American Board of Information Security and Computer Forensics

A La Cañada, California, woman who sold fake art—including works purported to be by Picasso, Dali, and Chagall—through a rigged televised art auction has been sentenced to 84 months in federal prison.

Kristine Eubanks, 52, was sentenced on April 5 by United States District Judge Gary A. Feess, who said that the fraud scheme was “audacious in its scope” and “blatantly illegal.”

The scam, run through a company called Fine Art Treasures Gallery, falsely told customers that art sold on the company’s television show had been found at “estate liquidations all over the world.” Instead, Eubanks and others sold fake and forged art that they had bought from suppliers, as well as forgeries they had printed themselves and signed on behalf of the artists. The scam brought in well over $20 million from more than 10,000 victims across the country.

Eubanks pleaded guilty in April 2007 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, interstate transportation of stolen property, and to filing a false income tax return. Through this company, Eubanks and her conspirators operated an art auction television show, which aired on Friday and Saturday nights on DirecTV and The Dish Network, and sold art to customers around the United States. Eubanks and her husband, Gerald Sullivan, 54, ran the scheme from 2002 through 2006.

Eubanks admitted that she obtained fake art from various suppliers, and printed other art works in her own printing shop, and sold that bogus art on the auction as genuine. Eubanks and others forged signatures on some of the works, including purported lithographs from Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Salvador Dali. To support the scam, Eubanks also forged Certificates of Authenticity for certain pieces and provided falsified appraisals for some of the jewelry that was sold to customers.

Eubanks and others also rigged the bidding for the auction process by arranging for fake bids to be announced on the program to falsely drive up prices for the art they sold to the public. Eubanks’ husband, Gerald Sullivan, 54, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. He is scheduled to be sentenced by US District Judge Gary Feess on May 24, at which time he faces a statutory maximum sentence of six years in federal prison.

As part of the investigation into Fine Arts, federal authorities seized approximately $3.8 million from bank accounts controlled by Eubanks and Sullivan. Those funds have been forfeited to the government, which is in the process of notifying thousands of potential victims that they may have purchased bogus artworks.

This case was investigated by the national Art Crime Team at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, IRS-Criminal Investigation, and the Los Angeles Police Department’s Art Theft Detail.

Courtesy of the Department of Justice

nvestigating Fake Art Via Forensic Science

As the result of a spate of art fakes circulating throughout auction houses in London in the 1990s, Dick Ellis of Scotland Yard was called upon to begin tracking John Drewe based on some evidence provided by Drewe’s ex-wife to another detective named Higgs. During this time, Myatt and Drewe’s bogus works began landing in the hands of experienced art restorers and forensic examiners. (Note here that the processes presented constitute a composite of the many works and their provenance, not just one work). In the case of a 1938 fake Nicholson watercolor work sold to Rene Gimpel, the restorer Zagel began to examine the work forensically.

She noted that the rusty tacks securing the work in a frame were probably dipped in saltwater to make them appear old. The antique paper backing of the watercolor was a forger trick implying that the work was aged, the glue cementing the back and front of the piece was made after World War II, and microscopic analysis revealed that the paint was not even dry. The labels affixed to the work naming the galleries that possessed the work were shiny and new. Zagel touched the print on the labels, which should be tattered, and the print came off. This painting was not made in 1938. Scientific knowledge and analysis concluded that the materials of the work could not have produced the work since the materials were created after the date of the work’s creation. Zagel was convinced the work was bogus, but the puzzle was that the documentation supporting authenticity was incontrovertible. Please note that Zagel did not have to go any further since the material testing demonstrated that the work was not authentic.

About the same time, in another part of London, Mary Lisa Palmer, the head of the Giacometti foundation, was examining a photo of a Giacometti piece titled Standing Nude. Palmer noted that the piece was not typical in that Giacometti’s works were always upright with the feet together. This piece drooped and had one foot in front of the other. Further, the signature did not match Giacometti’s signature. What was really bothering Palmer was that Giacometti was not diligent in his documentation. This piece had impeccable provenance: A catalogue raisonne of the work was provided, exhibitions, stamps, and various documents supporting the work as genuine. Palmer was also receiving phone calls from Jenn Booth, a Tate museum archivist who had some questions about other Giacometti works cropping up in various galleries. Booth noted that she was receiving numerous documents attesting to the authenticity of the gallerist Giacometti pieces. Palmer, Booth, and detective Searle’s information came together providing enough evidence to begin a major investigation. The investigation focused not only on art fakes but tampering with England’s historical archives.

