Officers are still to find any 'identifiable' human remains after spending a third consecutive day searching for Keith Bennett on Saddleworth Moor. Greater Manchester Police has been checking the area since Friday (September 30) after receiving information from an amateur sleuth.
Author Russell Edwards passed on images of what was described as part of a jaw bone after working with a team of experts to try and find Keith's remains. Keith was one of the five young victims of the Moors murders, having been killed aged just 12 by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in 1964.
Through fierce downpours and heavy winds, forensic investigators searched the scene on Friday and Saturday, before returning to kinder weather conditions today (Sunday). A constant breeze and the occasional squawking of birds were the only disruptions as police continued to work on the scene.
A couple of photographers watched on from Holmfirth Road as the search went on, with fewer passers-by gathering to observe than on previous days. Two portaloos installed next to where police had parked their vehicles provided another hint that GMP expected a long day of dogged work.
This morning, a drone had been used by officers to search the scene from above. By the afternoon, efforts were again focused on the area close to where two blue forensic tents have been erected, with Greenfield reservoir in the distance.
Officers continued to search the moorland surrounding the tents, with forensic investigators using bags for any evidence gathered. Yet after a third day on the scene, police were still yet to make the breakthrough.
In an update issued this evening, senior investigating officer Cheryl Hughes said: “Following information received which indicated that potential human remains had been found on the Moors, specialist officers from GMP have today (October 2, 2022) again resumed excavation of a site identified to the force. We have not found any identifiable human remains but work to excavate the site is continuing and will do so for the foreseeable time."
Keith was killed after being lured into a van by Myra Hindley, who asked him to help her with some boxes, on June 16, 1964. Ian Brady, her lover and Keith's fellow killer, was on the back seat.
He is known to be buried on Saddleworth Moor, but his body was never recovered. The pair's other victims were Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.
On Friday, Keith's brother Alan Bennett admitted he was sceptical about the search, adding: "Apart from believing this is the wrong location for Keith and all the previous graves have been shallow, why, if the police were taken to the location, has nothing been discovered as yet? I cannot escape the feeling that we have been here before but all should be clear and final by some time tomorrow."
Yesterday (Saturday), Ms Hughes said GMP would conduct the search 'in the most thorough way possible' and confirmed that no physical evidence of a skull or jaw bone had been examined. The Manchester Evening News understands it will take a week to a fortnight to establish whether any remains discovered are those of Keith.
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