One of the key arguments of this work is that the reporting and later media responses to the crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley form a template for the modern mediatised serial killing. Features of this template include giving of a nom d’guerre or a nickname to the killers, focussing on the motivations of the killers, examination of the killer(s)’ childhood to find some explanation of their crimes, the marginalisation of victims and their families and the fact that killers are afforded celebrity status. These themes are examined in more depth in subsequent chapters. This chapter provides an overview of serial killing as a phenomenon of modernity (Haggerty 2009). Alongside Jack the Ripper and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, Brady and Hindley are probably the most famous criminals in British history. Within the shifts and developments in perspectives on or approaches to serial killing outlined below, the Moors Murders case has become a reference point or a comparator. Any new approach has to try and provide an explanation of or account for the crimes of Brady and Hindley. The events that took place in Manchester in the early 1960s have become woven into the fabric of British cultural life. The case became a conduit for debate on questions about crime and punishment, the nature of evil and other social issues such as the role of the press.
Serial Killing
This section will examine the development of the terms serial killing and serial killer. The terms were not used at the time of Brady and Hindley’s arrest and trial. They were developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, the term has been retrospectively applied to the Moors Murderers. In many ways, they have come to be seen as the first British serial killers of the TV age (Cummins and King 2016). The mass media has played a vitally important role in the construction of the modern notion of the serial killer and a narrative discourse about serial killing. Serial killing has become a distinct category of murder. Alongside this, the serial killer has become both a modern monster and a modern celebrity (Schmid 2006).
Murders are often impulsive acts carried out by individuals who are in some sort of state of intoxication. There are clearly murders that are planned and carried out for financial gain. Alongside these categories, there are murders that are the culmination of domestic violence and abuse. There is clearly something different about serial killing—not just the fact that it involves several victims—that sets it apart from other violent crimes and murders (Wilson 2007). Serial killing is planned and this planning appears to form part of the motivation of the killer. The victims are seen by the killer as simply a means to an end. That end being the creation of the killer’s identity or fulfilment of his or her own desires. This combined with the anonymity of modern life allows for the creation of the category of the serial killer. In the modern urban society of strangers, the serial killer is able to operate in the depersonalised modern environment, preying on strangers. It is these features, the targeting of victims, planning of the crimes and the disposal of the bodies and the total disregard for the humanity of the victims, that create the category serial killer. This application of rationality devoid of any ethical framework is identified by Bauman (1989) as one of the dangers of modernity.
The first recorded use of the term serial killing, as recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary, was in a New York Times article of May 1981 discussing the then unsolved Atlanta child murders. Prior to the wider use of the term serial killing, the terms mass killing (four or more victims) and spree killing (two or more victims in two or more locations within a specific period) were used. These terms have their roots in the work of the FBI psychological profiling unit. For example, Ressler et al. (1988) produced a study based on interviews with 36 serial killers. The analysis of these killers and their crimes leads Ressler et al. (1988) to conclude that these offenders can be divided into two types; organised (non-social) and disorganised (asocial). Holmes et al. (1988) outlined a different classification: power/control killers, visionary-orientated, mission-orientated and hedonistic-orientated. Within this typology, Holmes et al. (1988) identified three sub-groups of killers: lust, thrill and comfort killers. The FBI approach initially ignored the possibility that female serial killers exist. However, this guidance was withdrawn. Kelleher and Kelleher (1998) produce a typology of female serial killers: the black widow, the angel of death, the sexual predator and the revenge or profit killer. The aim of these typologies is to assist not only our understanding of such crimes but also to assist investigators. The psychological profiler has become one of the most important figures in the serial killing industry. This is particularly the case in TV dramas where no investigation team is complete without a psychological profiler who usually has to overcome the world weary cynicism of police officers to prove the value of their approach (King and Cummins 2013) There is an overlap between these psychological approaches and the way the media report serial killing. This is not a comment on the validity or otherwise of these perspectives. It is, rather, to highlight the porous nature of the boundaries between crime media and popular cultural representations. For example, the black widow is a phrase that is much more likely to appear in a tabloid newspaper report than in any professional psychological assessment.
