Search fund gives Winnie fresh hope
Date published: 23 October 2009
Friends and family of Moors Murder mum Winnie Johnson are setting up a trust fund to search for her son’s body.
Police announced this summer that they had stopped searching for 12-year-old Keith Bennett’s grave.
The youngster went missing in 1964. But it wasn’t until 1987 when evil pair Ian Brady and Myra Hindley finally owned up to the murder while in prison.
The body of Pauline Reade was found that year after a new search, but Keith’s remains are still undiscovered.
In July, police revealed that there had been secret searches over the past three years, involving aerial photography, geologists, chemists, psychological profilers, universities and experts who worked on mass graves in Bosnia and Iraq.
But despite developing cutting-edge new techniques and technologies in the search for human remains, they have drawn a blank.
And officers reluctantly had to tell Mrs Johnson, that the searches have ended.
Now she has told a national newspaper: “The trust’s given me new hope. Forensic experts have given us their time for free to highlight areas Keith could be and we’ve been through archives hunting every clue.
“As the police won’t do it we’ll do it ourselves. It’ not what justice should be about but it’s all we are left with.”
