‘Celebrity’ stashes … more secrets reveal true horror of Brady and Myra’s bloody rampage

60s star tells of decades of letters from the killers as Alan Bennett still fights to find his lost-boy brother Keith

Why are people ‘celebrity-stashing’ potential clues to the murderous rampage around Manchester carried out by sick monsters Myra Hindley and Ian Brady?

What makes another human being bask in the bloody glory of the awful murders of children?

Now many of these people are finding their own vicarious macabre ‘celebrity’ by revealing these secrets kept quite about for decades.

A former 1960s pop star with a chequered background is finally showing the world what are said to be letters and notes she curated from the sick pair.

It took Janie Jones – now aged 81 – until recently to come forward, after Brady’s death in 2017, with what are said to be hundreds of letters.

And now, in never-before-seen footage from 2003, David Smith – who was married to Myra’s sister – claims he was in bed when Hindley came to him in the middle of the night.

Smith – who had married Maureen at 16 – heard screaming, and Myra begging for his help.

He found Brady beating Edward Evans, a teen loner he’d lured to the house where Hindley’s grandmother was sleeping.

It was Smith who was ultimately the downfall of the murderous pair when he went to the police.

Because of him Brady was in custody. But it would be five more days before Hindley was arrested. It is generally thought that this gave her time to destroy “souvenirs” they had taken from their victims and were found next door to Millward’s Merchandise, the local wholesalers where they both worked.

Then two suitcases recovered from a left luggage locker in Manchester, containing a gun, a cosh, paperwork and a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.

And then there was the sick tape of a little girl screaming for her mum as she was tortured. As a reporter working for a major news organisation investigating I listened to the tape and it has left an indellable mark on my heart.

Despite all these new revelations and ‘unseen’ background information Alan Bennett, brother of victim Keith, is still fighting to have two suitcases opened that could well contain details of where the killers hid the body of his brother on the windswept and stormy moors above Manchester.

Home Secretary Priti Patel is supporting police with new measures which could finally see Ian Brady’s ‘secret’ files exposed to the public.

The new powers could help police track down human remains and bring closure to families whose loved ones vanished.

The need for these powers was brought to light by the horrifyingly tragic story of Keith Bennett.

They hid his body away on the moors near Saddleworth and they both took Keith’s final resting place to their own graves.

Brady’s secret files are locked in suitcases in a storage unit .

Police have applied for a warrant to open the cases, but this has so far been refused by the courts on the grounds that any evidence in the suitcases cannot be used in criminal proceedings, as Brady is dead so cannot be prosecuted. The executors of Brady’s estate have declined to hand them over to the Bennett family.

And Janie Jones – jailed in 1974 for throwing sex parties – who became friendly with Hindley in Holloway has held on to her letters for almost as long.

After her release in 1977, Janie continued to write to Hindley, and visit her in prison. She even campaigned for her to be released.

Meantime, passages from Hindley’s unpublished diaries and biographies give glimpses into the all-consuming romance between Hindley and Brady.

“He’s a crude, uncouth pig. He’s cruel and selfish and I love him,” she wrote in her diary. “I hope Ian and I love each other all our lives and get married and are happy ever after.”

She also wrote: “At the age of 18 I met a man who convinced me there was no God at all.

Brady apparantly told Janie: “Myra and I once loved each other. We were a unified force.”

And so the revelations keep coming – for instance it was a little-known fact the family of Pauline Reade who was 16 when she disappeared on her way to a disco have been through an unimaginable agony.

Think of it, she disappeared on July 12, 1963, and let’s be honest, the true horror of having parts of your daughter’s body found in a dusty storage room at a university more than half a century after her murder is unimaginable.

So, The Society will keep asking the question… why do people hang on to the secrets of killers and do they intend to profit from them?

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