I promised Keith’s dying mother I’d never stop looking for him

Moors landowner’s vow to find body of Brady victim 60 years later

THE owner of the land where police are searching for Keith Bennett told yesterday how he promised the schoolboy’s dying mother Winnie he would never stop looking for him.

Chris Crowther, 65, said he hoped the body of the 12-year-old Moors murder victim would finally be found.

Greater Manchester Police launched a dig on his land on Friday after an amateur sleuth found suspected human remains.

Mr Crowther shares author Russell Edwards’ theory that serial killer Ian Brady meticulously planned the burials, placing his female victims on one side of the A635 road and the boys on the other.

Yesterday the farmer revealed for the first time that he too could have

‘I never forgot their eyes’

fallen victim to the Moors Murderers, who killed five children. He described how Brady pulled up beside him outside his school in 1963 as he and Myra Hindley were embarking on their killing spree.

Speaking for the first time about the chilling encounter, Mr Crowther said: ‘I can always remember waiting for a taxi from St Mary’s Primary School in [the nearby village of] Greenfield at about 3.30pm and Brady stopped by the side of me and looked straight at me as I was waiting for a taxi to come home.

‘I ran back into school. Those scary eyes, they were looking straight at me. My mother said never speak to strangers.

‘I had that drummed into me so I ran back into school. He just stopped and stared, but I moved away quite quickly.

‘I told my mum and dad there was a man watching me at the side of the road. I was about six.’

Months later he was to encounter Brady again on the moors. He said: ‘I was walking back some sheep with my dad Harold and they [Hindley and Brady] were canoodling on a rock, and my dad went mad – he told them to go home.

‘It was shearing time in 1963. I never forgot his face when he looked at my dad.

‘I never forget their eyes, such scary eyes. Myra had a leopard-print coat on, he had his long mac on.

‘It was below the farm on the south side, it was within half a mile of the graves. They were only about 20 yards off away from us. I can always remember my dad going off on one, but Brady never spoke back.

‘I was about the same age as the other children being abducted.’ The infamous murders on the 5,000 acres of land, owned by the Crowthers for generations, have left their mark on the family. He recalls that a family member was nine or ten when John Kilbride was found.

‘ They started saying, “I heard them. I heard them one night screaming for their life,” he said. ‘It affected them so badly we had to put them in hospital for about ten days to settle them down.

‘They always said that they heard those screams. They heard something up there anyway. It affected them very badly. Their nerves were shattered.’ Police found the grave of 12-year-old John in October 1965 with the help of Mr Crowther’s grandfather Dan.

The farmer said: ‘My grandad was gathering some sheep up there and his dog rolled on John Kilbride’s grave. It would not stop rolling and so he went back with a police officer and saw the area and that is where they found John.’

Mr Crowther believes his mother Freda was also followed by a man on the desolate moorland who resembled Brady. He said: ‘ She was going around the sheep at lambing time and he followed her right near where they found one of the bodies.

‘A strange man got behind her and she ran off home. It scared her so much she said she would never go back up there on her own.’

In 2015, when Mr Edwards asked if he could search the land for Keith, Mr Crowther agreed to help him in the hope of finally fulfilling the promise he made to the schoolboy’s mother Winnie, who died in 2012.

He said: ‘I’ll be pleased if they find Keith because Winnie came up to see me when she was pretty poorly with cancer. She came up for a cup of coffee and asked me to carry on looking for Keith.

‘She said, “When you are gathering sheep, keep looking, keep looking Chris, will you promise me you will keep looking?” I said, “Yeah every time I go out there, I’ll look and see what I can see.”

‘I have always been looking ever since, just for something that was a clue to where Keith was. I’ve been looking for decades.

‘I always said Keith will not be so far away from John Kilbride. He’ll have them both together somewhere. He put the girls together and he’ll [have] put the lads together.

‘He had a burial spot where he got away with it with John, so he is going to go back. When I’m up there on the land it is a bit eerie.

‘ I always think about it when I am up there. When you are up there with a victim of the Moors murders, it doesn’t leave you. I just hope that they find him.’

‘Heard them screaming’