Moors Murderers butchered lad 14 times with axe and made me clear up – they were so calm we could have had a cup of tea

 COVERED in blood and shell-shocked, David Smith stumbled home in the dead of night and vomited in the bathroom.

The teenager, from Manchester, had just witnessed the brutal death of 17-year-old Edward Evans, at the hands of Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered five children between 1963 and 1965
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Ian Brady and Myra Hindley murdered five children between 1963 and 1965Credit: Getty
David Smith rang the police after witnessing the killing by his sister and brother in law
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David Smith rang the police after witnessing the killing by his sister and brother in lawCredit: Shutterstock

The evil pair had already killed four children when they lured Smith - married to Hindley’s sister Maureen - to the house, in October 1965, in a bid to implicate him in the fifth murder.

Instead, he ended their killing spree by bravely reporting them to police. But a new documentary has revealed Smith was lucky to get out alive, after Brady hatched a plan to kill him three months before - and even discussed killing Maureen.

Moors Murders, which airs on Channel 4 from tonight, delves into previously unseen letters from both killers to Sixties star Janie Jones, who befriended Hindley in jail and corresponded with them over four decades.

In one chilling note, Brady told her Hindley had always detested David Smith, calling him a “rat” who “nestled in to scrounge a worthless existence ‘til the end of his life”.He adds: “Three months before the end, we discussed cancelling him. It was her consideration of any spin-off effect on Maureen that had the decision deferred.

“After the trial, of course, she agreed we should have cancelled them both.

“It was the only time I didn’t follow instinct and allowed sentiment to influence what was necessary.

“I’d already identified Smith as unreliable, weak and a danger, over three months before he informed.”

Three months before the end, we discussed cancelling him. It was her consideration of any spin-off effect on Maureen that had the decision deferred

Ian Brady

Producer Douglas Chirnside says he decided to make the documentary after Janie - now 81 - came forward with hundreds of letters, after Brady’s death in 2017.

“Janie wrote to Myra and Ian, separately, when they were both in prison and they wrote back,” he says.

“We don't know of any other case, anywhere, where serial killers who were a couple both write to the same source. It's very extensive, it covers a very long period of time.”

The three-parter also includes the eye-witness testament of Smith - who died in 2012. He was forced to help with the clean up after Edwards was beaten to death at Hindley’s family home, as her grandmother slept upstairs.

In never-before-seen footage, recorded in 2003, he says he was in bed when Hindley knocked on the door, in the middle of the night, and asked him to walk her home and collect some wine.

Battered to death in front room

Smith - who had married Maureen at 16 after getting her pregnant - was told to wait in the kitchen, until he heard shouting and screaming, and Myra begging for his help.

Running into the living room, he found Brady beating Edward Evans - a teen loner he’d befriended and lured home.

“Brady’s got this lad, whacking him and hitting him with an axe. It’s very violent,” he says.

“The lad is on the floor, and Brady’s hitting him. I think he received 14 blows.

“He then starts strangling him, he’s swearing and cursing at him, calling him filthy names. And then it’s over, it stopped.”

Smith then helped the pair clean up the room, saying he was forced to pretend “everything was normal” to save his own skin.

“I wrapped the body up and took it upstairs,” he says. “Then the three of us - mostly myself and Hindley but Brady was part of it as well - cleaned up. He passes me the axe and said: ‘Feel the weight of that.’

Brady passes me the axe and said: ‘Feel the weight of that’

David Smith

“Hindley says: ‘I saw the blow register in his eyes. He never knew anything.’

“It sounds unbelievable but it was a normal conversation. If they’d have walked in with chocolate biscuits and tea I’d have stayed and drunk tea and eaten chocolate biscuits. I would do anything to get out of the house.”

After getting home, and vomiting, he told Maureen “I’ve just seen somebody killed’”.

Terrified, but determined to report the murder, the couple waited three hours until 6am, when the city had begun to wake up, then braved the walk to a phone box between the two houses and called the police.

Police raided Hindley’s house and found the body of Evans, wrapped in polythene, in an upstairs bedroom.

Brady was arrested - but police had no idea they were dealing with a serial killer, who had already murdered four children in two years.

Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, and Keith Bennett, 12, were abducted, sexually assaulted and strangled on Saddleworth Moor. Lesley Ann Down, 10, was taken to Hindley’s house, stripped, gagged and made to pose for photos before being raped and strangled, her body buried on the Moor.

Sick tape proves Hindley tortured girl

Police didn't know they had caught a pair of serial killers when they arrested the pair
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Police didn't know they had caught a pair of serial killers when they arrested the pairCredit: Alamy
Producer Douglas Chirnside says the letters revealed a plan to kill Smith months before
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Producer Douglas Chirnside says the letters revealed a plan to kill Smith months before

With Brady in custody, the story began to unravel. But crucially, it was five more days before Hindley was arrested - giving her time to destroy a stash of “souvenirs” they had taken from their victims and hidden in a warehouse next to the local wholesalers where they both worked.

But two suitcases recovered from a left luggage locker in Manchester, containing a gun, a cosh, some paperwork and a copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, were traced to Brady. A sick tape of a little girl screaming for her mum as she is tortured was also inside, with Myra Hindley’s voice clearly recognisable in the background.

Janie Jones - jailed in 1974 for throwing sex parties - became friendly with Hindley in Holloway and saved her life when she was attacked by violent inmate Josie O’Dwyer.

