GREAT BRITAIN • Keith BENNETT, 12 (1964) ~ London England

Infamous British killer may have revealed grave site

Agence France-Presse
11:12 am | Friday, August 17th, 2012

LONDON–Notorious jailed British killer Ian Brady, who murdered five children in the 1960s, may have revealed the grave site of one of his victims to a long-term visitor, police announced on Thursday.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said in a statement that Brady, also known as the Moors Murderer, may have revealed the burial site of 12-year-old Keith Bennett, the only one of his victims whose body is yet to be found.

The force also announced that it was questioning a 49-year-old woman after she was arrested in Wales on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body without lawful exercise.

“On 30 July 2012, Greater Manchester Police received information that led officers to believe that Ian Brady had recently given details of the location of Keith Bennett’s body to one of his long-term visitors,” said the GMP statement.

Officers made the arrest after working closely with Ashworth hospital, the psychiatric institution in northwest England where Brady, 74, is being held.

Between 1963 and 1965, Brady and his partner Myra Hindley lured five children and teenagers to their deaths, burying four of them on remote moorland near Manchester.

Brady was convicted of three of the murders and later confessed to two more.

The bodies of Lesley Ann Downey and John Kilbride were found in 1965, and Pauline Reade’s remains were located in 1987 but Bennett’s body has never been found.

Bennett was abducted on June 16, 1964, after he left home to visit his grandmother and his family have since waged a relentless campaign to locate his remains.

Winnie Johnson, Keith’s mother, said in December she wanted Brady to tell her in person where her son was buried.

Hindley died in prison in 2002, aged 60.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/251740/infamous-british-killer-may-have-revealed-grave-site

Ian Brady's advocate arrested in South Wales after Moors Murderer's letter

WalesOnline
Aug 17 2012

Police are investigating whether Moors Murderer Ian Brady has written a letter to be opened on his death revealing the location of Keith Bennett’s body.

But Martin Bottomley, head of investigative review of Greater Manchester Police’s major and cold case crime unit, said: “We do not know if this is true or simply a ruse.”

Police launched their investigation after Brady’s mental health advocate told a Channel 4 documentary that he gave her a sealed envelope to pass to Winnie Johnson, the mother of his 12-year-old victim Keith Bennett, in the event of his death.

Jackie Powell, 49, who was appointed Brady’s mental health advocate in 1999, was detained on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body without lawful exercise.

But detectives examining documents seized from Ms Powell’s home have so far found no evidence to suggest Brady has disclosed the location of Keith’s body. And Ms Powell, pictured below leaving her house today, has since been released on bail pending further inquiries.

A neighbour said she had lived there for two years, adding: "It was a massive surprise to learn she was involved with Ian Brady."

Mr Bottomley said in a statement: “The Moors murders cast a long and dark shadow over the history of our region but in 2009 we reluctantly concluded there was no longer any specific information to identify new search areas and the investigation to find Keith entered a dormant stage.

“However, we have always stressed this is a case we will never close. We have been, and always will be, open to pursuing any new lines of inquiry that arise from significant scientific advances or credible and actionable information.

“I want to be explicitly clear about this: Ian Brady has not revealed to police the location of Keith’s body.

“What we are looking at is the possibility, and at this stage it is only a possibility, that he has written a letter to Keith’s mum Winnie Johnson which was not to be opened until after his death.

“We do not know if this is true or simply a ruse but we clearly have a duty to investigate such information on behalf of Keith’s family.

“Since Keith was so cruelly taken away all those years ago, our thoughts have always been with his family as they try to come to terms with what happened.

“All they want is to finally be able to lay Keith to rest.

“What I would ask is that the media respect their privacy at this time. Winnie herself is very ill and continued speculation about this letter will only cause the family more upset.

“I would ask that we are allowed to examine all the evidence we have recovered and determine whether or not this letter actually exists.”

Brady has always refused to disclose the location of Keith's body.

His refusal has caused constant heartache for Keith’s mother, who has cancer and recently appealed to him to break his silence before she died.

Mrs Johnson’s lawyer John Ainley, a senior partner at Oldham-based North Halliwell Ainley, said: “She has remained steadfast in her resolve that Ian Brady has held the key to this tragedy.

“Over the years she has appealed directly to Brady and through me for him to reveal where Keith’s body was hidden so she could at least give her son a decent burial before she died.

“Now, she herself is ill and I am deeply concerned that the knowledge of this letter and its alleged contents may have come too late to bring her any solace.

