shattered Innocence on THE SEX SLAVE MURDERS
"R. Barri Flowers has done a tremendous job, and if you are looking for a true crime read this book should not be missed." — RAWSISTAZ.com on THE SEX SLAVE MURDERS
"A masterful thriller set in the dark underbelly of Maui, with lots of fine action, down and dirty characters, and the vivid details of police procedure one would expect from an author who is also a top criminologist. A terrific read!" — Douglas Preston, New York Times bestselling author on MURDER IN MAUI
"Gripping, tightly woven tale you won't want to put down. Author neatly contrasts natural beauty of tropical paradise with ugliness of murder and aftermath. " — John Lutz, Edgar winner and bestselling author of Mister X on MURDER IN MAUI
"A police procedural of the highest order, mixing equal parts Sue Grafton and Jeffrey Deaver with a sprinkling of Patricia Cornwell." — Jon Land, bestselling author of Strong Justice on MURDER IN MAUI
"Flowers once again has written a page-turner legal thriller that begins with a bang and rapidly moves along to its final page. He has filled the novel with believable characters and situations." — Midwest Book Review on STATE'S EVIDENCE
"A model of crime fiction... Flowers may be a new voice in modern mystery writing, but he is already one of its best voices." — Statesman Journal on JUSTICE SERVED
"An excellent look at the jurisprudence system...will appeal to fans of John Grisham and Linda Fairstein." — Harriet Klausner on PERSUASIVE EVIDENCE
"An interesting blend of classic film noir and rough, modern cinema... Quick action and tight dialogue make it a jolting thriller, but it's also got the psychological tightness of a good mystery puzzle." — Robert A. Sloan, author of Raven Dance on DEAD IN THE ROSE CITY
* * *
Chapter 1 - Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck
Chapter 2 - Ian Brady and Myra Hindley
Chapter 3 - Fred West and Rosemary West
Chapter 4 - Gerald Gallego and Charlene Gallego
Chapter 5 - Douglas Clark and Carol Mary Bundy
Chapter 6 - Alvin Neelley and Judith Ann Neelley
Chapter 7 - Alton Coleman and Debra Denise Brown
Chapter 8 - James Gregory Marlow and Cynthia Coffman
Chapter 9 - Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
The Sex Slave Murders (true crime book) - Bonus Excerpt
Mass Murder in the Sky (historical true crime short) - Bonus Excerpt
Dark Streets of Whitechapel (historical thriller novel) - Bonus Excerpt
Murder in Maui (police procedural mystery novel) - Bonus Excerpt
SERIAL KILLER COUPLES: Bonded by Sexual Depravity, Abduction, and Murder examines the true crimes of sexually motivated serial killers who are intimates as opposed to killer pairs who are neither romantically involved nor killing with a strong sexually deviant element.
The nine male-female serial killer teams explored in the book include some of the worst in history, with abduction, rape, torture, murder, and warped love common themes among the merciless, sadistic perpetrators. Yet each serial killer couple has their own unique background, style, circumstances, and methods for committing their violent serial crimes.
Two ruthless British serial killer couples, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and Fred West and Rosemary West are chronicled as well as one infamous Canadian serial killer pair, Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.
Six notorious American serial killer duos are examined. These include Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, Gerald Gallego and Charlene Gallego, Douglas Clark and Carol Mary Bundy, Alvin Neelley and Judith Ann Neelley, Alton Coleman and Debra Denise Brown, and Cynthia Coffman and James Gregory Marlow.
The term "serial killer" was first introduced in the 1980s and refers to "killers who kill a series of persons over a course of time."1 A serial killer typically targets and "systematically kills victims one by one until no longer able to, usually due to being captured by authorities."2
By definition, serial killers must kill two or more persons in the process of their homicidal criminality. Within this context, according to law enforcement, such individuals tend to be "nomadic, sexual sadists who operate with a strict pattern of victim selection and crime scene behavior."3 Some criminologists view the serial killer as one who acts out "as a result of some individual pathology produced by traumatic childhood experiences."4
When two people join forces to become serial killers, the outcome is often even more devastating than with solo serial killers, with two sets of eyes able to scout new victims, locations, burial grounds, and orchestrate their killings. Where it concerns male and female serial killer tandems, the male is typically the aggressor and the female the compliant partner in their crimes of violence, often acting as the lure for unsuspecting victims. However, the female serial killer partner is often just as heartless and brutal in the participation of serial killings, as is evidenced in the pages to follow.
This is especially true when dealing with sexually driven serial killers, which tends to involve the "killing of a person in the context of power, sexuality, and brutality."5 Sexual homicides often comprise murders where there is "a sexual element, motivation, relationship, or perversion involved such as rape, molestation, prostitution, intimacy, battering, and sexual jealousy."6
Most sexual serial killings fall under the category of "lust murders" and are characterized by "intense sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies generally involving non-human objects, the suffering or humiliation of one's self or one's partner, or children or other non-consenting persons."7
In Serial Killer Couples, the sexual motivation and impulse to kill go hand in hand, making the killers all the more terrifying and their true stories gripping as they perpetrate their reigns of terror before justice can be served.
Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck
Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck were unlikely serial killers in the 1940s. The physically mismatched lovers, dubbed by the press as the "Lonely Hearts Killers," found their victims through advertising and notices in lonely hearts clubs sections of newspapers and other publications. Motivated largely by financial gain, the murderous couple took advantage of gullible victims through confidence schemes, with sex and jealousy key factors in their homicides. It is estimated that as many as twenty women may have been targeted and killed by the serial killer couple.1
Beck and Fernandez, who came from decidedly different backgrounds, perpetrated their deadly crimes during a time when such seemed hard to grasp by the public compared to later years when other serial killer intimates operated. The shocking killings, arrests, trial, and fate of the infamous killers captivated the nation and continues to fascinate criminologists and the public.
