I will never forget the complete panic and terror of that morning
MOOR MURDERS VICTIM’S BROTHER RECALLS DAY FAMILY REALISED YOUNGSTER HAD DISAPPEARED 56 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK
IT was 56 years ago this week that a little boy called Keith Bennett waved goodbye to his mum, Winnie, and walked into an unspeakable crime.
The 12-year-old boy, ushered along by his mother, walked across Stockport Road in Longsight but never made it to his gran’s house.
It was teatime on June 16, 1964.
His name was written into perhaps the bleakest chapter of British criminal history – the moors murders of five innocent children. Keith was snatched from the street and murdered by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley.
When he got to Dallas Street, he was lured into a van by Hindley who asked him to help her with some boxes. Brady, who lived nearby, was in the back seat. They snatched the child and took him to Saddleworth Moor where he was sexually abused and murdered by Brady.
The pair were found guilty in 1966 of torturing and killing John Kilbride, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.
In 1985, they admitted killing Keith and Pauline Reade, 16. Pauline’s body was found on Saddleworth Moor in 1987 but Keith’s remains have never been recovered.
They had all been murdered during 1963 and 1964. The pair buried their victims but only Keith’s remains have never been found.
Keith’s mother, Winnie, regularly searched the moors looking for her son but she died in 2012 without getting the peace she craved – a proper burial for Keith.
Hindley died, aged 60, in hospital in 2002, while Brady died, aged 79, at Ashworth Hospital in Merseyside in 2017. If they possessed information which may have led to Keith’s burial site, they never revealed it.
Since then, Keith’s memory – and the effort to finally find his remains – have been kept alive by his brother Alan. He marked the 56th anniversary of Keith’s disappearance, recalling the ‘panic and terror’ when their mother realised the lad never made it to his gran’s.
Alan wrote: “On this day,
June 16, 1964, four days after his 12th birthday, Keith was going to spend the night at our gran’s house, my mother was going to bingo and she walked with Keith to the zebra crossing at busy Stockport Road. Once he had crossed and they had waved goodbye to each other they went on their way, Keith was only a few streets away from the safety of gran’s house.
“Keith would have passed a small side street (Dallas
Street) that led through to Westmoreland Street where Brady lived. It is now known that Hindley used to park in that street waiting for Brady to join her.
“Somewhere along the very familiar route Keith took to gran’s house, the vehicle with Hindley driving and Brady in the back pulled up alongside Keith. Keith was enticed into the vehicle by Hindley and later climbed into the back of the vehicle after being persuaded to do so by Brady.
“Hindley drove to Saddleworth Moor, where Keith was led into the moor, sexually assaulted, murdered and then buried.
“It is, and always will be, very hard to accept that later that night the rest of us slept safe and sound in our beds. It was not until the following morning that we all discovered Keith had disappeared. When my gran got to my
Alan Bennett, who has kept the memory of his brother, Keith, alive mother’s house the following morning, I heard the question: ‘Where is Keith?’
“Neither my gran nor my mother had a telephone at home, my mother thought Keith had arrived at my gran’s, my gran thought Keith had changed his mind and had decided to stay at home.
“I will never forget the confusion of that morning that quickly turned to complete panic and terror. We grew up with the terror, thoughts and fears of that morning and it was to be over 20 years until we discovered, or rather had confirmed, that Keith had been a victim of Brady and Hindley. Something the police and us as a family had always thought to be the case.”
He added: “Can I ask you to please, once again, spare a thought of remembrance for Keith? Denied the life he should have lived and all he could have been.”