Crumpsall-born Myra Hindley, in her day described by the British
press as 'the most hated woman in Britain', along with her partner
and lover, Ian Brady, were found guilty of several murders at
Chester Assizes after a two week trial and were both given life
sentences for their crimes on the 6th May 1966. They were convicted
of the murders by strangulation in 1964 of 10 year old
Lesley Ann Downey and of 17 year old Edward Evans in 1965.
Ian Brady, who had been born in Glasgow on the 2 January 1938,
was also convicted of the murder of 12 year old John Kilbride,
and Hindley was found guilty of being an accessory.
The victim's bodies had been buried on the remote
Saddleworth Moors above Manchester and soon became known as the
'Moors Murders'. Much later, in 1987, Brady and Hindley also confessed
to the murders of 16 year old Pauline Reade and 12 year old Keith
Bennett. But, while intensive police searches carried out on Saddleworth
Moor led to the discovery of Pauline Reade's body, the remains
of Keith Bennett were never found.
Hindley had left school at the age of 15 and began work at a local
chemical company, where she met Ian Brady, who was working as
a stock clerk. Brady already had a criminal record and had served
time in Borstal and in Strangeways Prison. Until then, Hindley
had been, by all accounts, a perfectly normal girl, with a strong
religious leaning.
She soon became infatuated with Brady and they became lovers.
Completely under Brady's influence, Hindley was persuaded in July
1963 to lure Pauline Reade up to the moors where the couple subsequently
killed and buried her body.
Next, in October 1963, they gave a lift to
John Kirkbride in Ashton-under-Lyne - he was never seen alive
again. Their trail of murder was brought to an end eventually
by Hindley's brother-in-law, David Smith, who called the police
after he witnessed the murder of Edward Evans.
In prison Hindley eventually showed signs of contrition for her
crimes and turned to religion for comfort during her latter days;
she also pursued a long campaign for parole, supported by the
late Lord Longford, who visited her frequently in prison. Despite
her reputation, Hindley had supporters, who argued that she had
shown remorse and had become a devout Roman Catholic.
In 1994, Hindley had admitted that she was "wicked and evil"
and had behaved "monstrously", going on to say that
"…without me, those crimes could probably not have been
committed". By that time she had obtained an Open University
degree in humanities.
Brady, on the other hand, admitted that he had no desire to be
freed, and will never seek parole.
In 1998, Home Secretary Jack Straw concluded that Hindley should
stay in prison for the rest of her natural life, which she did.
She died in prison hospital following a chest infection, at the
age of 60 on Friday 15 November 2002.
The body of Myra Hindley was cremated on 20th November 2002 in
a small private funeral attended by just 12 friends. Later, and
chillingly, a banner was found at the entrance to the crematorium
which read "Burn in Hell"!
(1946-2004)
Born
in Nottingham on the 14th January 1946, Harold Frederick Shipman,
who for many years ran an apparently normal and respectable general
medical practice in Hyde, Tameside, was found guilty of unlawfully
killing 15 of his patients, with a possibility of some 215 others
having also been murdered by him. He had studied Medicine at Leeds
University. Shipman became the focus of Europe's biggest ever
murder investigation when it came to light that he was suspected
of systematically killing many of his older patients over a period
of 14 years. 'Dr Death', as he became known in the press, was arrested
on 7th September 1998, initially charged with a single murder,
that of 81 year old Mrs Kathleen Grundy. Subsequently, a further
nine bodies were exhumed by police and found to contain lethal
dosages of drugs. The controversial exhumations were carried out
at night, witnessed by a priest, and the remains of female patients
ranging in age from 49 to 81 were unearthed. In some cases where
patients had been cremated investigators had to search deeply
into medical records and take what evidence they could from the
families of the deceased.
Shipman was addicted to Pethidine, a Morphine-type drug and it
was revealed that he had been writing prescriptions for himself
for these potentially lethal drugs for many years.
Fired from his first job as a GP and heavily fined, Shipman spent
time at a drug rehabilitation centre, but was never struck off
the medical register. In 1977 he moved to Hyde where he joined
a local medical practice, before setting up on his own in 1993.
The original investigation had been set in motion after it was
discovered that Mrs Grundy, a former Mayoress and well known charity
worker in Hyde, had inexplicably left nothing in her will to her
two sons and her daughter, and that her will had been changed
only 2 weeks prior her death - the sum of £386,000 had been
bequeathed to Dr Shipman. Further investigation revealed other
inconsistencies and Shipman subsequently with appeared in court
charged with three murders.
He had provided death certificates for all of his alleged victims,
most of whom were elderly and police went on to investigate around
3 000 prescriptions that he wrote during more than 20 years as
a general practitioner in Hyde. Greater Manchester Police admitted
that Shipman was probably one of Britain's most prolific killers
of modern times. A jury found Shipman guilty of 15 murders, though
150 further cases are being investigated. He was sentenced on
31st January 2000 and condemned to 15 life sentences. After a
year long public inquiry, a 2000 page report by Judge Dame Janet
Smith showed that the number of Shipman victims was probably as
high as 236 people.
