On this day, sixteen-year-old Pauline Reade from Manchester, was abducted on her way to a dance and taken to Saddleworth Moor where she was raped, killed and buried in a shallow grave. She was the first victim of the serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, soon to be known nationally and internationally as ‘The Moors Murderers.’ Reade’s death was followed in the ensuing two years by those of John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans, all aged between 10 and 17, and all, except the last, buried in shallow graves on Saddleworth Moor. The presence of Hindley’s brother-in-law during the murder of Evans and his subsequent report to the police, led to the arrest of the two murderers who were soon convicted to life imprisonment with no possibility of parole. The judge described Brady and Hindley in his closing remarks as “two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity”.