The first to be arrested was Myatt, who implicated and corroborated Drewe as the individual who forged documents supporting Myatt’s fakes. Meetings with Palmer, Booth, and Drewe’s wife, in addition to organizations allegedly providing documentation, produced a faked provenance bonanza. Searle was able to locate the phony stamps affixed to documents, ripped-out pages of the archives supplanted by the fakes, and notes from auction houses, gallery owners, and catalog writers that the catalogs were not from their hand, nor were the works ever sold or exhibited as noted in the questioned documents. Searle felt he was getting closer but still did not have the smoking gun connection needed to prosecute Drewe. He turned to his forensic investigation team leader Adam Craske.

Craske began analyzing labels affixed to provenance photos of the fakes found in Drewe’s house. Craske noted that the label’s age did not match the age of the photo. Labels that are 30-40 years old should be coming apart; these were not. When Craske touched the print on the labels, it came off. Luminosity tests revealed that seven of the labels were bright, while the others were dull. The bright ones corresponded to recent vintage and were found on the forgeries. Craske was also able to determine microscopically what archive pages were ripped out and what ones were fakes. The most important piece of evidence was that one of Drewe’s typewriters’ lettering clearly matched the typescript on the labels. For Searle, this was the fait accompli, allowing Searle to place Drewe under arrest. Drewe was eventually prosecuted and sent to jail along with Myatt.

A Summary of Forensic Art Authentication Processes

Normally, art authentication begins with scientific testing of the materials of the medium to determine if the materials corroborate the age of the work. In the Nicholson, Zagel was able to ascertain that the tacks were superficially aged, the glue attaching front and back of the work was recent, and the paint was not even dry. Zagel also noted that the labels affixed to the work were of recent manufacture. The paint should have been hardened through time but was still soft. (It should be noted here that scientific testing and analysis must be carried out so as not to destroy a work under analysis. The examiner is not permitted to cut a piece out of the work since so doing would compromise the value and authenticity.) If any piece of the medium examination fails to corroborate the work’s age, the work fails the authenticity test. Note here that the framing is not usually part of the medium unless the medium and the frame are one and the same. In Italo-Byzantine 13th century art, one finds examples of both being the same (Scallen, 2008).

What is especially interesting about the Drewe/Myatt case is the application of questioned document forensic practices to the provenance process. It is very seldom noted in authenticating a work of fine art because it has not been used that often as a recognized forensic examination tool or method in ascertaining authentication (Vargas, 2008). As noted, this was important in establishing the bogus documentation supplied. One may even note that in the Drewe/Myatt case questioned documentation was only minimally used. It did tie in the typewriter used, and typescript, type of paper, differences between the real and archive papers, but it did not mention the arsenal of practices available under the mantra of forensic document analysis. The signature was noted not to be the same by Palmer, but that was a subjective evaluation. The signature evaluation should have begun with an exemplar signature and then analyzed in terms of letter slant, letter use, how or where the signature was applied, whether printed or in script, and if the artist signed his or her works. In terms of the documents supplied, the investigation proceeded on the right track to determine if the documents were from the source such as museum, gallery, archive, or organization. The next step would be an examination of the ink used in the fake documents and comparing the ink to that of the organization printing the document. Document analysis could also compare usage of language and text in terms of font size, spelling, idiom used, and defaults (inserting home language into text) (Moenssens, n.d.).

