Police CAN search my land for Muriel’s body
Farmer gives green light to dig for remains
THE owner of a farm where Muriel McKay’s killer claims she is buried has agreed to let police dig on his land without a warrant.
Muriel was kidnapped aged 55 in 1969. The wife of newspaper executive Alick McKay, she had been mistaken for Anna Murdoch, who was then married to media magnate Rupert Murdoch.
Kidnappers Nizamodeen and Arthur Hosein, who thought they would get a £1million ransom for Mrs Murdoch, were jailed for Muriel’s murder despite no body being found.
Arthur, 34 at the time of the offence, died in prison in 2009. His brother, 22 in 1969, served 20 years before being returned to his native Trinidad.
Mrs McKay’s daughter Dianne, 84, visited Nizamodeen in Trinidad, seeing him for the first time since his trial at the Old Bailey in 1970, and he finally revealed her mother’s grave site.
In his meeting with Dianne and her son, Mark Dyer 59, Hosein, now 76, revealed for the first time he had slept in the same room as Mrs McKay at Rooks Farm in Stocking Pelham, Herts, where he was keeping her captive.
He claimed she had died on the second night of the kidnapping, after being abducted from her home in Wimbledon, South West London. He told them: “She collapsed and never regained consciousness. I panicked. I dug the hole and carried her body.”
Shown pictures of the farm, Hosein pointed and said: “This is where I buried her. Go through the kitchen door, come through the open land, turn left and it’s two feet from the hedge.”
Farm owner Ian Marsh wrote to the McKay family this week, saying: “If asked by the police to give access to our land because they have compelling evidence of the whereabouts of the remains of Mrs McKay, we will consent... no warrants will be required.”
Mr Dyer said: “The ball is now in the police’s court.” The family will have talks with Met Police officers next week.