Police call off hunt for Keith

ON the moors . . . this picture, published for the first time today, shows Moors Murderer Myra Hindley posing on Saddleworth Moor. The sick souvenir was taken by Ian Brady

POLICE chiefs have given up the search for the last untraced victim of Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

Greater Manchester Police have now classed the hunt for Keith Bennett’s body as dormant. Only significant scientific advances or credible new information will re-open it.

Detectives used sick photographs taken of Hindley at their victims’ graves to try and trace where the lovers buried the 12-year-old on Saddleworth Moor 45 years ago.

Exerts including clinical psychologists, geologists, geophysicists, geochemists, archaeologists and anthropologists helped in a search last year. Special sniffer dogs were used and soil samples tested, but no remains were found.

But Keith’s mother Winnie Johnson said: “I am 76 in September and I just want Keith found. I will never give up as long as I have breath in my body — not just for me but for my family and all of those around me. What Brady has done and continues to do is just so cruel.”

Keith went missing from Longsight on June 16, 1964.

Two years later, Hindley and Brady were jailed for life for murdering 10-year-old Lesley-Ann Downey and Edward Evans (17).

Brady was also convicted of murdering 12-year-old John Kilbride and in 1987 the pair confessed to killing Keith and Pauline Reade (16).

Chief Supt Steve Heywood said today: “The Moors Murders have cast a long and dark shadow over the history of our region. We had all hoped that we would find the body of that little boy who was taken so cruelly away all those years ago and finally allow his family to lay him to rest.”

Hindley died in custody in 2002 aged 60 and Brady is held at Ashworth high security hospital on Merseyside.

Chief Supt Heywood added: “In the end, one man holds the key to where Keith Bennett’s body is.

“One act of humanity would help Winnie find some peace and allow her to give her son the burial she so desperately wants.

“As a force, there is nothing we would have liked more than to draw a close to this dark chapter and we are very disappointed we have not located Keith’s remains.

“But we will never close this case and remain open to pursuing any new lines of inquiry which may come about as a result of significant scientific advances or credible and actionable information.”