Recognizing Forensic Science

as a Weapon in the Arsenal

of Art Authentication

The world of forensic examination in fine art authentication on one hand is one dominated by mass media huckstering and a gaggle of wannabes prancing about with telescopic cameras labeling themselves as art fraud detectives or forensic experts. Such individuals are known by their off-the-wall approaches and failed conclusions, or find themselves hauled before the courts for malpractice. On the other hand, we have the practitioners carrying out forensic science but under a mass of different labels and without proper training. Curators, museum directors, art assistants, and fine art appraisers authenticate via forensics but really only touch on the basics of what forensic applications have to offer maximally. The application of questioned document models hardly reaches a full court attack on questions of provenance simply because the current practitioners have not been schooled in how it takes place. The absence of the forensic examiner in the presentation of fine art authentication is ubiquitous in most recorded analyses. The amorphous structure of forensic science in fine art authentication calls forth concrete systemic and structure development along with active methodological presentations. Forensic examiners seem to be sitting in the bull pen when they should be on the mound throwing the pitches and striking out the batters.

References

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Aronson, S. M. (2006, April). The Making of a Collector. Architectural Digest. Retrieved on January 4, 2010 from http://www.architecturaldigest.com/resources/notebook/archive/artnotebook_slideshow_042006

Art Institute of Chicago (n.d.). Examination Techniques. Chicago. Retrieved January 4, 2010 from http://www.artic.edu/aic/conservation/revealingpicasso/exam_infared.html

Daab, J. (2009, February 12). Farid, Fractals and Fingerprinting. Fine Art Registry. Retrieved January 4, 2010 from http://www.fineartregistry.com/articles/daab_john/

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Moenssens, A. A. (n.d.). Handwriting Evidence Meets Reliability Criteria. Forensic Evidence. Retrieved January 4, 2010 from http://www.forensic-evidence.com/site/ID/ID00004_8.html

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Peterson B. (2002). Pennsylvania Impressionism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

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by Katherine Ramsland

Many people credit Allan Pinkerton with developing America’s first detective agency, but few realize he also trained the first female detective. However, it wasn’t exactly his idea. He wasn’t even sure it was a good idea, but Kate Warne insisted that she could go places and do things that no male agent could. When François Eugene Vidocq started the Suretè in Paris in 1811, he’d employed female undercover operatives, but none had made it a career. Pinkerton broke entirely new ground, but once he hired Kate, she became indispensable. He even entrusted her with one of the riskiest and most responsible jobs ever to land on his desk. Because Kate Warne died young and her records were lost, her legacy is difficult to establish, but her bold spirit makes her one of the most valuable women in forensic history.

A Mind of Her Own

Allan Pinkerton arrived in the U. S. from Scotland in 1842. He became Chicago’s first police detective before he partnered with an attorney to found the organization that would evolve into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. “The Eye,” as Pinkerton came to be known, developed a reputation for reliability and expertise. “We never sleep,” was his company motto and he trained agents for undercover operations, railroad security, government espionage, and the pursuit of the West’s most notorious bandits. His early efforts during the Civil War gave rise to the Secret Service.

In 1856, a delicate young woman came into Pinkerton’s office. He assumed she was looking for clerical work, but she said she was there in response to an ad he’d just placed for a new agent. Once an aspiring actress and recently widowed, Kate Warne was ready for any assignment. As unseemly as it

was in those days for a woman to be bold, she’d made up her mind. Pinkerton studied her, and he would later record his impression: “[she was] a slender, brown-haired woman, graceful in her movements and self possessed. Her features, although not what could be called handsome, were decidedly of an intellectual cast… her face was honest, which would cause one in distress instinctly [sic] to select her as a confidante.”

Pinkerton asked her why she thought she could do this kind of work. She told him she “could worm out secrets in many places to which it was impossible for male detectives to gain access.” Warne might have described methods available exclusively to women that could elicit knowledge from even the most careful suspect. Men often told women things they kept secret from other men, whether to brag or unburden their conscience, or simply because women made them feel safe.

Pinkerton advised Mrs. Warne that he would consider her proposal. After she left, he talked it over with his brother, who thought it would be a mistake to train a woman as a detective. But Pinkerton had been impressed by the fire he’d seen in Mrs. Warne’s eye.

The next morning, he offered her a position as an operative-in-training. It was his opinion that, male or female, detectives with “considerable intellectual power and knowledge of human nature as will give him a quick insight into character” would do an effective job. Apparently Kate had these qualities, as Pinkerton would one day write in his memoir that she had never disappointed him.

