16 Wardle Brook Avenue: 1965
Posted in Serial Killers and Murderers | Author: Paul Carpenter | Comments | Last updated: 13th November 2012
16 Wardle Brook Avenue, once home to Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. Here they murdered Lesley-Ann Downey (aged 10) on Boxing Day 1964, and then Edward Evans (Aged 17) in October 1965.
Murder of Edward Evans and Arrest of the Moors Murders
Brady met 17 year old Edward Evans at Manchester Central Station on 6th October 1965 and invited him back to Wardle Brook avenue.
Staying at the house with Brady and Hindley at the time was Hindley's 17 year old brother in law David Smith. With a troubled background of his own - including a conviction for actual bodily harm aged just 11 - Smith had fallen under Brady's baleful influence, to Hindley's consternation.
But when Smith walked into the kitchen to discover Brady strangling Evans and striking him with the flat of an axe, it proved to be that Brady's influence was not as deep as he had evidently thought. Although Evans helped to wrap the body in plastic and carry it up to a spare room, he was shocked and revolted by what he had seen.
Returning home, he told his wife what he had witnessed and shortly afterwards phoned the police. The following morning, Superintendent Bob Talbot of Cheshire police knocked on the door of the house and the chain of events began that would end with Brady and Hindley incarcerated and the full horror of their crimes revealed to a shocked public via the pages of the press.
The house itself was demolished by Manchester Council in the 1980s and is now just an empty plot.
NOTE ABOUT COMMENTS I'm trialling the Disqus comment system to see if it's a little bit better and slicker than my cobbled-together, home-grown system. If nothing else, you can now leave a commment without having to sign up. Keep things civil please - and remember that this isn't meant to be an encyclopaedic site - corrections and additions are welcome :)