Even now, Tom Rhattigan claims he can still detect the musty scent of Myra Hindley’s perfume.
At just eight years old, he met her and her boyfriend in a park, making a quick decision that would ultimately save his life.
Tom Rhattigan was eight years old when he encountered the Moors Murderers.
Pictured as a young boy, Mr. Rhattigan recalls how the evil duo lured him with the promise of a jam sandwich.
Hindley’s former home in Longsight. Mr. Rhattigan was enticed to a terraced house by Hindley and Brady.
Ian Brady and his girlfriend Myra Hindley both received life sentences for their horrific crimes.
The infamous pair stalked the city for two years in the 1960s, capturing their victims' final moments as they pleaded for mercy and to be allowed to return to their mothers.
Now 70 and residing in the southeast, Mr. Rhattigan recognizes he had a fortunate escape.
He was alone in a park when the "coy" Hindley approached him with Brady in tow, offering him a jam sandwich.
Mr. Rhattigan recalls how the depraved couple lured him back to a terraced house. Feeling uneasy, he quickly made his way to a window and, after a struggle with Hindley, managed to escape.
Author and artist Mr. Rhattigan, who is married with three children and 11 grandchildren (whom he requested not to name), shares his chilling experience in The Sun’s series.
“I have no doubt they intended to kill me,” he states. “I once told a teacher, but they were skeptical. However, I don’t believe I’m the only one they attempted to lure away.”
Mr. Rhattigan grew up with six brothers and six sisters in a three-bedroom house in Hulme, Manchester, which was slated for demolition.
“My parents – Elizabeth, who passed away at 84, and James, who died at 57 – were alcoholics,” he recalls.
“My dad would even consume boot polish because it contained alcohol.”
One afternoon in late November 1963, he and two of his brothers – Martin, then nine, and Frank, then seven – were sent out to beg.
“This was a common occurrence,” he explains. “We’d attend school in the morning and then skip class. We’d beg for a ha’penny or search for scrap metal that our dad could sell to buy alcohol.
“We’d also play in bombed-out houses, which we thought was thrilling as kids.”
They roamed across Manchester, only vaguely aware at that time that a young woman had gone missing.
“It was November 1963 – I remember it clearly,” he says.
“I had seen posters of a girl, Pauline [Reade – the killers’ first known victim], around, but I thought she had simply run away. It didn’t register as anything significant.”
‘Suspicious but not afraid’
Mr. Rhattigan was sitting on a swing in a park alone when Hindley and Brady approached him.
Mr. Rhattigan states that Brady kept his distance while Hindley did the talking.
On the day he encountered Hindley, the brothers had traveled from their home across the city.
“We were always hungry and had stolen a railman’s lunch,” he remembers.