Kate was a natural for the job, able to play both a female from any walk of life as well as a young male. By some reports, she once even dressed as a Union soldier. She could adopt a Southern drawl, a false name, and the hoop skirts of a lady of means to create whatever impression she might need. She could exploit the way men viewed her as a fragile member of the weaker sex to deflect their attention from her methods and goals. She was quick to assess a situation, savvy about people, and had a flair for adventure. No matter where her boss sent her, she strove to do her best, but she was also pleased with the opportunities to exercise her penchant for drama.

Faux Friend

As various express mail companies formed to compete with the U.S. Postal Service, some hired Pinkerton to investigate financial crimes. One client was Adams Express, out of Chicago. Company executives were faced with the theft of a pouch containing $40,000. Pinkerton studied the details and identified a likely culprit in Nathan Maroney, the manager of a company office in Alabama. On slight evidence, Maroney was arrested. Since he was a popular figure in the area, he’d easily posted the minor bail imposed. It seemed likely that the company would lose its case, so Pinkerton was hired to strengthen it. To Kate’s delight, she would get to dress up in fine clothing.

Pinkerton traveled to Montgomery, Alabama, with Kate and three male operatives. One detective surreptitiously shadowed Maroney’s young wife, while Kate posed as the wife of a wealthy businessman to get an introduction. Soon, she’d become Mrs. Maroney’s confidant, learning that the Maroneys’ “good fortune” came from forging bank bills.

Another agent turned up the address in New York of a locksmith who’d copied a key for Maroney that was the property of Adams Express. Pinkerton advised Adams Express to get Maroney re-arrested for conspiracy, which would require a stiff bail and thereby keep him in jail for a while. Once Maroney was ensconced in a cell, Pinkerton sent in an agent to pose as a recently-arrested forger. Pinkerton also sent anonymous letters to Maroney that described another man (an agent) moving in on his wife. When she came to visit Maroney in jail, he confronted her. Flustered, she admitted it. He was so rattled that he needed to talk (just as Pinkerton had hoped). He confided in his cellmate, who offered him the name of a bribable lawyer (another Pinkerton agent). Maroney sent word to his wife to get the stolen money ready to pay the attorney.

Mrs. Maroney discussed this with her new friend. Kate considered the situation and agreed that paying the attorney was probably the best course of action. In short order, Mrs. Maroney handed over the stolen Adams Express pouch with the stolen money. It was incriminating evidence in the theft and Maroney was placed under arrest. At his trial, he was stunned when his former cellmate, the forger, testified against him, so he quickly pled guilty. The case in which Kate’s contribution is most renowned is the infamous Baltimore Plot.

Saving Lincoln

It was the end of winter in 1861. A number of southern states had seceded once it was clear that Abraham Lincoln would become the sixteenth U.S. president. He had recently stated in a speech that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” a veiled intimation that for America, slavery was finished. He had attracted many powerful enemies.

As Lincoln prepared to enter Washington, D.C., for his inauguration, he planned several stops along the way. Since railroad companies offered executive cars for his use, his route was no secret. Any crank could take a shot at him. To make matters worse, there was not yet Secret Service for presidential protection. Pinkerton’s security firm had been hired to scout around, and they were

quick to spot trouble.

Pinkerton developed the first lead at Baltimore’s Barnum Hotel. He knew this place was a hotbed of anti-Lincoln conspiracy, so, with an alias, he opened an office, hung out in the bar, and got his hair trimmed in the hotel’s barber shop. The barber, a member of a secessionist group, knew quite a lot about the meetings held there. He liked to express his dark opinion that Lincoln would not live to serve as president.

Pinkerton sent operatives into the city to gather the details of a possible assassination plot. Kate was among them, dressing as a wealthy Southern woman visiting Baltimore. She infiltrated the hotel’s social gatherings, moving easily from one circle to another as she listened for details or confirmed what she’d already heard. Soon she was able to report that a plot was indeed afoot: she even knew how and where it would likely occur.