On Tuesday 13th January 2004 the body of Harold Shipman was discovered
hanging from bed sheets tied to the window bars in his cell at
Wakefield prison. It was concluded that he had died by suicide
around 6.30am that morning.
William
O'Mera Allen
Michael Larkin
William O'Brien
(Hanged
1867)
The
affair of the so-called 'Manchester Martyrs' came about in 1867,
when in the early hours of the 11th September, Colonel Thomas
Kelly and Captain Timothy Deasy were arrested in Manchester. Colonel
Kelly was a most prominent Fenian, having only recently been confirmed
as Chief Executive of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The Fenians
were an anti-British Irish-American republican secret society,
founded in the USA in 1858 to campaign for Irish-American support
for armed rebellion following the death of the Irish nationalist
leader Daniel O'Connell.
On the Eighteenth of September, they were being taken from the
Court House in Manchester to the County Jail on Hyde Road, West
Gorton. The two prisoners were handcuffed and locked in separate
compartments inside a police van, with an accompanying escort
of twelve mounted policemen. As the van passed under a railway
arch, a man jumped out and pointed a pistol at the driver, ordering
him to stop. At the same time about thirty men also leapt out,
surrounded the van and seized the horses. The would-be rescuers
tried vainly to force open the van door with sledge hammers and
crowbars, as the Police Sergeant inside the van, refused to open
the door to them. Then, one of the rescuers fired a revolver through
the keyhole of the door as Sergeant Brett put his eye to the keyhole
to see what was going on outside, The bullet pierced his eye,
entered the brain and killed him outright. Eventually, the door
was opened from the inside and Colonel Kelly and Captain Deasy
escaped, never to be recaptured.
Others were not so lucky. After a chase, police arrested and charged
five men with taking part in the rescue: William O'Mera Allen,
Michael Larkin, William O'Brien, Thomas Maguire and Edward Stone.
Four were found guilty and sentenced to death, while Maguire was
pardoned and discharged, Stone's sentence was eventually commuted
to life imprisonment.
However, Allen, Larkin and O'Brien were hanged on the 23rd November
1867.
A Memorial was erected to their memory in Moston Cemetery. In
St Ann's Church in Manchester there is a plaque to the memory
of the unfortunate Sergeant Brett.
(1848-1886)
Habitual murderer by poisoning, Mary Ann Britland of Ashton-under-Lyne
was hanged by James Berry on the 9th of August 1886, the first
woman to be executed at Strangeways Prison in Manchester.
It began when Mary and her husband Thomas Britland had rented
a house in Ashton-under-Lyne, which was infested with mice and
she
had bought rat poison ostensibly to deal with the problem. The
poison contained strychnine and arsenic and she had therefore
signed the poison register.
Britland's first victim by poisoning in March 1886 was her daughter
Elizabeth, whom the attending physician diagnosed as having died
of natural causes. Shortly afterwards, Britland claimed her daughter's
£10 life insurance. Next, she poisoned her husband Thomas.
His death was diagnosed as epilepsy - Britland also claimed on
his life insurance. During this time she is thought to have had
an affair with her neighbour Thomas Dixon. Dixon's wife, also
named Mary, was to become the next and her final victim. This
third death raised suspicion in the neighbourhood.
Britland was subsequently interrogated by the local police about
Mary Dixon's death and the body was examined by the district pathologist.
It was found to contain a lethal quantity of the two poisons and
Mary was immediately arrested. She was tried for murder at Manchester
Assizes on Thursday 22nd July 1886. She was inevitably found guilty,
sentenced to death by hanging, as was the rule of the day, but
declared to the court "I am quite innocent, I am not guilty
at all".
She had to be assisted to the gallows in a state of virtual collapse
and physically supported by two male warders on the trap doors
during the execution.
(Hanged
1888)
John Jackson, a plumber by trade, after a heavy drinking session
in the public houses of Leeds had signed up to join the army.
While in the army he had been found guilty and convicted of horse
stealing and was sentenced to serve six months in Wakefield Prison.
Sometime during his sentence, he had managed to escape, but was
recaptured and sent to Armley prison in Leeds from which he was
released in the summer of 1885.
Old habits die hard and by 1888 Jackson was breaking into houses
in Manchester, where he was soon caught in the act of burglary
again, and was sentenced to a further 6 months in Strangeways
Prison.
His skill as a plumber, however, came in useful when the prison
matron had a gas leak in her home. Jackson, accompanied by Webb,
a warder, was taken to the house. After completing the repair,
Jackson went on to attack Webb with a hammer, fracturing his skull.
He stole the warder's boots and then fled via the attic from where
he removed slates, (using the murder weapon) and made his escape
down into the street.
He survived on the run for several weeks, supporting himself by
housebreaking before being finally caught in Bradford on the 2nd
June 1888. After a struggle he gave up and confessed to the killing.
He was taken back to Manchester for trial where he was convicted
of Webb's murder and hanged by James Berry on Tuesday 7th August.
