Moors Murders - Beyond Belief and other books

I have been re reading a book about the Moors murders, by Emlyn Williams. It came out many years ago, soon after the couple were tried and imprisoned. Williams wrote in novelistic fashion, rather than in a non fiction format, and he has been criticised for this. But much of what he wrote seems to be correct. He interviewed many people who were involved with Brady and Hindley. New information has come to light but overall he seems to have gotten things right. He got to know David Smith, who was Myra's brother in law, and he also interviewed other people. David was the one who betrayed the couple to the police. Hindley and Brady killed 5 children and teenagers, but Brady lured Smith to his house to help with the murder of the last victim. David Smith, while he helped to clean up after the murder, was shaken to his core. He played along but when he got out of the house, he ran home to his own flat, terrified. He was sick. He and his wife Maureen decided that they had to go to the police. He was a tough lad, who had a temper and had been in trouble often with the law, but the barbaric killing horrified him. Brady attacked the boy, Edward Evans with an axe. In spite of the style, it is an interesting book. David and Maureen went to the police at first light, calling from a coin box. The young couple who were only 16 and 18 years old, were so terrified that they hurried into the police car and could hardly speak. Then the police raided Myra's house before she and Ian were due to leave for work in the morning. They found the dead body of Evans, a young apprentice whom they had brought to their house and slaughtered. Ian had boasted to David about having killed other kids. He told the lad that he had stood on the grave of one of them, on the moors. David had thought it was just a drunken joke on Brady's part. However, after seeing murder committed before his eyes, he took it seriously and told the police that other bodies might well be buried on the moor. He added that Brady had guns, so they had to be careful going into the house. So the police officer borrowed a bread man's white coat, to ring the doorbell. The police used photographs that Myra and Ian had taken, to try and locate the areas on the moor where the bodies might be. After a long search, they found the pathetic bodies of John Kilbride and Lesley Ann Downey, both of whom had been sexually abused and killed by Ian with Myra's help. Myra and Ian had been a couple for a few years. He was a clerk and she was a typist in a small firm in Manchester. Myra's younger sister, Maureen, became pregnant by David Smith, when they were both in their teens. The couple got married, and had their baby. They became good friends with Myra and Ian. But their little daughter, Angela Dawn, died at 6 months of a cot death. Ian's first kill was Pauline Reade, a young neighbour who knew David Smith and the Hindleys. She was on her way to a dance, and he and Myra concealed the murder. He went on to kill 3 young children, and the bodies were buried on the moors. Then they killed the 17 year old Edward Evans, inside their house and in David Smith's presence.. Williams' book ended with the imprisonment of Brady and Hindley and the birth of a son to David and Maureen. Later books on the Moors murders have followed Ian and Myra's lives in Prison and their eventual deaths in captivity. David Smith and Maureen had 3 sons, but their marriage was under tremendous strain. Maureen had been very close to her sister, and she had ambivalent feelings about having turned her in to the police. David found it hard to get a job. Many people believed that he had been involved in the killings. Myra's mother turned on her daughter for handing her sister over to the police. David got in a fight in a pub, then wound up in prison for a time. Maureen could not cope. She left and the children were taken into care. She and David divorced. He came out of prison and took on looking after his sons. He fell in love with a young girl, Mary, whom he later married and they had another child. He and his wife moved to Ireland, where they found some peace. Sadly Maureen, who remarried, died of a brain haemorrhage when only in her 30's. David ran a small business in Ireland and he and his wife led a quiet life. He died some years ago. I've been reading another book on the Moors murders, recently... It was only written a few years ago. It covers Brady's life from his childhood as an illegitimate child in Glasgow, reared by a foster family, and Myra's life in Manchester where she was reared by a doting grandmother, an over stressed mother and an often violent father. The author notes that Brady grew up in the Gorbals a slum part of Glasgow and that might have sparked off his violent tendencies. He was not really part of his foster family, though they were kind to him. He was intelligent but was not willing to work at school.. and he made no real friends. He got into trouble with the law, and finally, the courts ordered him to move to Manchester where his mother was living, and he went, but did not improve. His mother and step father did their best for him, but he still got into trouble. He got interested in Nazi ideology and collected memorabilia... He then tried to get a better job, and was employed as a stock clerk in a small firm. His boss, Tom, said he was so bad tempered that if there had not been a shortage of staff, he would probably have lost his job. But that was where he met Myra and the two of them became lovers. And they realised that they both had violent tendencies, and that they were "turned on" by the idea of killing and torture.