Fifty years after the Moors Murders and 15 years since Myra Hindley died in prison, after one of the longest sentences served by a woman, this book raises some delicate and searching questions. They include: “Why was Hindley treated differently?”, “Why do we need to create demons?” and “What impact does this have on our whole notion of crime, punishment and justice?” Set against the political backlash of one of the most noto­rious cases in English criminal history, The Monstering of Myra Hindley is a perceptive, first-hand portrayal of the most talked-about and maligned of women. Nina Wilde invites readers to hold back any adverse preconceptions as she seeks to show how the media selected Hindley as a monster and the politics at play around her de-humanising captivity. She compares how things are done in some other European countries and how the UK itself routinely releases others equally bad (arguably worse) quietly and away from the public gaze. Everyone, the author included, recognises the plight of the victims but this should not be allowed to mask other wrongs that, with hindsight, become increasingly apparent in Hindley’s case. Reviews 'The book has two main arguments. Hindley was treated as she was first because she was a woman and consequently what she did was worse because she was a woman. Second the unfairness she experienced was because the press would not leave her alone and continually brought up the story and the evil nature of her character... I think Wilde is right on both counts... the book is written well and makes the above arguments well. It thus serves as a reminder that tariff decisions on life imprisonment should be decided upon by the judiciary and that they should be carried out without political bias or influence.'-- Prison Service Journal; 'I think she became a national scapegoat for that part of the social mind that is cruel and has contempt for vulnerability'— Dr Gwen Adshead

From the 'Monster of Ravenna' to the 'Elephant Man', Myra Hindley and Ted Bundy, the visualisation of 'real', human monsters has always played a part in how society sees itself. But what is the function of a monster? Why do we need to embody and represent what is monstrous? This book investigates the appearance of the human monster in Western culture, both historically and in our contemporary society. It argues that images of real (rather than fictional) human monsters help us both to identify and to interrogate what constitutes normality; we construct what is acceptable in humanity by depicting what is not quite acceptable. By exploring theories and examples of abnormality, freakishness, madness, otherness and identification, Alexa Wright demonstrates how monstrosity and the monster are social and cultural constructs. However, it soon becomes clear that the social function of the monster – however altered a form it takes – remains constant; it is societal self-defence allowing us to keep perceived monstrosity at a distance. Through engaging with the work of Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva and Canguilhem (to name but a few) Wright scrutinises and critiques the history of a mode of thinking. She reassesses and explodes conventional concepts of identity, obscuring the boundaries between what is 'normal' and what is not.

'Infamous, I have become disowned, but I am one of your own' - Myra Hindley, from her unpublished autobiography On 15 November 2002, Myra Hindley, Britainâe(tm)s most notorious murderess, died in prison, one of the rare women whose crimes were deemed so indefensible that âe~lifeâe(tm) really did mean âe~lifeâe(tm). But who was the woman behind the headlines? How could a seemingly normal girl grow up to commit such terrible acts? Her defenders claim she fell under Ian Bradyâe(tm)s spell, but is this the truth? Was her insistence that she had changed, that she felt deep remorse and had reverted to the Catholicism of her childhood genuine or a calculating bid to win parole? One of Your Own explores these questions and many others, drawing on a wide range of resources, including Hindleyâe(tm)s own unseen writings, hundreds of recently released prison files, fresh interviews and extensive new research. Compellingly well written, this is the first in-depth study of Hindley and the challenging, definitive biography of Britainâe(tm)s âe~most-hated womanâe(tm).

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley's spree of torture, sexual abuse, and murder of children in the 1960s was one of the most appalling series of crimes ever committed in England, and remains almost daily fixated upon by the tabloid press. In The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady himself allows us a glimpse into the mind of a murderer as he analyzes a dozen other serial crimes and killers. Criminal profiling by a criminal was not invented by the dramatists of Dexter. Novelist and true-crime writer Colin Wilson, author of the famous and influential book The Outsider, remarks in his introduction to Brady's book that one must first explore the depraved reaches of human consciousness to truly understand human character. When first released in 2001, The Gates of Janus sparked controversy attended by a huge media splash. The new edition, the first in paperback, provides the reader with a decade and a half of updates, including Brady's letters to the publisher, both providing information regarding his own demented history along with demands that Feral House remove its unflattering afterword written by author Peter Sotos.

Since May 1966 when Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were sentenced to life imprisonment at Chester Assizes the British public has been absorbed and horrified by the Moors Murders. Ian Brady has often been aptly described as ‘the most evil man alive’ or ‘the Daddy of the Devils’, while Myra Hindley, Britain’s first female serial killer, became the most hated woman in Britain. Here is the definitive account, drawing on exclusive, never-before-seen material. It changes forever our understanding of the Moors couple and their heinous crimes. Why did they do it? What actually happened? Unlikely as it may appear to those detectives, psychiatrists, authors, criminologists, journalists and the victims’ families, who have all sought in their own ways for decades to discover it, this book is possibly as near as we shall ever get to understanding how the victims died. It proves beyond question that the parents of the victims were right all along in their claims about Hindley’s part in the murders. Did Brady give an account to anyone of his life, Myra Hindley and their crimes before he died? Yes, he did - here it is.

In this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill—and the political, economic, social and sexual implications buried with each victim. How many of us are even remotely prepared to imagine our mothers, daughters, sisters or grandmothers as fiendish killers? For centuries we have been conditioned to think of serial murderers and psychopathic predators as men—with women registering low on our paranoia radar. Perhaps that’s why so many trusting husbands, lovers, family friends, and children have fallen prey to “the female monster.” From history’s earliest recorded cases of homicidal females to Irma Grese, the Nazi Beast of Belsen, from Britain’s notorious child-slayer Myra Hindley to ‘Honeymoon Killer’ Martha Beck to the sensational cult of Aileen Wournos—the first female serial killer-as-celebrity—to cult killers, homicidal missionaries, and our pop-culture fascination with the sexy femme fatale, Vronsky not only challenges our ordinary standards of good and evil but also defies our basic accepted perceptions of gender role and identity. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS