A Criminal History of Mankind (3 page)

It was some time after writing a book about Maslow (
New Pathways in Psychology
, published in 1972) that it dawned on me that this matter of the ‘dominance gap’ threw an interesting light on many cases of partnership in crime. The first case of the sort to arouse my curiosity was that of Albert T. Patrick, a scoundrelly New York lawyer who, in 1900, persuaded a manservant named Charles Jones to kill his employer with chloroform. Jones had been picked out of the gutter by his employer, a rich old man named William Rice, and had every reason to be grateful to him. Yet he quickly came under Patrick’s spell and took part in the plot to murder and defraud. The plot misfired; both were arrested. The police placed them in adjoining cells. Patrick handed Jones a knife saying ‘You cut your throat first and I’ll follow ...’ Jones was so completely under Patrick’s domination that he did not even pause to wonder how Patrick would get the knife back. A gurgling noise alerted the police, who were able to foil the attempted suicide. Patrick was sentenced to death but was eventually pardoned and released.

How did Patrick achieve such domination? There was no sexual link between them, and he was not blackmailing Jones. But what becomes very clear from detailed accounts of the case is that Patrick was a man of extremely high dominance, while Jones was quite definitely of medium dominance. It was Patrick’s combination of charm and dominance that exerted such a spell.

It struck me that in many cases of double-murder (that is, partnership in murder), one of the partners is high dominance and the other medium. Moreover, it seems that this odd and unusual combination of high and medium dominance actually triggers the violence. In 1947, Raymond Fernandez, a petty crook who specialised in swindling women, met Martha Beck, a fat nurse who had been married three times. Fernandez picked up his victims through ‘lonely hearts club’ advertisements, got his hands on their cash, and vanished. When Martha Beck advertised for a soul-mate, Fernandez picked out her name because she was only twenty-six. His first sight of her was a shock: she weighed fourteen and a half stones and had a treble chin and a ruthless mouth. She also proved to have no money. But when Fernandez succumbed to the temptation to sleep with her, he was caught. She adored him; in spite of his toupee and gold teeth, he was the handsome Latin lover she had always dreamed about. Their sex life was a non-stop orgy. When Fernandez attempted to leave her, she tried to gas herself. And when he finally explained that he had to get back to the business of making a living, and that his business involved seducing rich women, her enthusiasm was unchecked. She offered to become a partner in the enterprise. But she suggested one refinement: that instead of merely abandoning the women, Fernandez should kill them. During the next two years, the couple murdered at least twenty women. Their final victims were Mrs Delphine Dowling of Grand Rapids, Michigan and her two-year-old daughter Rainelle; the police became curious about Mrs Dowling’s disappearance, searched the house, and found a spot of damp cement in the cellar floor. Under arrest, Fernandez and his ‘sister’ admitted shooting Mrs Dowling and drowning the child in a bathtub two days later when she would not stop crying. Further investigation slowly uncovered a two-year murder spree. Both were executed.

The evidence makes it clear that the sexually insatiable Martha was an altogether more dominant character than Ray Fernandez, who, at the time of their meeting, was only a rather unsuccessful petty crook. Almost certainly, he qualifies as medium dominance; certainly, Martha was high dominance. Then why were they drawn together? From Martha’s point of view, because Fernandez was a fairly personable male with a high sex drive. From his point of view, because the frenzied adoration of this rather frightening woman was flattering. A revealing glimpse into their relationship was afforded by an episode in court; Martha came into court wearing a silk dress, green shoes and bright red lipstick; she rushed across the court, cupped Fernandez’s face in her hands, and kissed him hungrily again and again. Sexually speaking, she was the one who took the lead.

It seems evident that Fernandez would have never committed murder without Martha’s encouragement. It was the combination of the high dominance female and medium dominance male that led to violence.

Again and again, in cases of ‘double murder’, the same pattern emerges. It explains one of the most puzzling crimes of the century - the murder by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb of fourteen-year-old Bobbie Franks in May 1924. Both came from wealthy German-Jewish homes; both were university graduates. They became lovers when Loeb was thirteen and Leopold fourteen. Loeb was handsome, athletic and dominant; Leopold was round shouldered, short-sighted and shy. Loeb was a daredevil, and in exchange for submitting to Leopold’s desires, made him sign a contract to become his partner in crime. They committed a number of successful petty thefts and finally decided that the supreme challenge was to commit the perfect murder. Bobbie Franks – a friend of Loeb’s younger brother - was chosen almost at random as the victim. Franks was picked up when he came out of school and murdered in the back of the car by Loeb, while Leopold drove; then his body was stuffed into a culvert. Then they tried to collect ransom money from the boy’s family, but the body was discovered by a railway worker. So were Nathan Leopold’s spectacles, lying near the culvert. These were traced to Leopold through the optician. The trial was a sensation; it seemed to be a case of ‘murder for fun’ committed by two spoilt rich boys. Leopold admitted to being influenced by Nietzsche’s idea of the superman. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Yet the key to the case lies in their admission that Leopold called Loeb ‘Master’ and referred to himself as ‘Devoted Slave’. Loeb derived his pleasure from his total dominance of Leopold. Leopold might be far cleverer than he was, but he was obedient to Loeb’s will. It was Loeb who made Leopold sign a contract to join him in a career of crime, in exchange for permitting sodomy. Loeb was the one who got his ‘kicks’ out of crime; Leopold preferred bird-watching. Left to himself, Loeb would never have committed murder. But his deepest pleasure came from his dominance of Nathan Leopold, and to enjoy that dominance to the full he had to keep pushing Leopold deeper and deeper into crime.