Serial Killing and Modernity
It is a disturbing reality that acts of multiple murders have always occurred. The desire to inflict pain and suffering on fellow human beings for personal gratification is not a phenomenon of the modern age. However, the notion of serial killing and with it the media character of the serial killer is. Brady and Hindley were, in fact, serial killers before the term was coined. They have, however, been incorporated into the history of serial killing. The case is one of the biggest elements of what Grover and Soothill (1999:22) termed the ‘serial killing industry’.
There are three distinct features of the notion of serial killing that make it a modern phenomenon: the random nature of the choice of victims, the role of the mass media and the subsequent celebrity status of the killers (Haggerty and Ellerbrok 2011). The majority of murderers have some sort of prior relationship with their victims. The fact that serial killers identify and target victims is one of the elements that sets these crimes apart. They also play a part in the creation of the serial killer of popular culture, hunting for potential victims. In modern society, we have many more contacts with strangers. Before mass urbanisation, strangers were rarely encountered. It has been calculated that the average citizen in a mediaeval society would have probably only met a hundred strangers in their lifetime. The modern city dweller is likely to encounter more than that number every day as they commute to work and pick up their morning coffee. The anonymity of modern life thus allows for the killer to move amongst us. It is interesting to note that Brady and Hindley knew Pauline Reade, their first victim, as she lived very close by (Lee 2010).
Gibson (2006) argues that serial killing has become and should be understood essentially as a media event. The rise of the modern mass media and communications is a key feature of modernity. This is strongly connected with the notion of celebrity. Braudy (1986) notes that the modern celebrity does not have a heroic status. Individuals are well known for being well known. This means that the modern category of celebrity has a flexibility and volatility. It can thus unquestioningly incorporate a serial killer alongside a reality TV star and members of the latest boy band. It is clear that serial killers themselves are very aware of this aspect of the response to their crimes. Leyton (1986:153) notes that ‘no one ever became famous by beating his wife to death in an alley’. However, from the point that the media identifies that there is a serial killer on the loose, the perpetrators become celebrities. There is a symbiotic relationship with the media where it is recognised that the public’s fascination with these crimes will boost ratings and audiences. Egger’s analysis (2002) of seven US serial killers concluded that they all seemed to enjoy their celebrity status. This is not to suggest that serial killers necessarily carry out their crimes with the aim of becoming famous or receiving media coverage. It is, rather, to argue that this is a key element in the construction of the category serial killer. These processes represent the ultimate collapse in the distinction between the categories of fame and notoriety.
The creation of the modern category of serial killer complete with nickname means that it is something that someone can become (Haggerty and Ellerbrok 2011). While there is no real evidence that Brady and Hindley committed their crimes with the express intention of becoming famous, it is clear that they both were aware of the importance of the media. Hindley wrote to the press on several occasions—once complaining that she had been called a psychopath and also giving an account of her role (Lee 2010). Brady was clearly a keen manipulator of the media. This is perhaps most evident in the steps he took to ensure that there was a public hearing of his Mental Health Review Tribunal (MHRT) appeal. His appeal had little, if any, real chance of being successful. However, Brady’s appearance—it was via a videolink—became a huge media event with him at the centre of it. He dutifully provided the media with the soundbites comparing the case to Wuthering Heights and all that and stating that it had been running longer than Coronation Street. Brady also stated that his crimes were insignificant compared to what he termed the War Crimes of Bush and Blair. Such statements are not those of a media ingénue (Cummins et al. 2016).
The cult of modern celebrity brings with it the modern fan and memorabilia. Schmid (2006) notes what he terms the murderabilia industry is booming. He notes that the website supernaught.com was selling a brick from Dahmer’s apartment building for $300 and a lock of Charles Manson’s hair for $995. These have the air of religious icons or relics. These items seem to provide some link, however tenuous, with the crimes and the killers. There is thus a frisson of excitement and danger which is deemed to raise these items above the level of banality. A brick from Dahmer’s building is, ultimately, simply a brick. It can offer no insights into his crimes or the pain and suffering that his victims and their families endured. In 2001, ebay banned the sale of murderabilia.
The influence of the psychological discourse is also clear in the focus that is given to the explanations of the motives of the killers. Wilson and Seaman (2007) rightly suggest that the fact that there is no prior relationship between the killer and his or her victims often leads to them being described as senseless or motiveless. Society seems to accept motives such as jealousy, revenge or financial gain as being robust enough to explain the taking of another life. The crimes of serial killers are planned and target the most vulnerable. They have some meaning, however awful that may be to contemplate, for the individuals who commit them.