“It would be the last tragic act of a truly harrowing story.”

Mr Ainley said later: “I am sceptical about this information. It is clear the police need to carry out further investigations and it will be interesting to see what they find.”

Ms Powell told the Cutting Edge documentary: “I received a letter and a sealed envelope which said on the front ’to be opened in the event of my death’.

“He says he doesn’t wish to take his secrets to the grave and within the sealed envelope is a letter to Winnie Johnson.

“Within that is the means of her possibly being able to rest.”

Brady and his partner Myra Hindley, who died in jail in 2002 aged 60, were responsible for the murders of five youngsters in the 1960s.

Their victims were sexually tortured before being buried on Saddleworth Moor above Manchester.

Pauline Reade, 16, disappeared on July 12 1963, and John Kilbride, 12, was snatched in November the same year.

Keith Bennett was taken on June 16 1964, after he left home to visit his grandmother. Lesley Ann Downey, 10, was lured away from a funfair on Boxing Day 1964, and Edward Evans, 17, was killed in October 1965.

Brady was jailed for life at Chester Assizes in 1966 for the murders of John, Lesley Ann and Edward.

Hindley was convicted of killing Lesley Ann and Edward and shielding Brady after John’s murder, and jailed for life. In 1987 the pair finally admitted killing Keith and Pauline.

Both were taken back to Saddleworth Moor to help police find the remains of the missing victims but only Pauline’s body was found.

Brady, 74, was due to go before a mental health tribunal last month, but it was delayed after he suffered a seizure.

The tribunal was to consider his application to be transferred to a Scottish prison and be allowed to die. He has been tube-fed since refusing food 12 years ago.

It is understood that Mrs Johnson, who is being cared for in a hospice, is not yet aware of developments.

The makers of the documentary said they had not seen the envelope.

Documentaries commissioning editor and editor for Cutting Edge Emma Cooper said: “No one can verify the contents of the envelope and therefore what information it does or does not contain but, given the enormity of the implications as suggested by Brady’s letter, we felt we had a responsibility to inform the family via their family liaison officer.

“Winnie’s poor health was foremost in our decision-making and this is why we have decided to bring forward the broadcast of the film and make the existence of the envelope public.”

Paddy Wivell, who made the documentary, questioned Brady’s motives behind handing over the letter to Ms Powell.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think we probably have to approach it with some sense of caution too. This seems to me like very much part of Brady’s pathology, one of power and control.

“He is a sadistic psychopath and it would appear that this is some sort of victory dance, a kind of power game, in the fact that he constantly puts conditions on things. The condition that it can only be opened in the event of his death is consistent with this kind of behaviour over the years.”

The programme, Ian Brady: Endgames Of A Psychopath, will be broadcast on Monday night at 9pm

Read More http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/08/17/ian-brady-s-legal-advocate-arrested-in-south-wales-over-location-of-body-91466-31642132/#ixzz23oL0Hl3p

Winnie Johnson's deathbed interview: I would stab Ian Brady from top to bottom
Winnie Johnson vowed to stab Ian Brady 'from top to bottom' if she ever saw him in a final interview shortly before she died.

3:29AM BST 19 Aug 2012

The mother of Keith Bennett fought tirelessly for decades to find where Brady bured her son and provide a Christian burial but Brady always refused to tell her where he buried him on Saddleworth Moor above Manchester.

In her final interview she said she feared Moors Murderer Brady would never reveal the whereabouts of her 12-year-old son's body in a ''final sick twist''.

She died peacefully in a hospice in the early hours of yesterday morning, aged 78, having suffered from cancer for a number of years.

Shortly before her death she told The Sun newspaper: "I don't give a sh*t about Brady anymore. I am running out of time and just want to bring my son home.

"But I feel in my heart he won't ever tell me. He hasn't remorse. I can't see why he has done this to me."

The 78-year-old said if she ever saw Brady she would 'stab him from top to bottom.'

Her family has now vowed to continue her campaign. Brady has been urged to ''do the decent thing'' and finally tell them where the body is so that Keith can be given a Christian burial.

The closest Winnie came to giving him a funeral was to hold a memorial service at Manchester Cathedral two years ago in which she tearfully told the congregation: ''I'm Keith's mother ... he's there on the Moors, I want him back.''

She added: ''I don't know now if Brady will ever tell me where my Keith is buried.

''He could take it to the grave with him. I suppose that would be his final sick twist. Or he could give me hope like he has done before and then nothing would come of it.''