* * *
Raymond Martinez Fernandez was born on December 17, 1914 in Hawaii. He was three years old when his Spanish parents relocated to Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1932, Fernandez moved to Spain where he worked on his uncle's farm. At age twenty, he married Encarnacion Robles, fathering four children.
During World War II, Fernandez was a merchant marine before he joined the British Intelligence. According to the Defense Security Office, he was seen as "entirely loyal to the Allied cause and carried out his duties, which were sometimes difficult and dangerous, extremely well."2
After the war, while aboard a freighter en route to America to secure employment, Fernandez was seriously injured when a steel hatch fell and hit him on top of the head. He suffered a fractured skull, and sustained damage to his frontal lobe. This apparently caused him to undergo a change in personality that some believe had a profoundly negative effect on him socially and sexually.
When he was released from the hospital, Fernandez spent a year in prison after stealing clothes. While incarcerated, he learned voodoo and black magic from a cellmate, later purporting that black magic made him irresistible to women.
Once he had completed his sentence, Fernandez moved to New York, where he started responding to personal ads posted by lonely women. After charming and seducing these women, he stole money, jewelry, and other items before fleeing. Many victims were too ashamed to report the criminality.
Fernandez reportedly romanced and wed one such victim named Jane Lucilla Thompson, with whom he traveled to Spain. Thompson died under suspicious circumstances in her hotel room and Fernandez used a forged will to claim her property.
In 1947, Fernandez responded to a personal ad that Martha Beck had placed.
* * *
On May 6, 1920, Martha Beck was born Martha Jule Seabrook in Milton, Florida. A glandular condition developed in early childhood that caused premature puberty, obesity, and an increased sex drive. A victim of incest, Beck was often ridiculed by classmates and an overbearing mother, leading to loneliness and depression.
Upon finishing school, Beck went on to attend nursing school in Pensacola, Florida, and in 1942, graduated first in her class. She gained employment at Pensacola Hospital, and would go on to be promoted to supervisor.
Beck would eventually relocate to California, where she was employed as a nurse in an Army hospital. Promiscuity led to pregnancy, but the father refused to marry her and Beck moved back to Florida.
She claimed that her child's father was in the service, and lied that they had gotten married and he had been killed during the Pacific War, which led to the tragic tale being featured locally in the newspaper.
Not long after Beck gave birth to a daughter, she became pregnant again by Alfred Beck, a Pensacola bus driver. After a quick marriage, they divorced six months later and Beck's son was born.
As an unemployed single mother of two young children, Beck sought escape in a world of fantasy through watching romance movies and reading romance magazines and fiction. In 1946, she found work at the Pensacola Hospital for Children. An ad she had placed in a lonely hearts column in 1947 was answered by Raymond Fernandez.
* * *
The two started corresponding and the nearly three hundred pound Martha Beck was happy to have a long distance involvement with the handsome and charming Fernandez. At some point, Fernandez allegedly requested a lock of Beck's hair, which was to be used as part of his voodoo practice. In December 1947, they met for the first time in Florida. Beck would then go to New York to visit Fernandez.
It was his intention to break off their relationship, but after a distraught Beck was terminated from her job, she wound up at Fernandez's door accompanied by her two children on January 18, 1948. Fernandez, who had abandoned his own children, was willing to take Beck in, but not her son and daughter. So Martha Beck left her children at the Salvation Army a week later and began a full-time romance with Raymond Fernandez.
He soon let her in on his secret of being a gigolo and thief in conning numerous lonely women he met through the personals out of their savings and possessions. Fernandez went so far as to admit to marrying some of his victims as part of the confidence scheme, as well as having a family he had turned his back on in Spain.
Beck, whose own personal life had been a disaster, took it all in stride, smitten by Fernandez and his apparent willingness to accept her for who she was. She joined forces with him as a con artist, thief, and lover, often pretending to be his sister or sister-in-law to entice victims to let their guard down.
* * *
One such lonely hearts victim was Esther Henne, who lived in Pennsylvania. Fernandez and Beck went to meet her. Soon after, on February 28, 1948, Henne married the smooth talking Raymond Fernandez in Fairfax, Virginia at the County Clerk's Office, before the two, along with Martha Beck, went back to Esther Henne's West 139th Street apartment.
The honeymoon ended quickly before things went downhill for the newlyweds. In an interview later, Henne said, "For four days he was very polite to me. Then he gave me tongue lashings when I wouldn't sign over my insurance policies and my teacher's pension fund to him."3 A fearful Henne would ultimately get away from Fernandez and Beck and live to tell about it, albeit having lost hundreds of dollars and a vehicle to the con artists.
A string of other victims would follow as Beck and Fernandez honed their improbable criminal alliance to support themselves.
On August 14, 1948, Raymond Fernandez charmed Greene Forest, Arkansas resident Myrtle Young into marrying him in Cook County, Illinois. Though Martha Beck pretended to be Fernandez's sister, as his real and jealous lover, she had no desire to see him consummate the marriage, even if it meant she had to sleep in bed with the newlyweds.
Acquiescing to Beck's constant insecurity and jealousy, Fernandez gave Young a drug overdose, causing her to lose consciousness. After he and Beck stole four thousand dollars from the victim, they put her on a bus bound for Little Rock, Arkansas. The police removed Young from the bus and took her to the hospital, where she died the next day.
Fernandez and Beck had upped the ante from scamming lonely women looking for love to murder for profit scheming.
* * *
As Beck and Fernandez struggled to make ends meet in spite of their success in taking advantage of gullible, lonely women, they continued to seek out new victims, setting their sights on sixty-six-year-old widow Janet Fay of Albany, New York.
Fay, who had a nice downtown apartment and an even nicer bank account, was a perfect target for Fernandez and Beck. Aware that Fay was a devout Catholic and regular church attendee, Fernandez, who frequently went by the alias Charles Martin in his lonely hearts correspondence, wrote to her accordingly, and peppered his letters with religious jargon.