Apart from the awful nature of their crimes, one of the most powerful aspects of the construction of the modern serial killer is—until they are caught—their social invisibility. Brady and Hindley abducted and murdered Pauline Reade some two years before they were arrested. In the intervening period, they committed further offences but they also, to all intents and purposes, lived ordinary working class lives, going to work and so on. They clearly would have appeared as a somewhat unusual couple. However, there is no evidence that they were suspected of any crimes before David Smith phoned the police on the morning of 7 October 1965. The community was not in fear of a serial killer. Davis (1991) makes a similar point in discussing the Dahmer case. Until he was arrested, the wider public in Milwaukee did not know that there was a serial killer committing crimes. The modern media approaches mean that this is less likely to be the case; a potential series of serial killings will be a huge story.
Once the serial killer has been apprehended—then attempts begin to construct a narrative which explains the crimes that have been committed. These attempts are overwhelmingly based on psycho-social approaches. These change over time. For example, in the early attempts to provide a psychological explanation of the Moors Murders case, great emphasis was placed on the fact that Brady was illegitimate and had had what was termed an unstable upbringing (Williams 1967). These ex post facto explanations always appear rather weak. They often include placing huge significance on childhood events. In Hindley’s case, the death of a school friend is said to have had a traumatic impact (Ritchie 1988). This is almost certainly the case but the link to her subsequent abduction and murder of five children is more difficult to establish. Jeffrey Dahmer’s father wrote a memoir. In it he placed great significance on a fishing trip he and his son had undertaken (Schmid 2006). Mundane or ordinary events are thus recast as signs of more sinister events to come.
Schmid (2006) notes the paradox of the serial killer. Their alleged ordinariness allows them to hide in plain sight in society. Once they are unmasked, banal and quotidian events take on a huge symbolic significance. For example, Brady and Hindley went on a date to see the film Verdict at Nuremberg (1961). This film was a mainstream Hollywood move, which starred amongst others Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift. Presumably many other young couples attended the same screening. We know that Brady and Hindley were both virulently anti-Semitic and racist towards their black neighbours (Williams 1967). Brady, in particular was obsessed with Nazism. These are surely much more significant than going to this film, which is a traditional court room drama.
The fame of the serial killer is partly explained by the duality and ambiguity of the public relationship. The ongoing interest in the lives of serial killers and the interest in places and objects associated with them are clear evidences of this. We are both attracted and repulsed. Serial killers are modern day monsters of myth and legend. The barriers between fiction, drama and reality become blurred in the ongoing representation of serial killers. It should be emphasised that these crimes are very rare. However, the bestsellers, movies and TV drama appeared to be dominated by the treatments of fictional nature or otherwise of these cases. A search for serial killers on Amazon produces over 20,000 possible choices. The Moors Murders case has produced a literature, which includes numerous definitive accounts, films, TV dramas and biographies of those affected by its impact.
The crime/media relationship is one of the features of modernity. Mass media has always had an interest in crime, particularly violent crimes involving attacks on women. In 1888, it was possible to pay a penny to see the corpse of Annie Chapman, the second victim of Jack Ripper (Jones 2017). This has now become a huge industry. Ripper tours are one of the biggest attractions in London tourism. These tours claim to provide an authentic experience of the Whitechapel community terrorised by the yet unmasked perpetrators of these violent attacks on women. The East End of 2018 has few, if any, similarities with Whitechapel in 1888. However, the attraction remains. This commodification of sexual violence and murder is a key element of modernity (Jones 2017). This commodification of violence is one of the factors in the emergence of the modern creation that is the serial killer. The conditions, such as the development of modern mass media that allow for the emergence of celebrity culture, are the same ones that produce the modern icon that the serial killer has become. Schmid (2006:4) terms serial killers as ‘the exemplary modern celebrity’.
