Killers_ The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time - Cawthorne, Nigel [45]
Four months later, Hindley hired a car and abducted 12-year-old John Kilbride. When she returned the car, it was covered in peaty mud from the moors. Brady and Hindley laughed when they read about the massive police operation to find the missing boy.
In May 1964, Hindley bought a car of her own, a white Mini van. The following month, 12-year-old Keith Bennett went missing. He too was buried on Saddleworth Moor. At Brady’s behest, Hindley joined a local gun club and bought pistols for them both. They would go up to the moors for practice. While they were there they would visit the graves of their victims. They would photograph each other kneeling on them.
On 26 December 1964, they abducted 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey. This time they were determined to hurt their defenceless victim as much as possible. They forced her to pose nude for pornographic photographs. Then they tortured her, recording her screams, before strangling her and burying her with the others on Saddleworth Moor.
Even this did not satisfy the depraved Brady. He wanted to extend his evil empire. He aimed to recruit Myra’s teenage brother-in-law, David Smith. Brady began to systematically corrupt Smith. He showed the youth his guns and talked to him about robbing a bank. He lent him books about the Marquis de Sade and got him to copy out quotations. ‘Murder is a hobby and a supreme pleasure’ and ‘People are like maggots, small, blind, worthless fish-bait’ Smith wrote in an exercise book under Brady’s guidance.
Brady believed he could lure anyone into his world of brutality and murder. He bragged to Smith about the murders he had already committed, saying he had photographs to prove it. They were drinking at the time and Smith thought Brady was joking.
Brady decided to prove what he was saying – and ensnare Smith into his vicious schemes by making him a party to murder. On 6 October 1965 Brady and Hindley picked up 17-year-old homosexual Edward Evans in a pub in Manchester and took him home. Smith had been invited to visit around midnight.
He was in the kitchen, he heard a cry from the next room. Then Hindley called to him: ‘Help him, Dave.’
Smith rushed through into the living-room to find Evans in a chair with Brady astride him. Brady had an axe in his hands and was smashing it down on the boy’s head. He hit him again and again – at least 14 times.
‘That’s it, it’s the messiest,’ Brady said with some satisfaction. ‘Usually it takes only one blow.’
He handed the axe to the dumbstruck Smith. This was a simple attempt to incriminate Smith by making him put his fingerprints on the murder weapon. Although Smith was terrified by what he had seen, he helped clean up the blood, while Brady and Hindley wrapped the body in a plastic sheet. The couple made jokes about the murder as they carried the corpse upstairs to a bedroom.
Hindley made a pot of tea and they all sat down.
‘You should have seen the look on his face,’ said Hindley, flushed with excitement, and she started reminiscing about the previous murders.
Smith could not believe all this was happening, but he realised that if he showed any sign of disgust or outrage he would be their next victim. After a decent interval, he made his excuses and left. When he got back to his flat, he was violently ill.
He told his wife and she urged him to go to the police. Armed with a knife and a screwdriver, they went out to a phonebox at dawn and reported the murder. A police car picked up Smith and his wife and, at the station, the terrified 17-year-old told his lurid story to unbelieving policemen. At 8.40 a.m., the police dropped round to Hindley’s house to check Smith’s story out. To their horror, they found Edward Evans’s battered body in the back bedroom.
Brady admitted killing Evans, but said it had happened during an argument and tried to implicate Smith.