The mystery of the Moors Murders still persists

By M.P. Pellicer | Eerie.News​
​They were lovers, sadists and serial killers. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were predators that from 1963 to 1965 killed five young victims.

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Police renew their efforts to find some trace of Keith Bennett who disappeared in 1964

The children were Pauline Reade, 16; John Kilbride, 12; Lesley Ann Downey, 10; and Edward Evans, 17. They were arrested after the death of Evans. All the victims' remains have been recovered except Keith Bennett, 12, who was taken on his way to his grandmother's house in 1964.

Hindley died in 2002, and Brady in 2017; until the end he refused to say where the remains of Keith Bennett could be found.

Throughout the years Bennett's family held out hope they would find Keith's bones somewhere out on Saddleworth Moor in Manchester, however his mother Winnie died in 2012 with that wish unfulfilled.

Recently author Russell Edwards, an amateur sleuth claimed he found what he believed was a "makeshift grave" with a skull nearby.

The police responded to the area, hoping to find the grave.

Supposedly Edwards has been searching the moors for several years, especially in an area known as Eagle Rock, which was visited by Brady in 1966, after he had been arrested.

On September 29, the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) confirmed that the skull of a 12-year-old was found in the same area where four other known victims had been buried. Until further testing, it cannot be confirmed as belonging to Keith Bennett.

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The 5 victims of the Moors Murderers

Keith was last seen on June 16, 1964, when he was staying with his grandmother. Hindley lured the child to a van by asking for some  help with boxes.

Of the five children taken by Brady and Hindley, four were sexually molested. Their first victim Pauline Reade, 16, was not found until 1987. John Kilbride was found in 1965, since Brady had taken a photo of the child standing on the edge of his grave. Their third victim was Keith Bennett. Next was Lesley Ann Downey, only 10 years old who was taken from a fair ground in 1964. She was strangled, but not before being forced to pose for explicit photographs. They also recorded her final moments. The 16-minute tape was played at the trial of the murderous pair. Her body was the first to be discovered as her arm was protruding from the ground.

The final victim was Edward Evans, 17, who was lured to the couple's home, along with David Smith, Myra's brother-in-law. He was also 17, and forced to watch as Brady hit Edward with an ax, used a cushion to smother him and then strangle him with an electrical cord.

David was married to Myra Hindley's sister Maureen, and they were hoping he would join them. He had his own troubled past, and had been groomed by the pair prior to Evans' murder.

What the pair hadn't counted on was that David actually had a conscience, and was horrified by what he saw they had done. Fearing for his life, he helped Brady carry Evan's body into a spare bedroom. Once he had a chance he ran home, told his wife what happened and then called the police, describing in detail what he had witnessed.

The police found Evans' body wrapped in plastic. At a Manchester train station suitcases were found. Inside were porno photos of Lesly, as well as the recording of her murder. There was also a notebook in Brady's handwriting with instructions on how to dispose of a body.

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Search for bodies on the moors c.1965

The pair were convicted on May, 16, 1966, of the murders of Kilbride, Downey and Evans. They escaped execution by hanging by only a few months due to a change in the laws. Instead they were to be imprisoned for life.

​In 1985, the investigation was reopened when they confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett.

Myra Hindley served her sentence at Holloway Prison. She died behind bars in November, 2002, age 60, from complications following a heart attack. Her remains were cremated.

A banner was left at the entrance to the crematorium which read, "Burn in hell".

Ian Brady was declared criminally insane in 1985, and moved to a high-security hospital in Merseyside where he went on a hunger strike in 1999, which didn't end until 2017, when he pulled out his nasal feeding tube three days before his death. Prior to this he had been kept alive by being force-fed a liquid nutrition mix. His cause of death was listed as severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A judge ruled that his body was to be disposed of without any type of ceremony. His ashes were sealed in an urn and scattered in the Irish Sea. 

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Winnie, Keith's mother never gave up hope of finding her son's remains. She died in 2012

If there was any doubt that Brady was a psychopath, what followed his death should settle that question. Moments before he died, Brady gave his lawyer, Robin Makin, two locked Samsonite suitcases with instructions that only until after his death, should they be opened. He'd kept them in his room all these years.

However a district judge stopped police from accessing them, pointing out that since Brady and Hindley could not be tried for the murder of Pauline or Keith. The point was moot since all the parties were deceased. This is unusual since the contents of the suitcases are unknown. The authorities were wondering if perhaps there was evidence of more victims. 

According to the book The Lost Boy (2013) Professor McCulloch who interviewed Brady with the hope of learning where Keith Bennett was buried, received this reply: "I know. You don't know. You want to know. And I'm not going to tell you."

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