Moors murders: Keith Bennett’s brother ‘frustrated and confused’ after new search is launched

Forensic teams have been digging in Saddleworth Moore since Thursday after Russell Edwards contacted Great Manchester Police and claimed he found bones which may belong to the boy, who was murdered in 1964 by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.

The force said the search is ongoing but no human remains have been found so far, and Keith’s brother Alan Bennett said the author “should return to the moor and be a lot more accurate” about the location of his discovery.

Mr Edwards claims he found the bones after conducting extensive research on the case for several years.

In a post on social media, Mr Bennett wrote: “I am just getting frustrated, annoyed, confused and feeling a lot more emotions because there is more to this than meets the eye and I cannot understand why that bloke appears not to have been exact in his information to the police about the location.

“Surely, he cannot have forgotten exactly where it is after his claims about his years of investigations.”

Keith is the only Moors murder victim who has never been found and his mother Winnie Johnson spent years urging Brady to reveal the location of the burial, before she died at the age of 78 in 2012.

Mr Bennett said he believes his brother’s remains are “not in that location” and there have been a number of false alarms in recent years.

He wrote: “There are two (out of many) occasions that stick out in my memory of finds on the moor. One was found by ourselves when we came across some material with press stud fastener, like those on a casual jacket.

“We immediately contacted the police and the site was investigated the following morning. Advertisement “Unfortunately, somebody informed the press once everybody had returned home to their various locations on the day of the find. It turned out to be nothing related to Keith, it was a piece of camping equipment.

“Then a sheep farmer found some bones, unfortunately he contacted the press before the police (does that ring a bell in this case as well). The police went to the moor and erected a tent before examining the find. It turned out to be sheep bones.”

Brady and Hindley abducted and murdered five children in the early 1960s.

Their first victim, 16-year-old Pauline Reade, was murdered in July 1963, but her body was not found until a search of the Moors was conducted in 1987.

John Kilbride was 12 when he disappeared in November 1963, after leaving home to go to the cinema. His body was found in a shallow grave on Saddleworth Moor in October 1965.

Lesley Ann Downey went missing on Boxing Day 1964, after she went to a fairground with a friend and the 10-year-old’s body was found in a shallow peat grave on Saddleworth Moor, in October the following year.

Edward Evans, 17, body was found in a plastic bag on October 7 in 1965, at the house where the killers were living, after Hindley's brother-in-law, David Smith witnessed the murder and phoned the police.