Moors Murderers: who were Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, are they still alive, how to watch Channel 4 documentary

Channel 4 is releasing a new documentary delving into the notorious story of Britain’s most infamous serial killers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

The documentary called Moors Murders: The Witness will air on 21 February 2022 at 9pm.

But who was Ian Brady and Myra Hindley and what is the new documentary about?

Dubbed as the evilest duo in Britain, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley kidnapped, tortured and murdered five children and sexually assault four, in and around Manchester, England, between July 1963 and October 1965.

Ian Brady was born in Glasgow, Scotland on 2 January 1938. When he was a teenager, he appeared twice before a juvenile court for housebreaking and appeared before the court with nine charges against him after threatening his girlfriend at the time with a flick knife after she visited a dance with another boy.

He moved to Manchester after being placed on probation with the condition he lived with his mother - who had then moved down to Manchester with her husband.

Several authors stated that as a child he tortured animals, however, Brady objected to these accusations.

In January1959 he was offered a clerical job at Millwards, a wholesale chemical distribution company, and was described as a quiet, punctual but short-tempered young man.

Brady often read books such as Teach yourself German and Mein Kampf as well as works on Nazi atrocities.

Myra Hindley was born on 21 July 1942 in Crumpsall. Her father was an alcoholic and would beat her as a child.

After her sister, Maureen, was born in August 1946, the already cramped living situation saw Hindley, then 5, sent to live with her grandmother a year later.

At the age of eight, her father threatened to “leather” her if she did not retaliate to a boy who had scratched her cheeks and drawn blood. Hindley found the boy and punched him until he was knocked down, later writing in her diary “at the age of eight I scored my first victory”.

Her first job was as a junior clerk at a local electrical engineering firm and was well-liked enough that when he lost her first week’s wage packet, the other girls took up a collection to replace it.

In January 1961, Hindley joined Millwards, where Brady was working, as a typist and she soon became infatuated with him, despite his criminal records.

According to her diary, they first spoke on 27 July 1961 and on 22 December 1961 Brady asked her out on a date to the cinema.

After learning about Brady’s Nazi obsession, Hindley bleached her hair blonde and apply thick crimson lipstick. Her attire began to change and she furthered herself from her previous character of being shyer in nature.

Together, the pair killed five children, Pauline Reade, John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans all aged between 10 and 17.

Four of them were said to have been sexually assaulted.

The bodies of two victims were discovered in 1965 in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, and a third was found in 1987. Bennett’s body is thought to be buried there but it remains undiscovered.

Myra Hindley was sentenced to life for the murders of Evans and Downey and was sent to Holloway Prison.

She made several appeals against her life sentence claiming she was a reformed woman, but she was never released and died aged 60 in 2022 after spending 36 years in prison.

She died from bronchial pneumonia at West Suffolk hospital.

Ian Brady was sentenced to HM Prison Durham, where he asked to live in solitary confinement. He spent 19 years in mainstream prisons before being diagnosed as a psychopath in November 1985 and was sent to Park Lane Hospital where he made it clear he never wanted to be released.

He died on 15 May 2017 with his cause of death being cor pulmonale and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

In this hour-long three-part series, never seen before letters from Ian Brady and Myra Hindley written over five decades in prison will be revealed as well as the accounts of people who knew them.

The chief witness is David Smith, speaking from 2003, who was the 17-year-old boyfriend of Maureen Hindley who Brady attempted to turn into a scapegoat for his crimes after making him witness the killing of Edward Evans.

The 1960s pop singer Janie Jones who befriended Hindley in prison will also reveal their correspondence.

Three-part docu-series Moors Murders: The Witness will air on 21 February 2022 at 9 pm.

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