Police are digging for potential remains of Moors murder victim Keith Bennett after reports a skull was found by an author.
The search comes after author Russell Edwards brought together a team of experts in a bid to find where Keith had been buried. He passed information to GMP who last night went to a remote location to widen a dig at the spot where his team found the remains.
Force forensic experts are hoping to obtain DNA from any body tissue they discover so they can confirm that the remains are those of Keith. It is understood a tiny piece of clothing has also been found buried 3ft underground beside the skull.
Keith was just 12 when he was lured into a van by Myra Hindley who asked him to help her with some boxes. Her lover and fellow killer Ian Brady was sat on the back seat, on June 16th 1964.
Keith and his family were living in Eston Street, Longsight. Several nights a week to give their mother Winnie a break her children would stay with their grandma, Gertrude.
Alan, then eight, his sister Maggie, three, and brother, Ian, seven, arrived at their gran's in Morton Street, the other side of Stockport Road. Sister Sylvia, 11, and step sister, Susan, 11, stayed at Eston Street.
Winnie walked Keith to Stockport Road to make sure he was safely across, then waved goodbye. He was never seen again. He would have walked down Dallas Street, where Hindley parked her van when visiting Brady who lived in Westmoreland Street with his mother.
In a statement today Greater Manchester Police said: “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.
"Officers met with Mr Edwards yesterday evening (29 th September) and he was able to locate a site of interest and provide us with further details of the work he has been carrying out.
"We are at the very early stages of assessing the evidence which he brought to our attention, but have taken the decision to excavate an area of land with a view to determining what lies there.
"It is far too early to be certain whether human remains have been uncovered, but out of respect for Alan Bennett, who we regularly maintain contact with, we have informed him of this potential development."
GMP Force Review Officer Martin Bottomley said: “At around 11.25am on Thursday 29 September 2022, Greater Manchester Police was contacted by the representative of an author who has been researching the murder of Keith Bennett, a victim of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. 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.
“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.”
Keith's brother, Alan, 65 has devoted more than 30 years of his life to trying to find Keith's remains. He had been eight when his brother, who was 12, vanished.
He wrote dozens of letters to both of them in a bid to extract clues, and in 1998 took the unnerving step of meeting Hindley twice in prison. The police had taken Brady to the moor, and then separately Hindley, but neither had delivered a breakthrough.
They had both been found guilty in 1966 of torturing and killing John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans. In 1985 they admitted killing Keith and Pauline Reade. Pauline's body was found on Saddleworth Moor in 1987 but Keith's has never been recovered.
The then Chief Constable James Anderton has ordered the search for Keith to cease after Pauline had been found.
But Alan would not give up on his big brother. He faced Hindley at Durham Prison and at Highpoint Prison in Suffolk to ask for her help, but never gleaned enough specific information to find Keith.