Pinkerton believed that a group of assassins would attack the president-elect where he’d be most vulnerable, either at a crowded reception, or somewhere along the stretch that required carriage transport for changing trains. To make matters worse, Lincoln could expect no extra protection from the local police force, as the chief sympathized with the South.

Pinkerton informed Mr. Lincoln of the dangers involved in a public appearance. Lincoln asked many questions until he was satisfied that the risk to his life outweighed the disappointment he would cause by not showing up. He placed himself in Pinkerton’s hands. Pinkerton’s security preparation included severing the telegraph lines out of Harrisburg to prevent messages about Lincoln’s secret departure to Philadelphia from passing to his enemies. Kate Warne coordinated the operatives’ reports and devised a scheme to get Lincoln safely from Philadelphia to Washington. She reserved four sleeping berths close together in the last car of a night train, under the pretext that she and her relatives were escorting her invalid brother. She also made a disguise for Lincoln, wrapping him in a traveling shawl with an upturned collar, giving him a Scottish cap, and urging him to stoop as if burdened with illness. This would hide his signature height. Carrying a worn bag, he boarded through a rear door left unlocked for his convenience, with no one the wiser about his presence on this train save a close friend, his wife, and the Pinkerton operatives.

Pinkerton and two of his agents were on board. Kate, in the berth next to Lincoln, remained vigilant throughout the night, armed and ready to act. Pinkerton stood all night on the rear platform, despite the frigid air. His agents were posted at every crossroad and bridge along the way, using lanterns to signal their presence and to offer a code that all was well… or otherwise. Lincoln’s entourage traveled on the original train so that no one would suspect the covert operation. Only when he failed to disembark in Baltimore as expected did people realize he was not going to show. He’d passed through the city that night without incident. By the time the would-be assassins, mingling with the crowds, were aware that he had foiled their plan, Lincoln was preparing to accept his new office.

Journalists later revealed that the assassination plot had consisted of a plan to derail the train, with a back-up strategy involving a lone shooter. In any event, thanks to Pinkerton and Warne, Lincoln gained time in which to make a number of pivotal decisions for the country before John Wilkes Booth succeeded in ending his life.

War Effort

The Civil War during the 1860s brought new opportunities to Pinkerton’s agency to assist with intelligence gathering and security. General McClellan had requested Pinkerton’s service for his own security, setting up an office in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kate was one of the operatives assigned. Not long afterward in Washington, Pinkerton discovered a spy operation run by a female - “Wild Rose” O’Neal Greenhow. She was the aunt by marriage of Stephen Douglas, Lincoln’s opponent for his party’s choice for the presidency. Secretly, she worked for the South.

A popular and pretty widow with plenty of charisma, Rose moved easily in and out of the city’s elite social circles. Among her friends and acquaintances were senators, diplomats, legislators, and military officers; she’d even been a close friend of President James Buchanan. Thanks to her smuggled information, General Beauregard defeated the Union army at the first battle of Bull Run, and Rose then organized a network of spies to ensure more such victories.

But a Pinkerton operative planted in the Confederate army notified his boss. Pinkerton put Rose under surveillance, and when she realized this, she and her ladies devised some clever games of deflection. It was difficult to catch them in the act of espionage, but after Pinkerton peered through Rose’s window one night and watched a man provide her with key maps of military defenses, he had the information he needed to stop her. By August 1861, Wild Rose was under house arrest.

Still, she found ways to maintain her network, naively providing Pinkerton with more names. He decided to take his success a step further, so he called in Kate. With a code book discovered during a search of Rose’s home, he composed messages full of false information to a Confederate colonel. To make these letters more convincing, he had Kate copy them in an imitation of Rose’s handwriting. Unfortunately, the Confederates had learned of Rose’s arrest, so they’d changed the code, foiling Pinkerton’s plan.

Kate Moves On

As Kate proved herself over and over, she became the supervisor of Pinkerton’s Female Detective Bureau. More female agents were hired and she passed along her expertise. However, her expenses became a sore spot between Pinkerton and his brother, who believed she was actually Pinkerton’s mistress. But Pinkerton was the boss and he made the decisions. He adored Kate, personally and professionally, although he never admitted relationship with her. Still, his grief was overwhelming when she fell ill at the age of 35.

