
Oldham Evening Chronicle - Saved by a Voice from the Grave
Shadow Hand
by Maria Whitworth
Born in January 1957, I was raised in a small village in Oldham surrounded by the Pennines, where the Lancashire and Yorkshire Moors are known for their streams, rivers, reservoirs, and wild places that stretch across our Northern lands of England.
Although known for its beauty, it is also known as one of the most chilling, eeriest places on the British Isles, for herein lays the memories of all who encountered the wretched pair who are today known as two of our world's most notorious serial killers: Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, the infamous "Moors Murderers."
Aged eight, Maria was on her way to a fairground where she was accompanied by the spirit, one of a young boy who she later learned to be Keith Bennett, a victim of this rotten pair. Having maintained a dialogue with my grandmother in the afterlife, it wasn't unusual for me to have other spirits talking to me.
The tortured soul of this little boy had called upon Maria for solace. Destiny decreed he would save her from the fate that waited that day at the fairground when accosted by Hindley. Maria walked away with her life but was forever haunted by knowing this woman, who would one day find her again, as she recalls in this except "Shadow Hand" taken from her life story.
A twist of fate took Maria on a course into mediumship where she found herself working with the Chief Officials of Greater Manchester Police, solving both cases she was called in on. Unsurprisingly, the phone call came asking Maria to use her mediumship on the massive manhunt on the Moors, hoping she could connect with Keith and find his grave.
Maria was unable to make the connection she had hoped for with Keith's Mother, Winnie, whose belief was that Maria was running with the devil and wanted nothing to do with her. Maria, however, led them to the grave but it was empty. She knew without any doubt that Keith's body had been moved.
Since then, Maria and Keith had been trapped in time, walking the life sentence with Hindley and Brady refusing to tell the whereabouts of Keith Bennett's body. Until one day, after being twenty-plus years in America. And fifty years later, Myra Hindley finds Maria and tells all.