She added that she would make her feel ''on top of the world'' to know where her son's body was, and added: ''It would mean my dying wish had come true and we had finally got Keith home."

Brady, 74, and his partner, Myra Hindley, who died in jail in 2002 aged 60, were responsible for the murders of five youngsters in the 1960s. Most of their victims were sexually tortured before being buried on Saddleworth Moor, with Keith's body the only one yet to be found.

Keith was snatched after he left home in Longsight on his way to his grandmother's house nearby on June 16 1964.

In a statement yesterday, Winnie's family said: ''She was a much loved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, and is survived by one younger brother.

''Winnie fought tirelessly for decades to find Keith and give him a Christian burial. Although this was not possible during her lifetime, we, her family, intend to continue this fight now for her and for Keith. We hope that the authorities and the public will support us in this.''

Martin Bottomley, head of investigative review of Greater Manchester Police's major and cold case crime unit, paid tribute to Winnie for spending the majority of her life ''courageously fighting to get justice for Keith''.

''All she wanted was to know where Keith was buried so she could lay him to rest,'' he said.

Read More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9485577/Winnie-Johnsons-deathbed-interview-I-would-stab-Ian-Brady-from-top-to-bottom.html

Ian Brady: Endgames of a Psychopath, Channel 4, review
Channel 4's documentary on the dying days of the serial killer has unearthed some compelling new information - but the families of Brady's victims are still left without answers, writes Neil Midgley.

By Neil Midgley

10:34PM BST 20 Aug 2012

Documentaries don’t often unearth stories that make front-page news, but that’s exactly what Channel 4’s Cutting Edge strand has managed to do with Ian Brady: Endgames of a Psychopath. On Friday, the film’s key revelation – that Brady may have written a letter detailing where the only unfound victim of the Moors Murders is buried – led the news bulletins and was splashed all over the tabloids.

The central figure in those news stories, as in the documentary, was Jackie Powell. She has been Ian Brady’s mental health advocate since 1999 and, based on interviews she gave in this Channel 4 film, was arrested on Thursday of last week on suspicion of preventing the burial of a body. This dramatic turn of events shows just how far the documentary’s story had shifted from its initial conception in the spring, when its director, Paddy Wivell, planned to tell a very different story.

Brady has been on hunger strike at Ashworth high-security hospital since 1999, but has been force-fed down a nasal gastric tube. Wivell was to chart Brady’s attempt to persuade a mental health tribunal to allow him to return to prison, where he would then – free of coercive psychiatric supervision – starve himself to death.

But that tribunal hearing has not (yet) happened, because on July 3, Brady suffered a seizure that left him close to death. This was the first we saw of Powell, in a frantic phone call with Wivell. From the outset, Powell seemed like an odd woman – unsmiling, self-dramatising, and apparently unmoved by Brady’s crimes.

Why has Brady trusted her as his advocate for over a decade, wondered Wivell. "I suppose because, unlike most people, I'm not interested in what happened 50 years ago," she replied. "I’ve never questioned him about his 'index offences'. It’s up to him whether he discusses them."

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The film contained many other illuminating insights into Brady’s psychopathy, and into the effects of his crimes. There were interviews with Dr Jeremy Coid, who had been Brady’s psychiatrist in 2003, with Terry West, the brother of Brady’s victim Lesley Ann Downey, and with Terry Kilbride, the brother of another victim, John Kilbride. Both West and Kilbride seemed like broken men – but at least the bodies of their siblings had been found.

Winnie Johnson, the mother of another of Brady’s victims, Keith Bennett, had never found the remains of her son. And, at the very end of the documentary, Powell made the disclosure that went on to cause such a storm in the news media. "I received a letter and a sealed envelope [from Brady]," said Powell. "which said on the front of it, 'to be opened in the event of my death'. He says, he doesn’t wish to take secrets to his grave and um, within the sealed envelope is a letter to Winnie Johnson. Within that is the means of her possibly being able to rest."

What does he mean by that, asked Wivell. "Well," said Powell, "clearly there’s something within the letter that may be able to find her son, I would suggest."

Wivell suggested to her that this was some kind of "victory dance" by Brady, effectively keeping possession of Keith Bennett's body until his own death. Powell was clearly affronted. "I don’t like the way you put that. 'Victory dance.' I don’t like those words, Paddy," she said. It was impossible not to wonder what psychological effect all those years of exposure to Brady have had on her.

