Is this bleak spot the burial site of Moors Murderers' missing victim? Skull of child, 12' dug up after amateur sleuth calls in police

GRIM FIND 57YRS AFTER BRADY & HINDLEY'S CHILD KILLINGS

- PAUL BYRNE, Saddleworth Moor, LUCY THORNTON

AFTER decades of fruitless searches, false starts and cruel hoaxes, Saddleworth Moor may at last be about to give up one of its darkest secrets Keith Bennett 12, was snatched and murdered 58 years ago by evil Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

His remains have never been found, despite countless hunts by police and an army of volunteers.

Now, at last, Keith's family may be able to give him the burial his mum Winnie Johnson desperately craved before her death in 2012, amid claims human remains have been located close to where other victims of the Moors Murderers were buried.

And at first light yesterday, a police search team arrived at the location.

Author Russell Edwards claims he found a skull of a child aged around 12 while digging on the moorland.

He said: "The smell hit me about 2ft down. Like a sewer, like ammonia.

"I worked as a gravedigger when I was 19. That hits you, that smell of death. It is distinctive.

"Police have to go and do a full scale dig now. This is about peace for Keith, closure for his family. Brady has not won. In torrential downpours and howling winds, under a slate grey sky, forensic teams pored over the drenched grassland from dawn to dusk, their white overalls barely visible behind the veil of mist.

Two blue and white police tents alongside them gave little protection from the unforgiving elements.

They were pitched down a valley, half a mile from the A635 between Greenfield, Gtr Manchester, and Holmfirth, West Yorks.

Archaeologist Dawn Keen, who specialises in the study of human remains, said: "I do believe there are ley human remains.

there. From the photographs, I saw the teeth, I could see canines, I could see 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." Greater Manchester Police's review officer Martin Bottomley said.