We live in a media saturated world where 24-hour rolling news and social media make it possible to respond and comment on events across the globe. This environment has implications for the relationship between media and us as consumers. Crime competes with other areas such as politics and sport for coverage. This theme is explored in the novels of David Peace, particularly the Red Riding novels 1974, 1977, 1980 and 1983. He examines how a constant tension exists between the way we are drawn towards stories of violent crime and our willingness to examine the brutal reality of these offences and their impact. The result is that violent crime can become just another story. News bulletins may lead with a serious crime story but they will move on to other areas. The point here is that the audience becomes voyeurs, visitors to somebody else’s suffering for a short period and then move on (King and Cummins 2013).
a multimedia ride through Hollywood and Beverly Hills to places like the apartment where Bela Lugosi died, the Menendez brothers’ mansion, the condo where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were brutally murdered and the infamous murder house where the Black Dahlia was found, among others. There’s also a three-hour “Helter Skelter” tour that will take you to the Tate/LaBianca murder sites where the victims of the Manson Family fell. The ticket for this tour includes a macabre keepsake, a piece of rock from the Tate fireplace acquired by Michaels when the house was razed in 1993. (https://www.viator.com/tours/Los-Angeles/Dearly-Departed-The-Tragic-History-Tour-of-Los-Angeles/d645-2552DDT)
It is probably safe to assume that some future entrepreneur will devise a Moors Tour of Manchester or a guide to Peter Sutcliffe’s Yorkshire. Such tours would almost certainly be popular.
Societal attraction to serial killers has echoes of Gothic fiction (Simpson 2000). Halberstam (1995) notes that killers such as Dahmer or John Wayne Gacey are often described in the language of myth and legend, monsters, vampires and so on. Ripper appears to be a modern variant. Gross (1989) argues that the Gothic involves projection by the dominant culture of what it cannot incorporate. Gothic symbols are the monstrous Other. Part of the attraction of the Gothic is that it produces fear (Ingebretsen 1998). It is the frisson of fear that is at the heart of our enjoyment of the horror genre. In drama, cinema and fiction, this frisson is managed within a context. The audience goes to see The Silence of the Lambs (1991) or Psycho (1960) wanting to be frightened. True crime accounts such as the classic, In Cold Blood (Capote 2000) or Burn’s (1990) account of the Ripper case Somebody’s Husband Somebody’s Son , fulfil a slightly different function in that they seek or claim to provide an explanation of how the individuals became serial killers.
An important theme in Gothic fiction is the relationship between the subject and space. The external is also seen to explain the internal motivations of individuals. The appalling nature of Brady and Hindley’s crimes forms the basis of society’s ongoing fascination and an almost obsessive interest. However, the dramatic location of the Moors is a Gothic element in the representation of the case. The rugged terrain of the Moors is an area of stark natural beauty. At the same time, the area is one that is potentially dangerous. In Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847), for Catherine and Heathcliff, the Moors are ultimately a place of freedom away from the claustrophobia of domesticity. Yet they also represent threat and menace and a place full of mystery. The Moors themselves have become an integral feature of the crimes of Brady and Hindley. This has been the case since the initial searches for bodies in 1966. The brooding landscape forms a Gothic backdrop to subsequent events.
The external thus represents evil. There are echoes of this in the way the modern media use mugshots or other photographs alongside reports of the crime. Even though the images themselves may be mundane, the audience projects on to them their feelings of repulsion towards the killer and his or her crimes. The image is meant to offer an explanation. The pictures of Brady and Hindley taken at the time of their arrest in 1965 are exemplars of this. They have been reproduced innumerable times since as ciphers for evil. When Brady gave evidence at the MHRT hearing in 2013, the reports were accompanied by a court room artist sketch. The sight of Brady 50 years on will offer some explanation of his appalling crimes. There is also the frisson of excitement of seeing him, which most of the audience did not actually do.His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.
As noted above, mass urbanisation creates societies where individuals can lead their lives in relative anonymity. This has positive aspects, in that, it is potentially possible for individuals to forge new identities and free themselves from imposed social structures. The serial killer represents the dark side of the city. The cloak of invisibility that the city provides also allows for the serial killer to target and attack his victims. In the serial killer narrative, the urban landscape itself becomes a key character. This theme is explored by both Burn (2011) and O’Hagan (1995) in their examination of the crimes of Fred and Rosemary West. O’Hagan (1995) contemplates the ways in which the majority of the Wests’ victims were marginalised young women from fractured family backgrounds. The Wests offered them a room in their house before sexually violating and murdering them. O’Hagan argues that these young women were missing in one sense. However, after a short period, nobody was actively looking for them. They had disappeared leaving no trace. The Wests knew this. If by chance someone did try and find one of their victims they would be able to say quite plausibly that they had moved on leaving no contact. The city, even a very small one, like Gloucester, has a transient and shifting population. Burn sees the city as offering an allure of freedom. This potential can be exploited ‘The freedom conferred by masks. The freedom conferred by cities. In the city the forbidden—what is most feared and desired becomes possible’ (Burn 2011:14).