When Wivell pressed Powell on whether she would pass this information on, she asked him to stop filming. The interview recommenced, but Powell would not commit to taking any action about the letter. Channel 4 took the unusual step of informing the police, which in turn led to Powell’s arrest.

But none of these actions gave any comfort to Winnie Johnson: she died at the weekend, after a battle with cancer, aged 78. Powell had told the producers of the film that she had given the envelope addressed to Johnson back to Brady. Certainly, there have been no reports of the police finding it in their searches of Powell’s house.

Watching the film as it went out, after all these remarkable developments, was a troubling experience. In a newspaper interview at the weekend, Powell said that she felt "betrayed, used and abused" by Channel 4 and the film-makers. She said that Brady was still just trying to exercise the power and control that are the hallmarks of his psychopathy, and it was hard to disagree with her on that point.

But we still don’t know whether Winnie Johnson could have died a more peaceful death if Jackie Powell had acted differently when Ian Brady gave her that envelope. After watching this film, and after all the media hoopla of the last few days, that is an awful question to remain unanswered.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9487650/Ian-Brady-Endgames-of-a-Psychopath-Channel-4-review.html

Moors Murderer had long run in with law

by: Dominic Harris
August 17, 2012 2:24PM

EVEN before his evil and sadistic crimes shocked and appalled Britain, Ian Brady stood out as a grim character.

He was born in the Glasgow ghetto of the Gorbals on January 2, 1938, the illegitimate son of a tearoom waitress.

He never knew who his father was and, unable to cope, his mother, Margaret Stewart, put him into foster care.

As a young child he displayed the sadistic streak which resurfaced in a horrifying manner later in life.

He had a bad temper, often banging his head against a wall in rage, and was described by neighbours as a "terrible heartbreak" to his foster mother.

As a child he tortured animals, once throwing a cat out of a top-floor window, and at school he beat up other children and repeatedly appeared in court for petty crime.

The young Brady was fascinated by horror movies, spending his pocket money on going to see horror films over and over again, earning him the nickname Dracula.
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In 1951, he appeared in Glasgow Sheriff Court on charges of housebreaking and theft.

He was later given two years' probation for nine similar charges, and sent to live with his mother in Manchester.

She had married an Irishman, Patrick Brady, and the young man took his stepfather's name.

Brady picked up his life of crime where it had left off and in December 1955 he appeared on a theft charge and was sent to Borstal.

He later said he felt the sentence was not deserved, and the time he spent there triggered his bitter hatred of society.

After he was released in 1958, he began working at Millwards Merchandise, a small chemical distributing firm in Gorton, Manchester.

During this time Brady became obsessed with Hitler, buying records of Nazi speeches and a copy of Hitler's political doctrine, Mein Kampf.

It was at the factory two years later that he met 18-year-old Myra Hindley.

Brady, then 23, ignored her for a year before the couple began their sick love affair.

Hindley became obsessed with him, and Brady grew to love the idea of being worshipped and adored and decided to include her in his plans for a crime spree.

After moving in with her at her grandmother's home in Hattersley, Cheshire, Brady made Hindley buy a car and taught her to shoot, and eventually persuaded her to become involved in his twisted fantasies.

As their relationship escalated, they began taking explicit photos of each other, before their interest turned to kidnapping, child molestation and murder.

Shortly after the pair moved in together they killed Pauline Reade, who lived nearby and was a friend of Hindley's sister, Maureen.

The murders of John Kilbride, Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann Downey and Edward Evans followed.

After his conviction in 1966 Brady seemed to accept his life sentence.

But at Gartree Prison in Leicestershire, he staged hunger strikes to force the Home Office to allow him visits from Hindley, which were refused.

In 1985, he was transferred to Park Lane special hospital in Merseyside, which was later renamed Ashworth, the home of some of the country's most infamous criminals as past patients.

Brady, now 74, has publicly stated he would never apply for parole, but has repeatedly campaigned for voluntary euthanasia for British patients in special hospitals.

He has never show any remorse for his crimes or empathy for his victims and psychiatrists have concluded he has an overwhelming need for control, played out repeatedly throughout his life - not least in his constant refusal to reveal the location of Keith Bennett's remains.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/moors-murderer-had-long-run-in-with-law/story-fn3dxix6-1226452654247

Maybe they should turn the tables on him... offer to allow him to die AFTER he reveals the locations of the boy's remains?!

This is some kind of serial killer mentality which allow them to kill as many peoples they want.