The final pages of Moors murderer Ian Brady's unpublished autobiography could contain details about where one of the victims was buried.
The last 200 pages of the manuscript, called "Black Light", could provide the information needed to locate the final victim, 12-year-old Keith Bennett, according to a new BBC documentary.
The missing part of Brady’s manuscript is believed to have been deposited with his solicitor, Robin Makin, after his death in 2017 aged 79.
Makin has previously said he did not believe Brady had any information that could lead to the discovery of Bennet’s body.
Bennett's brother, Alan, has urged for any missing material to be handed over to the police in hope of finding him.
Separately, legal defence documents from the Moors murder trial unearthed by presenter Duncan Staff, contain photographs which have prompted fresh scrutiny of the decades-old search efforts.
Bennett was one of five victims of Brady and fellow-killer Myra Hindley, with three of them later found buried on Saddleworth Moor.
However the schoolboy’s body was never found following his disappearance in 1964.
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|Victim Keith Bennett's body was never found
His mother, Winnie Johnson, died 48 years later at age 78 without fulfilling her wish to give him a proper Christian burial.
Bennett was lured into a van by Hindley, who was asking for assistance with carrying some boxes, as Brady watched on from the back seat.
In 2022, Greater Manchester Police along with experts, began another search for Bennett at Saddleworth Moor after a member of the public researching the murder suggested a location of his burial.
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|Police pictured in 2022 searching Saddleworth Moor for Keith Bennett's burial site
The force said in a statement at the time that they had found "no presence of human remains".
The Moors murderers carried out their killings between July, 1963, and August, 1965.
The pair were eventually caught red-handed when Brady was seen with the body of their last victim, 17-year-old Edward Evans.
In 1966, Brady was given a life sentence at Chester Assizes for the murders of 12-year-old John Kilbride, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey and Evans.
Hindley was convicted of killing Downey and Evans and shielding Brady after Kilbride's murder, and also jailed for life.
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|Moors murder victims John Kilbride (L) and Lesley-Ann Downey whose bodies were found in shallow graves on Saddleworth Moors
In 1987, the pair finally admitted killing Keith and 16-year-old Pauline Reade and were taken back to Saddleworth Moor to help police find the remains of the missing victims.
However, only Reade's body was found.
Theologian Dr Alan Keightley published a book about Brady based on hours of interviews with him at Ashworth Special Hospital, where he was held.
Keightley himself died in 2023, but his widow, Joan, has given the documentary-makers access to her late husband’s extensive archive.
This includes an incomplete copy of a typed manuscript, which Brady appears to have written.
Keightley writes in his own book that Brady told him it was at least 600 pages long.
The copy in his own archive stops abruptly at page 394, shortly before the murder of Kilbride, who was Brady and Hindley’s second victim.
Keightley wrote in his book that Brady once asked him to deliver a “double sealed parcel”, which he assumed contained the autobiography, to a solicitor in London.
This ended up with Makin’s law firm in Liverpool though he has not responded for comment, according to the BBC.
Hindley died in prison in 2002 when she was 60-years-old, while Brady died in 2017 in a high-security hospital at age 79.