Brady 'showed no emotion' at news of death

Ian Brady took the news of Myra Hindley's death without a show of emotion, sources at Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside said.

He was watching television in the Lawrence Ward of the high-security psychiatric unit on Friday when news of the death of his former lover and murder accomplice broke.

Sources at the hospital said Brady was likely to mourn for Hindley even though they had feuded for many years since their trial in 1966.

"He would be sad to learn about Hindley," a hospital source said. "He showed no emotion but he still loved her for the innocent times they had together."

Staff at Ashworth, where Brady, 64, has been an inmate since 1985, said the murderer was also likely to be envious of Hindley's death.

"The thing he craves most is death," the source continued. "He has spent three years being force-fed and we think that in his heart of hearts he envies Myra her release. He wants to be released from the daily grind.

"In a way she has got the better of him. She will get out of jail even if it is in a coffin."

Brady has publicly expressed his desire to die. It is ironic that she beat him to it. In 1999 he lost a court battle for the right to starve himself to death. He has refused food since.

In December of the same year Hindley was found collapsed in her cell with a swollen artery at the base of her brain. She could have died then, and Brady wrote a letter to the BBC expressing envy at her condition and saying that if the same happened to him he would refuse medical treatment.

"I see in the news that Myra has struck lucky with some sort of potentially fatal brain condition," he wrote.

"For years here I've been wishing for any sort of cancer as I would refuse all surgery."

He also said: "I envy Hindley. Myra gets the potentially fatal brain condition, whilst I have to fight simply to die. I have had enough. I want nothing, my objective is to die and release myself from this once and for all."

Unlike Hindley, Brady never sought his own freedom. The two never met after their trial, but initially corresponded. They fell out over Hindley's campaign for freedom.

"He told Hindley to study, keep her family ties and show an interest in religion and she'd be out in 25 years," the source at Ashworth hospital said. "But she wouldn't shut up and never lost an opportunity to bad-mouth him."