Radar clue in hunt for body of mother kidnapped in 1969
THE family of a woman who died in a bungled kidnapping after being mistaken for Rupert Murdoch’s wife has used ground-penetrating radar to search for her body.
Muriel McKay’s killer, Nizamodeen Hosein, revealed last month the location on a farm where he buried her more than 50 years ago.
But Mrs McKay’s daughter Dianne, 81, said she was ‘very frustrated’ that Scotland Yard officers will not even visit the site in Hertfordshire for four weeks.
The family has presented detectives with evidence from ground-penetrating radar technology showing a disturbance in the area where Hosein says he buried her.
The delay is adding to the agony of Dianne who said: ‘We can only wait to see what the police’s next move is. There’s nothing we can do now to make them hurry up. But it’s an unnecessary delay.
‘Can you imagine 52 years later, I find my mother? I would just like to go and get her out of there. She’s been there too long.’
Hosein and his brother Arthur demanded a £1million ransom for Australian Mrs McKay, 55, who was married to Alick McKay – deputy to Mr Murdoch in the UK.
In December 1969 the brothers followed Mr Murdoch’s chauffeurdriven Rolls-Royce, unaware the media tycoon had lent it to Mr McKay while he was in Australia.
They forced their way into the McKay house in Wimbledon, south-west London, and bundled the terrified mother into a car, driving her to the Hertfordshire farm, owned by Arthur at the time. Mrs McKay, who they took for Anna Murdoch, was never seen alive again. The brothers were later sentenced to life in the UK’s first conviction for a murder without a body. Arthur died in jail in 2009.
In December Hosein, who was deported to Trinidad after serving 20 years, pinpointed to Matthew Gayle, a British barrister hired by the McKay family, where her body was buried. He claims no violence was used and Mrs McKay died from a heart attack while watching a TV news report about her kidnapping. This week, the family hired experts to use radar to examine her presumed grave.
Although the farm’s owners denied access, the experts were able to aim a radar beam from a public footpath with Hosein directing the team via video call.
John Trust, a specialist surveyor who has also worked on the Moors Murders, said: ‘The radar showed that the ground had been interfered with – there was evidence of some trenching which could indicate that somebody had dug a hole to bury something. It went down to about 5ft.
‘It definitely warrants further investigation because it was virgin ground and somebody has done something there.’
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: ‘Officers from the Met’s specialist crime command have met with the family and are in the process of reviewing all the material.’