The serial killer narrative is largely driven by a psychological narrative. Jewkes (2004) notes that the media reports of crime focus on violent crime. Crime reporting, additionally, tends to be much more concerned with sex and celebrity. The serial killer, in becoming a celebrity, brings these trends together. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a huge expansion of interest in and media coverage of serial killing and killers. The height of this was probably the hugely popular and critical success of the film The Silence of the Lambs in 1991. The film won all of the so-called Big Five Academy Awards Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is only the third film to achieve this after Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) and Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). In the film based on Tom Harris’s thriller, Jodie Foster plays Clarice Starling, a young US FBI trainee who seeks the advice of the imprisoned Dr. Lecter to track down another serial killer, known only as Buffalo Bill. Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins is a former psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The success of the film and the novel played a significant role in establishing two key tropes of modern representations of serial killing—the psychological profiler and the serial killer as warped genius. At the Academy Awards, the host Billy Crystal was wheeled on in a Hannibal Lecter straight jacket and mask (Schmid 2006) an outfit which soon became a Halloween costume favourite. In a similar vein, Cameron (1992) notes that the figure of Jack the Ripper, clearly a real figure unlike Hannibal the Cannibal who the audience know is fictional, has been sanitised. He is now a mythic figure. The endless books and articles that claim to solve the case, rarely if ever, focus on the reality that these crimes are the result of misogyny and sadism directed at poor working class women.
The psychological autopsy, even if one accepts its main premises, can only provide a partial explanation of serial killing. It does not, for example, consider or address the cultural significance of the creation of the media figure that is the serial killer. It does not answer any questions as to who the victims of serial killers are most likely to be and what that actually tells us about the nature of the society in which these events occurred (Leyton 1986). Wilson (2007) argues that the victims of modern UK serial killers overwhelmingly come from marginalised groups: older people, gay men, prostitutes and working class children. One of the reasons that is often not adequately investigated or given a great deal of media coverage is the marginalised status of the victims (Wilson 2007). Egger (1984) termed the failure by authorities to recognise the patterns in offending as ‘linkage blindness’. The dominance of the serial killer trope might reduce the likelihood of this occurring. However, Sitford (2000) shows that Harold Shipman was able to continue murdering patients even after serious concerns were raised. The fact that Shipman targeted older working class women was also a feature here.
The murders of individuals who do not fit the ideal victim type do not receive the same coverage. In Egger’s (2002:14) phrase these victims are the ‘less dead’. It is possible to take this a stage further and argue that the media focuses on child killers such as Brady and Hindley. Kenneth Erskine murdered at least seven pensioners in Stockwell, London in the mid-1980s. He broke into the homes of vulnerable older people, sexually assaulting and strangling them. He was convicted of seven murders and suspected of four others but has never been charged with these later offences. Erskine was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988 (Marshall 2016). These convictions were reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility in 2009. The case is relatively unknown, certainly in comparison to the Moors Murders.
It is unpalatable but the marginalised position of victims is a factor in societal responses to murders. This is perhaps clearest in the cases of sex workers (Kinnell 2013). The failures in the Yorkshire Ripper Inquiry were the result of the status of his victims and the broader culture of misogyny, combined with organisational failings (Byford 1981). These issues are examined in Nicole Ward-Jouve’s (1986) The Street Cleaner a term Sutcliffe, had given himself, claiming to be on God’s mission to remove prostitutes from the streets. The fact that Sutcliffe was called the Yorkshire Ripper is a part of the creation of a mythology around him and his crimes. In addition, there was a significant shift in the approach and attitude towards these crimes when it became clear that the Ripper would attack women, regardless of their status. Media accounts focus on respectable/not respectable and innocent/guilty dichotomies in their presentation of victims (Ward-Jouve 1986).