(Hanged
1920)
On Christmas Eve, 24th December 1919 the body of 26 year old Kathleen
Breaks was found dead lying among the sand dunes on the beach
at Lytham St Annes near Blackpool. She had been shot three times
with a revolver. Footprints, a Webley service revolver and blood
stained gloves were found nearby in the dunes.
Soon afterwards, Lieutenant Frederick Holt, who had been Kathleen's
lover, was arrested, charged with her murder and tried at Manchester
Assizes between the 23rd and 27th February 1920 before Mr. Justice
Greer.
His defence of insanity was rejected. The prosecution's case was
that Holt had murdered Kathleen Breaks (also known as Kitty) for
her considerable life insurance, after he had persuaded her to
make him her sole beneficiary. Holt appealed his death sentence
claiming that having earlier contracted syphilis in 1920 in Malaya
it had unbalanced his mind. He was examined by Home Office psychiatrists
who rejected the appeal. Frederick Holt was hanged by public hangman
John Ellis on the 13th April
(1893-1926)
Thirty-three year old Louie Calvert battered and strangled her
landlady Mrs Lily Waterhouse to death after she had confronted
her with the theft of articles from her boarding house and had
reported her to the police. In the condemned cell she also admitted
to the murder of a previous employer, John Frobisher, in 1922.
Louie Calvert was hanged by Thomas Pierrepoint at Strangeways
on the 24th June 1926.
(Hanged
1936)
Doctor Buck
Ruxton murdered Isabella, his common law wife, and his housemaid,
Mary Jane Rogerson at their home in Lancaster on the 15th September
1935. He then dismembered their bodies and removed any distinguishing
features which might identify them and determine the cause of
death.
It was alleged at his trial that Mary Rogerson had been smothered
and Mrs Ruxton manually strangled. He wrapped the body parts in
sheets of a local newspaper sold only in the Lancaster area and
then drove to Scotland and threw them into a river near Moffat,
in Dumfriesshire. As a result of the location the case became
known as 'the bodies under the bridge murder'. It was the
local nature of the newspaper that enabled police to trace the
body's origin back to Lancaster. Ruxton had also done several
things that were to incriminate him. Whilst disposing of the bodies,
he had cut his hand, and he told several people about this incident,
and there were bloodstains all over the house and on his clothes.
It was revealed that Ruxton had been somewhat of a control freak,
jealous of Isabella's evident good looks. He had killed Mary Rogerson
in order to cover his tracks, because she had witnessed Isabella's
murder.
Ruxton was tried at Manchester Assizes in March 1936 before Mr
Justice Singleton, the jury taking just over an hour to convict
him. Later, his written confession was published. It stated: "…I
killed Mrs Ruxton in a fit of temper because I thought she had
been with a man. I was mad at the time. Mary Rogerson was present
at the time. I had to kill her". Buck Ruxton was hanged
at Strangeways Prison on the 12th May 1936.
(1907-1949)
Margaret Allen of Rawtenstall was a lesbian who dressed in men's
clothes and preferred to be called 'Bill' - she worked as local
bus conductor. On the 28th August 1948 she battered Nancy Ellen
Chadwick to death with a hammer. Mrs Chadwick was an elderly neighbour
who had come to borrow a cup of sugar. The neighbours had apparently
never enjoyed the best of relationships and Allen found her irritating
in the extreme. Allen confessed to the police that she was "…
in one of my funny moods." She was convicted after a
short trial held on the 8th December 1948 and was hanged on the
12th January 1949 by public executioner Albert Pierrepoint, the
first female execution in Britain for 12 years and only the third
at Strangeways Prison.
(Hanged
1951)
On the 8th May 1951, public hangman Albert Pierrepoint was assisted
by Sid Dernly in the hanging of James Inglis.
Inglis had been convicted of the murder of 50 year old prostitute
Alice Morgan, whom he had battered and strangled to death. Alice
Morgan and Inglis had quarrelled over her payment, after she had
taken him to her home for drink and sex. He pleaded a defence
of insanity which was summarily rejected by the jury. He was given
the death sentence by Mr Justice Ormerod on the 20th April and
hanged three weeks later.
(Hanged
1953)
The last woman to be executed at Strangeways Prison was 46 year
old Louisa May Merrifield who had been convicted of poisoning
Mrs Sarah Ricketts. Mrs Ricketts was a 79 year old, bedridden
widow who lived in Blackpool and she had hired Merrifield and
her husband Alfred to look after her in March 1953. Shortly thereafter,
she made a new will leaving her bungalow to Merrifield.
Mrs Ricketts was very fond of very sweet jams which she ate directly
from the jar by the spoonful. Merrifield added the rat poison,
Rodine, to the jam which Mrs Rickets subsequently ate. Her death
was considered suspicious and an autopsy was performed which revealed
the presence of poison. A record of the sale of the Rodine to
Merrifield was discovered at the local chemists and the police
arrested her and her husband, Alfred.
Unfortunately for her, Merrifield had openly boasted of inheriting
the bungalow which threw suspicion on her.
The Merrifields were tried at Manchester Assizes on the 20th July
of 1953. Alfred was later acquitted for lack of evidence but his
wife was found guilty.
Louisa May Merrifield was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on Friday
18th September 1953.
