Ian Cummins - Serial Killers and the Media: The Moors Murders Legacy

Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture

Series Editors

Michelle Brown

Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

Eamonn Carrabine

Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

This series aims to publish high quality interdisciplinary scholarship for research into crime, media and culture. As images of crime, harm and punishment proliferate across new and old media there is a growing recognition that criminology needs to rethink its relations with the ascendant power of spectacle. This international book series aims to break down the often rigid and increasingly hardened boundaries of mainstream criminology, media and communication studies, and cultural studies. In a late modern world where reality TV takes viewers into cop cars and carceral spaces, game shows routinely feature shame and suffering, teenagers post happy slapping videos on YouTube, both cyber bullying and justice for campaigns are mainstays of social media, and insurrectionist groups compile footage of suicide bomb attacks for circulation on the Internet, it is clear that images of crime and control play a powerful role in shaping social practices. It is vital then that we become versed in the diverse ways that crime and punishment are represented in an era of global interconnectedness, not least since the very reach of global media networks is now unparalleled.

Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture emerges from a call to rethink the manner in which images are reshaping the world and criminology as a project. The mobility, malleability, banality, speed, and scale of images and their distribution demand that we engage both old and new theories and methods and pursue a refinement of concepts and tools, as well as innovative new ones, to tackle questions of crime, harm, culture, and control. Keywords like image, iconography, information flows, the counter-visual, and social media, as well as the continuing relevance of the markers, signs, and inscriptions of gender, race, sexuality, and class in cultural contests mark the contours of the crime, media and culture nexus.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15057

Ian Cummins , Marian Foley and Martin King

Serial Killers and the Media The Moors Murders Legacy

Ian Cummins

School of Health and Society, University of Salford, Salford, UK

Marian Foley

Department of Social Care and Social Work, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

Martin King

Department of Health Care Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

Palgrave Studies in Crime, Media and Culture

ISBN 978-3-030-04875-4 e-ISBN 978-3-030-04876-1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04876-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018963218

The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019

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Contents

Using the Moors Murders as a case study through which to explore the symbiotic relationship between serial killing and the mass media, this book is a multi-dimensional analysis of the social and cultural legacy of the crimes of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

Using the research approach of bricolage, the crimes authors examine this prime example of mediatised murder via inter-disciplinary academic and non-academic accounts, print media, film, TV drama, music and art, with chapters focusing on serial killing as a modern phenomenon, a factual account and timeline of the role of victims, Brady and Hindleys trial and the reporting of their deaths, Hindleys status as the most evil woman in Britain and a reflection on the process and ethical implications of engaging in this area of work.

This chapter will outline the structure, content and overall approach of the book. It is important to start with a clear statement of the purpose of this work. It is not an attempt to solve any mysteries about the crimes of the Moors Murderers . There is no new information about the case in this volume. The chapter also outlines the main themes that are examined in greater depth throughout the work. It also discusses bricolage as a research method and how this approach is used across the work.

Since their arrest in October 1966, Brady and Hindley have never been out of the media spotlight for any prolonged period, if at all. In the research for this book, we have read literally thousands of newspaper articles and academic papers and watched television programmes and internet material that consider aspects of the crime. There is a similar number of op-ed pieces that contemplate the meaning or significance of Brady and Hindley and their actions and how society should respond to them. The internet has seen an exponential growth in interest in serial killers. Again, the Moors Murders is one of the most widely examined and discussed cases. The nature of some of this material is simply salacious and disturbing, crassly insensitive to the feelings and suffering of the families of their victims. The transcript and recording of the tape of the torture of Lesley Ann Downey appears relatively easy to access on the internet. If an artist wants to shock then using a reference to the Moors Murder is guaranteed to produce a reaction. This was true for punk rock when Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) and Steve Strange (Visage) formed the Moors Murderers and recorded one single