Brady has last chance to help us find Keith, say police

A chilling, previously unreleased picture of Hindley taken by Brady on one of their moorland visits

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Saddleworth Moor has defied the world’s leading scientists and search experts trying to unlock the 45-year mystery of Keith Bennett’s grave.

But Ian Brady still holds the key to finding him, says the senior policeman who has called a halt to digging on the moor.

And Det Chief Supt Steve Heywood threw down the gauntlet to Brady at a press conference: “This is his one last chance to do the right thing, if he has one ounce of humanity, and help to find Keith’s body.”

The 12-year-old is Brady and Myra Hindley’s final undiscovered victim.

Police revealed that there have been secret searches of miles of the moor over the past three years, involving aerial photography, geologists, chemists, psychological profilers, universities and experts who worked on mass graves in Bosnia and Iraq.

They have gone back through files from the 1960s and the last search in the 1980s, and used black and white photographs Brady and Hindley took at their victim’s graves.

They systematically covered the search area using grids and worked their way across, using trenches, soil sampling, visual comparisons, sniffer dogs and aerial views.

But despite developing cutting-edge new techniques and technologies in the search for human remains, they have drawn a blank.

And Mr Heywood reluctantly had to tell Keith’s mother, Winnie Johnson, that the searches have ended.

Describing the conversation he said: “That was very disappointing. This has always been about caring for Mrs Johnson and her family, but we have done everything we can.

“I’m disappointed. My office overlooks Saddleworth Moor and I look at it every day. But it is case dormant, not case closed.

“We have nowhere left to search without any corroborative evidence. We don’t know where else to look.

“There may be a significant scientific breakthrough — we have got scientists all over the world doing work on this.

“But the reality in this case is there is only one witness, and this is Brady’s last and final opportunity to do the right thing.

“I am not taking Ian Brady back to Saddleworth Moor, but this is the 21st century and we can take the virtual moor to his hospital bed, with 3D modelling.”

He released previously unseen photographs of Myra Hindley by a waterfall in an area which police believe was a marker for the grave.

Mr Heywood believes Keith was buried hastily, only two or three inches deep in peat, which acts as a preservative.

The latest search began when the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute Brady and Hindley for the murders of Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade, which they both admitted in the 1980s.

In 2003 officers began scoping exercises using details of the earlier searches, comparing old photographs with modern shots, and using aerial photography to compare with shots taken by the RAF back in the 1960s.

As well as using trained cadaver dogs, who can sense human remains, they looked for signs of disturbance and chemical traces.

At one time they believed they had discovered elements found when a body decomposes, but the unique nature of Saddleworth moor, peatland which has been stable and unchanged for thousands of years, produces the same elements.

The six-year search cost £100,000 with world experts giving their time free and continuing to work on the case.

Mr Heywood added: “We also had lots of help from local people, and also from the National Trust, which owns the land, and farmers.

“It is not somewhere the public would normally go, it is nowhere near the Pennine Way.

“There is a chance that someone may one day stumble upon Keith’s remains, but we don’t want an army of people going up there thinking they will find him.

“However, if someone does have information we will add it to our investigation.

“My personal view is that there will have to be a significant scientific breakthrough.”


Mother’s plea to killer to end her nightmare
SOBBING Winnie Johnson listened to the police admit they have nowhere else to search for her murdered son’s body as she watched the worldwide coverage on TV.

Mrs Johnson (75), whose health is not good, sat with senior police officers to say how much she appreciated what they have tried to do for her over the last three years.

And as her press conference began, the first newscasts flashed up on TV screens in Det Chief Supt Steve Heywood’s office.

As she was comforted by a relative, Mrs Johnson said: “I am disappointed but I can understand why.

“The police have worked bloody hard, and it’s not fair because he (Keith) is still up there.
"I appreciate what the police have done, they have done a lot of work in the last three to four years . . . they have done their best, they can't do anymore they have got nowhere else to look.

“It is up to Brady now to do what he can for me to get Keith back.

“My health has gone downhill and I’m not going to live forever.

“I want to find Keith before anything happens to me.

“I want to give him a decent burial privately in a church with the family, but then have a service at Manchester Cathedral because I know a lot of people will want to go when he is found.”

Mrs Johnson last saw 12-year-old Keith as she walked him part way to his grandmother’s house on June 16, 1965, where he was supposed to sleep overnight.

Her torture began the next day when her mother visited and asked why Keith had not been.

Pleading

It was 1987 before the Moors Murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley finally admitted they had killed him and buried him near Shiny Brook on Saddleworth Moor.

She said: “It has been a nightmare for 45 years, I have been in limbo.

“It is up to Brady now. Maybe the public will persuade Brady to do the right thing.

“I’m pleading with him to get to me or the press or the police and tell me where Keith is, it is the last time it will be done.

“It is not fair, oh dear God, I can’t talk now. It is not fair on me, what I have had to go through.”