The news discourse reproduces and contributes to the marginalisation of groups. The case of missing and murdered women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is a further illustration of this point. The societal status of victims is a key factor in the wider response. In December 2007, Robert Picton, a pig farmer was convicted of the murder of six women. He was also charged with involvement in the deaths of 20 other women. These charges were ultimately not pursued. The Vancouver Sun had published a series of articles in 1998 and 1999 highlighting the number of women who had gone missing from the Eastside since 1978 (Kines 1998). Jiwani and Young (2006) note that despite the sympathetic approach of this coverage, the missing women were still portrayed as drifters and drug addicts. In addition, a number of the women were from aboriginal heritage. A poster produced by the police at the time was made up of mugshots of some of the women, reinforcing their marginalised status (England 2004). These modern processes cannot be separated from a colonial history of sexualised violence against racialised others (Razack 1998). Writing in 2008 at the time of the conviction of Steve Wright for the Ipswich murders of sex workers, Kinnell highlighted the lack of interest in similar unsolved crimes. She had records of 118 unsolved murders of sex workers (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/feb/22/hilarykinnellonsexworkers). The perceived social status being related to the value of the victim is an ongoing feature of the reporting of serial killing. In reporting the death in prison of the serial killer, Dennis Nilsen, The Guardian casually and crassly insensitively referred to the victims as homeless homosexuals (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/12/serial-killer-dennis-nilsen-dies-in-prison-aged-72). This discourse serves to anonymise, marginalise and dehumanise the victims.
The modern discourse of the marginalised status of victims of serial killers is linked to the representation of the city. Gieryn (2000) has argued that the notion of place is fundamental to sociological examinations. Place is a geographical location, a physical area. It has an important symbolic value. These meanings are socially constructed, given meaning and value, interpreted, narrated and imagined (Soja 1996). The city creates a dynamic between spatial and human relations (Simmel 1971), establishes social order (Tonnies 1955) and represents modernity and progress (Park 1967). The economic, cultural and social structures of the modern city categorise areas as desirable/undesirable (Wacquant 2008). The categories become moral as well as economic. The logical conclusion being that undesirable areas are populated by undesirable people. Sampson (1987) argues that the portrayal of certain areas as urban wastelands scarred by drugs and crime is not only misleading but also serves to reinforce pre-existing inequalities and marginality. The modern city represents a polarised metropolis marked by newly privatised public spaces, at the centre of the city from which the poor are effectively excluded (Davis 1998).
The modern city represents glamour but some areas of it also represent darkness and threat. These are areas where a potential serial killer may lurk. Stedman-Jones (2014) shows the way that even before the Whitechapel murders, the East End of London was regarded as a hostile territory. The metaphor of the city or the poorest areas of the city as a jungle continues to be a powerful one. Darkest England (Booth 1890) is an early modern example of the way that poorer areas of cities are equated with unexplored hostile lands. In The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Stevenson 2005), Jekyll is the epitome of respectability. In contrast, Hyde is the figure of a dark lawless urban environment. The rootless anonymity of the city is presented as providing a cover for and an explanation of Dennis Nilsen’s crimes (Masters 1995). The crimes of Brady and Hindley took place during a period of slum clearance—they were moved to Wardle Brook Avenue on the new Hattersley housing estate on the edge of Manchester, as part of this process. The working classes were physically broken up. These crimes also contributed to the notion that the personal bonds of the community were broken. There is a strong element of nostalgic revisionism here. However, 1970s industrial decay created the environments—back streets, industrial estates and deprived neighbourhoods which became Sutcliffe’s killing fields (King and Cummins 2013).
One of the key arguments that is put forward in this work is that the media and wider cultural responses to the Moors Murders form part of a template for the modern serial killer narrative. This is despite the fact that Brady and Hindley were arrested and convicted before the serial killer sub-genre became so established from the late 1970s onwards. The case has become an ongoing reference point, certainly in the UK context, for future crimes. This occurs where the crimes of Brady and Hindley are used as some sort of benchmark. If killers are in a relationship then they are almost inevitably compared to the Moors Murderers. In particular, there is a search for evidence as to who is the dominant partner and the main instigator of the crimes. As we have seen, the view of the trial judge was clearly that Brady was the main instigator of these crimes and evil beyond belief.
