A Most Unusual Trial

As the trial began last week in the town of Chester, 16 miles south of Liverpool, two unusual scenes in the courtroom signaled its high importance. For one, Britain's Attorney General, the country's highest law officer, who normally prosecutes only major espionage cases, was on hand to try a criminal case. For another, a newly erected shield of bullet-resistant glass surrounded the prisoners' dock. Behind the glass sat the defendants: Ian Brady, 28, a skinny stock clerk, and his blonde mistress, Myra Hindley, 23, a shorthand typist. Both pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering a 17-year-old youth and two children whose bodies were exhumed late last year from shallow graves on the desolate Saddleworth moor near Manchester.

Bundled Body. Hefting the ax with which Ian Brady had allegedly hacked a victim to death, Attorney General Sir Elwyn Jones opened the prosecution's case by recounting how the police had unraveled what the press has called "the Moor Murders." The break came, he said, when the two defendants staged a murder to impress David Smith, 19, Myra's brother-in-law, who had doubted Brady's boasts about his thrill killings. After witnessing the murder, Smith rushed home to his wife, then called the police. They searched the house that Ian and Myra shared in a Manchester suburb, found "a bundle wrapped in a blanket" with a human foot sticking out of it. The bundle contained the body of Edward Evans, 17, an apprentice engineer whom Ian had brought to his house. An examination of the corpse, said the prosecutor, indicated that Evans had been subjected to sexual perversions not long before his death.

The police search also uncovered, tucked in a prayer book, a claim check for baggage at a Manchester rail station. With that, said Sir Elwyn, the police discovered the fate of two children who had been missing for more than a year. The suitcases contained photographs of ten-year-old Lesley Anne Downey in what Sir Elwyn described as "various pornographic poses." Also in a suitcase were tape recordings of what the prosecutor said were the voices of Lesley Anne and the two defendants. Said Sir Elwyn to the all-male jury: "I am afraid you will have to suffer the burden of listening to that tape recording and hearing the little girl's screams and protests." For the time being, he handed copies of the tape's transcript to the jurors and to the defendants.

Next Sir Elwyn turned to the third alleged murder--that of twelve-year-old John Kilbride, who disappeared in November 1963. Among the pictures in the suitcases, he said, was one of Myra "crouching and apparently looking down" at a spot on the moors. Locating the same spot, police exhumed the boy's body. The arrangement of his clothes, said Sir Elwyn, indicated that he, too, had been sexually molested before he was killed. Less than 400 yards from the boy's grave, police found the grave of Lesley Anne.

Readings from De Sade. Sir Elwyn proceeded to call the first witness. She was Mrs. Maureen Smith, 19, Myra's sister. She testified that one night last December Myra had asked her husband David to walk her home. David Smith came to the stand and told what had happened when he got there. "I heard a scream and ran into the living room." There he saw Ian standing over a young man, striking him on the head with an ax. Said Smith: "I have seen butchers show as much emotion as he did when they were cutting up a sheep's ribs." Frightened, Smith helped Brady and Myra Hindley wipe away the blood and truss up the body before going home to his wife. On crossexamination, defense attorneys got Smith to admit that he had accepted money from London's News of the World for his story of the crimes and the trial.

After Smith testified that Brady had introduced him to the works of the Marquis de Sade, the prosecutor read aloud a selection from the marquis: "In a word, murder is a horror, but a horror often necessary, never criminal, and one that must be tolerated in a republican state." He then asked Smith when Brady had read that passage to him. Replied Smith: "About three weeks before Evans was killed."

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