Moors Murder girl reburied with jaw bone police kept for years
Interred were her jaw bone, hair samples, a necklace, pendant, a button, and piece of material from her coat.
A police statement said: “Pauline and the other Moors Murders victims are ever present in our minds.
“Greater Manchester Police will always do everything we can to support their relatives and honour their memory.”
Pauline’s niece Jackie Reade, 45, criticised the police as she returned to watch her aunt be buried for a second time in the same plot.
Yesterday Ms Reade said: “This last year has been the worst time of my life. I just wanted to put Pauline, finally at rest. We thought she was, then found out the awful truth.
“Having to do this has brought all the pain and emotion back. I am fuming they were retained.” Brady and Hindley were jailed for life for torturing and murdering three children in the 1960s – John Kilbride, 12, Lesley Ann Downey, 10, and Edward Evans, 17.
They went on to admit the murders of Pauline Reade, 16, and Keith Bennett, 12. Four of the victims were buried on Saddleworth Moor.
Hindley died in 2002 in prison while Brady died aged 79 in May last year. Pauline got into a car with Hindley after recognising her and agreeing to help Hindley look for a missing glove on the moor.
But after driving there she was instead greeted by Brady who sexually assaulted and then murdered her.
In 1987 one of Pauline’s white stiletto shoes was found by police acting on information received from Brady and her shallow grave was uncovered.
Each week since Ms Reade went with Pauline’s mother Joan to lay a single rose on her grave.
But after Brady’s death last year an audit discovered the stored remains.
Yesterday they, along with items of clothing also returned, were placed in a velvet bag and passed to a funeral director at the graveside. Greater Manchester Police paid for the cost of the exhumation and reburial, saying the tissue samples were originally held for investigative purposes.
Martin Bottomley, head of the force’s Cold Case Unit, said: “This is a deeply sensitive matter and understandably it has caused some upset with the family.”