Editing Moors murders (section)

===As murderers===
{{Quote box
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| quote = What they were doing was out of the scope of most people's understanding, beyond the comprehension of the workaday neighbours who were more interested in how they were going to pay the gas bill or what might happen in the next episode of ''[[Coronation Street]]'' or ''[[Doctor Who]]''. In 1960s Britain, people did not kidnap and murder children for fun. It was simply beyond the realms of most people's comprehension, and this is why they managed to get away with it for so long.
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| source = Chris Cowley{{sfnp|Cowley|2011|p=140|ps=none}}
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Hindley claimed that Brady began to talk about "committing the perfect murder" in July 1963,{{sfnp|Topping|1989|p=81|ps=none}} and often spoke to her about [[Meyer Levin]]'s [[Compulsion (Levin novel)|''Compulsion'']], published as a novel in 1956 and [[Compulsion (1959 film)|adapted for the cinema]] in 1959. The story tells a fictionalised account of the [[Leopold and Loeb]] case, two young men from wealthy families who attempt to commit the perfect murder of a 12-year-old boy, and who escape the [[death penalty]] because of their age.{{sfnp|Topping|1989|p=80|ps=none}}

By June 1963, Brady had moved in with Hindley at her grandmother's house in Bannock Street, Gorton, and on 12 July the two murdered their first victim, 16-year-old Pauline Reade. Reade had attended school with Hindley's younger sister Maureen and had also been in a short relationship with David Smith, a local teenager with three criminal convictions for minor crimes. Police found nobody who had seen Reade immediately before her disappearance, and although the 15-year-old Smith was questioned by police, he was cleared of any involvement in her death.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|pp=41–45|ps=none}}

Their next victim, 12-year-old John Kilbride, was lured away from a market in the town of [[Ashton-under-Lyne]] on 23 November and murdered on [[Saddleworth Moor]], where his body was buried. A huge search was undertaken, with over 700 statements taken and 500 "missing" posters printed. Eight days after he failed to return home, 2,000 volunteers scoured waste ground and derelict buildings.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|pp=46–47|ps=none}} Hindley hired a vehicle a week after Kilbride went missing, and again on 21 December, apparently to make sure the burial sites at Saddleworth Moor had not been disturbed. In February 1964, she bought a second-hand [[Austin Motor Company|Austin Traveller]] but soon after traded it for a [[Mini#Mini Van (1960–1983)|Mini van]].

Keith Bennett, also aged 12, disappeared in the [[Longsight]] district of Manchester on 16 June 1964. His stepfather, Jimmy Johnson, became a suspect; in the two years following Bennett's disappearance, Johnson was taken for questioning on four occasions. Detectives searched under the floorboards of the family home, and on discovering that the houses in the row were connected, extended the search to the entire street.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|pp=50–55|ps=none}}

Maureen Hindley married David Smith on 15 August 1964. The marriage was hastily arranged and performed at a [[register office]]. None of Maureen's relatives attended. Hindley did not approve of the marriage, and her mother was embarrassed, as Maureen was then seven months pregnant. The newlyweds moved into Smith's father's house. The next day, Brady suggested that the four take a day-trip to [[Windermere]]. This was the first time Brady and Smith had met properly, and Brady was apparently impressed by Smith's demeanour. The two talked about society, the distribution of wealth and the possibility of robbing a bank. The young Smith was similarly impressed by Brady, who throughout the day had paid for his food and wine. The trip to the Lake District was the first of many outings. Hindley was apparently jealous of their friendship but became closer to her sister.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|pp=56–58|ps=none}}

[[File:16 wardle brook avenue.jpg|right|thumb|alt=A roadside view of several 20th-century British houses. The houses are set high above the roadside. A grass slope is visible to the lower left of the image, and a tall brick wall to the lower right. A gap in the centre of the image indicates the absence of a single house|The empty plot where 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in [[Hattersley]] once stood. Manchester City Council decided in 1987 to demolish the house.]]
In 1964, Hindley, her grandmother and Brady were rehoused as part of the postwar [[Slum clearance in the United Kingdom|slum clearance]]s in Manchester, relocating to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue in the new overspill estate of [[Hattersley]], near the [[Cheshire]] town of [[Hyde, Greater Manchester|Hyde]]. Brady and Hindley became friendly with Patricia Hodges, an 11-year-old girl who lived at 12 Wardle Brook Avenue. Hodges accompanied the couple on their trips to Saddleworth Moor to collect [[peat]], something that many householders on the new estate did to improve the soil in their gardens, which were full of clay and builder's rubble.{{sfnp|Topping|1989|p=137|ps=none}} The couple never harmed Hodges, since she lived only a few doors away, which would have made it easier for police to solve any disappearance.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|pp=62–65|ps=none}}

Early on [[Boxing Day]] 1964, Hindley left her grandmother at a relative's house and refused to allow her back to Wardle Brook Avenue that night.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|p=65|ps=none}} That same day, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey disappeared from a [[funfair]] in [[Ancoats]].{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|p=67|ps=none}} Despite a huge search, she was not found. Her stepfather, Alan West, was treated as a suspect by police and repeatedly questioned over her disappearance, but no evidence was uncovered and the disappearance remained unsolved for nearly a year. The following day, Hindley brought her grandmother back home.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|p=69|ps=none}} 

By February 1965, Hodges had stopped visiting Wardle Brook Avenue, but Smith was still a regular visitor. Brady gave Smith books to read, and the two discussed robbery and murder.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|pp=70–71|ps=none}} On Hindley's 23rd birthday in July 1965, her sister and brother-in-law, who had until then been living with relatives, were rehoused in Underwood Court, a new multi-storey block of flats not far from Wardle Brook Avenue. The two couples began to see each other more regularly, but usually only on Brady's terms.{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|p=73|ps=none}}{{sfnp|Ritchie|1988|pp=71–73|ps=none}}

During the 1990s, Hindley claimed that she took part in the killings only because Brady had drugged her, was [[blackmail]]ing her with pornographic pictures he had taken of her and had threatened to kill Maureen.<ref name="The Scotsman—Death at 60 for the woman who came to personify evil"/> In 2008 her [[solicitor]], Andrew McCooey, reported that she told him:{{Blockquote|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.<ref>{{cite news |last=Edge |first=Simon |title=Evil of the Lady Killers |newspaper=The Express |date=11 October 2008 |url=http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:AWNB:EXSC&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=123C64B3A12DC640&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=1054640702C8DBC0 |access-date=10 September 2009 |mode=cs2 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>}}