Keith Bennett: Police dig on Saddleworth Moor after amateur sleuth finds remains in hunt for Ian Brady victim
Saddleworth Moor #SaddleworthMoor
Police are digging on Saddleworth Moor after an amateur sleuth claimed to have found remains in a painstaking search for 12-year-old Moors murder victim Keith Bennett.
A search of Saddleworth Moor is under way after author and amateur sleuth Russell Edwards last night reported his find to Greater Manchester Police, the Daily Mail reports.
The force has stressed that it “is far too early to be certain whether human remains have been discovered.”
Mr Edwards, who has been searching for clues to the location of Keith’s grave for seven years, believes he has found a skull and recruited the help of two archaeologists and a geologist to help him carry out his own dig.
The schoolboy was the only one of five Moors murder victims lured to their deaths by Ian Brady and Myra Hyndley whose body has never been recovered.
Brady and Hindley tortured and murdered the five children between 1963 and 1965 before burying their bodies on Saddleworth Moor.
Mr Edwards, 56, believes he has found Keith’s grave just a few hundred yards from where Brady and Hyndley buried their other victims, Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12 and Lesley Ann Downey, 10.
According to the Mail, three independent experts have identified remains at the site found by Mr Edwards as being human.
Archaeologist Dawn Keen, who specialises in the study of human remains, said: “I do believe there are human remains there. They [police] have got to look.
“From the photographs, I saw the teeth, I could see the canines, I could see the incisors, I could see the first molar. It is the left side of an upper jaw. There is no way that it is an animal.”
She also analysed samples from the scene which she said was ‘very likely to be adipose tissue’ and clothing.
Another unnamed archaelogist told the Mail: “‘It is a human skull. It cannot be anything else.”
Geologist Lesley Dunlop, who carried out soil analysis at the scene, said her findings indicated there were human remains at the site.
She said: “From my analysis and from my visual impression, I would say that this area has had human remains in it.
“I cannot think of another other explanation other than it being human remains.”
Yesterday, Mr Edwards described the moment he made the discovery: “The smell hit me about 2ft down. Like a sewer, like ammonia.
“It was on my clothes I stank of it. The soil reeked. I worked as a gravedigger when I was 19 that hits you, that smell of death. It is distinctive…I was overjoyed. Then we found blue and white stripped material. Then I stopped. I put everything back as I found it.”
He believes the skull he has found “can only be Keith”, but DNA analysis is yet to confirm this, adding: “This is about peace for Keith and closure for the family.”
Keith’s mother, Winnie Johnson, died in 2011 after fighting a long campaign to get Brady to reveal where Keith was buried. His brother, Alan Bennett, now 64, was eight years old when he disappeared.
Mr Edwards had previously published a book, which claimed Polish-born Aaron Kosminski as Jack the Ripper.
Previous searches of the Moors following discoveries have turned out to be false alarms. In 2010, remains were found by a farmer at the Marsden Moor estate near Huddersfield but it turned out to be a dead sheep.
Greater Manchester Police Force Review Officer Martin Bottomley said there were contacted a 11.25am yesterday by the representative of an author who has been researching Keith’s murder of Keith Bennett.
“Following direct contact with the author, we were informed that he had discovered what he believes are potential human remains in a remote location on the Moors and he agreed to meet with officers yesterday afternoon to elaborate on his find and direct us to a site of interest, ” he said,.
“The site was assessed late last night and, this morning, specialist officers have begun initial exploration activity. We are in the very early stages of assessing the information which has been brought to our attention but have made the decision to act on it in line with a normal response to a report of this kind.
“It is far too early to be certain whether human remains have been discovered and this is expected to take some time.
“We have always said that GMP would act on any significant information which may lead to the recovery of Keith and reunite him with his family. As such, we have informed his brother of the potential development – he does not wish to be contacted at this time and asks that his privacy is respected.”