On December 31, 1948, Fernandez met Fay at her apartment, while Beck stayed behind at their hotel. Beck would be ever present in the coming days, posing as Fernandez's sister, as the threesome became acquainted. Fay felt comfortable enough with Fernandez and Beck to invite them to spend the night in her apartment.
When the anticipated marriage proposal came, Fay eagerly agreed to become Fernandez's wife, oblivious to his and Beck's dark history and their plans for her. Arrangements were made for Fay move to Fernandez and Beck's Long Island rented apartment at 15 Adeline Street. But not before Fay emptied her bank accounts of more than $6,000.
The threesome drove to Long Island on January 4, 1949, where Beck admitted to "just burning up with jealousy and anger," when seeing "Janet naked with her arm around Raymond."4
In a "murderous rage," Beck bludgeoned Janet Fay till she lost consciousness with "a ball-peen hammer and then [either she or Fernandez] garroted [her] using a scarf as a tourniquet around [Fay's] neck."5
After the serial killer con artists cleaned the room, they used sheets and towels to wrap Fay's body up before stuffing it in a closet for the night.
The following day, Fernandez and Beck purchased a large trunk, put Fay's corpse inside, and took it to the house where Fernandez's sister lived. She allowed them to keep the trunk in her basement temporarily, presumably having no idea as to the contents.
On January 15, 1949, Fernandez picked up the trunk. He buried it in a rented house's cellar, covering the area with cement.
Over the next week, Beck and Fernandez cashed checks belonging to Janet Fay and hoped to throw off her family as to her whereabouts by typing letters that indicated she was "having the time of [her] life" and would "soon be Mrs. Martin and will go to Florida."6
Since Fay did not have a typewriter, her family instantly became suspicious and contacted the authorities.
By that time, Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck had already moved beyond their latest victim and were in search for another.
* * *
Toward the end of January 1949, the killers made their way to Byron Center Road in Wyoming Township, Michigan, a Grand Rapids suburb, where they met with forty-one-year-old widow Delphine Downing, who had a two-year old daughter, Rainelle. Fernandez had been corresponding as Charles Martin with Downing for a few weeks, claiming to be successful in the export trade business and that he was fond of children.
Beck once again pretended to be Fernandez's sister as the three got together, with Downing allowing them to stay with her. And, as had been the pattern previously, when Downing and Fernandez began to have sexual relations, Beck became inflamed with jealousy. Meanwhile, Downing had begun to grow suspicious of Fernandez. When she caught him without his toupee and saw the conspicuous and unsettling scar atop his head from the accident, she accused him of fraud.
Either Beck or Fernandez gave Downing some sleeping pills to calm her. While she slept, Beck became fed up with the nonstop crying of Downing's daughter, so she strangled her into unconsciousness.
Fearing that the bruises on Rainelle's neck would further arouse Downing's suspicions, Fernandez grabbed a handgun belonging to Downing's late husband, wrapped a blanket around it, and shot her pointblank in the head, killing her instantly.
The killers wrapped Downing in some sheets before carrying her body to the basement. There, they dug a deep hole and tossed the corpse inside. While Fernandez used cement to cover the victim's remains, Beck did her best to clean up any evidence of the homicide.
Fernandez and Beck remained in Downing's house for a few more days. They stole whatever money and checks Downing had, along with any other possessions of value, while plotting their strategy for fleeing successfully.
One obstacle was Rainelle, Downing's daughter, who was still alive and continued to wail incessantly and was in no mood to eat. After some discussion, it became clear what needed to be done and who would do it.
Filling a washbasin with water, Beck drowned the girl. Afterwards, Fernandez dug another grave in the basement beside Downing's, where her daughter was discarded the same way.
Though the serial killer couple may have believed they had adequately hidden their latest murder victims, neighbors sensing something was wrong, reported the Downings as missing.
On February 28, 1949, the police arrived at the house and soon discovered the grisly remains beneath the basement floor.
* * *
That same day, Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck were arrested and taken to the Kent County District Attorney's office for questioning. Both seemed more than willing to talk about their murderous criminal activity and lonely hearts victims, mindful that Michigan had no death penalty, whereas New York did.
With Kent County D.A. Roger O. McMahon offering assurances that they would not be handed over to New York authorities to answer for Janet Fay's death, Fernandez and Beck signed a seventy-three page confession. Unfortunately for them, the pledge did not hold up.
In early March 1949, with mounting pressure from the New York media and public who wanted nothing less than to see Fernandez and Beck sentenced to death, New York Governor Thomas Dewey was able to get the Kent County D.A.'s office to waive murder charges against the pair who would then be extradited to New York to stand trial for the murder of Janet Fay.
* * *
On June 28, 1949, Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck went on trial for their lives in a case that gripped the nation for its shocking circumstances that included sex, seduction, swindling, and murder, along with an improbable serial killer couple. New York attorney Herbert E. Rosenberg represented both defendants, while Nassau County District Attorney Edward Robinson Jr. would prosecute the case.
With the publicity generated from Fay's murder and a fair trial in question in Nassau County, Long Island where the crime occurred, a change of venue was allowed and the trial was moved to the Bronx Supreme Court, not far from Yankee Stadium.
Sitting on the bench was Judge Ferdinand Pecora. The prosecution's solid case was established in calling the medical examiner to the stand, forensic investigators, law enforcement personnel from Michigan, and Janet Fay's landlord, among others.
On July 11th, Raymond Fernandez took the stand, denying involvement in the death of Fay. He sought to retract his confession in Michigan, claiming it was only done for Beck's sake. "All my statements were made for the purpose of helping Martha," he contended. "I love her. It couldn't be anything else."7
Both Fernandez and Beck had also steadfastly denied participating in at least seventeen other murders that they were suspected of committing.
