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Evil Duos in History: Hindley & Brady vs. The Makins

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Evil Duos In History

Evil Duos In History

It’s a duo of evil duos! We compare Ian Brady and Myra Hindley – who (among other things) murdered children in 1960’s Manchester – to John and Sarah Makin, who murdered up to 13 babies in late 1800’s Sydney. Includes a Lesser of Two Evils!

Trigger warning: There’s quite a bit about rape and several dead babies, sorry.

Music: “Tea for Two” by Comedian Harmonists

Charity: Missing People

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14 Responses

  1. 1:02:00 – “Since noony of us have had any experience with rape, as far as I know… let’s go with the 17 year old with an axe and strangulated with an electrical cord.”

    You guys have experience with axing and strangling 17 year olds?

  2. “being axed and strangled”

    Is that a euphemism for something?

    (btw, totally had to look up whether it’s “a euphemism” or “an euphemism”).

  3. Re: “Who names their kids after themselves?”, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith have children Willow and Jaden.

  4. I think this show could have had just a general trigger warning, quite frankly, guys. You opened with “Watch out, there’s stuff about rape” and thn immediately discuss hurting dogs and decapitating cats and then merrily finish with all that stuff about killing babies (any other parents in the audience?)!

    Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed the show. I just found it rather amusing how restrained you were with your warning. 😉

    Kinda felt like the Ted Bundy episode – really horrible to listen to first time round.

    Btw, I think a better Lesser of Two Evils would have been to compare being beaten to death as a 17yo with being a parent of a baby killed by that pair — possibly a fairer comparison. 🙂

    I was going to have a go at Kevin about wanting the Australians to call in Scotland Yard, on the basis that they’re based in the UK, of course, however in the late 19th Century, they may well have been called in after all. Well done one that reference then, Kevin (if you were right). 😉

    A thoroughly revolting episode. Well done, guys.

    1. I think Caustic Soda itself needs a general trigger warning. We talk about weird/gross/disturbing things.

      “Dead Babies” is probably worth an extra warning though, and I’ll add a note above along with the rape thing.

      That Lo2E option would have been a tough one!

  6. It’s always the Evil Dudes/Dudettes episodes that I find the most disquieting, and this one struck particularly close to home – I was born in Sydney, and I’ve never even HEARD of the Makins before. The dead baby jokes helped, actually, which is not something to hear every day.

  7. Another great podcast from you guys.

    I am surprised, though, that Brady’s obsession with Nazi culture wasn’t mentioned. He and Hindley made pornographic photos with Nazi paraphernalia; they apparently shared a fascination.

    I’d like to suggest a pair for the next Evil Duos: Fred and Rosemary West. While there is no doubt about Fred, there is much debate over how “evil” Rosemary was on her own.

      1. It was touched on, but not in as much depth as I figured. Of course, had you done so, your trigger warning would have been several pages long – S&M Nazi porn is a special kind of nightmare.

        Oh, and some more duos: Leopold and Loeb; Charles Ng and Leonard Lake; Ottis Toole and Henry Lee Lucas (Ottis killed, Henry took the credit); Alton Coleman and Debra Brown; Burke and Hare, the original body snatchers; Kenneth Bianci and Angelo Buono, aka The Hillside Strangler; and Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate (Springsteen’s “Nebraska” was based on them.)

        Looking at this list, I wonder which of these people would have been evil all alone, and which were simply following along.

        1. I believe that we talked about Burke and Hare at length in the BODY SNATCHERS epsiode, As well, Starkweather and Fugate quite extensively in KILLING SPREE (and even quite a bit on how evil Fugate would have been without Starkweather, if I recall correctly).

          Nice job on the rest of the list, some of them are already on it while there are a couple new suggestions that hadn’t occurred to us yet. So, thanks!