Body of Moors Murderer is released for cremation
IAN Brady’s body was yesterday released to his lawyer and is expected to be cremated in secret within days.
Coroner Christopher Sumner confirmed he had agreed for the Moors Murderer’s corpse to be handed to Robin Makin – who has represented Brady for 25 years and was one of the last to see him alive.
The lawyer met the killer around two hours before his death aged 79 at Ashworth High Security Hospital, Merseyside, on Monday evening.
He is the executor of Brady’s will and – as the murderer has no known relatives – is responsible for disposing of his remains.
Last night the lawyer remained coy about the arrangements for the funeral, amid fears the service could be targeted by protesters or those seeking vengeance for Brady’s crimes.
Many undertakers have already said they would be reluctant to handle his body. One funeral director in Liverpool told the Daily Mail they had a ‘duty’ to look after their customers, many of whom would not wish to have their loved ones’ remains in the vicinity of the child murderer.
Brady’s accomplice Myra Hindley was cremated in secret following her death in a Suffolk hospital in November 2002, but only after the Prison Service recruited an undertaker 200 miles away to do the job. No local funeral director wanted to perform the service.
Brady’s body was released as previously unpublished interviews revealed that the murderer had become bored of his crimes by the time he killed his fourth victim, ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey.
He told author Dr Alan Keightley, whose book is serialised in the Mail this week, that he and Hindley were so restless they began concocting other ways of causing fear and mayhem.
They considered derailing an express train and starting ‘a small race war’ in Manchester’s Moss Side, Brady claimed.
In 1966, Brady and Hindley were jailed for life for the killings of Lesley Ann Downey, John Kilbride, 12, and Edward Evans, 17. The couple went on to admit the murders of Pauline Reade, 16, and 12-year-old Keith Bennett.