Fernandez testified in explicit details about having sex with his victims, Beck, and even playing her and some victims off against one another at times to see who would get to sleep with him on a given night. Though many in attendance appeared to be captivated by such testimony from the suave defendant, there was no indication it was working in his favor in winning an acquittal.
* * *
On July 25, 1949, Martha Beck took the stand wearing a "gray and white polka dot summer dress, two strands of pearls around her neck, and green wedge-type shoes."8 She spoke of being the victim of incest, her pregnancies, terrible luck with men, attempted suicides, and looking for love.
She had apparently found this with Raymond Fernandez, whom she seemed only too happy to involve herself with, in spite of his criminal activities. At one point, she testified that "Raymond got quite a kick out of the photographs of some of the old hags who wrote to him and expected him to correspond with them."9
When questioned by the D.A. about her love for Fernandez, she contended, "We loved each other and I consider it absolutely sacred.... You referred to the lovemaking as abnormal, but for the love I had for Fernandez, nothing is abnormal!"10
As with Fernandez, Beck was sexually explicit in talking about their love life, including sexual activity that involved Fernandez's practice of voodoo.
The stunning nature of the defendants' sex life, along with confidence scams in luring innocent, lonely women into their web of deception and murder, sealed the fate of Beck and Fernandez, which had never really been in doubt, all things considered.
* * *
On August 19, 1949, Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck were found guilty of murder in the first degree by a jury consisting of ten men and two women. Neither defendant appeared to have much of a reaction to the verdict.
Three days later, Beck and Fernandez stood before Judge Pecora as he sentenced them to death. Soon after, the killers were en route to Sing Sing prison which was located in the town of Ossining, New York, some thirty miles north of New York City.
On March 8, 1951, after all appeals were exhausted, Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Beck were put to death in the electric chair. Fernandez was the first to be executed, described as "a broken man, panic-stricken, and paralyzed with fear, as guards forced him onto the chair."11
Within a few minutes of Fernandez's execution, Beck walked into the death chamber, apparently accepting her fate courageously. She was pronounced dead at 11:24 p.m.
Prior to leaving her cell, Martha Beck issued her final words to the media. "What does it matter who is to blame?" she argued. "My story is a love story.... In the history of the world how many crimes have been attributed to love?"12
* * *
The story of serial killers Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez has been the subject of several theatrical productions. These include the 1970 film, The Honeymoon Killers, a 1996 movie, Deep Crimson, and the motion picture, Lonely Hearts, released in 2006 starring Salma Hayek, John Travolta, and Jared Leto. An episode of the television series Cold Case was also inspired by the tale of Beck and Fernandez.
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley targeted a different set of victims than Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, but they were no less deadly, sadistic, and sexually motivated as serial killers. The murderous British couple was involved in pornography and had a fascination with sex and murder, leading them to act out their dark fantasies in the early 1960s.
In what became known as the Moors Murders, Brady and Hindley murdered five children, sexually assaulting most of them, and burying four of them in Saddleworth Moor, an area that is now Greater Manchester, England. Brady was characterized by a forensic psychiatrist as a "sexually sadistic psychopath," while the British press referred to Hindley as "the most evil woman in Britain."1 This dangerous mix put the couple on a deadly path as they pursued vulnerable victims in carrying out their brutal crimes.
* * *
Ian Brady was born as Ian Duncan Stewart in Glasgow, Scotland on January 2, 1938 to an unwed mother. Unable to support her son, she gave him up to a local married couple, while still keeping in touch. The seeds for Brady's antisocial and violent behavior were planted early in life as he developed a predilection for the torture of animals. These included breaking "the hind legs of one dog, [setting] fire to another, and decapitat[ing] a cat."2
By his teenage years, Brady was attending Shawlands Academy, a school for students who were considered above average. It was there that his deviant behavior now included harming smaller youths and burglary. Before turning seventeen, Brady had threatened a girlfriend with a knife and was in court for various other crimes committed.
After moving to Manchester to live with his mother, who had remarried while he was on probation, trouble continued to follow Ian Brady, including theft, and he spent time in juvenile detention.
In January 1959, Brady went to work in a clerical capacity for a wholesale chemical distribution plant called Millwards Merchandising in the Gorton district of Manchester. It was there where he would meet his future partner in crime and murder, Myra Hindley.
* * *
Born on July 23, 1942, Myra Hindley grew up in the working class Gorton district. Her father, who had served his country in North Africa and Italy during World War II, was an alcoholic and child batterer intent upon hardening his first of two daughters. At the age of eight, Hindley returned home in tears after being scratched and bloodied in the face by a boy.
Her father ordered her to "Go and punch him [the boy], because if you don't I'll leather you!" Hindley did as she was told and felt a sense of triumph. She recalled later that, at eight, "I'd scored my first victory."3
This particular scenario between daughter and father would be described by forensic psychiatrist Malcolm MacCulloch as instrumental in understanding the role Hindley played in the Moors murders: "The relationship with her father brutalised her[....] She was not only used to violence in the home but rewarded for it outside. When this happens at a young age it can distort a person's reaction to such situations for life."4
As a teenager, Hindley, who had been baptized in infancy as a Catholic, became more involved with the church following the drowning death of a friend, taking the confirmation name Veronica in late 1958. She also started bleaching her hair and working. At seventeen, she got engaged briefly, but broke it off, believing her fiancé was too immature and unable to give her the life she wanted.
Hindley dyed her hair pink and took judo lessons. A job at an engineering company was short-lived due to missing work too often. In 1961, at the age of eighteen, Hindley found work as a typist at Millwards where she met Ian Brady.
* * *
It didn't take long for the two to hit it off. Hindley became enthralled with Brady, in spite of knowing about his criminal record and perhaps because of it, detailing this in a diary. They began dating, watching pornography, drinking German wine, and reading about Nazi acts of violence.