Pinkerton stayed by her side through her lengthy and painful illness (there no record of what she had), nursing her through it. Finally, Kate Warne could hold out no longer, and on New Year’s Day 1868, she passed away.

It was a sore loss for Allan Pinkerton. She’d been one of his key operatives for a dozen years and he’d grown to count on her as his right arm. Whether he wrote more about his time with her or about the cases she managed shall never be known, because in 1871, the infamous Chicago fire destroyed his archive.

Having no family of her own, Kate Warne was buried in Pinkerton’s family plot in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery, in a spot that would be next to Pinkerton’s when he was buried. (There’s no record of what his wife thought of this arrangement.) In Pinkerton’s will, made decades later, he would dictate that Kate Warne’s plot was never to be sold.

In later years, when Pinkerton’s son Robert conspired with two other lead agents in 1876 to cease hiring female detectives, Pinkerton sent him a blazing telegram, insisting on maintaining his long-held views. “It has been my principle to use females for the detection of crime where it has been useful and necessary,” he wrote. “With regard to the employment of such females, I can trace it back to the time I first hired Kate Warne, up to the present time. And I intend to still use females whenever it can be done judiciously. I must do it or falsify my theory, practice and truth.”

The agency today carries on Pinkerton’s far-sighted legacy.

Sources:

Horan, James D. (1967) The Pinkertons: The Detective Agency that Made History. New York: Crown.

Levy, Lynn H (2005) “Kate Warne: The First Female Private Investigator had a Baltimore Connection,”

PI Magazine, January/February. Mackay, James. (1996). Allan Pinkerton: The First Private

Eye. Edison, NJ: Castle Books. Pinkerton, Allan. (2002) A Double Life and the Detectives.

Fredonia Books.

----- (1884) Thirty Years a Detective, 1500 Books, 2007.

Rowan, Richard W. “Lincoln’s Sister,” The American Weekly, Feb 11, 1951, sameshield.com. n

Between 1963 and 1965, Myra Hindley helped her lover select his victims, waited as he raped and murdered them, then helped him dispose of their bodies in Manchester, England. The brutal killings of five children left an emotional scar on Britain that lingers to this day, almost a decade after Hindley’s death from a chest infection in November 2002.

One reason for the enduring fascination with the case may be that the body of one of the victims, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, has never been found. In March 2010, after a public appeal for funds, a new search for the boy’s remains began on Saddleworth Moor, where Hindley and her partner in crime, Ian Brady, disposed of three other victims (Smith, 2010). So far, the search has proved fruitless.

Hindley and Brady were convicted in 1966 in the murders of Lesley Ann Downey, age 10, and Edward Evans, age 17, and sentenced to life in prison. The death penalty for murder had been abolished the previous year. Brady was also found guilty of the murder of 12-year-old John Kilbride, and Hindley was convicted of being an accessory. The two waited more than two decades to admit killing the other two victims, confessing in 1987 to the murders of Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade, age 16.

Dubbed “the most evil woman in Britain” and “the most hated woman in Britain” for her role in what came to be known as the Moors Murders, Hindley nevertheless gained prominent supporters during her 30-plus years in prison, including Lord Frank Longford and David Astor, former editor of The Observer. She also fought tirelessly—and
unsuccessfully—for her own release.

Hindley and her defenders contend that her love for Brady led her to get caught up in his crimes. Hindley was 18 when she met Brady, an aloof stock clerk at the small chemical company where the two both worked. He had a minor criminal record and a fascination with Hitler and the writings of the Marquis de Sade.

According to a new biography of Hindley by Carol Ann Lee, titled One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley, her diary suggests she quickly became infatuated with Brady. By early 1962, Hindley wrote: “I hope Ian and I love each other all our lives and get married and are happy ever after” (Smith, 2010). In one of 150 letters to the producer of a 2000 BBC documentary on her case, Hindley wrote that Brady had “such a powerful personality, such an overwhelming charisma. If he’d told me the moon was made of green cheese or that the sun rose in the west I would have believed him” (“Hindley: I wish,” 2000).