The serial killer, real or fictional, has become a stock feature of the hyper-reality of modern life. The advent of 24-hour rolling news has been a feature in the development of this modern saturation. Crime drama and detective novels are replete with detectives, aided by psychological profilers, putting the pieces of the puzzle together to capture the latest serial killers. The crime scenes depicted contain within them evidence and symbols that lead to the apprehension of the perpetrator. These images seep into the reporting of real crimes. The wider understanding of these crimes is heavily influenced by their dramatic representations, however far removed these might be from reality. The narrative of the Holmesian detective solving crime does not really square with the reality of the working lives of police officers (Cummins et al. 2014). The three most notorious cases in British serial killing do not fit this narrative structure in any way. Jack the Ripper was never caught. Brady and Hindley were never suspected until the Smiths phoned the police after the murder of Edward Evans. The police then went to Wardle Brook Avenue and arrested Brady following the discovery of Edward Evans body. Sutcliffe was eventually arrested when police on routine patrol in Sheffield came across in a car with a sex worker. A police check revealed that his car had false number plates. Sutcliffe was arrested. Officers returned to the scene of the arrest the following day. They discovered a knife, hammer and rope that Sutcliffe had discarded. He was also able to hide a second knife in the toilet cistern at the police station (Bilton 2003). The allure of crime fiction and drama is that it imposes a narrative structure. This includes solving of the crimes, providing a motivation for the apparently senseless acts of brutality and the punishment of the guilty (Knight 2010).
The figure of the serial killer has become a modern urban monster. The wider societal relationship with them encapsulates or crystallises the modern fear of crime. Becoming a victim of crime has had an impact on a range of behaviour and choices that citizens make. For example, the increase in sales of SUVs in the USA and the rise of the gated community are both directly linked to the fear of crime. Throughout areas of daily life including schools and schooling, a fear of violent crime lies at the root of a number of policy developments (Simon 2007). This is not solely an urban phenomenon but in the city as a place of potential fear and dread is a vital trope within the modern Gothic tale that the serial killer narrative has become. Bauman (2007) notes that the city whose walls were originally built to protect against danger has now become a source of danger itself.
There is a danger that the mythic, folklore-like quality of the representation of the serial killer obscures or minimises the brutality of their crimes and the trauma that they inflict on individuals, their loved ones and the wider community. Folklore and myth have always had an association with violence and often savage crime (Meehan 1994). The modern Disney representation of these tales often obscures the darkness at their core. The representation of the serial killer as a non-human monster makes it, paradoxically easier to comprehend these crimes. Brady’s consistent assertion that he committed these crimes because he could is a much more difficult concept, with which to engage. This is despite the fact that there is a very significant literature, including Eichmann in Jerusalem (Arendt 1963), Modernity and the Holocaust (Bauman 1989) and We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families (Gourevitch 2015), which show that those who have committed or played a role in atrocities have much more in common with their fellow citizens than we might like to imagine.
Grover and Soothill (1999) noted that the serial killing industry was booming. The boom has continued in the 20 years since that paper was written and appears to show no signs of slowing down. The popular demand for films, dramas and true crime accounts of these crimes is insatiable. In the period since Grover and Soothill (1999) coined that term, there have been more crimes but as noted above, these crimes are thankfully rare. Not only have there been more crimes but related areas such as the media and academia have also seen substantial expansion in areas related to their portrayal or study. We, of course, accept that our work is part of this. The main focus in this field has been to try and understand the motivations of the killers rather than the wider impact of their offences. Within this, there is still a tendency to portray killers as sophisticated planners, who use their intellect to evade capture. This is true in dramatic representations and true crime accounts. For example, Canter (2003) sees Fred West as expressing a coherent deviant philosophy and uses his intellect to avoid the authorities. This picture is completely at odds with the detailed portrait that Burn (2011) provides of the dishevelled, functionally illiterate West. It should be acknowledged that the psychological autopsy approach remains deeply entrenched in popular cultural explanations of serial killing.
An alternative approach to the analysis of serial killing focuses not on the acts of murder themselves. It uses perspectives from a range of disciplines to contextualise these acts and the wider societal responses to them. In acknowledging that serial killing is a product of modernity or a phenomenon inextricably linked with modernity (Haggerty 2009), we also have to ask what does that reveal about the nature of modernity? The Moors Murders case thus becomes a key site for analysis as all the features which constitute society’s ambivalent relationship with serial killers and their crimes are present here.