For many it will be a surprise that one of the country’s most notorious killers sends Christmas cards at all.

However, Moors murderer Ian Brady has sent his out three months early – because he believes he is close to death, it was claimed yesterday.

He sent his first cards in September. One showed an owl in a snowy rural scene with the words ‘Silent night’.

Scroll down for video

Pictured is one of the Christmas postcards already sent by Ian Brady, possibly indicating he may be dying

Ian Brady and his then girlfriend Myra Hindley tortured and murdered five children between 1963 and 1965 and buried them on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester

Police search for victims on Saddleworth Moor - the body of Keith Bennett, 12, has still never been found

In a rambling letter posted with the card, Brady admitted he has been bedridden for months. He also confirmed he has written a will, which is held by his solicitors.

A source told the Sunday People: ‘Brady is 77. He’s been ill for a long time and isn’t getting any better. He constantly talks about his death. Judging by this, he looks to be on his last legs.’

In his hand-written letter to a friend, Brady said: ‘I’m still bedridden and now have a chest infection. Excuse my bedridden handwriting. I no longer do much reading at this late stage.’

But the claim that Brady could be dying was dismissed by Terence Kilbride, 60, the brother of one of his child victims. He said last night: ‘He is just playing games again. He is nowhere near close to death. He likes to be in the limelight. I don’t think he is about to die.’

Brady is one of the most reviled murderers in British criminal history. With his girlfriend Myra Hindley, he sexually tortured and killed five children who were then buried on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester.

He has been on hunger strike for more than 15 years and is force-fed daily to keep him alive at Ashworth high security psychiatric hospital in Liverpool.

In January last year he fractured his hip and arm in a fall at the hospital. Brady, who has dementia and paranoid schizophrenia, was taken under police guard to Aintree University Hospital for treatment before returning to the psychiatric hospital.

In a letter written earlier this year to a TV journalist, Brady complained of being ‘still bedridden and worsening’ after the fall.

Instead of expressing remorse for the child killings, he moaned about the conditions of his captivity and his regret at not taking his own life. ‘Had I divined the future of spending half a century in prison, and the final 15 years being force-fed by nasal tube in an unmonitored zoological cesspit of regression, I would have exited decades ago.’

Lesley Ann Downey, who was 10 when she was killed by the pair (left) and Edward Evans, who was 17 (right)

The bedridden murderer has been detained at Ashworth psychiatric hospital since 1985

Relatives of victims have dismissed his complaints as a ploy to get people to feel sorry for him. There has been no comment from the authorities about his current health or condition.

Along with Hindley – who died in prison in 2002 aged 60 – Brady murdered Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Keith Bennett, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, ten, and Edward Evans, 17, between 1963 and 1965.

He has been held in Ashworth Hospital since 1985. In 2013 he lost a mental health tribunal in which he claimed he was not mentally ill and demanded to be moved to a normal prison where he believed the authorities could not force feed him and he could end his life.

Victims were lured to their deaths, sexually tortured then buried on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester.

Details of the crimes shocked Britain, not only because Brady's accomplice was a woman but also for the complete lack of remorse either displayed during their trials that followed.

Brady has never shown any remorse for the sickening crimes.

Keith Bennett (pictured left) a Moors victim whose body is still missing, victim John Kilbride is pictured right

Victims were lured to their deaths, sexually tortured then buried on Saddleworth Moor near Manchester

He did not admit to killing Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade until 1987 during an interview with a tabloid newspaper.

The whereabouts of the remains of Keith Bennett are still unknown. Keith's mother, Winnie, died in 2012 without discovering where her son was buried, despite campaigning tirelessly to discover the truth.

Brady has been on hunger strike since 1999 and wants to be relocated to a Scottish prison so the authorities will no longer have the power to force-feed him and he can starve himself to death. His last appeal was rejected by a tribunal in June 2013.

He is sectioned under the Mental Health Act, which means doctors can intervene to keep him alive and may scupper his non-resuscitation order.

Taxpayers have now forked out more than £14million on Brady since he was convicted nearly 50 years ago.