The crimes themselves were horrendous, the victims lured into a van or car by Brady while Hindley drove him through working-class areas of Manchester. Some the victims were photographed in pornographic poses before being raped and killed (Smith, 2010). Some were strangled; the last, Edward, was strangled and attacked with a hatchet. A tape recording played at trial of Lesley Ann pleading with her captors made it clear that Hindley was present at the time (Morris, 2002) and helped seal Hindley’s fate.

Brady’s desire to involve others in his crimes helped bring the killings to an end. He befriended David Smith, Hindley’s brother-in-law, at first attempting to involve him in an armed robbery. While Smith was considering the robbery plan, he was summoned by Hindley to her house in Hattersley, where the two walked in to find Brady attacking Edward with an ax. Terrified, Smith played along with the “initiation,” even helping Brady hide the body. The couple was so confident in his loyalty that he was allowed to go home, where he promptly called the police to report what he had witnessed (Smith, 2010).

During the trial, Hindley’s defense argued that she had been subjected to threats, intimidation and violence from Brady (“Obituary: Myra Hindley,” 2002). The tactic didn’t work.

Incredibly, Hindley was apparently shocked at being sent to prison at the end of her trial, swaying as her sentence was announced. She reportedly asked her grandmother, “Do you remember how we both thought I’d be out on probation in no time? (Smith, 2010).

Hindley and Brady wrote each other love letters during their first five years of incarceration, although he later called her a manipulative liar who was as committed to the murders as he had been (“Obituary: Myra Hindley,” 2002). Brady claimed that Hindley had savored the murders, writing him letters in which she recalled them “lyrically,” and even regarded them as “a substitute marriage ritual” (Smith, 2010). The two never saw each other again after the trial.

Hindley’s argument that she had been corrupted by Brady appeared to have won her some sympathy. The judge who sentenced Hindley said, just two days after the trial, “Though I believe Brady is wicked beyond belief without hope of redemption, I cannot feel that the same is necessarily true of Hindley once she is removed from his influence” (“Obituary: Myra Hindley,” 2002). A similar statement was made by the detective to whom she made her 1987 confession, Inspector Geoff Knupfer: “Had she not met Ian Brady and fallen in love with him, she would have fallen in love and got married and had a family and been like any other member of the public” (Smith, 2010). But Hindley herself wrote in 1994 that she was “wicked and evil” and that  “without me, those crimes could probably not have been committed.” (“Obituary: Myra Hindley,” 2002).

In the 2000 BBC documentary, Hindley claimed she wished she had been hanged for her crimes. “It would have solved so many problems. The family of the victims would have derived some peace of mind and the tabloids would not have been able to manipulate them as they do to this day. I would have made a total confession to the priest before I hanged and would not still be half crippled by the burden of guilt that will not go away. But I didn’t hang” (“Hindley: I wish,” 2000).

The families of the victims were outraged by the documentary. Alan West, the father of Lesley Ann, asked: “Why can’t the families be spared the constant indignity of Hindley’s continuous publicity seeking?” (“Hindley, I wish,” 2000). But the BBC defended its coverage, which coincided with a national debate over the length of life sentences.

Hindley caused no trouble during her years in prison, pursuing studies with the Open University, embracing religion, and claiming to be reformed. But she remained so reviled in Britain that when she died in 2002, the prison service couldn’t find a local undertaker willing to handle her remains and had to use one 200 miles away, and even the linens from her hospital room were destroyed to eliminate all trace of her (Smith, 2010).

References

Hindley: I wish I’d been hanged. (2000, February 29). BBC News. Retrieved April 22, 2010 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/661139.stm

Morris, T. (2002, November 16). Myra Hindley: icon of homicidal infamy. The Independent. Retrieved April 22, 2010, from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/myra-hindley-604332.html

Obituary: Myra Hindley. (2002, November 15). BBC News. Retrieved  April 22, 2010, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4539785.stm

Smith, J. (2010, April 10). “One of Your Own: The Life and Death of Myra Hindley by Carol Ann Lee.” The (London) Times. Retrieved April 22, 2010, from http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article7091709.ece n