Hindley soon started emulating the notion of Aryan perfection, including dying her hair blonde and wearing red lipstick. She also became more risqué in her attire, wearing short skirts, leather jackets, and high boots. Hindley's obsession with Brady kept her following his lead.
She would later say about Brady, in a letter sent to the Home Secretary in an attempt at parole: "Within months he had convinced me that there was no God at all. He could have told me that the earth was flat, the moon was made of green cheese and the sun rose in the west, I would have believed him, such was his power of persuasion."5
Brady and Hindley visited the library often, reading books on crime, torture, and philosophy. They also spent time at shooting ranges, with Hindley purchasing a .22 caliber rifle, a .38 Smith and Wesson, and a .45 Webley. Plans to rob banks fizzled.
The pair also took an interest in photography. Brady bought darkroom supplies and lights to go with his Brownie camera, and they took explicit pictures of one another and of Hindley's dog.
* * *
According to Hindley, it was during the summer of 1963 that Brady first spoke of committing "the perfect murder." He was apparently fixated on the story of American teenage killers, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, who planned the so-called perfect crime in the kidnapping and murder of fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks in Chicago during the 1920s.6
Hindley and Brady were living with her grandmother at the time. On July 12, 1963, the couple set their sights on the first person they would murder.
Pauline Reade was sixteen and had gone to school with Myra Hindley's younger sister, Maureen. Reade had also dated David Smith, a local fifteen-year-old with a criminal record, including violence, who would eventually become a pivotal player in bringing an end to the homicides of Brady and Hindley.
But not before Brady and Hindley had already ended a number of lives.
* * *
Dressed in a light blue coat and high-heeled white shoes, Pauline Reade was en route to the Railways Club in Gorton to dance on that fateful day. She had no reason to think that her time left on earth would be short and end violently. But then she had no inkling that Hindley, driving her van, and Brady, riding his motorcycle behind her, were on the prowl searching for the perfect victim for their murderous intentions.
They found such a person in Reade the evening of July 12,1963 at around eight, both killers would later confess, having passed on another potential young victim who was spared because Hindley recognized her as her mother's neighbor. Reade wasn't so fortunate, being coaxed into the van by Hindley under the pretext of trying to locate an expensive glove that had been misplaced on Saddleworth Moor. Hindley figured that Reade's disappearance was less likely to arouse suspicion than the younger girl she had passed on.
Upon reaching the moor, Hindley waited for Brady to arrive, introducing him as her boyfriend. Brady forced the girl onto the moor while Hindley stayed in the van.
Half an hour later, Brady returned by himself, having had his way with the teenager. He took Hindley to Reade, whose throat had been slashed and clothes disheveled after being sexually assaulted. While Hindley waited with the dying Reade, Brady went to get a spade he'd kept nearby for burying the victims of his sexually motivated perfect murders.
Once Brady and Hindley had accomplished their objective, they returned home in Hindley's van with the motorcycle in the back. In a cruel twist of fate, the killers passed Reade's mother and brother who were in search of the missing girl.
* * *
The police had little luck locating Reade, as apparently no one would come forward and admit to seeing her before she vanished. This included Smith who, after being questioned by authorities, was not considered a suspect in her death.
The killers were, indeed, up that point, off the radar as far as the police were concerned, unaware of their role in the murder of Pauline Reade.
* * *
On November 23, 1963, John Kilbride became the second person to die at the hands of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. The twelve-year-old boy was at an Ashton-under-Lyne market that evening when he was approached by Hindley and Brady. Playing her role as the lure to perfection, Hindley offered the boy a ride home, convincing him that his parents might be concerned as to his safety, given the hour. Tempting the youth with sherry no doubt furthered his incentive to accompany the couple.
Kilbride took the bait, getting into a Ford Anglia that Hindley had rented. Now with the boy firmly under their control, Brady pretended they needed to take a side trip to the moor to locate a glove Hindley had lost. Once there, as with the previous abduction, Hindley remained in the car while Brady took Kilbride away, where he sexually assaulted the youth and tried to slit his throat using a six-inch blade, before strangling him to death.
A massive search was undertaken by the locals, scouring "waste ground and derelict buildings," but to no avail.7
Hindley was said to have rented a car shortly after Kilbride's disappearance to check the burial sites of the two victims for any sign of disturbance. There apparently were none for the time being. Early in 1964, Hindley purchased a Mini Van. She, her grandmother, and Brady also relocated to the residential district of Hattersley in Manchester to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue.
* * *
The serial killers' next victim was Keith Bennett, a twelve-year-old who disappeared on the evening of June 16, 1964 while en route to visit his grandmother in a part of Manchester called Longsight. Hindley was again the lure in getting Bennett to her van, pretending to need his assistance to load boxes. Brady was waiting in the back for the unsuspecting youth.
As had become the routine, Hindley drove to Saddleworth Moor, where Brady left her in the van while Bennett accompanied him to look for a bogus lost glove. Half an hour later, Brady returned to the van without the boy. He was holding the spade used to bury previous victims. Brady admitted to Hindley what she already knew: that he had sexually assaulted and strangled Keith Bennett.
Over the next two years, Bennett's stepfather Jimmy Johnson was the main suspect in the youth's disappearance, brought in four times for questioning. Searching beneath the floorboards of Johnson's house, police discovered it was connected to the other row houses, leading them to include the whole street in the investigation. The police efforts notwithstanding, finding the missing Bennett proved to be a difficult task along with tracking down who may have been responsible for his disappearance.
* * *
On August 15, 1964, David Smith married Maureen Hindley, who was seven months pregnant. None of the Hindley's, including Myra, gave their blessing to the newlyweds, who went to live with Smith's father.
