On 4 August 1987, it was reported that convicted Moors murderer Ian Brady had claimed involvement in a further five killings.
The allegation emerged after Brady wrote to a BBC reporter, offering brief and imprecise descriptions of deaths he said had taken place in Manchester, on Saddleworth Moor and in Scotland.
Police examined the information but were unable to connect his account to corresponding unsolved crimes. No evidence was found to establish that the additional killings had occurred as Brady described and his claims were never substantiated.
A letter containing five new claims
Brady sent the letter shortly after being taken back to Saddleworth Moor in July 1987 to assist detectives searching for victims whose burial places had remained undiscovered.
He referred to a man allegedly killed in the Piccadilly area of Manchester, another person on Saddleworth Moor, two deaths in Scotland and a woman whose body he claimed had been placed in a canal.
The descriptions contained few verifiable details. After preliminary inquiries, police concluded that they could not identify unsolved cases which matched the information Brady had supplied. Officers considered that there was insufficient evidence to justify opening a formal investigation into the alleged additional deaths.
Myra Hindley told Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Topping, who led the renewed inquiry, that she knew nothing about the further killings Brady claimed to have committed.
Topping later expressed serious doubts about Brady's account. Brady himself was subsequently reported to have suggested that some of the alleged incidents might have been products of his imagination.
The renewed search of Saddleworth Moor
The claims came during a renewed and highly publicised investigation into the Moors murders, more than 20 years after Brady and Hindley were jailed.
At their 1966 trial, Brady was convicted of murdering John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans. Hindley was convicted of murdering Downey and Evans and of harbouring Brady after Kilbride's murder.
Police had long suspected that the pair were also responsible for the disappearances of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett. Both Brady and Hindley finally admitted their involvement in those killings in 1987.
Their admissions led detectives back to Saddleworth Moor. On 1 July 1987, search teams recovered Pauline Reade's remains, almost 24 years after the 16-year-old disappeared while travelling to a dance near her home in Gorton.
Brady was taken to the moor shortly afterwards in an attempt to help locate Keith Bennett. The visit failed to identify the 12-year-old's burial place.
Five recognised victims
The five recognised victims of Brady and Hindley were:
- Pauline Reade, aged 16
- John Kilbride, aged 12
- Keith Bennett, aged 12
- Lesley Ann Downey, aged 10
- Edward Evans, aged 17
The victims were killed between 1963 and 1965. The bodies of Reade, Kilbride and Downey were recovered from Saddleworth Moor, while Evans was found at Brady and Hindley's home following the crime which led to their arrest.
Despite repeated searches and appeals for information, Keith Bennett's remains have never been found.
Claims which remained unproven
Brady continued to make statements about additional victims during his imprisonment, but no further murder was formally attributed to him.
The allegations reported on 4 August 1987 therefore remain distinct from the five established Moors murders. They were claims made by Brady, not confirmed crimes, and police inquiries did not produce evidence capable of supporting them.
Hindley died in prison in 2002. Brady died at Ashworth Hospital in 2017 without providing information which led police to Keith Bennett's burial place.
Greater Manchester Police has repeatedly said that the investigation to find Keith would remain open to credible and actionable information. A further examination of an area of Saddleworth Moor in 2022 found no evidence of human remains, leaving his family without the answers they have sought for decades.