One of the clearest examples of the dominance syndrome is the Moors murder case. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were arrested in October 1965, as a result of a tip-off to the police that they were concealing a body in their house. A cloakroom ticket concealed in a prayer book led to the discovery of two suitcases in the railway left luggage office at Manchester, and to photographs and tapes that connected Brady and Hindley to the disappearance of a ten-year-old girl, Lesley Ann Downey, who had vanished on Boxing Bay 1964. A police search on the moors revealed the body of Lesley Ann, and also that of a twelve-year-old boy, John Kilbride. The body found in their house was that of a seventeen-year-old youth, Edward Evans, who had been killed with an axe. Charged with the three murders, both were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

It was the actor-playwright Emlyn Williams who revealed the curious psychological pattern behind the murders. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley first set eyes on each other on 16 January 1960, when she became a typist at Millwards, a chemical firm in the Gorton district of Manchester. Myra was a typical working-class girl, a Catholic convert who loved animals and children. Brady was a tough kid from the Clydeside district of Glasgow. Born in 1938 - four years before Myra - he had been in trouble with the police since he was thirteen and had spent a year in Borstal. He read gangster novels and books about the Nazis, whom he admired. He also read de Sade’s
Justine
and was impressed by de Sade’s philosophy of ‘immoralism’ and crime.

Brady ignored Myra; she was just another working-class typist. As the months passed, she became increasingly intrigued. He looked like a slightly delinquent Elvis Presley, and rode a motor bike dressed in leather gear; but underneath this he wore his well-pressed business suit. By 23 July she was confiding to her diary: ‘Wonder if Ian is courting. Still feel the same.’ Four days later she records that she spoke to him, and that he smiled as though embarrassed. A few days later: ‘Ian isn’t interested in girls.’ On 8 August she records: ‘Gone off Ian a bit.’ No reason is mentioned, but it may have been his bad language, which shocked her; she mentions later: ‘Ian swearing. He is uncouth’ - the typical reaction of the romantic, medium-dominance female to a high-dominance male. And her romanticism emerges obviously in the diary, which Emlyn Williams quotes: ‘I hope he loves me and will marry me some day.’ But he seems to ignore her: ‘He hasn’t spoken to me today.’ For months the entries swing between hope and misery: ‘He goes out of his way to annoy me, he insults me ...’/’I hate Ian, he has killed all the love I had for him.’/’I’m in love with Ian all over again.’/’Out with Ian!’

Williams is almost certainly right when he suggests that Brady revelled in his feeling of power over Myra, his ability to make her happy or miserable. On New Year’s Eve 1961, Brady took her to the cinema, then back to her parent’s home to see in the New Year with a bottle of whisky. Myra was living round the corner in the home of her grandmother; Brady took her back there at midnight and, on the divan bed in the front room, deflowered her. And in her diary the next day she recorded: ‘I have been at Millwards for twelve months and only just gone out with him. I hope Ian and I will love each other all our lives and get married and be happy ever after ...’ However, it is not marriage that interests Brady but the power game. He has asserted his dominance by taking her virginity on their first date; what now?

The process of conversion begins. Myra is persuaded to share his admiration for the Nazis - he had a large collection of books about them - and de Sade. Most people who buy de Sade read him for sex; Brady read him for the ideas. Society is utterly corrupt. Human life is utterly unimportant; nature gives and takes with total indifference. We live in a meaningless universe, created by chance. Morality is a delusion invented by the rulers to keep the poor in check. Pleasure is the only real good. A man who inflicts his sexual desires by force is only seizing the natural privilege of the strong ... And Myra, who regards him as a brilliant intellectual (he is learning German to be able to read
Mein Kampf
in the original), swallows it all - without enthusiasm, but with the patience of the devoted slave who knows that her master is seldom wrong.