In spite of Hindley's reservations about the marriage, Brady took a liking to Smith, inviting the couple to accompany him and Hindley on a one-day visit to the Lake District of Windermere. The two men connected, much to a jealous Hindley's chagrin, and were already contemplating committing a bank robbery. The two couples would get together for outings on a number of occasions, with the sisters getting closer as a result, even as the same was true for Brady and Smith.
* * *
On Boxing Day, December 26, 1964, ever confident in their "perfect murders," Hindley and Brady were on the hunt for another victim at a fairground in Ancoats, an inner city district of Manchester. They spied Lesley Ann Downey, age ten, standing all by her lonesome near a ride. Having perfected their various means of reeling in the target, the killers intentionally allowed packages they were carrying to fall to the ground near the girl, asking for her help to take them to their car. Earlier, Hindley had taken her grandmother to a relative's house, keeping her away till the next day.
After abducting Downey and taking her to their house, Downey's clothes were removed and she was forced to pose for pictures. Brady raped the girl and she was killed afterwards. It is unclear who the killer was. Hindley insisted that she had gone to make Downey a bath and returned to the room to find her dead. However, Brady would later claim that it was Hindley who murdered the girl.
The next morning, the serial killers took her corpse to Saddleworth Moor, burying her nude body with her clothes in a shallow grave.
In spite of a massive search for Downey, authorities came up empty. Once again killers hidden in plain view had made their habit of perpetrating perfect murders hold up.
* * *
In the coming months, Brady continued to influence David Smith as the two talked about committing robberies and murder. As Hindley celebrated her twenty-third birthday that summer, she and Brady began to spend more and more time with her sister and Smith who were now living in Underwood Court, within close proximity to where Hindley and Brady were staying on Wardle Brook Avenue with her grandmother. Hindley would later claim to have been concerned about the growing friendship between Brady and Smith, feeling it may have threatened her safety and her sister's. But apparently Hindley did little to come between the two men.
* * *
On October 6, 1965, the killers' next victim was spotted. That day, Brady would meet seventeen-year-old Edward Evans, an apprentice engineer, at Manchester Central Station. Brady had been driven there by Hindley, who dutifully waited for him and his target in the car. When Brady showed up with Evans, Hindley was introduced to the teenager as Brady's sister.
Once home, Brady offered Evans some wine before attacking him, striking him over and over again with an axe, and then strangling him to death with an electrical cord.
David Smith was on hand to witness the murder of Edward Evans, but apparently had not participated in the attack of the unsuspecting teenager. Nevertheless, Brady, who had sprained his ankle during the assault, recruited the younger and intimidated Smith to help him get rid of the body.
But since Brady's ankle injury prevented him from cleaning up his murder and Evans' body proved to be too weighty for Smith to deal with alone, the corpse was covered in plastic sheeting and dragged into a spare bedroom temporarily.
Brady asked Smith to return the following day to assist in properly disposing of the body of Edward Evans. Smith promised to do just that. But a case of conscience was to spell the beginning of the end for serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
* * *
Upon returning home, David Smith found he could no longer keep what he had witnessed to himself, in spite of his admiration for the older, intimidating, and violent Ian Brady. Smith told his wife Maureen, Myra Hindley's younger sister, about witnessing Edward Evans' murder. She insisted that he had to report the crime to authorities.
Given that Smith must have felt that both he and his wife were in danger from what he knew, he concurred and, a few hours later, phoned the police in Hyde, a close town in the Metropolitan Borough of Tameside.
Smith alleged in his statement to the authorities that Myra Hindley had called loudly for his assistance. When he got to the living room, he observed Brady standing over Edward Evans, who was screaming in pain. "Ian had a hatchet in his hand," stated Smith. "He was holding it above his head and he hit the lad on the left side of his head with the hatchet. I heard the blow, it was a terrible hard blow, it sounded horrible."8
* * *
It was early morning on October 7, 1965, that Cheshire Police Superintendent Bob Talbot followed Smith's call with a visit to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue. Hindley answered the door and Talbot asked if he could speak to her boyfriend, Ian Brady. Whether Hindley knew they had been made or not is debatable. However, she let the police officer in and took him to the living room where Brady was sitting on a divan, still nursing his sprained ankle.
Talbot got right to the point, indicating that he was there to investigate a reported violent act perpetrated at the residence the night before. Hindley coolly denied anything of the sort and allowed the officer to search the house. When he came to the room where the bludgeoned, wrapped body of Edward Evans still lay, Talbot found the door locked.
After attempting to give him the run around, Hindley finally provided the key to the room. Unlocking the door, Talbot discovered the corpse of Evans and promptly returned to the living room where he placed Ian Brady under arrest on suspicion of murder.
Though Myra Hindley was not arrested at that time, she insisted on accompanying her boyfriend to the police station, taking her dog along for the ride. However, she initially was not very helpful in the investigation, indicating that Evans's death was an accident.
With no evidence to indicate that Hindley played a role in the boy's death, she was able to go home. Oddly, she used the time to quit her job in order to be eligible to receive unemployment benefits.
Choosing not to run, Hindley got little time to enjoy her freedom and contemplate what she and Brady had done. On October 11, 1965, Hindley was arrested as an accessory in the murder of Edward Evans. She was taken to Risley Institution.
* * *
On October 15th, with assistance from David Smith, who had indicated that Brady had stuffed incriminating evidence in suitcases and had "a thing about railway stations," British Transport Police's search of left luggage offices located suitcases that belonged to Brady at Manchester Central railway station. They contained pornographic pictures of a nude young girl with a red scarf over her mouth, as well as a thirteen-minute tape recording of the girl screaming and begging for help. Ann Downey, the mother of Lesley Ann Downey, the missing ten-year-old, would later confirm that it was her daughter's voice on the recording.
