Moors Murders: No identifiable human remains yet found by police

News broke yesterday afternoon that officers were digging in part of the moorland, just off the remote A635 'Isle of Skye' road near the border between West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, after a skull - reported by the Daily Mail to be that of a 12-year-old child - was found.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) confirmed at 1.44pm on Friday that it has launched an investigation following a tip off the previous day from an author researching the murder of Keith Bennett.

Bennett, who was a 12-year-old, was a victim of the Moors murders - carried out by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in the sixties.

Yesterday saw a police forensic tent that looks to have been lowered on Saddleworth Moor and police officers and other emergency personnel on the Moors. Pictures: Telegraph & Argus (Image: Newsquest)

In a statement issued at 3pm on Saturday, GMP Force Review Officer Cheryl Hughes insisted the excavation continues.

She said: “Following information received which indicated that potential human remains had been found on the Moors, specialist officers have today (October 1) resumed excavation of a site identified to us.

“This information included photographs of the site and show what experts working with the informant have interpreted as a human jaw bone. No physical evidence of a jaw bone or skull has been examined.

“However, based on the photographs and information provided, and in line with GMP’s usual practice to follow-up any suggestion of human burial, we began our search of the site of interest.

“We have not found any identifiable human remains but our work to excavate the site is continuing. 

“Conditions are difficult and it may take us some time to fully complete the excavation but we are committed to ensuring this is undertaken in the most thorough way possible.”

Bennett is the only victim who has never been found, as Brady and Hindley never revealed where he was buried.

The 12-year-old was last seen on June 16, 1964, when he left his family home to stay with his grandmother.

The Telegraph & Argus visited the site on Friday and spotted a forensic tent in the middle of the wilderness as well as several police cars in the parking spot just off the main road.

But when the T&A's photographer went to the scene in the evening, the tent was being lowered, although it was still kept in place.

Brady and Hindley murdered five children between July 1963 and October 1965 and extensive searches of the Moors led to the bodies of Pauline Reade, 16, John Kilbride, 12 and Lesley Ann Downey, 10, being found.

However, Bennett was not found and searches for him stalled following the death of Brady in 2017.