How can he push her further, savour his dominance? He tells her he is planning a bank robbery, a big job. She is shocked - at first - then, as usual, she accepts it as further evidence of his resourcefulness and self-reliance. He persuades her to join a rifle club and buy a gun.

He begins to take a popular photography magazine and buys a camera with a timing attachment. He persuades her to dress in black panties without a crotch and pose for photographs. Then the timing attachment allows him to take photographs of the two of them together, navel to navel, engaged in sexual intercourse - with white bags over their heads. In others, she has whip marks on her buttocks. Brady apparently hoped to sell the photographs (for these were the days before pornography could be bought in most newsagents) but was apparently unsuccessful.

At this stage, there is only one possible way in which Brady can push her further into total acquiescence: by finally putting the daydreams of crime into practice and ordering her to be his partner. But bank robbery is a little too dangerous. In fact, most crime carries the risk of being caught. Perhaps the crime that carries least risk is the kind committed by Leopold and Loeb: luring a child into a car...

Myra Hindley bought a small car - a second-hand green Morris - in May 1963, having taken driving lessons. (Brady had given up his motor cycle after an accident.) Two months later, on 12 July 1963, a sixteen-year-old girl named Pauline Reade, who lived around the corner from Myra and knew her by sight, vanished on her way to a dance and was never seen again. When police began investigating the moors murders, they started with the file on Pauline Reade. It seemed probable that she had been picked up by a car. Since she was unlikely to get into a car with a strange man, it may have contained someone she knew. The disappearance of the body suggests that she was buried - and casual rapists seldom bother to bury a body. It is conceivable then, that Pauline Reade was their first victim.

On Saturday afternoon, 23 November, they drove out to Ashton-under-Lyne and offered a lift to a twelve-year-old boy, John Kilbride, who was about to catch a bus home. He climbed in and was never again seen alive. Nearly two years later, his corpse was dug up by police on Saddleworth Moor. His trousers and underpants had been pulled down around his knees. Myra Hindley had allowed Brady to take a photograph of her kneeling on the grave.

On 16 June 1964, twelve-year-old Keith Bennett set out to spend the night at his grandmother’s house in the Longsight district of Manchester - where Brady had lived until he moved in with Myra and her grandmother. Bennett vanished, like Pauline Reade. Brady still visited the Longsight district regularly to see his mother.

On 26 December 1964, Brady and Hindley drove to the fairground in the Ancoats district of Manchester and picked up a ten-year-old girl, Lesley Ann Downey. They took her back to their house - they had now moved to Hattersley, where Gran had been assigned a council house - made her strip, and took various photographs of her. They also recorded her screams and pleas to be released on tape. Then she was killed and buried on the moor near the body of John Kilbride. Later, they took blankets and slept on the graves. It was part of the fantasy of being Enemies of Society, dangerous revolutionaries.

Nine months later, Brady made the mistake that led to his arrest. A sixteen-year-old named David Smith had become a sort of disciple. He had married Myra’s younger sister Maureen when she became pregnant. Like Myra, David Smith was easy to convert; he had also had his troubles with the police, and was eager to swallow the gospel of revolution and self-assertion. Smith was an apt pupil, and wrote in his diary: ‘Rape is not a crime, it is a state of mind. Murder is a hobby and a supreme pleasure.’/’God is a superstition, a cancer that eats into the brain.’/’People are like maggots, small, blind and worthless.’ Smith also listened with admiration as Brady talked about his plans for bank robbery. Brady told him that he had killed three or four people, whose bodies were buried on the moor, and that he had once stopped the car in a deserted street and shot a passer-by at random. On 6 October 1965, Brady decided it was time for Smith’s initiation. In a pub in Manchester he and Myra picked up a seventeen-year-old youth, Edward Evans, and drove him back lo the house in Hattersley. At 11.30, Myra went to fetch David Smith. As he was in the kitchen, he heard a loud scream and a shout of ‘Dave, help him.’ He found Brady striking Evans with an axe. When Evans lay still, Brady strangled him with a cord. He handed Smith the hatchet - ‘Feel the weight of it’ - and took it back with Smith’s fingerprints on the bloodstained handle. The three of them cleaned the room and wrapped the corpse in polythene - as they lifted it, Brady joked ‘Eddie’s a dead weight.’ They drank tea, and Myra reminisced about the time a policeman had stopped to talk to her as she sat in the car while Brady was burying a body. Then Smith went home, promising to return with a pram to transport the body to the car. At home, he was violently sick, and told his wife what had happened. She called the police. At 8.40 the next morning a man dressed as a baker’s roundsman knocked at Brady’s door, and when he opened it - wearing only a vest - identified himself as a police officer. In a locked bedroom, the police found the body of Edward Evans. Brady was arrested and charged with murder.