Kidnap body hunt at farmhouse stalls
Delays add to agony for family of mother who was killed after she was mistaken for Rupert Murdoch’s wife
THE family now living in a farmhouse where a woman mistaken for Rupert Murdoch’s wife died in a bungled kidnap are said to be frustrated by delays in the search for her body.
Muriel McKay is thought to have met her death more than 50 years ago at the 11-acre farm in Hertfordshire.
Last month her killer Nizamodeen Hosein gave directions to where the mother of three’s body was buried but police are yet to start digging.
The family who now live on the farm have refused to comment publicly and are ‘waiting’ for the police to begin excavations after 75-yearold Hosein’s confession. The farm used to be owned by Hosein’s elder brother Arthur.
The wait will also add to the agony of Mrs McKay’s family. She was taken there by the two brothers, who mistook her for the wife of media boss Rupert Murdoch.
The current owners, who bought the farm for £2.2million in 2007, have refused requests from the McKay family to allow them on the property to scan the location using a ground penetrating radar.
There is no suggestion that they will obstruct a police search. One local said: ‘The family are waiting for the police to move their a **** and get it done.’
Officers from the Metropolitan Police are reviewing material from the case, but it is understood that an imminent excavation is not expected. The case is complicated by the fact that five decades have passed since the murder.
Detectives are believed to be combing through a large quantity of documents to find out where the original searches took place
52 years ago. Hosein and his brother Arthur demanded £1million for Australian Mrs McKay, 55, who was married to Alick McKay – deputy to Mr Murdoch in the UK.
On December 29, 1969, the brothers followed Mr Murdoch’s chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce, unaware he 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 wife into a car, taking her to the Hertfordshire farm. Mrs McKay was never seen alive again and her body was not found.
The men were caught after police noticed their car circling a ransom pick-up area.
They were later sentenced to life in the UK’s first conviction for a murder without a body. In December Hosein, who was deported to Trinidad after serving 20 years, told Matthew Gayle, a British barrister hired by the McKay family, that he would reveal the location of the mother of three’s body because he wanted ‘closure’ before he died.
He also claimed that Mrs McKay died of a heart attack two days after the abduction.
His brother Arthur died in prison in 2009.
Mrs McKay’s daughter Dianne, now 81, told the Daily Mail that she visited the farm to make a personal plea to its current owners and lay flowers last week.
‘For the first time in my life I had this really strong urge to go there, to see where my mother’s grave may be and to plead with the family to allow us access,’ she said.
‘If she is there, I would like to get her out of that place and bring her home. I don’t think that is too much to ask.’