One of Your Own Read Online Free
Author: Carol Ann Lee
solid.’
Whispered, indecipherable sentences .
Lesley: ‘I want to go home. Honest to God I’ll [her speech is muffled] before eight o’clock.’
Myra: ‘No, it’s all right.’
Ian: ‘Eh?’
The music begins: a country-style tune, followed by ‘Jolly St Nicholas’ and ‘The Little Drummer Boy’, during which a voice speaks. Three loud cracks are heard and the music of ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ grows fainter. There is a sound of footsteps, fading .
The tape ends . 4
The music, Myra insisted to Topping, came from a radio that was playing in the room. The prosecution lawyers at the trial were equally vehement that the music did not come from a radio but had been added deliberately to intensify the horror of the recording. 5 The three loud cracks at the end of the tape occurred when Ian opened the tripod and set up the camera; he then stopped the tape recorder and removed the plug from the sole socket in the bedroom to switch on the bright photography light. Lesley was forced to undress and either Ian or Myra bound a scarf around the lower half of the little girl’s face, making it almost impossible for her to breathe. Ian then took a series of photographs of the child. 6
Myra described her actions that night as ‘assisting Ian in the preparation of Lesley Ann’. 7 Her prison therapist noted that she did so in the same way ‘a parent may describe preparing a child to take a bath or dress for school. Her voice remained monotone as she referred to the binding and gagging of the victim and her positioning for photos and “acts of indecency”.’ 8 Initially, Myra told her prison therapist that she left the room when the photographs were being taken and sat on the stairs, drinking a bottle of wine, but in subsequent therapy sessions and during her confession to Peter Topping, she admitted to running a bath for Lesley at Ian’s request after the photographs were taken to get rid of any dog hairs or fibres on the child. She claimed she then waited in the bathroom while Ian raped and murdered Lesley.
After 20 minutes, she apparently let out the water because it had gone cold and ran some more, at which point Ian entered the bathroom and Myra walked through to the bedroom. Lesley was lying on the bed, with the scarf still tied about her mouth. The little girl was dead; there was a lesion on her neck, where she had been strangled with cord, and her legs were streaked with blood. The sheet beneath her was also bloodstained. Ian returned and carried Lesley into the bathroom, where he washed the blood from her, then lay her on the bed again to remove the scarf. He told Myra to clean the bath.
Ian’s version of Lesley’s death is very different. Author Colin Wilson, who has corresponded with Ian for many years and penned the introduction to The Gates of Janus , recounts Ian’s claim that ‘[Myra] strangled Lesley Ann Downey and later deliberately played in public with the cord used to kill the child.’ 9 In a letter to Jack Straw, Ian made the same accusation: ‘She insisted upon killing Lesley Ann Downey with her own hands, using a two-foot length of silk cord, which she later used to enjoy toying with in public, in the secret knowledge of what it had been used for.’ 10 The truth about Lesley’s death will probably never be known; what is certain is that she fought valiantly for her life before it was extinguished and that afterwards Myra self-admittedly ‘witnessed Lesley being placed in the bath, there was blood everywhere and I helped Ian to clean up’. 11
Ian wrapped Lesley’s small body in the bedsheet, together with her clothes. Outside, the flurry of snow was thickening and beginning to settle. At eight o’clock, Ian carried the bundle concealing Lesley’s body out to the car. They intended to bury her that night, but as they approached the moor the snowfall was heavy enough to cause problems on the road. They watched other cars sliding about on the ice and returned to Hattersley, where
Whispered, indecipherable sentences .
Lesley: ‘I want to go home. Honest to God I’ll [her speech is muffled] before eight o’clock.’
Myra: ‘No, it’s all right.’
Ian: ‘Eh?’
The music begins: a country-style tune, followed by ‘Jolly St Nicholas’ and ‘The Little Drummer Boy’, during which a voice speaks. Three loud cracks are heard and the music of ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ grows fainter. There is a sound of footsteps, fading .
The tape ends . 4
The music, Myra insisted to Topping, came from a radio that was playing in the room. The prosecution lawyers at the trial were equally vehement that the music did not come from a radio but had been added deliberately to intensify the horror of the recording. 5 The three loud cracks at the end of the tape occurred when Ian opened the tripod and set up the camera; he then stopped the tape recorder and removed the plug from the sole socket in the bedroom to switch on the bright photography light. Lesley was forced to undress and either Ian or Myra bound a scarf around the lower half of the little girl’s face, making it almost impossible for her to breathe. Ian then took a series of photographs of the child. 6
Myra described her actions that night as ‘assisting Ian in the preparation of Lesley Ann’. 7 Her prison therapist noted that she did so in the same way ‘a parent may describe preparing a child to take a bath or dress for school. Her voice remained monotone as she referred to the binding and gagging of the victim and her positioning for photos and “acts of indecency”.’ 8 Initially, Myra told her prison therapist that she left the room when the photographs were being taken and sat on the stairs, drinking a bottle of wine, but in subsequent therapy sessions and during her confession to Peter Topping, she admitted to running a bath for Lesley at Ian’s request after the photographs were taken to get rid of any dog hairs or fibres on the child. She claimed she then waited in the bathroom while Ian raped and murdered Lesley.
After 20 minutes, she apparently let out the water because it had gone cold and ran some more, at which point Ian entered the bathroom and Myra walked through to the bedroom. Lesley was lying on the bed, with the scarf still tied about her mouth. The little girl was dead; there was a lesion on her neck, where she had been strangled with cord, and her legs were streaked with blood. The sheet beneath her was also bloodstained. Ian returned and carried Lesley into the bathroom, where he washed the blood from her, then lay her on the bed again to remove the scarf. He told Myra to clean the bath.
Ian’s version of Lesley’s death is very different. Author Colin Wilson, who has corresponded with Ian for many years and penned the introduction to The Gates of Janus , recounts Ian’s claim that ‘[Myra] strangled Lesley Ann Downey and later deliberately played in public with the cord used to kill the child.’ 9 In a letter to Jack Straw, Ian made the same accusation: ‘She insisted upon killing Lesley Ann Downey with her own hands, using a two-foot length of silk cord, which she later used to enjoy toying with in public, in the secret knowledge of what it had been used for.’ 10 The truth about Lesley’s death will probably never be known; what is certain is that she fought valiantly for her life before it was extinguished and that afterwards Myra self-admittedly ‘witnessed Lesley being placed in the bath, there was blood everywhere and I helped Ian to clean up’. 11
Ian wrapped Lesley’s small body in the bedsheet, together with her clothes. Outside, the flurry of snow was thickening and beginning to settle. At eight o’clock, Ian carried the bundle concealing Lesley’s body out to the car. They intended to bury her that night, but as they approached the moor the snowfall was heavy enough to cause problems on the road. They watched other cars sliding about on the ice and returned to Hattersley, where
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