“Afterwards wardens told me Hindley’s walking back and forwards like a lion in a cage, until I come back o nto the wing,” she says.

“After that Myra Hindley followed me around like a puppy dog.”

Plot to incriminate Smith

After her release in 1977, Janie continued to write to Hindley, and visit her in prison - even campaigning for her release.

She believed Myra’s tale that “she had nothing to do with the murders, she was scared stiff of him and he was going to murder her whole family. She swore on her mother’s life it was all Brady and Smith.”

Hindley revealed her grandmother had been asleep throughout the Evans murder after being given sleeping pills by Brady.

She also told Janie she was forced to clean up or she “would be the next victim.” She said Smith put the boy’s body in the bag and helped Brady carry upstairs and that sick jokes were made about him being a ‘dead weight’.

The former jailmates fell out in the 1990s, after the discovery of Pauline Reade’s body on the Moor, when it became apparent that Myra had lied about her involvement.

Janie began writing to Brady - who tried to shift the blame on to Smith.

Talking about the Evans murder he wrote: “Forensic evidence at the trial showed that Myra and I had only specks of blood on our clothes and shoes. The carpet Evans was allegedly butchered on was a magic one. The trial forensics showed it didn’t have a trace of blood on it.

“Smith’s club, shoes and clothes were saturated with blood. In 40 years, no one has drawn the obvious conclusion from these facts.”

Controlling personalities

Douglas says the letters are mostly chatty and even banal - with Hindley asking for tea towels and Brady asking Janie to get his glasses fixed - but some passages reveal more of the killers’ personalities.

“If you just sit down and read one letter after another, you get an incredible insight into what they were both like,” he says.

“They quite clearly both have controlling personalities, manipulative personalities, very high opinions of themselves and low opinions of other people,” he says.

“They were both very intelligent and Ian Brady, who wrote 12 page letters, had a very wide vocabulary, despite a working class background. He also had the Glaswegian quick-witted humour, which was often very dark.”

Unseen memoir reveals Hindley 'worshipped' Brady

Passages from Hindley’s unpublished diaries and biographies also give a glimpse into the all-consuming romance that blossomed after they met at Millward’s Merchandise, where she was employed as Brady’s secretary at 18.

Smitten Hindley pursued the 23-year-old stock clerk, who always dressed in a three piece suit, shirt and tie, and they became lovers.

“He’s a crude, uncouth pig. He’s cruel and selfish and I love him,” she wrote in her diary. “I hope Ian and I love each other all our lives and get married and are happy ever after.”

In her memoir she wrote: “At the age of 18 I met a man who convinced me there was no God at all. He could have told me the Earth was flat, that the sun rose in the west, that the moon was made of green cheese and I would have believed him, such were his powers of persuasion. I believed him because I thought I loved him.

He’s a crude, uncouth pig. He’s cruel and selfish and I love him

Myra Hindley

“He became my God, my idol, my object of worship and I worshipped him blindly - more blindly than the congenital blind - for many years.”

For his part, Brady told Janie: “Myra and I once loved each other. We were a unified force .. we had a conscious, subconscious, emotional and psychological affinity.”

The couple’s sex life became increasingly unconventional, with both enjoying BDSM, whipping each other and strangling and Brady writing that after a motorbike crash they had an “interesting night” adding, “a close brush with death stimulates the sexual urge.”

In 1963, the pair’s twisted sexual fantasies became reality when they kidnapped 16-year-old Reade - a schoolfriend of Maureen - and took her to the Moor where Brady raped and strangled her.

Coincidentally Smith, a petty thief, had dated Reade and was questioned by police over her disappearance.

The connection would come back to haunt him when he blew the whistle after the Evans murder, leading many in the area to believe he was involved in all five deaths.

Plan backfired

Both killers were keen to point the finger at Smith and Hindley was also furious with Maureen for not warning her that her husband had reported the murder.

Douglas believes luring Smith to the house to witness the murder of Evans was Brady’s attempt to control him, by making him one of the “gang”.

“Smith was a teenager who was a criminal and Brady is looking at him as a potential recruit to join his little gang,” he says.

“He’s got Myra on board and thinks he can do the same with Smith. But it backfires because Smith is no murderer, he knows right from wrong. So he calls the police.”

Both Brady and Hindley were sentenced to life for the murders. Hindley died in Holloway in 2002, aged 60 and 79-year-old Brady died in Ashworth secure hospital in 2017.

Brady, a petty criminal before the murders began, also claimed he would never have killed without her.

He wrote: “Had I not met Myra Hindley, I wouldn’t have been diverted from my mercenary aims and on to the path of my downfall.”

Janie tells the programme Smith deserves a “medal the size of a frying pan” for stopping the serial killers in their tracks.

Smith says: “The reason it stopped is because Ian Brady made a mistake and I swear, honest to God, I’m delighted he made that mistake.”

Moors Murders begins on Channel 4 at 9pm tonight

During their spree, Hindley and Brady murdered five children and buried 4 on the moors
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During their spree, Hindley and Brady murdered five children and buried 4 on the moorsCredit: PA:Press Association
Janie with letters she received from the two killers
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Janie with letters she received from the two killersCredit: Map TV
David helped lead the searches over the moors for the victims of Brady and Hindley
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David helped lead the searches over the moors for the victims of Brady and HindleyCredit: News UK Ltd
David married Maureen after he got her pregnant at 16 and they lived near her sister
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David married Maureen after he got her pregnant at 16 and they lived near her sister

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