The police furthered their investigation at the house on Wardle Brook Avenue, where more incriminating evidence against Brady and Hindley surfaced; including an exercise book with the name "John Kilbride" scrawled on it, leading them to believe that there may be more victims of the couple. A collection of photographs was found that appeared to have been taken on Saddleworth Moor, arousing further fears.
Well over a hundred officers were recruited to search the moor, specifically places that appeared to match those in the photographs—focusing on a stretch of A628 road close to Woodhead, a small settlement in Derbyshire, some eighteen miles from Manchester.
The search turned up nothing. Then the police got a break from an eleven-year-old neighbor of Hindley and Brady's named Patricia Hodges. She had once been targeted by the killers before they decided it was too risky to kill the girl, but she had nevertheless accompanied Hindley and Brady on a number of outings to the moor. Hodges led authorities to areas that Brady and Hindley frequented down the A635 road.
On October 16th, police began to find remains. But instead of them belonging to John Kilbride, they were later identified as those of the missing Lesley Ann Downey, along with her clothing.
Five days later, John Kilbride's badly decomposed remains were unearthed in another area used by the serial killers on the other side of the A635 road. On the same day, Hindley and Brady, having been held for the murder of Edward Evans, were now charged with Downey's murder as well.
Equipped with circumstantial and physical evidence, including photographs, against the killer couple, more charges came. On December 2, 1965, Ian Brady was charged with John Kilbride's murder, and Myra Hindley was formally charged with the murder of Edward Evans.
A few days later at a committal hearing, Brady was charged with killing Evans, Kilbride, and Downey. Hindley was charged with murdering Evans and Downey, along with harboring Brady with the full knowledge that he had murdered John Kilbride.
* * *
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley went on trial on April 19, 1966 with Justice Fenton Atkinson presiding. The nature and victims of the killings so outraged the public that security screens were installed in the courtroom to keep Hindley and Brady safe from harm.
David Smith was the prosecution's chief witness. However, his credibility was undermined when it came out that the News of the World paper had paid for the syndication rights to his account, along with a trip to France for Smith and his wife, and accommodations at a five-star hotel during the trial. This prompted the judge to call this a "gross interference with the course of justice."9
Attorney General Frederick Elwyn Jones was the lead prosecutor for the case. Brady and Hindley had separate attorneys, Emlyn Hooson and Godfrey Heilpern, respectively. Both defendants pled not guilty to the charges leveled against them. During their testimony, each sought to justify their actions, no matter how despicable, if not deny them altogether.
Brady testified that he struck Edward Evans with an axe, but rejected that he had killed the youth, noting that a pathologist had determined that his death was caused by strangulation. During cross-examination, Brady admitted hitting "Evans with the axe. If he died from axe blows, I killed him."10
After the tape recording of Lesley Ann Downey was played, in which Hindley and Brady could clearly be heard, Hindley conceded that her actions against Downey were "brusque and cruel," but suggested that it was only out of fear someone would hear the girl's screams. Hindley further claimed that when Brady was taking pornographic photographs of Downey, she was "looking out the window," and during the time the victim was being strangled, she was "running a bath."11
Over the course of the trial, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were sticking "rigidly to their strategy of lying," with Hindley later referred to as a "quiet, controlled, impassive witness who lied remorselessly."12
* * *
The trial lasted only fourteen days. On May 6, 1966, after the jury deliberated for just over two hours, Ian Brady was found guilty of each of the three murders for which he was charged and Myra Hindley was convicted of murdering Lesley Downey and Edward Evans.
Because the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 had just outlawed death sentences in England when Brady and Hindley were arrested, they were able to avoid the fate they had given to their victims. As such, the judge sentenced both killers to life behind bars. More specifically, Ian Brady was to serve three concurrent life sentences and Myra Hindley received two life sentences, along with a concurrent seven years for the harboring of Brady charge while aware that he had killed young John Kilbride.
Ian Brady was put in Durham Prison located in the Elvet region in County Durham, England. Myra Hindley was taken to Holloway Prison, located in the London Borough of Islington in Inner London.
In closing remarks, Justice Atkinson characterized the murders as a "truly horrible case," and portrayed Hindley and Brady as "two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity." He described Ian Brady as "wicked beyond belief" and felt there was no chance of him ever reforming.13
Atkinson did suggest that reform was possible for Myra Hindley "once she is removed from [Brady's] influence."14
* * *
In 1985, after Ian Brady allegedly confessed to a journalist to the murders of the still missing Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, police reopened the investigations, which had grown cold over the years in spite of being strongly convinced that Brady and Hindley were behind the disappearances. The investigation was led by Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping.
Initially, Brady was uncooperative, denying he had confessed to more murders. Hindley also rejected being a party to further killings. The search of Saddleworth Moor was resumed nevertheless, using photographs Brady and Hindley had taken to try to identify likely burial sites.
On December 16, 1986, a heavily protected Myra Hindley accompanied the police in a search of Saddleworth Moor and the remains of Reade and Bennett. But Hindley apparently had difficulty remembering the lay of the land. Either that or she was merely playing the police for an opportunity at freedom, albeit a brief one, before being returned to Cookham Wood prison, where she was now being kept.
Topping took some heat from the media over the trip, referring to it as a wasted moment and a "fiasco." The superintendent countered by insisting that a cooperating Hindley's presence was needed for a "thorough systematic search of the moor[....] It would never have been possible to carry out such a search in private."15
His efforts in visiting Hindley in prison appeared to have paid off when on February 10, 1987, she formally confessed to participating in all five murders. The tape-recorded admission was more than seventeen hours long. Though Topping fully accepted Hindley's role in the deaths of five innocent victims, he dismissed any claims by the murderess of never actually taking part in any of the killings.
