The body of "Moors Murderer" Myra Hindley, one of Britain's most notorious child killers, remained overnight in a Bury St Edmonds hospital as authorities prepare for her funeral.
Hindley and her lover Ian Brady tortured, sexually abused and killed five children in the 1960s, burying their bodies in the bleak moors near Manchester.
"The sooner she gets to hell the better," said Winnie Johnson, mother of 12-year-old victim Keith Bennett, whose body is the only one of the five that has never been found.
"I wanted her alive for one reason: to help me find Keith," she told Sky News.
Hindley was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1966 for killing two of the five victims, and for shielding Brady in the killing of a third. The pair later confessed to two more murders.
"We can confirm that Myra Hindley died at the West Suffolk hospital at 16.58 p.m. today (Friday) following respiratory failure," the Prison Service said in a statement.
The abductions of the children and the sensational trial of Hindley and Brady cast a shadow over the 1960s, and the controversy survived to the present day.
The term of a life sentence is actually set by political leaders, who decide when and whether such prisoners can be freed.
Successive governments, with an anxious eye on the powerful and influential tabloid press, vowed that neither Hindley nor Brady would ever walk free. But European courts have ruled that leaving sentencing to politicians is illegal.
There was speculation that Hindley, already the country's longest-serving woman prisoner, might one day win her freedom over the government's objections.
Brady was convicted of killing children Lesley Ann Downey, Edward Evans and John Kilbride. Hindley was convicted of killing Downey and Evans and shielding her lover in the third case.
Two decades later, the pair confessed to killing Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, although they were never tried for those killings. Reade's remains were subsequently recovered from the moors but Bennett's body was never found.
Hopes of finding the body now rest with Brady, who has unsuccessfully campaigned to be allowed to end his life and has been force-fed since going on hunger strike in 1999.
Methodist Reverend Peter Timms, a self-described long-time friend of Hindley's who campaigned for her release, said he was saddened by her death. "I feel this is a tragedy that has been going on for the last 30-odd years," he told journalists.