* * *
On July 1, 1987, a body was discovered in a shallow grave on the moor some one hundred yards from the spot where the remains of Lesley Ann Downey were found. The victim was identified as Pauline Reade. By that time, Ian Brady had been cooperating somewhat with authorities. He formally confessed to Topping that he killed Reade now that she had been found and, like Hindley, was allowed to leave prison briefly for a trip to the moor to help locate the remains of Keith Bennett. Once again, the efforts fell short as either Brady's memory failed him or the landscape had changed just enough over the years to make it all but impossible to pinpoint the spot in which he buried Bennett.
Days later, Brady implicated himself in five other murders, without identifying the victims. Hindley claimed she was not privy to these alleged killings. Given the ease in which both serial killers were able to abduct and kill the known victims, it is far from inconceivable to think that there were other victims as well, similar to other serial killers who often claim to have killed more than are attributed to them. This notwithstanding, the authorities were unable to match Brady's claims with any missing persons or unsolved crimes.
On December 1st of that year, Ian Brady was again brought to the moor to look for where he had buried Bennett, to no avail. Keith Bennett's remains have never been found, though various efforts have been made over the years to search the moor in that regard.
* * *
After spending nineteen years in prison, in November 1985, Ian Brady was declared to be criminally insane and sent to Ashworth Psychiatric Hospital, a high security facility. He is currently the longest held prisoner in England and Scotland. In 2006, there was an attempt to end his confinement through suicide, had the authorities not confiscated a package sent to Brady by a female friend which contained fifty paracetamol pills, described as potentially lethal. Some years earlier, Brady had gone on a hunger strike, but was force fed in spite of an apparent wish "to leave this cesspit in a coffin."16
Following her trial, Myra Hindley tried unsuccessfully to appeal her conviction. When that failed, she eventually tried to escape with the help of a prison officer she had become romantically involved with and another inmate's contacts on the outside. The plan was foiled and Hindley remained behind bars.
In spite of her horrible crimes, Hindley was eligible for parole, though the length of her tariff increased over the years. In 1990, a whole life tariff was imposed upon Hindley by former Home Secretary David Waddington, after her confession to playing a greater role in the five murders than she had been willing to admit previously.
Hindley's life tariff was appealed on three separate occasions between December 1997 and March 2000 when she professed to be reformed and no longer a threat to society, but the courts rejected this each time.
Further attempts to free Hindley also fell short, as neither the public nor press were in a forgiving mood or believed that justice could be served with her release.
On November 15, 2002, Myra Hindley died at age sixty from bronchial pneumonia as a result of heart disease. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered a few months later by a former female lover whom Hindley had become acquainted with in prison.
According to Myra Hindley's solicitor Andrew McCooey, in a 2008 television documentary on female serial murderers, Hindley seemed to own up to her role in causing the brutal deaths of five children and what her punishment should be accordingly: "I ought to have been hanged. I deserved it. My crime was worse than Brady's because I enticed the children and they would never have entered the car without my role.... I have always regarded myself as worse than Brady."17
The continuing interest in the Hindley and Brady case resulted in two British television productions based on the serial killers and their crimes, both made in 2006: See No Evil: The Moors Murders and Longford.
Fred West and Rosemary West
Fred West and Rosemary West were among Britain's worst serial killers. Between 1971 and 1987, the husband and wife killers abducted, tortured, sexually assaulted, and murdered at least eleven females; and some believe the couple was responsible for more than thirty deaths.1 Many of the murders took place at the killer couple's home in Gloucester, England, which was ultimately demolished as a house of horrors. Rosemary also murdered West's eight-year-old stepdaughter while he was incarcerated on theft charges.
The sex-motivated, sadistic, and murderous Wests, who had eight children, typically lured their young victims, many of whom were runaways, to their deaths under false pretenses, such as an offer of lodging or work as a nanny. Each victim's horrible ordeal at the hands of the serial killer duo often continued after death, including mutilation of the corpse. Only when the killers were brought to justice did one of the darkest chapters in England's history come to an end.
* * *
Frederick Walter Stephen West was born on September 9, 1941 in Bickerton Cottage, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, some 120 miles from London. As the second of six children, his parents struggled as farm workers. West was allegedly the victim of incest by both parents and learned bestiality from his father. In a police interview, West revealed that his father had told him more than once, "Do what you want, just don't get caught doing it."2
In December 1956, West dropped out of school at fifteen years of age. In November 1958, he was in a motorbike accident, fracturing his skull, and breaking an arm and leg. This reportedly made him susceptible to temper tantrums. In late 1960, another accident occurred in which he fell from a fire escape, hitting his head and remaining unconscious for twenty-four hours.
West got into trouble with the law at age nineteen when he was charged with molesting a girl who was thirteen. Though convicted, he was not given a prison sentence.
At twenty-one, West got together with his ex-girlfriend, eighteen-year-old Catherine Bernadette Costello, known as Rena, who had worked as a prostitute and was pregnant with another man's baby. On November 17, 1962, West and Costello got married and moved to Coatbridge, Lanarkshire in Scotland. Costello gave birth to her daughter Charmaine on February 22, 1963. West allegedly adopted the girl and then in July 1964, Costello and West had a daughter together named Anne Marie.
In late 1965, the family, along with child sitter Isa McNeill and Costello's friend Ann McFall, moved into the Lake House Hotel Caravan Park on Stoke Road in Bishop's Cleeve, Gloucestershire, following an accident in which West killed a young child with his van and feared for his life.
In 1966, as West's sexually sadistic desires grew, Costello and McNeill left and moved to Scotland. McFall, who had become smitten with West and the children, stayed with them.
In August 1967, McFall, who was eight months pregnant with West's child, disappeared. At the time, she had reportedly been seeking to become West's wife, which meant he needed to divorce Costello first. It is believed that West rejected this and instead viciously murdered McFall and the child she was carrying. West was purported to have "slowly and methodically dismembered [McFall's] corpse and buried her along with the fetus.... He cut off her fingers and toes.... It would be his ritualistic signature in future crimes."3